The National Transportation Board investigates all aviation accidents. Sometimes, it makes sense to wait for the NTSB to finish its work before deciding whether to file suit. But most of the time, waiting for the NTSB to finish is not in the client’s best interests. Here are reasons not to wait:
The NTSB’s findings are seldom unbiased. The NTSB has neither the engineering expertise nor the financial resources to investigate an accident on its own, so it enlists the aircraft manufacturers and other big industry interests for technical assistance. For example, if a case involves an engine failure, the NTSB will ask the manufacturer of the engine why it failed. The manufacturer seldom blames itself. For this reason, the NTSB’s final reports almost always favor the big industry players.
The NTSB doesn’t answer the “why” questions. NTSB reports describes what happened, without really saying why. But the “why” questions are what matter. For example, an EMS helicopter crashed and all aboard were killed. The NTSB’s final report concluded that the helicopter’s rotor blades came apart in flight, which was obvious from the outset. It was only our lawsuit that showed that the blade came apart because, months before the accident, a mechanic had botched a repair to the blade, weakening its internal structure. The NTSB never even interviewed the mechanic involved. Rather, the NTSB was satisfied that it had determined the “cause” of the accident when it figured out that the rotor blade failed. Once it determined that the blade failed, the NTSB felt that its work was done. The NTSB report told us what happened, but not why.
The NTSB’s conclusions aren’t binding on anyone. By federal statute, the NTSB’s conclusions are inadmissible in court, so the aviation lawyer can’t simply rely on the NTSB to do his work for him; He must instead conduct his own investigation. Waiting for the NTSB report before deciding whether to file a lawsuit puts the family’s lawyer behind and makes it take that much longer to resolve the lawsuit.
We could be waiting forever. After the accident, the NTSB often says that it will take a year or less to complete its report. In fact, it usually takes the NTSB two to four years, and sometimes even longer. In fact, the NTSB is so slow that if the family begins a lawsuit right away, it often can be settled and sometimes even tried to verdict before the NTSB publishes its findings. On the other hand, when a family decides to wait for the NTSB’s report before allowing the attorney to start the case, witnesses scatter and important documents are destroyed. The wreckage may end up being scrapped, and worst of all, the statute of limitations may run out on the family’s claim, preventing a lawsuit regardless of the cause of the accident.