Also called: Transportation Safety Investigator, Crash Investigator
Investigates plane crashes, train derailments, and pipeline explosions to find out why they happened.
When a major accident happens, the NTSB 'Go Team' flies out within hours. Investigators examine wreckage, recover flight data recorders, interview witnesses, and spend months reconstructing events. Their recommendations have made travel dramatically safer.
Federal General Schedule (GS) pay scale.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 8 years after high school. Bachelor's in engineering or a technical field plus years of transportation experience.
Ways in: 4-year college, On-the-job training. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Human Factors, Aviation.
Growing slowly. Small agency (~400 staff).
Low risk for 10 years. AI speeds flight-data analysis; walking wreckage, interviewing witnesses and finding root causes stay human.
Classes: AP Physics, AP Calculus, Engineering CTE class.
Official data: O*NET occupation 19-5011.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.