Goderich - 1 fatality, 1 missing

[waterdog]

From what I was told the TSB is changing things up soon. I was recently at the Transport Canada held training and it was, a "night with TSB" . We were told that they have recognized that class 5 investigations where only immediate family are given any report is now changing and they are adding a class 4 level. Class 4 reports will be available publicly, as they recognized our desire to learn from the reports, part of their mandate actually. The night with TSB was excellent, the accident investigations were very thorough and gave some real insight into some recent crashes. We were also told that if there is an accident that you would like some more information on, and its designated class 5, if you reach out to them they will walk through the investigation findings with you.

If you see the presentation again it is well worth going.

Pilotdar, check your messages.

[pelmet]

From what I was told the TSB is changing things up soon. I was recently at the Transport Canada held training and it was, a "night with TSB" . We were told that they have recognized that class 5 investigations where only immediate family are given any report is now changing and they are adding a class 4 level. Class 4 reports will be available publicly, as they recognized our desire to learn from the reports, part of their mandate actually. The night with TSB was excellent, the accident investigations were very thorough and gave some real insight into some recent crashes. We were also told that if there is an accident that you would like some more information on, and its designated class 5, if you reach out to them they will walk through the investigation findings with you.

Thanks for the reply. I found it quite interesting. Can you please confirm that for all class 5 investigations, there actually is an investigation but that the results are not made public?

[waterdog]

What came out was very interesting, and I am paraphrasing from memory so give me some latitude here.
Basically this:
The TSB mandate is to investigate accidents with the purpose of improving aviation safety. So, what this means is that if someone calls to report an accident and the TSB speaks with the police and determines that the plane wings were held on with duct tape and the pilot was impaired then they are not going to attend the scene. Everyone knows already that you shouldn't fly planes held together with duct tape, impaired and there is nothing to be learned from this investigation. No point in wasting resources.
Then there are other GA accidents, they end up getting labeled as a class 5, so there is no report released to the public but I was shocked at the level of the investigation done. Even in a class 5 accident, they went way deeper into the cause of the accident then I ever thought. Engine disassembled, bits sent to the lab for analysis and so on.
The impression I got was if there was an accident that you wanted more information on, simply calling the TSB would yield a lot more information then what is available publicly. It sounds like there has been the realization that making the information public would be a much better service and hence the new class 4 accident class. I got the impression that commercial accidents were the ones that really fell into the higher classification of reports for obvious reasons.

I came away from the presentation with a new found respect for the TSB and the work that they do, undoubtedly with very limited funding and resources.

[pelmet]

Thanks for the info. I strongly urge the TSB to organize the information they have on class 5 accidents/incidents(if any organizing is required) and make this information available to the public. People would still like to know that the airplane that crashed was being held together only with duct tape.

[anofly]

I think you might find that if there was an airframe failure, etc, that the TSB would be sharing. A single discrete accident , where in all likelyhood it was the dreaded "pilot error, or decision making" as a cause. there is not a lot to be gained by sharing it , wrt public safety.

[pelmet]

I think you might find that if there was an airframe failure, etc, that the TSB would be sharing. A single discrete accident , where in all likelyhood it was the dreaded "pilot error, or decision making" as a cause. there is not a lot to be gained by sharing it , wrt public safety.

I strongly disagree. If a pilot makes an error, other pilots, especially student pilots, can read about the error and then learn from someone else's mistake. It is a public safety issue.

[anofly]

The problem is that if there is an airframe failure or similar there is usually proof, If its pilot error, or similar , with no survivors, what is the basis for proof? It’s not that i disagree with you , but the TSB is cautious with stating things it cannot prove. So that leaves” the aircraft departed controlled flight, for reasons that cannot be determined”
You and i may read pilot error etc, others may read something else....