The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Home  was initially established in the Transportation Department in 1967 before congressional re-establishment as an independent agency in 1974.  Its purpose is investigating, reporting on, and making recommendations to avoid the occurrence of further transportation accidents for the following transportation sectors:  aviation, hazardous materials, highway, marine, pipeline, and railroad.   Since the agency’s 1967 inception, NTSB has investigated over 153,000 aviation accidents and thousands of surface transportation events in the U.S. and internationally.  It has also issued over 15,500 safety recommendations. 

It’s legal authority derives from Title 49 Chapter 11 of the U.S. Code 49 USC Ch. 11: NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD and its regulatory enforcement activity begins at 49 CFR 800 eCFR :: 49 CFR Chapter VIII — National Transportation Safety Board.  Its fiscal year budget request was for $150 million and its workforce was 433 employees as of late September 2023.   NTSB’s website provides research and statistics on transportation safety investigations and subject matter and includes reports on aviation accidents from 1962-present and surface transportation data since 2010. This https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/GenerateNewestReport/194875/pdf is the final report of an aviation August 6, 2024 accident in Salem, IN resulting in three injuries. 

Updates on the status of various accident investigation reports can be found on the website.  It may take over a year to produce some of these reports and NTSB’s website keeps users informed of ongoing accident investigations including the January 29, 2025 collision of American Airlines and U.S. Army aircraft at Washington, DC’s Reagan National Airport and the January 31, 2025 Learjet 55 Medevac crash in Philadelphia.

This blog post was submitted by Bert Chapman, Purdue University.