5.4 Accident Reporting
Post your thorough and complete answers to any one of the following scenarios. Provide the scenario number in your answer.
Set 1
You are an A&P mechanic and commercial pilot performing a maintenance flight check on a low-wing single-engine aircraft before approving it for return to service following a repair.
Returning to the uncontrolled airport for landing, you place the landing gear switch in the DOWN position to lower the landing gear. The three green lights that confirm the gear is down and locked fail to illuminate. None of the landing gear is visible from the cabin. You recycle the gear and try several maneuvers to force it down, but the lights still don’t come on. You make a low approach and the shadow of the aircraft on the ground looks like the gear is down, so you go ahead and land. On landing, the unlocked nose gear collapses, damaging the propeller, engine crankshaft, and cowling.
Are you required to report the mishap to the FAA? Are you required to report the mishap to the NTSB? Explain.
Set 2
You are flying your personal airplane.
You’ve recently had the instrumentation on the left side of the panel upgraded, replacing it with an electronic primary flight display (PFD), although you’ve retained the old mechanical analog displays on the right side. En route, your PFD screen begins to flicker intermittently, then goes dark.
Are you required to report this occurrence to the FAA? Are you required to report this occurrence to the NTSB? Explain.
Set 3
You are a pilot who just woke up in a hospital and asked your nurse, “Why am I here?” The nurse replies, “You crashed your plane.” You ask, “When?” The nurse replies, “Sunday afternoon.” You ask, “What day is this?” The nurse replies, “Thursday.”
Are you required to notify the FAA? Are you required to notify the NTSB? Explain.
Set 4
For a nation or union of nations other than the U.S.:
- Identify the government authority or authorities responsible for the investigation of civil aircraft accidents and for determining the probable cause of such accidents.
- Compare and contrast the civil aircraft accident notification and reporting requirements in that nation with those of the NTSB described in the text.
- Determine whether that nation or union of nations has assigned responsibility for investigating civil spacecraft accidents to that or another authority.
- Provide hyperlinks to references relied on.