Airline official: Probe of Germanwings crash should not set precedent

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The Germanwings air crash investigation shouldn’t set a precedent for future investigations because it sought to assign blame before the probe was complete, which could jeopardize airline cooperation if it became the practice, the head of a trade association representing the global airline industry said Wednesday.

Airlines and aviation- safety regulators around the world have long-established procedures for investigating crashes that put identifying and correcting safety risks ahead of assigning blame, Tony Tyler, the CEO and director general of the International Air Transport Association, told reporters. Investigating with the intent to punish risks a loss of transparency and openness, he said.

French prosecutors revealed within days of the crash that the plane’s cockpit voice recording indicated that one of the pilots deliberately flew the plane into a mountainside, killing all 150 people on board. The subsequent investigation has focused in large part on the pilot’s history of depression and procedures at Germanwings and its parent company, Luft-hansa, for screening pilots for mental-health issues.

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