National Transportation Safety Board

National Transportation Safety Board
Formation	April 1, 1967
Parent organization	US
Headquarters	490 L'Enfant Plaza SW, Washington DC
Leader	National Transportation Safety Board/Chairman
Type	investigatory
Staff	(2,014)
Interests	Air disasters
Subpage	•National Transportation Safety Board/Chairman
The NTSB is the US government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is normally the lead organization in the investigation of a transportation accident within its sphere. Its mandate is the investigation of accidents rather than crimes, so if criminal conduct is suspected, it hands responsibility for investigation to the FBI.

Korean Air Lines Flight 007

Full article: Korean Air Lines Flight 007

Since Korean Air Lines Flight 007 had departed from US soil and US nationals had died in the incident, the NTSB was legally required to investigate the crash. However, on the morning of September 1 1983, the NTSB chief in Alaska, James Michelangelo, received an (illegal) order from the NTSB in Washington at the behest of the US State Department requiring that they terminate their investigation and send all documents relating to it to Washington, where the State Department directed an ICAO investigation, a policy which precluded sensitive information from being subpoenaed that might have contradicted the US government's official narrative.

TWA Flight 800

Full article: TWA Flight 800

In the case of TWA Flight 800 the NTSB, mindful of the evidence such as the testimony of hundreds of eyewitnesses who reported something like a missile streaking upwards toward the plane just prior to its explosion, passed the case to the FBI. The FBI nevertheless subsequently declared the explosion was a simple accident and not, in fact, a criminal act.

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