Why Crash Investigators Tell Everyone What Went Wrong
Publishing the cause, and the evidence, helps other pilots avoid the same mistake.
The Tucker Carlson Show · Tucker Responds to the Republican Midterm BloodbathFlying became safer for an unglamorous reason besides better technology: the care regulators put into learning why planes go down. Tucker Carlson, a television commentator and former Fox News host, offers that example while discussing why governments repeat mistakes.
In his description, “when a plane crashes, a team of investigators rolls in” to spend whatever is needed to find exactly what failed.
He calls the effort “probably the most functional thing the US government does,” because the findings are broadcast to everybody.
Investigators share the cause, their conclusion, and the evidence behind it, so other pilots can, in Carlson's phrase, “draw your own conclusions” and avoid the same mistake. The point is not to keep the answer private, but to make the lesson available widely.
Pilots are warned plainly what to avoid, so the same failure does not bring down another plane.
The reason the system works is that investigators do not rewrite history or invent a story about the crash. If they did, planes would keep crashing for the same reasons.
He holds up crash investigations as an example for government to follow.
By contrast, Carlson says the United States followed Israel's demands into the Iraq war, but that account has been erased from history and will not be found in textbooks.
Questions people ask
The story says investigators share their findings so other pilots can avoid the same mistake. How does that sharing happen?
In the United States, written reports and safety recommendations are published publicly after major accidents. Regulators can then issue operating rules or training changes, which airlines and pilot groups pass along through bulletins and retraining.
What does Carlson mean when he says the true story of the Iraq war was erased?
Carlson claims that the role of Israeli pressure in the Iraq war has been hidden from public history. That interpretation is contested, and the broader history of the war involves many disputed motives that need independent checking.