Tapir, I've stated, in tedious and boring detail, exactly what I'm doing and why. To repeat, the only thing I've been trying to do since Friday is make sure I understand what information we can be sure would be contained in the NTSB and FAA online databases. So, not "record in aviation" -- "record in online database." Because we have to be sure that we know what is and what is not in the database to start with before we can draw any conclusion from not finding what we are looking for in the database. To refer to an earlier example, if you lose a contact at night in the middle of a dark alley, you can't find it by searching under a streetlight a block away. Even though the light is better there. We're searching for a lost contact under a streetlamp (the internet) because the light is better (it's easier to look). But this part of the conversation started with DrW claiming that contact doesn't exist because he couldn't find it under the streetlamp. He didn't stop to think where he'd actually lost the contact. You can't find something that isn't in the place you are looking. DrW claimed that the FAA's database contained all of the incident and accident reports from 1976. The database itself says it contains only incidents after 1978. I hope that's clear.tapirrider wrote: ↑Mon Apr 05, 2021 8:41 pmI see your response, and am still at a loss to see your point. Is your point an attempt to claim that in Nelson's tale, there might be no record in aviation related documents had it been an incident?
Consider a hypothetical situation with this Boeing 777. Rather than the catastrophic engine failure occurring in flight with passengers, consider the what if had it occurred during a ground maintenance run being performed by a mechanic, with no passengers and having nothing to do with a flight. Further suppose that the failed engine was not the one being run for maintenance, that it was only being operated to provide symmetrical thrust for the power setting needed for the maintenance run of the other engine. You do understand, don't you, that whether this hypothetical would be classified as an incident or accident would make little difference on the necessity of an investigation to determine the cause and to ensure airworthiness of the fleet?
As to your hypothetical, I absolutely understand your point and I absolutely agree with it. I've never claimed that the classification of an event as an accident or incident was the focus of or even important to the investigation itself. The only person who has implied that is DrW, who refuses to even acknowledge that the NTSB classifies the 777 event as an "incident" because he apparently thinks that the purpose of the NTSB's investigation includes classifying the event as an incident or accident.
The only reason I think the categories are important is that the NTSB and the FAA use them to describe the information that is, and is not, in their respective databases. That's it. That's the whole issue. The only reason that this has taken so long and so many posts is that, for reasons known only to him, DrW simply refuses to read the information about the contents of databases. So, he said that he searched a database that might as well have had a big sign that says "don't look for accident or incident reports from 1976 in this database because they aren't here, didn't find anything that looked like Nelson's story, and then declared case closed. And every time I post to try and clarify the issue, he nonreponds with a bunch of argument about something I haven't claimed.
But that's it. If the FAA and the NTSB used some other terminology to describe what is in their databases, I wouldn't care about the labels. But the the NTSB uses those labels, even for their investigations. The name of the investigation includes either incident or accident. That's just how they do it.
I hope that's clear.