The German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation (German: Bundesstelle für Flugunfalluntersuchung, BFU) is the German federal agency responsible for air accident investigation.
The purpose of BFU is to find out the causes of air accidents and how they can be prevented. The BFU facility is located in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony. The agency is subordinate to the Federal Ministry of Transport.
West Germany had joined the Convention on International Civil Aviation including the standards and recommended practices on aircraft accident and incident investigation (Annex 13) in 1956. Initially subordinate to the neighbouring Luftfahrt-Bundesamt (Federal Aviation Office), the Bureau of Aviation Accidents Investigation according to a recommendation by the International Civil Aviation Organization in 1980 was put under the direct authority of the Federal Ministry of Transport. The BFU was formally established as an upper-level federal agency in 1998.
Famous quotes containing the words german, federal, bureau and/or accidents:
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“The Federal Constitution has stood the test of more than a hundred years in supplying the powers that have been needed to make the Central Government as strong as it ought to be, and with this movement toward uniform legislation and agreements between the States I do not see why the Constitution may not serve our people always.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“If this bureau had a prayer for use around horse parks, it would go something like this: Lead us not among bleeding-hearts to whom horses are cute or sweet or adorable, and deliver us from horse-lovers. Amen.... With that established, let’s talk about the death of Seabiscuit the other night. It isn’t mawkish to say, there was a racehorse, a horse that gave race fans as much pleasure as any that ever lived and one that will be remembered as long and as warmly.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs,
Those undreamt accidents that have made me
Seeing that Fame has perished this long while,
Being but a part of ancient ceremony
Notorious, till all my priceless things
Are but a post the passing dogs defile.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)