An Activist NTSB?

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is one of those federal agencies wed have to create if it didnt already exist. The NTSB has its roots in the 1926 Air Commerce Act and, through successive legislation, was made independent of the FAA, for example, or any other government agency in 1974. Its mission has been relatively consistent throughout its history: "determining the probable cause of transportation accidents and promoting transportation safety. In 1996, Congress added the responsibility to assist victims of transportation accidents and their families. In addition to the aviation accidents and incidents highlighted in these pages, the NTSB also investigates maritime, rail, highway and even pipeline events.

Key Takeaways:

• The NTSB is a crucial, independent federal agency tasked with determining the probable cause of transportation accidents and promoting safety, often assisting in international aviation investigations.
• The agency is seeking to expand its mission to proactively identify industry-wide aviation hazards and trends before they cause crashes, aiming to gain access to sensitive operational data like FOQA.
• Despite its aspiration for a proactive role, the NTSB is severely behind, by approximately four years, in publishing its annual statistical reviews of accident data, hindering timely safety improvements.
• The author suggests the NTSB should prioritize catching up on its existing backlog of accident analyses before pursuing new data sources for expanded proactive measures.

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