wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (07/10/85)
Heard an item on the radio news this morning about the recovery efforts surrounding the Air India crash. The people involved had recovered the "black box" cockpit voice recorder (if I recall correctly; please correct me if I err). They then stated "Since the recorder is the property of Air India, they will determine whether it will be opened and the tape played in Ireland or if it will be returned to India for this" (or words to that effect). It was my understanding that such actions, if the crash happened in the US, would be done by and under the control of the National Transportation Safety Board, and not be up to the airline. Since this crash was in international waters (it was, wasn't it, as opposed to British or Irish territory?), is there no international agency that does the same sort of things as the NTSB? Second, how do the concepts of "salvage rights" enter into this arena? If a plane crashes, or a ship sinks, I sort of thought that there was a concept of salvage that made anything recovered from the wreckage the property of those who recovered it, and that the original owners no longer owned it. Does this only take effect after some period of time has elapsed? Or was this recovery effort funded/hired by Air India itself, so it had both original ownership rights and salvage rights (if any) to the recorder? Thanks for info relating to this! Will Martin USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA