Imagine that reports are trickling in that an airliner has crashed. The details are still sketchy and the number of casualties is unknown, but it sounds bad—very bad. The airlines, the regulatory and investigatory agencies, and a host of other responsible parties are suddenly swamped with questions—questions that need to be quickly answered as lives might still be on the line.

Investigating an accident is difficult under the best of circumstances as the aircraft might be in a million pieces. Yet there is a rhyme and reason as to how one goes about this gruesome task and viewing it in three distinct phases helps in the understanding. I frame them as the initial response, the investigation, and the recommendations/reporting.

The first phase is pretty clear. The emergency services and law enforcement get to the scene, wherever it might be, as quickly as they can and start putting out fires, saving lives, and cordoning off the area to preserve human remains and physical evidence.

The second phase commences when the specialists arrive to investigate how and why the accident occurred. In the third phase, these investigators publish their findings and make recommendations to the wider aviation industry.

In the first phase the authorities must deal with the following immediate questions:

• Where in the world did the accident occur? Was it on land or over the ocean in international waters?
• Which country? A war-torn region or one at peace with its neighbors? (I remind the reader of the Malaysian 777 shoot-down over a war-torn region of the Ukraine)
• If on land, what kind of terrain? Mountainous? Urban? 
• Are first responders on the scene? If so, what are they reporting?
• Was a military force in involved? Perhaps a collision with a civilian airliner?
• Which airline? From which country?
• What is the nationality of the passengers?
• Is a terrorist or criminal act suspected?

The fact that all these questions seem to come at once demands crisp crisis management and the rapid establishement of clear lines of authority and communication. Let’s look at some of these in detail.

The first responder’s top priority is to bring any survivors to safety. The bulk of the initial resources and manpower should therefore be dedicated to these efforts. Each accident is different and might require specific skills. Mountain climbers if the accident was in the mountains of South America or experienced cold weather search and rescue crews if it was in the frigid wastelands of northern Canada in the winter. If the first responders do not have experience in mass casualty exercises, that will be a hurdle in how the authorities craft an effective response and marshal resources. 

While the airlines, engine and airframe manufacturers, government agencies, and others all want to be on the scene as soon as possible, it is critical to keep them at bay while the rescue professionals are desperately trying to save lives.

Sadly, but understandably, there is never a “good place” for an accident to occur, so there is not a ready-made template. Instead, the authorities will have to use experience and judgement to deploy the best mix of responders, law enforcement, and medical services to the accident site.

As the police cordon off the accident scene, the rescue personnel will keep an eye open for the “black box” data and voice recorders.

These boxes are absolutely indispensable to an investigation and the responders must be briefed on quickly locating these crash resistant metal boxes. Usually housed near the tail of the aircraft, they are not painted black as the name would suggest, but rather a bright rescue orange so as to be visible to the recovery crews.

As the first responders tackle their chores, the authorities make a series of important decisions. They first determine which country has the overall responsibility for the recovery and investigation. Normally, by international agreement, the country in which the accident took place is the responsible authority, but this is not always the case.

While this might be patently obvious and simple if a U.S. airliner crashes on American soil, it is more complex if the accident is over the ocean and in international waters or the host country does not have the resources equal to the task. What, for example, if the area is war-torn or is contested between two countries as is the case in Kashmir? This is not as rare as it seems. As I hinted at earlier, an example is how badly the investigation of the downed Malaysian 777 was hampered because Russia limited access to the crash site.

If the host country does not have adequate resources to undertake a full recovery and investigation, they can call on other nations to fill the gaps. In the recent Ethiopian accident, for example, the French were asked to read the information from the data recorders.

The information flow surrounding airline accidents is often elevated to the embassy level where the diplomatic staffs assist in contacting the responsible parties and apportioning responsibility. They are experts in handling the cross-border inquires and have the contacts to get information flowing in the right direction. In our interconnected world, almost any air disaster is sure to have international considerations and so the embassies are a crucial hub in post-crash activities. 

Remember Part I how I described the United Nations sub-agency ICAO—the International Civil Aviation Organization? Well, ICAO also has a role to play in accident investigation. It has a deep reach-back to experts and can lend a hand where and when necessary.

Again, I know some of this sounds obvious, but I want you to get a feel of the depth and breadth of the lines of communication and authority that must be established and how many “players” can be involved. We often joke about corporate reporting charts looking like a mashup of spaghetti, but think about when they go international!

As a further consideration, it is not uncommon to have international flights with forty or more nationalities on board. When an accident occurs, each country wants information about its own citizens, the passenger lists, and the number of fatalities and missing.