accident investigation question

[namgrunt 0]

what agencies actually do the investigation in the event of death?

how long does it usually take?

59 YEARS,OVERWEIGHT,BALDIND,X-GRUNT
LAST MIL. JUMP VIET-NAM(QUAN-TRI)
www.dzmemories.com

[diablopilot 2]

Local law enforcement, Coroner, FAA, Airport management agency......etc...

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[NickDG 23]

>>Local law enforcement, Coroner, FAA, Airport management agency......etc...<<

And while that takes six months to a year any Instructor/Rigger worth his/her salt can look at the body and the gear and figure it out in five minutes . . .

NickD
BASE 194

[JohnMitchell 16]

Quote

>>Local law enforcement, Coroner, FAA, Airport management agency......etc...<<

And while that takes six months to a year any Instructor/Rigger worth his/her salt can look at the body and the gear and figure it out in five minutes . . .

NickD
BASE 194

I was once the ASO investigating a fatal accident. The County Sheriff that showed up was ex-Airborne. Took one look at the unpulled reserve and said "Jumper error." Officially the accident investigation went smoothly. Of course, the cost in peoples' lives was horrible, as always.

Try to be safe.

[diablopilot 2]

Exactly. Which makes it even more funny when people bitch about information not being released. People aren't talking because they don't know what happened, they aren't talking because they don't want to talk.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[Derekbox 0]

What kind of accident? If it is an aircraft incident, the NTSB investigates, sometimes the FAA will to. But the NTSB has the court for that game.

D'Bo

[MakeItHappen 15]

Quote

what agencies actually do the investigation in the event of death?

how long does it usually take?

There are several agencies that MAY write a report.
NTSB, FAA, USPA (or equivalent national organization), local police/coroner

NTSB reports are done by trained accident investigators and are usually related to AC accidents, not skydiving accidents. There is a cross-over with premees that take down planes, any type of skydiving accident that takes down planes or AC/jumper collisions. Some jumper/AC collisions do not require reporting to NTSB or FAA. As long as no loss of life occurred and the damage was minimal, that stuff is not always reported. Sometimes it is.

Generally, the FAA report is done by a DPRE or designated Master rigger.
These reports can take weeks or months to finalize, if equipment has to go back to the MFG or is held by police. The final report is available thru the FOIA. Go to faa.gov, search FOIA and follow the directions. It may take a month or two to actually receive the FAA report, but it will come thru.

USPA reports are voluntary. They are not available to the public and are destroyed after a certain amount of days. Only the person filing the report, the USPA S&T Director and the person writing the monthly/ yearly summaries are supposed to ever read these. I don't know how true that is in real life. It didn't used to be that way, but that's a whole 'nother story.

Local police records are public information too. Just ask for the report about such-n-such. Most of the time it's free. There may be copying fees. Usually these reports don't have much of what a jumper would be interested in. Sometimes you can contact a local police to verify or deny a rumor. They can tell you if they responded to such-n-such at such-n-such dz on such-n-such date. Those 'bogus' fraps reports can be squelched easily at this level. It may take a day or two for media or online forums to do this. This route can also be used when someone goes in at a DZ that won't be filing any of the other reports or does not need to file any of the other reports.

With all that said, read post #5 again.

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