Accident investigation authority
Also: safety investigation authority, accident investigation board, transport safety board
Independent state body that investigates aviation accidents and serious incidents to establish what happened and prevent it from happening again.
What it is
ICAO Annex 13 requires each State to have an investigation authority that is independent of the civil aviation authority and of anyone else who could interfere with the objectivity of its work. The separation is deliberate: whoever certifies aircraft, licenses pilots or oversees airlines may be part of the chain of factors under scrutiny, so they should not be the ones investigating.
Among the best-known bodies are the NTSB in the United States, the BEA in France, the AAIB in the United Kingdom, the BFU in Germany, the CIAIAC in Spain and the TSB in Canada. The NTSB and the TSB also investigate rail, marine and pipeline occurrences.
When an occurrence takes place, the authority of the country where it happened leads the investigation; those of the States of Registry, Operator, Design and Manufacture take part through accredited representatives, supported by technical advisers from the manufacturer and the airline. Their laboratories read out the flight recorders and examine wreckage and components, and their conclusions are published in a final report with recommendations.
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This page was last updated on October 9, 2026
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Vuelopedia. (2026, October 9). Accident investigation authority. Retrieved October 18, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/accident-investigation-authority
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“Accident investigation authority.” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 9 Oct. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/accident-investigation-authority. Accessed 18 Oct. 2026.
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Vuelopedia (2026) Accident investigation authority. Available at: https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/accident-investigation-authority (Accessed: 18 October 2026).
BibTeX
@misc{vuelopedia_en_glossary_accident_investigation_authority,
author = {{Vuelopedia}},
title = {{Accident investigation authority}},
publisher = {Fundación Poderia},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-10-09},
url = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/accident-investigation-authority},
howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/accident-investigation-authority}},
urldate = {2026-10-18},
note = {Accessed 2026-10-18}
}Wikipedia
{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/accident-investigation-authority |title=Accident investigation authority |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-10-09 |access-date=2026-10-18 |language=en}}