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There's a petition to get that tape analysed: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/request-bolivian-government-allow-ntsb-analyse-crash-recorders-eastern-

There's a petition to get that tape analysed: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/request-bolivian-government-allow-ntsb-analyse-crash-recorders-eastern-airlines-flight-980 https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/request-bolivian-...

spaceflunky 10y ago
Background for the tl;dr folks: >"By taking the flight recorders and tape back to the U.S., they discovered, they had violated Annex 13 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, a document that lays out the rules for international air travel. It says that wherever a plane crashes, that country is in charge of the investigation. Moving evidence to a different nation could be seen as undermining that authority." This is totally infuriating. Bureaucracy, failed diplomacy, and "national pride" are standing in the way of a safety investigation. Instead of asking for the US and Bolivia act like reasonable adults, perhaps we can appeal to ICAO to have ICAO investigate or ask ICAO to find some way to absolve the US of any wrongdoing for investigating, given that the Bolivian government has failed to properly investigate. I'm no expert in international treaties, but there has to be some provision in the law that would not penalize a country for investigating when the other country was willfully negligent and uncooperative. Fang Liu is secretariat general of ICAO. Perhaps lobbying her for help might produce better results. http://www.icao.int/ http://www.icao.int/ http://www.icao.int/secretariat/SecretaryGeneral/Pages/default.aspx http://www.icao.int/secretariat/SecretaryGeneral/Pages/defau...
- goodcanadian 10y ago
  I would suggest that the issue is not international relations, but that these two do not have any official capacity. It is hard enough to get an official response to an official enquiry. Imagine you are the secretary at the Bolivian Embassy. Your job is to answer phones and direct queries about visa applications. You get a call from random people saying they have the flight recorder from a plane crash. You know nothing about the plane crash (it happened ~35 years ago) let alone the rules governing investigations. Best case scenario, you take the caller's details and forward it to your supervisor who is equally ignorant and has his real work to do . . . the call is forgotten, no response comes. This sort of scenario will play out in all government departments in all countries. Until the right person on one side or the other gets interested, nothing will happen. Unfortunately, the right people tend to be very busy and have probably not even heard about this development. Even if/when they do, it is a bit of a toss up how much they'll care. This is a really old plane crash, and the investigation has been closed.

spaceflunky 10y ago

Background for the tl;dr folks: >"By taking the flight recorders and tape back to the U.S., they discovered, they had violated Annex 13 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, a document that lays out the rules for international air travel. It says that wherever a plane crashes, that country is in charge of the investigation. Moving evidence to a different nation could be seen as undermining that authority." This is totally infuriating. Bureaucracy, failed diplomacy, and "national pride" are standing in the way of a safety investigation. Instead of asking for the US and Bolivia act like reasonable adults, perhaps we can appeal to ICAO to have ICAO investigate or ask ICAO to find some way to absolve the US of any wrongdoing for investigating, given that the Bolivian government has failed to properly investigate. I'm no expert in international treaties, but there has to be some provision in the law that would not penalize a country for investigating when the other country was willfully negligent and uncooperative. Fang Liu is secretariat general of ICAO. Perhaps lobbying her for help might produce better results. http://www.icao.int/ http://www.icao.int/ http://www.icao.int/secretariat/SecretaryGeneral/Pages/default.aspx http://www.icao.int/secretariat/SecretaryGeneral/Pages/defau...

goodcanadian 10y ago
I would suggest that the issue is not international relations, but that these two do not have any official capacity. It is hard enough to get an official response to an official enquiry. Imagine you are the secretary at the Bolivian Embassy. Your job is to answer phones and direct queries about visa applications. You get a call from random people saying they have the flight recorder from a plane crash. You know nothing about the plane crash (it happened ~35 years ago) let alone the rules governing investigations. Best case scenario, you take the caller's details and forward it to your supervisor who is equally ignorant and has his real work to do . . . the call is forgotten, no response comes. This sort of scenario will play out in all government departments in all countries. Until the right person on one side or the other gets interested, nothing will happen. Unfortunately, the right people tend to be very busy and have probably not even heard about this development. Even if/when they do, it is a bit of a toss up how much they'll care. This is a really old plane crash, and the investigation has been closed.