NTSB Party Process

NTSB Party Process

Phillip Reed

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

NTSB Party Process

When there is a major aviation accident, the public and media are very critical about

finding out exactly how and why a crash happened. The NTSB is somewhat responsible for

hundreds of millions of dollars of liability payments to families of the victims, so the NTSB

wants to be sure they are correct when they asses a crash. To help them make the right

assessment, they have set up parties. These parties are small groups of people from the airplane

manufacture, operators, and the FAA to input their expertise (Rodrigues et al., 2017). These

parties are a privilege and sometime these party members are kicked out because they are not

following protocols or other reasons. There are party representatives who must work under the

direction of the IIC or a NTSB investigator.

The FAA is the only organization that is required to be at a crash site, but the NTSB can

grant party status to other organizations like the Federal Railroad Administration, the US Coast

Guard, as well as many more organizations. As I stated earlier, each organization must have a

representative by a Party Coordinator and Party specialist. The Party Coordinator has a lot of

responsibilities. They are required to be on site at all times in case they are needed for any

reason. This person must be able to get any documentation at short notice from their own

organization.

The Party Specialist are the people who are experts within their field and work under

their respective coordinator. Party Specialists should have an unbiased opinion and should only

state facts that they have discovered to their coordinator. Sharing these details to anyone outside

of the NTSB and their coordinator is prohibited. The Specialists are required to share all of the

information they have gathered even if the information doesn’t seem to be important. These
NTSB Party Process

organizations can be removed from the investigation. If they do get removed, they cannot share

any information about the crash to anyone.

In conclusion, the NTSB puts together parties from different organizations and

companies who could possibly have experts in their field to help with the investigation. These

parties have a coordinator and specialist. The Specialist are experts who gather information and

relay this information to their coordinator. Neither the specialist or the coordinator can share any

information outside of the investigation. If they do, they will be kicked from the investigation

and could potentially get in trouble. One of the main reasons for this party system is to aid the

NTSB. The NTSB doesn’t have the manpower to have experts in everything they might

encounter. They also can be working on multiple crashes at once so they need to be able to

extent their reach with the help of the Party Process.

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Reference:

Rodrigues, C. C., Cusick, S. K., & Cortés, A. L. (2017). Commercial aviation safety. New York,
NY: McGraw-Hill Education.