Originally Posted by
ira d
I don't the NTSB got it fully right not that they care what I think. But we cannot put all the blame and responsibility on the RC pilot, If he was flying outside his designated area that was wrong but the event coordinator was at fault for not saying anything. The full scale was at fault because once he was made aware of the RC plane he should have stayed well clear of area.
You're right, NTSB doesn't give a darn what we think as individuals, though unfortunately they are the decision authority with respect to fault.
Also, I suspect that no matter what, since we have the responsibility to avoid all full scale aircraft, if a model hits a plane for any reason, it's the model pilot's fault.
I agree with you that the CD / Event Coordinator deserves some attention. I'm of a culture that much more easily pushes some fault to the management system. Were this an accident I was investigating, I'd have added a findings of "Supervisory Error: Contest Director, failure to ensure proper designation of roles and responsibilities, and Supervisory Error: Contest Director, failure to enforce requirement to have properly trained and designated spotter present from engine start to engine shutdown, and Supervisory Error: Contest Director, failure to stop operations in violation of established safety course rules."
I'm sure many will disagree, but that's the way I was trained to think of accident investigation.