The commercial air transport industry and its regulators, all the way up to the International Civil Aviation Organisation, need to review their protocols for managing public information during an accident or incident investigation.
A technically complex occurrence like the recent uncontained engine failure on a Qantas Airbus A380 and the resulting extensive damage to the airframe has highlighted the degree of fumbling confusion over the management of information relating to it.
This information relates to a public-transport aircraft type that continues to carry fare-paying passengers, and every one of those travellers has the right - if interested - to be able to access the facts that have been established by the investigation at any given point. The mid-20th century paternalistic view that "they wouldn't understand if we told them" is morally indefensible.
Not only that, but in the age of the web, starving people of information results in the distortion of what little is leaked, which is damaging to the operator and the manufacturers involved. Facts determined by investigators should be released in periodic statements that should also cite what remains unknown.
If that had been done in this instance, instead of damage becoming the whole story, the resilience of modern aircraft design could have been part of it. This paranoia has to stop.
Source: Flight International
