Says Pilots Might Cover Up Mistakes For Fear They Would Be Made Public

The U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch has refused to release information from the Flight Data Recorder of a helicopter involved in a fatal accident in 2013 to Scottish police.  Fourteen people survived the accident, while four were fatally injured.

Police Scotland has requested access to the information retrieved from the FDR. But the AAIB says that if it hands over the data, it could lead pilots to "cover up" flight information in some way to prevent their mistakes from being made public.

An AAIB preliminary report indicates that pilot error might be involved in the accident. MP Louise Ellman, chair of the House of Commons Transport Select committee, said that “The suggestion that pilots might erase data is shocking and should be investigated in its own right,” according to a report in the U.K. newspaper The Independent.

British Helicopter Association leader Peter Lawton told the paper that it was extremely unlikely that a pilot would have time to erase any data from the FDR in such a situation, but that a very small possibility might exist. He said that there is a "ring of trust" that exists between the AAIB and pilots that the government body was trying to maintain.

“Erasing any voice recording relating to an accident is against the law," an AAIB spokesman told the paper, "but it is important pilots understand their conversations will only be used to assist accident investigations, otherwise confidence in the system will be eroded.”

FMI: www.aaib.gov.uk,www.britishhelicopterassociation.org, www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/transport-committee/