Air Detective Tips

The two major concepts that are talked about in the Air Detective Tips are the 5M and the Shell concepts. In this post I will go over them and how they are applicable to mechanical failures in aircraft.

The 5M concept is applied to accidents to help identify what causes an accident. The 5M's are Man, Machine, Mission, Medium, and Management (Lawin, R). With this model an investigator can bring these factors together to see which things may have worked together to cause an accident. Obviously in my paper I will be focusing on the machine part of this article.

Investigators can also use the SHELL model to better understand aircraft accidents. This model shows the interface between the human element or "liveware" and the surrounding elements (Lawin, R). The first example is liveware-software. This could mean training manuals or instructions. The next is liveware-hardware. This is how the human factor interacts with the aircraft and the mechanical parts of the aircraft. This is what I will focus on the most. The next one is liveware-environment and this encompasses environmental factors like weather or wind shear. The last is liveware-liveware. This happens a lot when there is a conflict amongst aircrew. Things like proper CRM could fall under this category.

https://erau.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-15077961-dt-content-rid-38727694_4/institution/Worldwide_Online/SFTY_UG_Courses/SFTY_330/Air_Detective_Tips/AirDetectiveTips9to12_0712.pdf

AD-13

This Air Detective tip talks about all the details that are scrutinized in an accident investigation.  Basically its a brief outline of each one of the factors that is looked at.  I have now been part of a couple major aircraft mishaps and I can tell you that investigators are thorough in looking at everything involved even if they already know the cause of the mishap.  Everything from aircraft forms to training records are seized and locked away and looked over.