So much of what we do in forensic investigation doesn’t lend itself to clean and tidy text-book investigation and analysis.\u00a0 It’s messy and difficult to wrestle to the ground as to cause.\u00a0 It also takes time.<\/p>\n
I thought this after I posted\u00a0a blog\u00a0two weeks ago\u00a0on getting hard evidence from soft data; getting the speed of a vehicle in an accident from the images on mobile phones. (Ref. 1)\u00a0 I blogged at that time on a lecture by Major Adam Cybanski, Ottawa, on a new forensic method for assessing the speed of vehicles in an accident. (Ref. 2)<\/p>\n
If you could see some of Adam’s lecture photographs and video showing aircraft, cars and people flying through the air and crashing, you’re certain to wonder: How can you measure and analyse something\u00a0like that?\u00a0 Disturbing images.\u00a0 Surely traumatizing for the\u00a0forensic investigator\u00a0to see on site.<\/p>\n
There was one picture of an airliner – not the\u00a0TransAsia flight 235 crash\u00a0mentioned\u00a0in the lecture\u00a0but that one too –\u00a0nearly vertical in the air, nose down and a few metres from hitting the ground.\u00a0 An aircraft filled with passengers.<\/p>\n
If you could see\u00a0the\u00a0condition of some cars after a traffic accident that Dr. Stuart Smith and others in CATAIR investigate, that includes doing crush measurements, <\/em>you’re certain to wonder about this too.\u00a0(Ref. 3) \u00a0I’ve helped\u00a0Stu a couple of times\u00a0do these measurements; not a pretty sight.<\/p>\n Less\u00a0visually disturbing – unless you are the owner – seeing undulating floor surfaces in\u00a0multistory buildings\u00a0or bent steel beams in half-built bridges you might\u00a0wonder: How can a forensic expert analyse\u00a0odd failures\u00a0like these?<\/p>\n I sometimes wonder too and I come from a civil engineering background specializing in geotechnical and foundation work – measuring and engineering the messy ground.\u00a0 We get it done because we have our models and semi-empirical relationships developed over decades<\/em> of field observation, research and engineering practice.<\/p>\n Models help us figure out the cause of messy failures and accidents but\u00a0their development\u00a0takes time and lots of thought\u00a0and hypothesizing.\u00a0 I’m not surprised it took Adam months to get his analysis time down to a few days from a few months.\u00a0(Ref. 1)\u00a0In fact, I’m surprised it came together so quickly for him.<\/p>\n These models<\/em> and analytical procedures show up in textbooks but not right away<\/em>, not until someone has figured out the mess from a lot of failures.\u00a0 I had one client surprised that forensic engineers must sometimes research topics for which little is known or vary geographically.\u00a0 He thought we knew everything – a nice image.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n (CATAIR<\/strong>; the Canadian Association of Technical\u00a0Accident Investigators and Reconstructionists)<\/p>\n (Model<\/strong>: A set of ideas and numbers, based on existing data,\u00a0that describe the past, present or future state of something.\u00a0 For example,\u00a0how the economy might react to a change in interest rates or a type of failure or accident occurred in the built environment.\u00a0 Models\u00a0are updated with new data as required.\u00a0 After Merriam-Webster dictionary, January,\u00a02018)<\/p>\n References<\/strong><\/p>\n So much of what we do in forensic investigation doesn’t lend itself to clean and tidy text-book investigation and analysis.\u00a0 It’s messy and difficult to wrestle to the ground as to cause.\u00a0 It also takes time. I thought this after … Continue reading \n