Backstory ReportHow a case is made
Backstory Report takes one real event or place and rebuilds it from the public record: what happened, in what order, what was found, and what changed.
1One record
An air case is built from one closed investigation report, read page by page, with its public docket where there is one. A place case is built from measured public data: elevation models, river gauges, railway statistics, archive maps.
2Every figure with its page
Every time, height, distance and quotation carries the page or table it came from. Quotations are word for word. Where a number is our own arithmetic from the report's figures, the page says so.
3Real pictures, credited
Pictures come from public archives and open licences, each with its holder, date and terms. No footage or photograph of anyone hurt is used, and crews are named by role, as the reports name them.
4Reconstructions, said plainly
The maps, diagrams and timelines are drawn from the record; when a drawing is schematic, its caption says so. The full narration of each film is the written story on its case page.
The record behind each case
- Case File 006 Air Canada 143Board of Inquiry into Air Canada 767 C-GAUN, Final Report, April 1985
- Case File 005 US Airways 1549NTSB Aircraft Accident Report AAR-10/03, adopted 4 May 2010, and public docket DCA09MA026
- Case File 004 Old RiverUS Army Corps of Engineers, Old River Control, 2009; H. N. Fisk, 1952; USGS stream gauges
- Case File 003 Qantas 32Australian Transport Safety Bureau, investigation AO-2010-089, final report, 27 June 2013
- Case File 002 Below sea levelPBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency; Rijkswaterstaat; Erkens et al. 2016; Copernicus elevation model
- Case File 001 Three gaugesBITRE Trainline 12; colonial railway records; National Library of Australia
Investigation reports exist to prevent the next accident, not to apportion blame, and the cases follow them. Backstory Report carries no advertising. If a case gets something wrong, it is corrected and the change is dated on the sources and corrections page.
Never miss a case.
New films go up on the Backstory Report channel. Every case is written up here in full, with its pictures and sources.