Accident Reports—That of Air & Rail
Commissioner of Railway Safety (#CRS) works under Ministry of #CivilAviation. Its reports are #confidential. This means there is no way #railway-accidents can be used for even educational purposes.
Earlier there was a #mechanism of sharing one copy with Railway Staff College (#RSC), Vadodara which was later discontinued. So, the reports remain locked away.
With shut down of National Academy of Indian Railways (#NAIR)—whatever remained to discuss railway #Safety amongst seniormost management of #IndianRailways has been shut down.
So, why we raise this?
#CRS works under Ministry of Civil Aviation. This Ministry has another office called Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (#AAIB)—which investigates air accidents in India. In #AirIndia’s #Dreamliner crash in Ahmedabad on 12th June, #AAIB will get involved as would National Transportation Safety Board (#NTSB) of #USA.
What is interesting is the fact that AAIB and NTSB’s reports like reports of Railway Safety & Standards Board (#RSSB), UK are put out in public domain.
What makes matter even more intriguing—Ministry of Civil Aviation’s #AirAccident reports are in public domain, while same Ministry’s #RailAccident reports are kept confidential!
One can see this report of an #accident which gives detailed #technical aspects of the accident—Final Investigation Report on Accident involving #SpiceJet’s B-737-800 aircraft bearing registration “VT SLH while en-route Durgapur” on 1st May, 2022.
It is time that #Government of India applies same set of rules to #Air-Accidents and #Rail-Accidents which incidentally are dealt by the same ministry.