NTSB Releases Animation of Crash of US Airways Flight 1549
Two months ago, Scene Systems -- a litigation support firm -- released its animation of Flight 1549's crash into the Hudson. I posted here that, in all likelihood, the animation would not be admissible in court. The legal objection would be that the animation "lacked foundation." For example, without information from the Airbus' black boxes, Scene Systems couldn't confirm the aircraft's flight path or guarantee that the Air Traffic Control audio was properly synchronized to the aircraft's path of travel. Therefore, the animation involved too much guesswork to be shown to a jury.
The National Transportation Safety Board has now released its own animation. Having retrieved the black bloxes, the NTSB was able to plot accurately the Airbus' position, speed, and altitude at each point along the aircraft's short flight. The NTSB then properly synchronized the Air Traffic Control audio to the aircraft's flight path.
The only audio on the NTSB's animation is the radio transmissions between the crew and Air Traffic Control. As is typical, the NTSB did not make public the audio of the cockpit conversation between the captain and the first officer. The NTSB did, however, prepare a written transcript of that conversation. The NTSB superimposed the transcript on the animation. (HOT-1 is the pilot, HOT-2 is the first officer.)
Would this animation be admissible in court? While Scene System's animation would not pass legal muster, the NTSB's work probably would.
I know for a fact that the birds should have been displayed if the radar/arts was in the uncorrelated
mode. I worked there for years. The controllers like to operate in the correlated mode the faa had another mode available (called map)that was removed prior to the usa1549 event, it would have displayed the birds