As a transport safety investigator, you will investigate aviation, rail and marine accidents to determine their cause and engage with industry to drive safety improvements to prevent a similar accident reoccurring.
Your day could include:
- being deployed to accidents anywhere in Australia
- collecting, analysing, and interpreting evidence onsite or at the ATSB technical facilities
- conducting interviews with accident witnesses and participants
- authoring comprehensive technical reports
- engaging with industry.
Transport safety investigators work independently and as part of a small team. In addition, they must:
- take responsibility for, and manage, their own work
- meet agreed goals for production, quality, and timeliness of work.
What makes a good transport safety investigator?
A good transport safety investigator is curious, passionate about safety, and can apply technical and industry knowledge impartially and without bias.
To be a transport safety investigator, you'll need:
- a recognised tertiary degree (equivalent) or higher (overseas degrees must conform to Australian standards and be formally recognised) with relevant industry experience.
Qualities and Skills
We are looking for the following qualities and skills:
- ability to apply technical and industry knowledge impartially and without bias
- highly developed research, analytical and conceptual thinking
- ability to learn and apply legal concepts
- ability to understand and articulate complex ideas verbally and in writing
- a desire for continuous learning and ability to learn through feedback
- sound decision-making.
Qualifications and experience
We're interested in recruiting people with qualifications and experience in these fields:
- Organisational Psychology
- Cognitive Psychology
- Fatigue management
- Engineering (civil, rail, electrical, mechanical, aviation maintenance and marine)
- Metallurgy
- Nautical Science
- Commercial pilot licence
- Air Traffic Control
- Ship’s master
- Chief mate
- Ship’s surveyor or superintendent
- Ship’s pilot
You don’t need to have investigation skills or experience to apply, we’ll teach you our investigation process and analysis methodology.
Your transport safety investigator career
In most cases transport safety investigators are initially employed at the Australian Public Service 6 Level.
Transport safety investigator roles are broad banded, meaning that a transport safety investigator can progress to a senior transport safety investigator classification as their investigative skills develop. The ATSB provides a comprehensive framework and development pathway to support investigators to progress through the broad band.
Considerations before you apply
You will be part of an on-call after hours roster
Once the initial onboarding and training has been completed (approximately 6 months), transport safety investigators are placed on a deployment roster for up to but not exceeding 18 weeks of the year. When ‘rostered on’, transport safety investigators are required to be contactable by a work‑supplied mobile and in their usual home location after hours. Investigators are paid a transport safety investigator on-call allowance in accordance with the ATSB’s Enterprise Agreement.
The ATSB maintains a commitment to ensuring flexible work arrangements are available to staff both on and off the on-call roster.
Transport safety investigators are also placed on the General Notifications and Response Roster. The ATSB typically manages over 18,000 notifications of transport safety occurrences annually. During business hours these notifications are managed by our Safety Reporting team. The General Notification and Response Roster ensures adequate staffing for monitoring incident notifications received out-of-hours via the ATSB Hotline.
A typical roster period could look like this.
A challenge of the job
As a transport safety investigator, it is likely you will be exposed to potentially traumatic events and materials. You will also be involved in interviewing witnesses, friends and family of a deceased person following a fatal accident. You will receive training to help you conduct these, at times, difficult tasks.
The ATSB has also developed a Critical Incident Stress Management Toolbox to support you as well as providing access to 24-hour, free and confidential mental health support.
Information on other available support for you and your family is available on the ATSB’s family support page.
Transport safety investigator training
We'll provide you with detailed training to help you apply the legal requirements and investigation and analysis concepts applicable to your role.
You will be enrolled in the RMIT University’s Graduate Certificate in transport safety investigation. The course is delivered as an intensive study program involving:
- 4 week-long block of 30 hours class time at RMIT campuses in Melbourne
- self-learning activities and pre-reading material
- 2–3 weeks of study and assessment following an in-class study period.
For more information visit the RMIT website.(Opens in a new tab/window)
In-house and on-the-job training is also provided to help you succeed. You will also be assigned a ‘buddy’ to help you navigate the beginning of your career at the ATSB.
Transport safety investigator recruitment process
The transport safety investigator recruitment process can take between 10 to 20 weeks to complete. During this period, if you have any questions you can get in touch with the role’s contact officer with any questions.
Applications received by the closing date are assessed by the role’s selection committee to create a shortlist of applicants to proceed to the next stage of recruitment.
Those shortlisted, will be asked to complete online assessments, including a psychometric evaluation to measure your reasoning ability with verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning sub-tests.
From this, candidates will be selected to complete various work sample tests. Applicants who reach the final stage will progress to an interview.