Note to Lawyers
Like it or not, litigation is a fact of everyday, modern life. People expect to be levitated magically into the air, transported great distances and then deposited safely on terra firma again. When things don't go as planned the hired gun lawyer is summoned to extract pecuniary compensation and penalties from the offending parties.
Airplane accidents occur for reasons and it's convenient and easy to always blame the pilot. Many times, however, it's actually the hardware that fails and the individual seeking to discover causes, fix blame, and extract retribution needs to be armed with as much factual information on the hardware as can be reasonably obtained. It is axiomatic that all error is ultimately human error since machines and other inanimate objects cannot make mistakes; only behave as designed or programmed. However, finding the ultimately responsible party is sometimes not easy.
A component of this quest must involve the maintenance history of the aircraft and those charged with its conduct. This investigation should contain review of the maintenance records to determine if the requirements of all airworthiness directives have been met. First one needs an independently developed comprehensive list of these requirements. This is not a trivial task that can be delegated to an unknowledgeable research assistant; it is a job for a specialist. The AD Search report from ADR is the answer since it is at once independent, comprehensive, fast and economical.
Using this list and the aircraft records the task of determining cause and blame is considerably eased.