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of the Civil Aviation Directorate. All these should have standing instructions to safeguard the wreckage and record the statements of witnesses, pending the arrival of the Inspector of Accidents or his representative. Thereafter the Inspector of Accidents must be in complete control. 173. An immediate decision is then needed whether the Inspector of Accidents is to investigate the accident or not, and in either event whether a Board of Inquiry is to be set up under the Air Navigation Regulations. It is for the Inspector of Accidents to make this decision or to obtain the Minister's decision, as may be appropriate. 174. When the Inspector of Accidents makes the investigation, the conduct of the inquiry must be wholly under his control, and his report must be made to the Minister. Nevertheless, he should make full use of the staff of the Civil Aviation Directorate, They, by their special knowledge and experience, will usually have a valuable contribution to make. The fact that they may in some cases be interested parties, in that defects in the services provided by, or supervised by, the Directorate may have contributed to the accident, should not stand in the way of the Inspector's making full use of them in the investigation. 175. It is the duty of the Inspector of Accidents to associate the Director of Civil Aviation with the inquiry, at least to the extent necessary to enable the Director to take such immediate action, as, for example, issuing amending regulations, enforcing aircraft design changes, improving the air route organisation, or other action appropriate to the circumstances of the case, as the Director may consider necessary or expedient. Such action is wholly the Director's responsibility, and must not be allowed to prejudice in any way the findings of the Inspector. 176. We do not recommend that the Director of Civil Aviation should carry out an independent investigation of an accident which is being investigated by the Inspector of Accidents. It would, in fact, be impossible for him to do so in many cases, since the material evidence can only be under the control of one person. 177. The Inspector of Accidents should have the usual statutory powers to require the attendance of persons, the giving of evidence, and the production of documents. We note that he is not given these powers under the 1933 Regulations. The Director of Civil Aviation should have no such powers. 178. When the Inspector of Accidents decides not to investigate any accident, he must immediately inform the Director of Civil Aviation. In such cases the latter should then carry out whatever investigation seems to him necessary or expedient. Following the preceding recommendation, the Director will not have statutory powers ; hence the Inspector should take his decision whether or not to investigate an accident in consultation with the Director.
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