The International Civil Aviation Organization’s newly established international treaties on investigating aviation accidents were taken into account when the regulations were amended in 1951. (ICAO).
The International Civil Aviation Convention’s Annex 13 stipulates guidelines for accident investigations.
These revised laws did away with the requirement for an official investigation in open court and replaced it with a “in private” “Inspectors Investigation.”
A finished and made public report from a “Inspectors Investigation” would contain any recommendations, much as those made earlier by “the Court.” But the option of a thorough public investigation was still there, should the Secretary of State demand it.
There was a provision to allow representations to be made if someone was likely to have blame placed on them because the investigation was now conducted “in private.”
In 1951, a Chief Inspector of Accidents was formally appointed. Despite the fact that it has been used informally for many years before this.
The regulations governing accident investigations made it quite apparent in 1969 that their goal is to prevent future accidents, not to assign blame.
Any individual whose reputation is likely to be harmed must be given the chance to offer representations within 28 days of receiving a notification, according to a further development of representations.
The 2018 regulations still have this representational requirement. Following numerous evaluations of accident investigation, including those by the Newton Committee in 1948 and the Shelmardine Committee in 1945, these amended regulations were created.
Numerous recommendations about accident investigation in the UK were included in the 1961 Cairns Report of the committee on civil aviation and licence management.
The Cairns Report led to the introduction of review boards in the 1969 regulations, where a person who has received a notice may ask for any findings or conclusions to be reviewed by a review board. Such reviews were truly very rare.
The option to conduct a public inquiry was kept in the 1969 regulations.
The accident involving Trident 1 G-ARPI in 1972 prompted the last public inquiry of this kind under the 1969 standards and, in fact, for an aircraft accident in the UK.
The revised definitions of accidents and serious injuries, as well as an expansion of an Inspector’s authority, were included in the new regulations that were published in 1983 to comply with the most recent version of ICAO Annex 13.
It also introduced the requirement to reopen an inquiry in the event that new or significant evidence is found.
The terms “field investigation” and “formal investigation” were introduced in a minor update of the regulations in 1989; however, the language is still used in AAIB jargon to indicate distinct levels of investigation.
The regulations were extensively revised in 1996, once more to reflect the most recent iteration of Annex 13, but they also established the requirement for the protection of pertinent records, with the exception of those used in accident or incident investigations.
Witness accounts and the cockpit voice recorder were among these documents.
It also eliminated the opportunity for someone to ask the Secretary of State to convene a public inquiry or for a review board to be requested.
The majority of the provisions of the 1996 regulations were rendered obsolete by a European Regulation (EU 996/2010) that was implemented in 2010. It was not until 2018 that the UK regulations were revised to match the European Regulation.
These rules, which were based on the most recent version of Annex 13, established the norm for accident investigations in Europe. The European Regulations were kept after the UK left the European Union, but they were changed to make them UK-specific.
Tens of thousands of investigations have been conducted and thousands of recommendations to prevent recurrence have been made in the 100 years since the regulations were first published.
As a result, aviation safety has substantially increased, but the fundamental ideas outlined in those original regulations about determining what happened and averting future catastrophes still hold true today.