How long do investigations take?

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How long do the FAA and NTSB take for their investigations?

Engine failure followed by forced landing in a bad place, aircraft wrecked, solo pilot uninjured. Cause of accident very clear. Two potential violations; one a maintenance issue noticed by the guy from the MIDO who looked at the wreckage for the NTSB, and one possible operating violation that maybe nobody noticed? A year and a half later, still just the preliminary report on the NTSB accident database page, and nothing at all from the FAA after they received copies of all relevant logbooks, certificates, etc., a few weeks after the crash. How likely is it that the pilot will hear from the FAA after all this time and do all NTSB investigations get closed or are some low profile ones abandoned at the preliminary report stage?
 
Fatals take a long, long time; no injury investigations can take forever and a day, then you get to wait longer for the report. Seriously, GA fatal reports are taking linger than a year; lower injury and property damage levels are lower priority. No report after a year and a half in this accident don't surprise me.
 
Non-fatals take forever. It's been over two years and I haven't heard squat from the NTSB on my case. They royally screwed it up and let Continental destroy the evidence anyhow.
 
Wasn't there a Nall report saying that the accident rate has been going down? Shouldn't that mean NTSB backlogs should be getting shorter?
 
Your enforcement liability is not related to the length of the NTSB investigation. Enforcement proceedings have some time limitations (the 'stale complaint rule'), you may want to contact an aviation attorney to fill you in on the details. As the FAA found out about the violation already, the clock for that has started ticking. It could be that you are in the clear from an enforcement perspective. The FAA doesn't have to wait until they NTSBs safety investigation is concluded. It's usually the other way around, interviews done as part of the enforcement process will show up in the NTSB docket.
 
NTSB is a small agency with a huge workload. And aviation is only a part of what they do.

GA accidents keep them busy. Typically the FAA will investigate on their behalf, but the final work must be done by the NTSB.
 
flyingron said:
Non-fatals take forever. It's been over two years and I haven't heard squat from the NTSB on my case. They royally screwed it up and let Continental destroy the evidence anyhow.
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If that's so, you'd better get your lawsuit against Conti going, because you must have evidence, or you wouldn't be making a claim that could be considered libelous to two parties. Seriously, I'm on your side if you have evidence.
 
After 18 months an enforcement action against the pilot or a mechanic are unlikely. If a regulatory violation is suspected as a causation, typically the FAA’s regulatory findings are part of the NTSB report.
 
More curious about this.
So what happens with insurance? Does the insurance hang up payment waiting for reports? If so that sucks.
 
Sometimes fatals take forever. I've been curious about an accident that occurred in June 2016. Still no final.
 
benyflyguy said:
More curious about this.
So what happens with insurance? Does the insurance hang up payment waiting for reports? If so that sucks.
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What part of insurance? Are we talking about payment for damage to the airplane or liability to others.

Damage to the airplane is typically no-fault, just like your car collision coverage. Exceptions are generally qualification violations like being out of flight review currency or IFR without being IFR current.

Like FAA enforcement, liability is technically independent of the NTSB's findings. By law, NTSB assignments of cause are not admissible in civil litigation. As 49 U.S.C. § 1154(b) puts it:
No part of a report of the Board, related to an accident or an investigation of an accident, may be admitted into evidence or used in a civil action for damages resulting from a matter mentioned in the report. .​
The reasoning is that the NTSB's mandate is not to find fault, but to find causation factors to help prevent similar accidents in the future, so they need to be out of the adversarial process altogether.

So lawsuits go on without it.

As @weilke said, enforcement actions against pilots are subject to an NTSB "stale complaint" rule. The rule says FAA enforcement actions are subject to dismissal if the FAA does not send a Notice of Proposed Certificate Action to the airman within 6 months of the deviation. There are essentially two exceptions. One is the FAA had "good cause" for the delay. There's a bunch of cases on what "good cause" is, but most involve situations in which the FAA is prevented from finding out about it.

The other exception is what is broadly termed "lack of qualification." It's far more complicated, but, stripped down, the violation is not just a violation; it is so egregious as to show the pilot should not have a pilot certificate - truly intentional violations, often part of a pattern, which show "disregard of regulations or a lack of compliance disposition."
 
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midlifeflyer said:
What part of insurance? Are we talking about payment for damage to the airplane or liability to others.

Damage to the airplane is typically no-fault, just like your car collision coverage. Exceptions are generally qualification violations like being out of flight review currency or IFR without being IFR current.

Like FAA enforcement, liability is technically independent of the NTSB's findings. By law, NTSB assignments of cause are not admissible in civil litigation. As 49 U.S.C. § 1154(b) puts it:
No part of a report of the Board, related to an accident or an investigation of an accident, may be admitted into evidence or used in a civil action for damages resulting from a matter mentioned in the report. .​
The reasoning is that the NTSB's mandate is not to find fault, but to find causation factors to help prevent similar accidents in the future, so they need to be out of the adversarial process altogether.

So lawsuits go on without it.

As @weilke said, enforcement actions against pilots are subject to an NTSB "stale complaint" rule. The rule says FAA enforcement actions are subject to dismissal if the FAA does not send a Notice of Proposed Certificate Action to the airman within 6 months of the deviation. There are essentially two exceptions. One is the FAA had "good cause" for the delay. There's a bunch of case on what "good cause" is, but most involve situations in which the FAA is prevented from finding out about it.

The other exception is what is broadly termed "lack of qualification." It's far more complicated, but, stripped down, the violation is not just a violation; it is so egregious as to show the pilot should not have a pilot certificate - truly intentional violations, often part of a pattern, which show "disregard of regulations or a lack of compliance disposition."
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Thanks. So NTSB taking their time doesn’t really hang the pilot up from moving on. It makes sense that their process is independent and more about safety moving forward then assessment of quick blame and finding fault.
 
Everskyward said:
Sometimes fatals take forever. I've been curious about an accident that occurred in June 2016. Still no final.
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...and sometimes there never is one which telly you anything. A pilot I knew and his wife crashed on the way back from a fly-in I attended back in 2010. The final report was three years later and all the NTSB was able to determine was that it was CFIT, with no statement of how it happened or what factors led to it.
 
There was also a friend's accident where the probable cause was "a loss of engine power for undetermined reasons."
 
benyflyguy said:
More curious about this.
So what happens with insurance? Does the insurance hang up payment waiting for reports? If so that sucks.
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Insurance is insurance. They pay/make you whole quickly unless there was malfeasance on your part. No annual? Insurance pays. No medical? Insurance pays. Just like if you have a wreck in your car when you're 3x the legal blood alcohol limit. Your insurance pays.

Now, depending on the findings, the underwriter may try and claw back against a 3rd party, but you pay the insurance so they will quickly make you whole.
 
dmspilot said:
There was also a friend's accident where the probable cause was "a loss of engine power for undetermined reasons."
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Not unusual. The percentage of "undetermined power failure" varies by aircraft. It's about 4% for Cessna 172 accidents, 6% for Cherokees, 8% for Bonanza 36s, almost 10% for homebuilts.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Doc Holliday said:
NTSB is a small agency with a huge workload. And aviation is only a part of what they do.
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Along with the boats, trains, major vehicle pile ups, and so on. I think they do pipeline stuff to, que no? It is part of the transportation sector.
 
kyleb said:
Insurance is insurance. They pay/make you whole quickly unless there was malfeasance on your part. No annual? Insurance pays. No medical? Insurance pays.
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It varies a lot more than one might think. Most aircraft policies have language that failure if the pilot to meet the legal requirements for the flight is a basis for denying coverage. In some states, in order to deny coverage the disabilit has to have something to do with the accident. In others, not.
 
benyflyguy said:
More curious about this.
So what happens with insurance? Does the insurance hang up payment waiting for reports? If so that sucks.
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No, the insurance is unconcerned with the NTSB because they can't use the NTSB findings in court anyhow. I'd be in a world of hurt if was waiting on the NTSB. My airplane would still be sitting in a cow pasture in Virginia.
 
My NTSB(damaged plane, uninjured pilot) report showed up as final on their website in 4 months after the incident. I never received any update after I sent in my part. I last spoke with the FAA in person 2 months after the incident, it's been a year now and I've heard nothing more.
Insurance started their work the day after it happened. Plane isn't yet fixed, but that's not due to the insurance company.
 
I’m a little late to the party here but there are some good answers. I’m a claims adjuster, and believe me when I say the NTSB guys are swamped all the time. They have aviation investigators that don’t to anything else, so a train crash wouldn’t affect them, but they are backlogged none the less. High profile cases get the most attention- airline disasters, jets with fatalities or injuries, then piston GA with fatalities, then bringing up the rear is piston GA with no fatalities. They just don’t have the time when the media is hounding them about that 737 in the river, or the Challenger crash with 5 bodies. I’ve had claims with signifigant injuries, and the NTSB IIC(investigator in charge) just calls me to say that they won’t be coming out and I can recover the wreck right away.

Now, insurance would pay for the total loss right away, as is their duty. And then if there is evidence of mechanic error which precipitated the crash, they can go after that shop to recoup the costs they incurred paying the insured for his loss. If it is a fly by night mechanic without insurance, he can be in a world of hurt if he is found liable. I’ve seen it, and it’s not pretty. Imagine a mechanic working out of his trailer he lives in on the field faced with a $150k subrogation cause because he didn’t torque a bolt properly. He could lose the shirt off his back.
 
Everskyward said:
Sometimes fatals take forever. I've been curious about an accident that occurred in June 2016. Still no final.
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Seeing this thread again reminded me to check on the above accident. At least they have gotten past the preliminary to the factual now...
 
midlifeflyer said:
...and sometimes there never is one which telly you anything. A pilot I knew and his wife crashed on the way back from a fly-in I attended back in 2010. The final report was three years later and all the NTSB was able to determine was that it was CFIT, with no statement of how it happened or what factors led to it.
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Whilst some [me!] get on the NTSB for always wanting to come up with a cause, they do occasionally get it right with that sort of finding. The phrase "for undetermined reasons" is occasionally found in their finals.
 
some guy on the internet said:
How long do the FAA and NTSB take for their investigations?

Engine failure followed by forced landing in a bad place, aircraft wrecked, solo pilot uninjured. Cause of accident very clear. Two potential violations; one a maintenance issue noticed by the guy from the MIDO who looked at the wreckage for the NTSB, and one possible operating violation that maybe nobody noticed? A year and a half later, still just the preliminary report on the NTSB accident database page, and nothing at all from the FAA after they received copies of all relevant logbooks, certificates, etc., a few weeks after the crash. How likely is it that the pilot will hear from the FAA after all this time and do all NTSB investigations get closed or are some low profile ones abandoned at the preliminary report stage?
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Maybe a dumb question but are you able to exercise your pilot privileges as you wait?
 
Took 18 months or so for the NTSB to come up with an absolute ******** explanation for my crash that defies the evidence. They pretty much took it direct from the Contiental tear down that nobody outside Continental witnessed and Continental was allowed to destroy the evidence. The NTSB was wholly unconcerned with the truth.
 
flyingron said:
Took 18 months or so for the NTSB to come up with an absolute ******** explanation for my crash that defies the evidence. They pretty much took it direct from the Contiental tear down that nobody outside Continental witnessed and Continental was allowed to destroy the evidence. The NTSB was wholly unconcerned with the truth.
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Uh huh....................:rolleyes:
 
flyingron said:
Took 18 months or so for the NTSB to come up with an absolute ******** explanation for my crash that defies the evidence. They pretty much took it direct from the Contiental tear down that nobody outside Continental witnessed and Continental was allowed to destroy the evidence. The NTSB was wholly unconcerned with the truth.
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Same thing with my 0-200, it took a law suit, and an independent lab to prove the NTSB wrong.
In fact the proof was, the NTSB didn't do the test they said they did.

NEVER TRUST the NTSB.
 
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Doc Holliday said:
This is getting a bit comical now.
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What you find comical is sadly truth.

I have been working with the DOJ on a few aviation and maritime accident cases over the last year (DOJ gets involved when a party sued the Federal Govt).

The crap coming out of the NTSB right now is just that. Crap. They are using the understaffed excuse to cover for just flat out lazy investigative work. The NTSB is an organization that is riding on a 20+ year old reputation of excellence. I wouldn’t trust anything coming out of that office right now.
 
I'm sure they do a reasonable thing on the high-press investigations, but rank and file air safety is just rubber stamp stuff. Sometimes nobody from either the FAA or NTSB is involved with the investigation. Further, the NTSB denied me being allowed to be a party to the investigation, despite it was my LIFE on the freaking line and MY aircraft that ended up in the field because their statement that those who might be a party to the litigation can't be involved. Well, hell, who would be a party. CONTINENTAL, with their China-owned business couldn't possibly have any riask when a fairly NEW (this engine was built in 2004) blows up at 900 hours. As the one who was there risking his skin on the thing I somehow have more pecuniary interest than them. There couldn't possibly be anything wrong with the design of the IO-550 (despite other failures). I wasn't even interested in suing anybody. Isn't worth it for the $ involved. I just wanted an answer as to WHAT happened to my engine and out to SAVE LIVES of others who come along who might not have been so lucky as to find a cow pasture under their plane when the thing, as they say in NASCAR, blowed up.

The NTSB is a bunch of bureaucrats and no longer interested in air safety or the truth.
 
RyanShort1 said:
I know of THREE NTSB reports that people in my circles consider suspect...
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Peter Garrison, in his Aftermath column in Flying magazine, regularly questions the probable cause (which I believe is "pilot error" by default.)
Still, when someone says "relatively new" about a more-than-decade-old engine, that's an issue; nobody knows under what conditions it was stored, or the actual maintenance done, or whether some fool forgot to put oil in it, after an oil change (which I have witnessed with my own two eyes). I do object to not having a representative at any actual teardown, however.
 
So, on a recent case that I have been associated with, a crew member was confronted in a deposition and admitted to falsifying records.

However, while that admission was fully known to the NTSB, they used the original (known to be falsified) records as a factual finding.
 
In my case, Incontinental claims that a misinstalled crush washer on an oil cooler that nobody has touched in 900 hours (or perhaps ever from the factory) somehow allowed 9 quarts of oil to be pumped overboard during a 40 minute flight. This defies the observation that there was no sign of an oil leak until after the rods came through the case (the engine ran smooth for 40 minutes, rough for 2 minutes, and then as they say in NASCAR... blowed up). There was plenty of oil pouring out of the crankcase when I touched down a minute later. I'm pretty sure that it was not that the oil left the engine that caused it. Some parts of the engine were still well lubricated. Some parts however were definitely oil starved. SOMETHING disrupted the internal flow of oil somewhere in the engine. I'd like to have known what it was.
 
Doc Holliday said:
This is getting a bit comical now.
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Well the NTSB made **** up in my investigation as well. An honest FAA inspector came to my rescue. NTSB report says pilot error. FAA investigates and finds mechanical issues that lead to an engine failure. Believe what you want there doc but I can tell you from personal experience. When it comes to our segment of aviation the NTSB is untrustworthy
 
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