Air Accidents Investigator
Air Accident Investigation Branch

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My name is Brian, and I’m recently retired, and I was a principal inspector of air accidents, and I worked for the Air Accident Investigation Branch, known as the AAIB.

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Its role is to investigate all air accidents.

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And it’s by doing those investigations, we actually learn can make recommendations, which makes aviation safer.

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The investigation is broken down into a number of phases. The first phase is the field phase. So the field phase is you may go to the field where the accident is, but you’ll also go and you’ll interview witnesses. You’ll capture documentation. You’ll look at regulations.

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And initial assessment will be made at a the AAIB.

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Once that’s all complete, a report is produced and the report will identify the cause of the accidents and it will make safety recommendations to prevent future accidents from occurring.

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You’ve got to remember that you’re constantly on call, that you can travel anywhere in the world and it can be quite disruptive to your family life.

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People who are inquisitive, people who are self-starters.

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And those skills which are essential for what I do, would also lend themselves to any other type of investigation.

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My father was in the Royal Air Force, so we moved around a lot.

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So every couple of years I moved. So school was fairly disruptive.

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I always had an interest in aircraft because there were always around. I always had an interest in technical aspects. And I also always enjoyed the sciences.

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I actually left school at 16,

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And I joined the Royal Air Force as a technician. So I went through their training system.

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When I then came out of their training system, I went to day release for several years and after a few years, they identified that I had potential. And they commissioned me and they sent me off to do a degree.

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Going back to university at 25 wasn’t as bad as it seems because it was, it was Cranford University. And they do take, more mature students.

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Since then, I’ve added another two master’s degrees to it.

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I was very lucky, where we lived they used to have gliding at the weekend, and I wandered across there one day and they said, “Hop in the back.” And I had a flight in the glider and it was fantastic. So I then spent all my money, which I could raise through potato picking and car washing and everything was spent on flying.

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I got a bursary and at one stage I was the youngest person in this country to have a pilot’s licence for a glider.

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You come to the stage in the military where eventually, you need to think about leaving.

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And I saw an advertisement in the Sunday Times.

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And I think the thing about the AAIB,

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it also has a service ethos,

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and that’s that service ethos, where it’s not a 9 to 5 job.

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And it’s about teamwork and it’s about being part of a family, because you do go to some traumatic events. You do travel around the world together and you support each other. And that’s what I like about the job.

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I think one of the challenges that I’ve had to face in my career in aviation is that I’m colourblind.

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And that excluded the possibility of being a commercial pilot. But you can still be a glider pilot, and you can still be a private pilot, both of which which I am.

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The thing is, because I know it’s an issue and because I’m open about it to my work colleagues, any time there’s anything that involves colour, I just ask them to interpret it for me.

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I really didn’t like doing academics for the sake of it. But once you get out and you start to get into the world of work, and it’s something of interest, that academic no longer becomes a burden.

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People will say to you, “You can’t do this. You can’t do that because of this.” Have a go. There’s generally a workaround.