The investigation into the causes of the crash of Air France Flight 447 is still in its earliest phases. This investigation is especially complicated because almost all of the evidence is spread across (and under) one of the more inaccessible areas of the Atlantic Ocean. Despite this lack of evidence, people have begun to work out their hypotheses for the possible causes of the crash. Possible causes have included catastrophic damage due to high winds, sudden failure of the electronics, or an in-flight explosion. The task in this phase of a root cause analysis is to search out the evidence that either supports or disproves the possible causes.
Sometimes there is disagreement about whether the evidence actually supports a particular possible cause. Recent reports from the Flight 447 investigation state that two of the passengers may be linked to terrorist groups. This evidence seems to support the possibility of an in-flight explosion due to terrorism. On the other hand, some have noted that there was a lot of oil found on the surface of the ocean in the vicinity of the crash. This would suggest an in-flight explosion could not have happened because the oil would have burned up while in the air. This is the point in many root cause analysis investigations where heated arguments begin, and the leader of the investigation might be tempted to just give up.
The key to resolving the argument and making some progress in the investigation might be getting into more detail in the chain of cause-and-effect. In this example, the argument is whether the cause “In-flight explosion” produces the effect “No oil on water.” If this cause-and-effect relationship is accurate, then we should be able to add more causes in between to explain step-by-step how an in-flight explosion results in no oil on the water. Laying out the causes and effects in detail will allow focusing the discussion on what specific cause-and-effect is in doubt and what specific piece of evidence is needed to resolve the disagreement.
You must log in to post a comment.