Business Rules

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1. The data provided by ASIAS has been collected and processed by people not directly associated with ASIAS. ASIAS does not certify the accuracy of the data.
2. The data is maintained by in the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
3. NTSB is an independent Federal Agency. It is not part of the Department of Transportation.
4. An Accident is defined as “an occurrence associated with the operations of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and until such time as all such persons have disembarked, and in which any person suffers death or serious injury, or in which the aircraft receives substantial damage”.
5. In early 2001, a modernized version of the database was put into production. The new system, based on MS SQL Server 7, was completely restructured.
6. Occurrences are listed in chronological order as the event happened. Each report has a maximum of five occurrences. Occurrences may include such things as forced landing, smoke, explosion, fire or loss of engine power.
7. Public Law 93-633 and the National Transportation Safety Board's regulations 49 CFR 835 prohibit the use of accident/incident findings, including the probable cause and contributing factors as evidence in any suit or action for damages arising from that event.
8. Full narrative descriptions may not be available for dates before 1993, cases under revision, or where NTSB did not have primary investigative responsibility. The data is presented in a brief report format that is divided into the following categories; Location Information, Aircraft Information, Operator Information, Narrative, Sequence of Events, Findings, Injury Summary, Weather/Environmental Information and Pilot Information.
9. Beginning with accidents that occurred in 1994, a narrative description of each accident is available within 5 days of occurrence. As each investigation progresses, its preliminary narrative is replaced with a full description of the accident and its issues, which is sometimes very detailed.
10. Beginning with accidents that occurred in 1989, there is a data set that contains a narrative description of the probable cause of the accident.
11. Public Law 93-633 requires the National Transportation Safety Board to investigate and determine the probable cause of all civil aviation accidents in the United States and report its findings in writing. Other requirements include an annual report to the Congress containing a statistical and analytic summary of its investigations and the responsibility to make information related to accident investigations available to the public upon request. The Aviation Accident Database facilitates these activities.
12. The ASIAS Layer 1 form of the NTSB database introduces a series of data standards. Standardized fields include: Make/Model, Airport name, Operator, and City/State
13. ASIAS has NTSB data dating back to 1982.
14. The NTSB database contains information related to accidents and a small number of incidents.
15. NTSB provides investigators to serve as US accredited representatives, as specified, in international theatres for aviation accidents overseas involving US registered aircraft.
16. Events occurring on foreign soil will only be in the database if NTSB was part of the investigation and responsible for the event's findings.
17. NTSB can designate other organizations to assist in an investigation.
18. The investigative process can take 5 or more years. The NTSB Accident database contains preliminary and final reports. The average time for an investigative process is 2-3 years.
19. The NTSB database contains preliminary information taken from NTSB Preliminary Form #6120.4.
20. Preliminary reports must be submitted within 5 working days of the event.
21. The NTSB database also contains final information taken from NTSB Factual Form #6120.19A. Factual reports must be submitted after investigation is complete.
22. The NTSB database contains long narratives. The narratives go back to 1993 and can include flight information, damage and injury reports, meteorological information, and wreckage impact information.
23. Events involving CFR 14 FAR part 127 aircraft will be listed under part CFR 14 FAR part 121. Events involving CFR 14 FAR part 125 aircraft will be listed under part CFR 14 FAR part 91.
24. The sequence of events for an accident includes a listing of the occurrences.
25. If a finding has more than one cause, there is no ranking system in place to sort the causes by degree of importance. Each report has a minimum of one occurrence and one cause.
26. The data is retained in an Oracle format.