National Transportation Safety Board

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent agency of the United States federal government responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. The NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incidents, certain types of highway crashes, ship and marine accidents, pipeline incidents, bridge failures, and railroad accidents. The NTSB is also in charge of investigating cases of hazardous materials releases that occur during transportation.

The board is based in Washington, D.C. It has three regional offices, located in Anchorage, Alaska; Aurora, Colorado; and Federal Way, Washington. The agency also operated a national training center at its Ashburn facility.

History

thumb|NTSB headquarters

thumb|The NTSB seal in use 1967–74.

The origin of the NTSB was in the Air Commerce Act of 1926, which assigned the United States Department of Commerce responsibility for investigating domestic aviation accidents. Before the NTSB, the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA; at the time the Civil Aviation Authority) independence was questioned as it was investigating itself and would be biased to find external faults, coalescing with the 1931 crash killing Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne and the 1935 crash that killed Senator Bronson Cutting. The United States's first "independent" Air Safety Board was established in 1938: it lasted only fourteen months. In 1940, this authority was transferred to the Civil Aeronautics Board's newly formed Bureau of Aviation Safety. At the same time, the NTSB was established as an independent agency which absorbed the Bureau of Aviation Safety's responsibilities.

To avoid any conflict, the Congress passed the Independent Safety Board Act, and on April 1, 1975, the NTSB became a fully independent agency.

Organization

Formally, the "National Transportation Safety Board" refers to a five-manager investigative board whose five members are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate for five-year terms. Board members may continue to serve until a successor is confirmed and takes office. No more than three of the five members may be from the same political party. This five-member board is authorized to establish and manage separate sub-offices for highway, marine, aviation, railroad, pipeline, and hazardous materials investigations.

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! Position

! scope="col" "width:20%" | Name

! Party

! Took office

! Term expires

! Chair

| | Democratic

! Vice Chair

| | Republican

! Member

| | Democratic

! Member

| | Republican

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| vacant

Nominations

President Trump has nominated the following to fill seats on the board. They await Senate confirmation.

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center"

! Name !! Party !! Term expires !! Replacing

| || | Democratic || || Reappointment

Accident and incident investigations

thumb|NTSB "go team" members at the [[Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash site]]

thumb|NTSB investigators on-scene at the [[2015 Philadelphia train derailment]]

The NTSB is the lead agency in investigating a civil transportation accident or incident within its sphere. An investigation of a major accident within the United States typically starts with the creation of a "go team", composed of specialists in fields relating to the incident who are rapidly deployed to the incident location. The "go team" can have as few as three people or as many as a dozen, depending on the nature of the incident.

If the structure of an aircraft remains largely intact during a crash and does not transmit gravitational forces to occupants that a human cannot tolerate, the NTSB deems it a survivable incident. Humans can generally tolerate 4 to 5 Gs.

Jurisdiction over investigations

;Aviation: The NTSB has primary authority to investigate every civil aviation accident in the United States; the agency is also authorized to conduct investigations involving both civilian and military aircraft "with the participation of appropriate military authorities". Aviation includes certain commercial space accidents. For certain accidents, due to resource limitations, the Board will ask the FAA to collect the factual information at the scene of the accident; the NTSB bases its report on that information.

;Surface Transportation: The NTSB has the authority to investigate all highway accidents and incidents, including incidents at railway grade crossings, "in cooperation with a State".

;Assistance to other domestic agencies: In addition to assisting the Department of Justice in criminal investigations, the NTSB has also assisted the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in its investigations of both the Challenger and the Columbia Space Shuttle disasters. The NTSB can also assist the U.S. military in investigating military incidents within the realm of the NTSB's expertise, such as the crash of an Air Force transport plane in former Yugoslavia that killed more than 30 Americans, including Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.

;Assistance to foreign governments: The NTSB may assist in incident or accident investigations outside the United States under certain circumstances. These may include accidents or incidents involving American-registered or American-owned civil aircraft or aircraft with U.S.-manufactured components in foreign air space. Officially, NTSB employees are prohibited from releasing information about "another country's investigation", although this has happened in the past.

Use of the "party system"

To conduct its investigations, the NTSB operates under the "party system", which utilizes the support and participation of industry and labor representatives with expertise or technical knowledge specifically useful to its investigation. The NTSB may invite these individuals or organizations to become parties to the investigation and participate under the supervision of the NTSB. The NTSB has discretion over which organizations it allows to participate. Boeing had told the NTSB that it had no studies proving or disproving the vapor combustion theory. However, Rand also found conflicts of interest inherent in the party system, "may, in some instances, threaten the integrity of the NTSB investigative process".

Safety recommendations adopted

thumb|NTSB hearing in 2013 on the [[Boeing 787 Dreamliner battery problems]]

, the NTSB has issued about 14,000 safety recommendations in its history, 73 percent of which have been adopted in whole or in part by the entities to which they were directed.

Among transportation safety improvements brought about or inspired by NTSB recommendations:

Aviation: Mid-air collision avoidance technology, ground proximity warning systems, airborne wind shear detection and alert systems, smoke detectors in lavatories and fuel tank inerting.
Highway: Graduated drivers license laws for young drivers, age-21 drinking laws, smart airbag technology, center high-mounted stop lights, commercial drivers licenses, and improved school bus construction standards.
Rail: Positive train control, improved emergency exits for passenger rail cars, and double-shelf couplers for hazardous material rail cars.
Marine: Recreational boating safety, improved fire safety on cruise ships, and lifesaving devices on fishing vessels.
Pipeline: Excavation damage prevention, pipe corrosion protection, and remote shutoff valves.
Multimodal: Alcohol and drug testing in all modes of transportation.

Other responsibilities

thumb|[[TWA Flight 800 wreckage, as reconstructed by the NTSB]]

A less well-known responsibility of the NTSB is that it serves as a court of appeals for airmen, aircraft mechanics, certificated aviation-related companies, and mariners who have their licenses suspended or revoked by the FAA or the Coast Guard. The NTSB employs administrative law judges who initially hear all appeals, and the administrative law judge's ruling may be appealed to the five-member Board. The Board's determinations may be appealed to the federal court system by the losing party, whether it is the individual or company, on the one hand, or the FAA or the Coast Guard, on the other.

The Safety Board maintains a training academy which was recovered from the Atlantic Ocean after it crashed on July 17, 1996, following a fuel tank explosion.

On February 22, 2021, the NTSB announced that the TWA Flight 800 recreation would be decommissioned on July 7, 2021. This decision comes as the lease for the Ashburn training center expires shortly. The NTSB indicated it is moving away from large-scale reconstructions like with TWA Flight 800 and towards using 3D scans to reconstruct accidents. Under an agreement made with the victims' families, when the reconstruction was retained as a training tool, the reconstruction was not allowed to be used as a public exhibit or put on display. For this reason, the NTSB is planning to dismantle and destroy the reconstruction.

References

External links

NTSB Most Wanted List
National Transportation Safety Board on USAspending.gov
National Transportation Safety Board in the Federal Register
Records Management Oversight Inspection Report 2014; National Transportation Safety Board Records Management Program; National Archives and Records Administration; Issued December 19, 2014
Rimson P.E., Ira J. . International Society of Air Safety Investigators, ISASI '98, Barcelona, Spain; October 20, 1998.

National Transportation Safety Board

History

Organization

Nominations

Accident and incident investigations

Jurisdiction over investigations

Use of the "party system"

Safety recommendations adopted

Other responsibilities

See also

Other countries

References

External links