With its employees returning to work on Monday, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) must now address 97 aviation, marine, railroad and highway accidents for which it did not dispatch investigators due to the 35-day partial shutdown of government that ended on Friday. Fifteen aviation accidents resulting in a total of 21 fatalities fall into that category. Now that normal operations have resumed, the NTSB says it is developing plans to address the work that couldn’t be completed.
“These […] accidents now require investigative action,” the NTSB said in a news release. “The accidents in which the NTSB did not launch investigators, but would have if not for the partial shutdown, may not result in investigators physically visiting the accident sites, and, it is possible that perishable evidence may have been lost, which potentially could prevent determination of probable cause.” The number of accidents the NTSB was unable to investigate due to the shutdown wasupdated from 22 to 97on Tuesday.
Additionally, work was temporarily stopped on 1,815 ongoing general aviation and limited aviation safety investigations, a board meeting to determine the probable cause of the March 2017 runway excursion in Ypsilanti, Michigan, was postponed and more than 20 external meetings and presentations were cancelled. According to the NTSB, 367 of its employees were furloughed, 26 were excepted and four investigators were recalled during the shutdown “to support investigations of three international aviation accidents.”
