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Discussion of accidents prior to some pretty piece of paper with a government logo on it, has some purpose, but it's not always about figuring out what actually happened. It's about thinking of ways it could have happened and internalizing the possible solutions that can be applied to your own flying.
I've talked to two pilots on the phone in the last three years who discussed their own accidents....................k
Both were CFIs and both were simply discussing it. Since they were sitting in the planes when the problems occurred, I'm going to bet they had about the best available knowledge of what just about killed them, without sending stuff to a lab for analysis. They also had incorporated new techniques into their training procedures to try to help mitigate what occurred.
The NTSB reports on both aren't out yet. But their students now gain the benefit of those new procedures brought about by thoughtful introspection and discussion with others. One is a chief pilot for a school, so I suspect his new procedures are required of all of his CFIs.
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By the way, the reason they discussed their experiences over the phone and not online, was directly confirmed by me to be because of liability -- any possible simple mistake in wording opens them up to life-destroying lawyers who make money by mincing words.
Their experiences and instruction on how to avoid their scenarios would be quite beneficial to the pilot community at large, but the risk of sharing and getting a sentence wrong can destroy their life, so the information they could share that might save someone else's life, won't be published anywhere. The pretty accident report with the nice official NTSB logo will have a "cause", but won't have their mitigation techniques mentioned in it.
One may do a safety seminar on it. That'll get his information to about 50 people. The other probably won't have time.
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