The NTSB’s origins can be traced to the Air Commerce Act of 1926, in which the US Congress charged the US Department of Commerce with investigating the causes of aircraft accidents. That responsibility was transferred to the Civil Aeronautics Board’s Bureau of Aviation Safety when it was created in 1940.
In 1967, Congress consolidated all US transportation agencies into a new US Department of Transportation (DOT) and established the NTSB as an independent agency within the US DOT. In creating the NTSB, Congress envisioned that a single organization with a clearly defined mission could more effectively promote a higher level of safety in the transportation system than the individual modal agencies could working separately. Since 1967, the NTSB has investigated accidents, crashes, and other events in the aviation, highway, marine, pipeline, and railroad transportation modes, as well as those related to the transportation of hazardous materials. In 2022, the investigation of accidents in commercial space transportation was added to our mission.

In 1974, Congress reestablished the NTSB as a separate entity outside the US DOT, reasoning that “no federal agency can properly perform such [investigatory] functions unless it is totally separate and independent from any other . . . agency of the United States.”