Crash: Lessons Learned (and Unlearned) in Aircraft Accident Investigations

This talk is part of Cerner's Tech Talk series. Check us out at http://engineering.cerner.com/ and @CernerEng

The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent government agency tasked with investigating civil transportation accidents and preventing similar accidents in the future. By determining probable cause and issuing safety recommendations for specific accidents, we work to address systemic and structural issues and foster a transportation industry that is better prepared to address safety issues.

This talk will cover the investigative process of the NTSB, how our non-regulatory and non-punitive status allow us to directly work with the experts in the industry to solve problems together, and how industry has instituted their own safety management systems to catch problems before they start. Throughout, I’ll discuss historical lessons learned (and unlearned) in aviation history and some accidents I personally have worked on.


Marie Moler is a vehicle performance engineer at the National Transportation Safety Board. Vehicle performance involves researching and understanding the capabilities of the aircraft and comparing them to accident events. Ms. Moler has completed aerodynamic analyses on aircraft from P-51 Mustangs to Boeing 737s from Kabul, Afghanistan to Soldotna, Alaska.

Before coming to the Board, Ms. Moler worked as a design and test engineer at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C. There she worked on new concepts in personal protective equipment and light armor. Prior to working at NRL, she was employed at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Virginia. As test engineer she managed munitions testing of new warheads, novel material projectiles, and non-lethal flash-bang grenades.