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Does the NTSB do what-ifs? Seems odd for an investigative body to do guesswork on what type of disasters could have occurred.
by TrickyRick 9y ago
Does the NTSB do what-ifs? Seems odd for an investigative body to do guesswork on what type of disasters could have occurred.
- mseebach 9y agoAgreed. It's fairly uninteresting (from an accident-prevention perspective, not a news-selling one) to muse about cutting it close, as soon as you get into seconds-territory, you're way too close. The fuck-up was lining up for the wrong approach in the first place, landing on the taxi-way is insanely dangerous, even if it's empty.
- TrickyRick 9y agoThat's what I think as well, it should be sufficient to know that terrible things would happen and like you say, just getting in to a situation like that is bad enough.
- slavak 9y agoThe NTSB does not do what-ifs in the sense of calculating expected body count had an accident not been averted. They do, however, often investigate the performance envelope involved in an incident/accident and the timeline for possible corrective actions. So in an investigation it's quite common for the NTSB to look into how initiating corrective action at different points in time would have affected the outcome. e.g.: Sentences like "the pilots could have [taken corrective action X] until Y seconds before collision is a pretty standard sentence to see in an investigation report. This kind of information is important for determining the available safety margin and the proper changes to recommend in order to prevent similar incidents in the future.
- TrickyRick 9y agoYeah, that kind of conclusion makes more sense as opposed to "If the events wouldn't have played out as they did, X would have happened". No one really cares, except to know that it would have been bad, which is why there is an investigation to begin with.