What types of interviews should investigators conduct early in the investigation?

• A. Interviews with flight crew, maintenance personnel, operators, witnesses, and first responders.
• B. Interviews with witnesses and first responders only.
• C. Interviews with maintenance personnel only.
• D. Interviews with flight crew only.

Answer: (A)

Collecting information from a wide range of people early in an investigation builds a complete, corroborated picture of what happened. Each group brings unique and essential insights: flight crew can describe the sequence of flight operations, control inputs, checklist usage, and cockpit conditions; maintenance personnel can reveal the aircraft’s maintenance history, last inspections, known defects, part replacements, and whether there were any pending service actions; operators can provide context on procedures, training programs, and how operations were planned and executed; witnesses can observe external factors and events leading up to and during the incident; first responders can share the initial scene condition, actions taken, and any evidence recovered at the outset. Bringing these perspectives together early helps establish an accurate timeline, identify potential causal pathways, and guide what records and data to request next. Focusing only on a subset—such as witnesses and first responders, or maintenance alone, or flight crew alone—omits critical information and can lead to gaps or biased conclusions.