Germanwings crash probe under fire

The public nature of the Germanwings investigation shouldn’t set a precedent for future inquiries, airline officials claim.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) ceo Tony Tyler has put the nature of the Germanwings probe under the spotlight, saying it could deter future investigations as it sought blame before the full investigation was complete

AAP reports Tyler saying airlines and aviation safety regulators have long-established procedures for air crash investigations “that put correcting safety risks ahead of assigning blame”, and that investigations that are carried out with the “intent to punish, risks a loss of transparency and openness”.

French prosecutors in charge of the Germanwings crash case revealed voice recording intelligence, indicating co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately steered the plane into a mountainside killing all 150 people onboard.

Subsequent investigation has been focussed on the pilot’s mental illness and procedures at Germanwings and Lufthansa for screening pilots.

“The circumstances of the investigation of the Germanwings accident have been highly unusual, and something that began as an accident investigation morphed into a highly public criminal investigation in which it seemed that every day new revelations were coming out,” Tyler said, AAP reports.

“This is a truly an extraordinary case in many ways, but it shouldn’t set a precedent for the future.”

According to the report, the Paris prosecutor’s office are now looking into claims that information was wrongly leaked to the media and comes as France’s leading pilots union have filed a lawsuit claiming a violation of French law that requires keeping information secret while investigations are ongoing.

“I’m not going say that they anyone’s done anything wrong, but the important principle to bear in mind is that accident investigations should be conducted on a non-punitive basis,” Tyler said.

“When you have the possibility of punitive measures resulting from an accident investigation you then start to introduce unhelpful dynamics into the whole process where you risk losing the transparency, the openness” that’s needed “to identify what caused the event”.

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airline Germanwings iata international air transport association lufthansa Plane Crash tony tyler