{"id":1319,"date":"2013-04-11T15:22:18","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T15:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/?p=1319"},"modified":"2013-04-11T15:22:18","modified_gmt":"2013-04-11T15:22:18","slug":"investigation-of-a-fatal-bahamian-aviation-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/11\/investigation-of-a-fatal-bahamian-aviation-accident\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigation of a fatal Bahamian aviation accident"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(The following is one in a series of cases I have investigated that illustrate the different <strong>forensic engineering methods I use to investigate<\/strong> <strong>the cause of failures<\/strong> and <strong>accidents<\/strong> that <strong>result in civil litigation.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is\u00a0<strong>a good case for illustrating how simple an\u00a0engineering investigation can sometimes be<\/strong>, and\u00a0how knowledge of the geology of an area can form the\u00a0basis of informed comment.<\/p>\n<p>The investigation of the fatal\u00a0aviation accident is reported under the following main headings with several sub-headings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The case (a description of the fatal aviation accident, the legal\/technical issues, and my client)<\/li>\n<li>Forensic engineering investigation of the failure and the methods used<\/li>\n<li>Findings of the investigation (conclusions with respect to the technical issues)<\/li>\n<li>Post mortem (resolution and lessons learned)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1><strong>The case<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p><strong>Description of fatal aviation accident\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ms. Jane Doe was killed when her plane crashed on take-off from an international airport on one of the family islands in the Bahamas.\u00a0 The accident occurred near a runway where I had completed a geotechnical\/foundation investigation prior to construction of the runway several years previously.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Legal\/Technical Issues<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The main issue was whether or\u00a0not the propeller on the\u00a0starboard side of the aircraft &#8211; the right side for landlubbers, could penetrate several\u00a0inches\u00a0into the ground at the crash scene, and this not occur on the\u00a0port side &#8211; the left side.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Client<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I was retained by a U.S. aviation accident reconstruction expert on the advice of the Public Works Department in Nassau, Bahamas and a law firm practicing in Nassau.\u00a0\u00a0Both were involved in the case.\u00a0 The Department was my client for the\u00a0earlier geotechnical investigation.\u00a0 The law firm knew of my work\u00a0as a professional engineer in the Bahamas.<\/p>\n<h1>Forensic engineering investigation<\/h1>\n<p>My forensic engineering investigation and advisory services involved the following methods:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Taking a telephone briefing on the aviation accident by the U.S. reconstruction expert<\/li>\n<li>Studying photographs of the crash scene e-mailed as attachments<\/li>\n<li>Reviewing my geotechnical\/foundation investigation report for the runway design and construction<\/li>\n<li>Briefing the U.S. expert on the geological processes on the Bahamian island and the degree of probability\u00a0that\u00a0the propeller on the\u00a0starboard side\u00a0penetrated the ground where the port propeller did not<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>You will note that this forensic engineering investigation\u00a0was a simple document review and my knowledge of the published geology of this particular Bahamian island.\u00a0 An extremely simple investigation.\u00a0 There would have been no advantage to me flying to the island and examining conditions at the crash site because these would have changed since the accident.<\/p>\n<h1>Conclusion<\/h1>\n<p>I was able to advise the U.S. aviation expert with considerable certainty the degree of probability that the propeller penetrated the ground several inches on the starboard side.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not at liberty to state that degree of probability.<\/p>\n<h1>Resolution<\/h1>\n<p>The case may still be in litigation.<\/p>\n<h1>Lessons learned<\/h1>\n<ol>\n<li>Do the most thorough and reliable engineering work possible every time because you never know how\u00a0the data you collect will want to be\u00a0used for a different purpose in the future.<\/li>\n<li>Worthwhile forensic engineering investigations of serious incidents, e.g., fatal aviation accidents,\u00a0can be carried out at a distance based on a simple document review.\u00a0 And sometimes that&#8217;s all that is possible, as in this case, because site conditions had changed since the accident.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(The following is one in a series of cases I have investigated that illustrate the different forensic engineering methods I use to investigate the cause of failures and accidents that result in civil litigation.\u00a0 This is\u00a0a good case for illustrating &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/11\/investigation-of-a-fatal-bahamian-aviation-accident\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1319"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1336,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions\/1336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}