---
title: "Aircraft Accident Investigator"
description: "Examines aircraft crash sites, wreckage, recorders and records to determine why an accident happened and recommend changes that prevent the next one."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/aircraft-accident-investigator"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Aircraft Accident Investigator

**Category:** Transportation and Material Moving · **SOC code:** 53-6051 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 53-6051.01

Examines aircraft crash sites, wreckage, recorders and records to determine why an accident happened and recommend changes that prevent the next one.

Also advertised as: Air Safety Investigator; Aviation Accident Investigator; NTSB Investigator; Air Crash Investigator.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $92,100 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $44.28/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $40,330 to $138,670, with the middle half between $58,780 and $108,890
- **Total US employment:** 24,500
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +2.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 2,300 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 44/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 24,500 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $40,330 |
| 25th | $58,780 |
| 50th (median) | $92,100 |
| 75th | $108,890 |
| 90th | $138,670 |
| Mean (average) | $88,540 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| AK | $123,120 | $120,283 | 170 |
| IA | $116,850 | $133,144 | 60 |
| OK | $111,070 | $126,441 | 470 |
| HI | $108,270 | $98,471 | 150 |
| AL | $108,140 | $121,748 | 670 |
| ND | $106,330 | $119,527 | 60 |
| WA | $104,250 | $97,418 | 490 |
| KS | $103,380 | $114,780 | 210 |
| FL | $101,470 | $98,120 | 1,630 |
| TX | $101,440 | $104,516 | 2,290 |
| MD | $100,700 | $95,942 | 250 |
| GA | $95,030 | $98,688 | 880 |
| NY | $93,420 | $86,563 | 3,720 |
| MN | $92,860 | $94,158 | 310 |
| CT | $91,520 | $88,331 | 330 |

31 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 46 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/aircraft-accident-investigator/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/aircraft-accident-investigator.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 25,100 in the 2025–2035 base year to 25,600 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 600 jobs, or +2.2%. Slower than average: 2.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 2,300 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 33.7% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 29.2% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 19.7% |
| Some College Courses | 13.5% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 3.9% |

## What the work involves

- Travel to accident sites to document and examine wreckage
- Interview pilots, witnesses, controllers and maintenance personnel
- Collect and review maintenance logs, pilot records and weather data
- Coordinate examination of engines, components and flight recorders
- Write factual reports and propose probable cause
- Draft safety recommendations for regulators and industry
- Brief families, the media and investigation parties on findings

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Science — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Troubleshooting — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- English Language — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Transportation — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Conventional (C), Realistic (R), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 5.73 |
| R — Realistic | 5.57 |
| I — Investigative | 4.66 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.56 |
| S — Social | 1.42 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 96.4 |
| ISTP | 79.3 |
| ESTJ | 78.6 |
| INTJ | 75.8 |
| ISFJ | 73.0 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Aviation Inspector](https://nuecareer.com/careers/aviation-inspector) — median $92,100
- [Transportation Vehicle, Equipment and Systems Inspector, Except Aviation](https://nuecareer.com/careers/transportation-vehicle-equipment-and-systems-inspector) — median $92,100
- [Transportation Inspector](https://nuecareer.com/careers/transportation-inspector) — median $92,100
- [Construction and Building Inspector](https://nuecareer.com/careers/construction-and-building-inspector) — median $74,690
- [Aerospace Engineering and Operations Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/aerospace-engineering-and-operations-technologist-and-technician) — median $82,890
- [Avionics Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/avionics-technician) — median $82,280
- [Aircraft Mechanic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/aircraft-mechanic) — median $79,870
- [Health and Safety Engineer, Except Mining Safety Engineers and Inspectors](https://nuecareer.com/careers/health-and-safety-engineer) — median $115,160
- [Inspector, Tester, Sorter, Sampler, and Weigher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/inspector-tester-sorter-sampler-and-weigher) — median $48,570
- [Electrical and Electronics Repairer, Commercial and Industrial Equipment](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electrical-and-electronics-repairer-commercial-and-industrial-equipment) — median $74,090

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/aircraft-accident-investigator