Naughty corner for me then.
Haha, did not know it is called like that in English. But, no, sorry @Pig, no NC time for you because that way you could isolate yourself from what’s going on in class (as I very well remember) and we actually need you in particular in this discussion. 
Fernando wrote:
the only people who can find the root cause of the accident are the investigators
I see it differently. The investigators are the focal point of information gathering and making a determination, but not necessarily the source of knowledge nor understanding the details of the event. There will certainly be “general citizen” pilots or other aviation experienced people who can contribute great value to an investigation. Some of those people post on pilot forums!
@pilot_dar I understand what you mean. I’m not that experienced in these matters so I do believe in what you say.
Pilot_DAR wrote:
but not necessarily the source of knowledge nor understanding the details of the event. There will certainly be “general citizen” pilots or other aviation experienced people who can contribute great value to an investigation.
I sure feel the same…
Thread drift alert
As some of you know I have been involved in aviation professionally, as well as privately, most of my life. In those years I’ve (we) lost many a friend, even people I considered very good pilots. All these losses were due to what we like to call “pilot error”, e.g. none was provoked due to a mechanical problem or failure.
I worked as witness, and consultant on a couple of those cases. I did some test flying for the AAIU (Irish), and was called witness for the SUST (Swiss) investigation office.
During all these years I also tried “to learn” and studied hundreds of accident reports… I’m still not sure we really learn thru them, but that would be another topic.
What I really want to point out is that these investigative offices quite often miss the real cause, or do not point it out as such. Whatever the reasons were and are, I cannot say, but this is disappointing to say the least…
PS
The local SUST has supreme authority around here, and this goes as far as screening which accident they deem worth investigating or not.
The homebuilt world unfortunately suffered a couple of accidents in recent years, with associated casualties, and though the SUST were forced to do a preliminary investigation, the full investigations were then discontinued on the grounds that those aircraft are one-off and there is no benefit to be gained by going further…
Dan wrote:
What I really want to point out is that these investigative offices quite often miss the real cause, or do not point it out as such. Whatever the reasons were and are, I cannot say, but this is disappointing to say the least…
Because it is not well defined what a “real” cause is?
Another factor to consider, and one cannot prove this (because nobody involved will ever comment openly) yet there is clear empirical evidence of it, is that if an accident involves a high net worth individual, or a personal injury claim, and/or the airframe manufacturer is still active in the market and keen to defend the brand, it can take years for an accident report to come out, because the various parties’ lawyers get involved, and while the AAIB is supposedly not influenced by such, they cannot publish something which might blow back up at them. In addition, the report is more bland, and thus of lesser learning value, than might otherwise be the case.
I’ve read hundreds of accident reports and many left me really wondering what the hell was going on, and I am not talking about the accident!
My impression is that GA accidents in general only merit a rather superficial investigation, usually with a conclusion along the lines of ‘failure by the pilot to maintain control’. There are, of course, exceptions, but that seems to be the general direction.
Yes, though this seems to be strongly country-dependent The UK AAIB normally does it fairly thoroughly.
Pig wrote:
It’s just an anti Cirrus knocking lever for anyone who can’t afford one. Along with the BRS. Or the slippery wing. Hey ho.
As someone with a few hundred hours on a side stick equipped high performance glider I can attest that it’s certainly not an obstacle to precise flying. Same for laminar or slippery wing.
In this event, I opine that the investigators will do their due diligence and investigate for a control, or other airworthiness problem, and pilot medical factors, and unless something is found in that realm, will make a statement something like “pilot initiated a go around, failed to maintain flying speed, and lost control.” which would be an obvious statement. If they had persuasive evidence of lack of training, or recency, they might include that in the factors. But I doubt that they would go into anywhere near the detail already discussed in these posts. That does not make the detailed discussion here necessarily wrong, and lots of it is probably right.
They have a mandate to investigate, and report a cause and factors, but beyond that, like anything legal, the more they write, the more they can be challenged on later. I have had occasion to formally comment on an accident report with glaring errors. In one case, the investigator could have said nothing, and been free of my criticism. (He wrote that the pilot failed to use carb heat – in a Cessna 207, which does not have a carburettor).
