Thread by @rachelchitra

1/11 🚨 Air India 171: Despite Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu saying on May 20 that the crash investigation was in its "final stages" and a report was expected soon, a final report before June 12 now appears increasingly unlikely.

Why?

Because one of the parties to the investigation - UK AAIB - says it has not received a draft copy of the report from India's AAIB. @DGCAIndia @aaibgovuk

freepressjournal.in/india/fpj-excl…

2/11 Under @icao Annex 13, draft final reports are normally circulated to participating states before publication so they can review and comment.

The UK AAIB, US @NTSB, Canada's TCCA and Europe's @EASA are all parties to the AI171 investigation.

UK AAIB principal inspector Geraint Hebert told families:

"I recently asked AAIB India if there was an update on when the report might be published but they did not give a date."

He also confirmed that UK AAIB had not received a draft report.

3/11 This is where things took a strange turn.
I asked NTSB the same question.

Not: "Who caused the crash?"
Not: "What are your findings?"

Just: "Have you received a draft copy of the report?"

@NTSB invented new ICAO Annex 13 rules to justify its stonewalling and refusal to answer a simple "Yes" or "No question.

NTSB's Peter Knudson, "You don't seem to understand the restrictions of ICAO Annex 13."

Apparently I had wandered into an international legal minefield by asking whether a PDF existed.

4/11 Which immediately created a new problem.

If UK AAIB can tell families it has not received a draft report...

And NTSB says answering such questions is restricted by Annex 13...

Then is UK AAIB guilty of breaking Annex 13? (obviously it wasn't) But still then is US NTSN saying @aaibgovuk principal investigator Geraint Hebert was wrong in being transparent and accountable?

@icao @NTSB @EASA 5/11 So I emailed @icao and asked:

Who is right?

UK AAIB or @NTSB ? @aaibgovuk

And if NTSB is wrong, could someone please explain the rules to NTSB.

Both Hebert & Knudson were copied on the email to make things easier. (Or maybe to make their lives difficult. 😈.)

6/11 My understanding is simple:

Saying: "We have not received a draft report"
is not the same thing as revealing investigative findings.

But apparently @NTSB @EASA @TICadana disagree, while only UK AAIB wants transparency.

Meanwhile, 260 people died in the crash.
Families are asking where the final report is.

And the international aviation community is now engaged in a philosophical debate over whether confirming receipt of an email attachment violates Annex 13.

@icao @NTSB @EASA @aaibgovuk @TICadana 7/11 The most remarkable part?

Nobody has actually answered the original question. @DGCAIndia @icao @NTSB @EASA @TICadana

Instead we have spent days debating whether it is legal to answer the question.

@icao @NTSB @EASA @aaibgovuk @TICadana @DGCAIndia 8/11 At this point, the Indian AAIB's draft final report @DGCAIndia has become aviation's equivalent of Bigfoot.

Many people have heard of it.

Nobody can confirm they've seen it.

And asking whether it exists may or may not violate international law.

9/11 Meanwhile there are selective media leaks to @WSJ and @Reuters

Capt Sumeet is WSJ's go-to. And Reuters wants to die on the hill of mechanical fuel switch failure.

I'm not sure if it's lazy journalism/blind spots/bias from big media like WSJ, Bloomberg and Reuters - where they are not asking -- how can Capt Sumeet/mechanical failure of fuel switches cause a "loud boom in the back" that the solo survivor heard? How can the forward EAFR, which faced the full brunt of impact and the fire from 54,200 kg of fuel ablaze, yield 49 hours of data, while the aft EAFR found on the rooftop of building near a largely intact tail section had its housing, connectors burnt and yielded nothing? How can the ELT, built to withstand high G force and high temperatures, be deactivated by the Captain or a mechanical fuel switch issue?

WSJ reuters.com/world/india/in…

10/11 Also well done AAIB @DGCAIndia on convincing media - the investigation is complex in a 32-second crash; when the current complexity you actually face is reconciling physics to your report; and maintaining the pilot suicide theory.

It's interesting to see how you've all convinced them that there's no independent data outside of the blackboxes. Hence the total lack of questions on what happened to the NVM - from the "intact APU;" what happened to the plane's satellite transmissions. caravanmagazine.in/crime/air-indi…

11/11 @icao @NTSB @EASA @TICadana @DGCAIndia

My question remains unchanged.

Has India's AAIB shared a draft copy of the final report with the parties to the investigation?

It's a yes-or-no question.

Unless Annex 13 has secretly been amended to classify PDFs. freepressjournal.in/india/fpj-excl…