Just back from seeing the movie, "Sully", with Tom Hanks as the heroic pilot

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

14. The NTSB report is very detailed and very thorough.

The whole thing is here: http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR1003.pdf

The way the NTSB works is this: When an accident occurs they send a "go-team" of NTSB and FAA people to inspect the scene, collect evidence and reassemble the wreckage to the extent possible. The agency calls on "interested parties" to participate in the investigation: these normally include the aircraft manufacturer and parts manufacturers, the airline, and the pilots' union, ALPA. Since these entities usually have conflicting interests, involving them on an equal basis is intended to prevent any of them from having too much influence on the probable cause findings. The airline will want the accident to have been caused by some defect in the airplane caused by the manufacturer; the manufacturer will want the cause to have been a failure on the part of the airline - maybe maintenance or pilot training. Assigning fault (not the same as the NTSB's probable cause) to the pilots doesn't get the airline off the hook in terms of legal liability because of the doctrine of respondeat superior (the employer is liable for the acts of the employee). Therefore, even if the conclusion is pilot error the airline will still be responsible if there is litigation and a jury reaches the same conclusion (the NTSB's probable cause conclusions are not admissible in court). Airlines also get stuck for damages in most accident court cases because of the higher standard of care required of a common carrier.

In this case the NTSB's probable cause findings were as follows:

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this
accident was the ingestion of large birds into each engine, which resulted in an almost total loss
of thrust in both engines and the subsequent ditching on the Hudson River. Contributing to the
fuselage damage and resulting unavailability of the aft slide/rafts were (1) the Federal Aviation
Administration’s approval of ditching certification without determining whether pilots could
attain the ditching parameters without engine thrust, (2) the lack of industry flight crew training
and guidance on ditching techniques, and (3) the captain’s resulting difficulty maintaining his
intended airspeed on final approach due to the task saturation resulting from the emergency
situation.

Contributing to the survivability of the accident was (1) the decision-making of the flight
crewmembers and their crew resource management during the accident sequence; (2) the
fortuitous use of an airplane that was equipped for an extended overwater flight, including the
availability of the forward slide/rafts, even though it was not required to be so equipped; (3) the
performance of the cabin crewmembers while expediting the evacuation of the airplane; and
(4) the proximity of the emergency responders to the accident site and their immediate and
appropriate response to the accident.

The only item that could be interpreted in any way as any kind of flight crew deficiency was "the captain's difficulty maintaining his intended airspeed on final approach due to the task saturation resulting from the emergency situation." But even this is attributable not to negligence or poor judgment but to human factors resulting from what the NTSB considered to be industry-wide inadequate guidance and training on ditching techniques. If the crew had never been trained on ditching in the first place it could be expected that they would be task saturated because they had to invent a procedure on the fly. In contrast, the agency attributed the fact that everyone survived in part to "the decision-making of the flightcrewmembers and their crew resource management during the accident sequence."

Sounds to me like the NTSB - far from conducting a witch hunt - thought the crew did a fine job. But that doesn't make for a very good movie, does it? "Government Agency Fails To Crucify Heroic Pilot But Instead Praises Him For Saving Passengers" doesn't get those gummint-hatin' juices going.