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Preliminary report into Air India crash released

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#881

Post by belter »

pertymcpert wrote: post #874
belter wrote: post #862

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The evidence points to inadvertent fuel cutoff switch movement rather than pilot error, or intentional pilot action. Most likely cause being locking mechanism failure combined with takeoff acceleration forces. Investigation and preliminary report is not showing critical evidence that would help clarify. Like the full transcript of pilot conversations that is clearly already available, and if these switches had any ma…

That doesn't make sense. If a pilot wanted to deliberately cut off the engine there's no reason they couldn't do at that time. The time difference between the switches being one second shows it was more likely to be deliberate, not less. An accidental hit would result in both happening at the same time, not with a time delay.

The two switches changed in sequence, but within the same second and at max speed. Dont think a human can have such a timing. If you look at the timing it looks more and more like electronical or software triggers.

Another possibility is a foreign object like a personal item sliding back during acceleration.

I looked at both pilots background, and unless a story of medical depression on the part of the captain emerges, I dont see the pilot suicide as plausible.

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#882

Post by account42 »

pertymcpert wrote: post #813
noqc wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The murder suicide angle isn't particularly worthy of assumption yet. Have you ever put your phone in the fridge? Pilots deactivate the fuel cutoff at the end of the final taxi to the gate. This makes flipping these switches a practiced maneuver , capable of being performed without conscious thought, regardless of whether they came with safety locks installed. Brain farts are a real phenomenon, and an accidental fuel…

These switches are locked into place with a spring loaded detent switch. It's impossible to accidentally switch these off. You say muscle memory. No muscle memory is involved in fuel cut off for both engines seconds after take off. There is no procedure remotely similar.

> These switches are locked into place with a spring loaded detent switch. It's impossible to accidentally switch these off.

The report specifically mentions SAIB No. NM-18-33 which would be a very odd thing to do if the investigators didn't at least consider this to be a possibility.

> You say muscle memory. No muscle memory is involved in fuel cut off for both engines seconds after take off.

It doesn't matter when the action is normally done - muscle memory means that the complex action of flipping a guarded switch doesn't really need a bigger brain fart than any other input because once the action is initiated you're acting on autopilot.

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#883

Post by account42 »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #833
sillysaurusx wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feeling suicidal isn’t a debilitating condition. People around you have suicidal ideation every day, and they manage their jobs well. I’ll counter your argument with this: a bus driver is allowed to feel suicidal ideation, yet they safeguard the lives of everyone on board. Maiming everyone would be as easy as accelerating on the highway and swerving off the road. Yet we don’t worry about this, because it’s rare enoug…

tl;dr We're talking about a $200 million piece of equipment. This isn't your typical job. Merely "getting by" is nowhere near sufficient. That line of reasoning isn't an appeal to emotion but your earlier focus on dehumanization and discrimination most certainly was. I think it's a reasonable point that such a policy exhibits a severe perverse incentive. So the question becomes, how many lives are lost due to the per…

> I think it's a reasonable point that such a policy exhibits a severe perverse incentive. So the question becomes, how many lives are lost due to the perverse incentive versus if the policy didn't exist?

There is also the question if they are better ways to reduce the perverse incentives.

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#884

Post by account42 »

Straw wrote: post #861
WalterBright wrote: post #801

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see where the win is here: 1. If the pilot hides his mental illness, a mentally ill person is flying the airplane. 2. If the pilot gets treatment for his mental illness, a mentally ill person is flying the plane. P.S. When I was a teenager, I tried to join the Air Force to be a pilot like my dad. But since I wear glasses, there was no way. The AF was perfectly justified in not taking me, I understood that. I…

I'd much rather have a mentally ill person with treatment flying the plane than without! You don't get to choose "no mental illness" because of the bad incentives of hiding them!

Those don't have to be the only two options. You can also criminalize hiding your mental illness as a pilot while incentivizing self-reporting via sufficiently generous disability insurance.

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#885

Post by zamadatix »

sunnybeetroot wrote: post #711
swores wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I... don't believe that's the case? Though happy to be proven wrong. Unless perhaps you mean a moderator of a different forum, though that wouldn't really be relevant to their reading a thread of HN comments on a subject that annoys them.

You could be right and I’m getting confused with someone else. We will need to wait for them to confirm.

Not me! I'm not even sure I'd be the right type or the right energy level to do it if the opportunity even came up. Hats off to the team here for the dedication.

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#886

Post by account42 »

hexage1814 wrote: post #705
hackrmn wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given what you're vaguely implying -- that the switches would be nowhere near the first thing a pilot would normally think of in the kind of situation -- what are the odds the pilot asking on record "did you flip the fuel cut-off switch?" is the one who actually flipped the switches and was simply trying to fool the would-be investigation (even knowing they all are about to perish)?

> what are the odds the pilot asking on record "did you flip the fuel cut-off switch?" is the one who actually flipped the switches and was simply trying to fool the would-be investigation (even knowing they all are about to perish)? This is such a diabolical mind-game that it never occurred to me. Like, they would all die, why would he want to incriminate someone else? But yet, people are weird and crazy. And maybe…

Just a random example and I have no indication that that's what is going on here, but life insurance generally doesn't pay out for suicide so you'd need to make your death look like an accident or caused by someone else if you want to pull of a scam. Pointing this out to say it could be much more banal than some diabolical villain that gets off of killing hundreds of people.

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#887

Post by account42 »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #733
hackrmn wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given what you're vaguely implying -- that the switches would be nowhere near the first thing a pilot would normally think of in the kind of situation -- what are the odds the pilot asking on record "did you flip the fuel cut-off switch?" is the one who actually flipped the switches and was simply trying to fool the would-be investigation (even knowing they all are about to perish)?

I'd say the odds are 50%. The odds of the opposite scenario - where the pilot who said "did you flip the fuel cutoff" wasn't the one who did it are also 50%. Based on the cutoffs for both engines being flipped 1 second apart, the above exchange being caught on the CVR, and then within 10 seconds the (presumably the other) pilot switching them back to Run, it's pretty clear that this was a deliberate act.

There is likely much more on the CVR than what has been released in the preliminary report - which seems to have been carefully sanitized so it doesn't implicate either pilot. I expect the investigators have a much better idea but not one that they are 100% confident in making public yet.

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#888

Post by ExoticPearTree »

wkat4242 wrote: post #866
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say it is much much harder. The wing configuration of an aircraft dictates the minimum glide speed. The more angled (for a better word) the wing, the higher the speed it needs to be at to be able to glide and not stall.

You probably mean 'swept'? That's normally the term used.

Yes. Lapsus.

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#889

Post by account42 »

curiousgal wrote: post #497
fsckboy wrote: post #72

it makes sense to me that the pilot who said "I did not do it" actually did do it without realizing it, was supposed to be putting the landing gear up when he committed a muscle memory mistake. it happened around the time the landing gear should be up, and this explanation matches what was said in the cockpit, and the fact that the landing gear wasn't retracted. I think this idea was even floated initially by the you…

> it makes sense to me that.. This is exactly how the investigations are NOT conducted. You don't find the evidence that confirms your theory and call it a day when the pieces sorta fit together. You look solely at the evidence and listen to what they tell you leaving aside what you think could have happened.

Gp was posting a comment on an online discussion forum, not conducting an official investigation. Hope that clears things up.

Re: Preliminary report into Air India crash released

#890

Post by account42 »

mrlongroots wrote: post #715
blincoln wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's fair to say that pilot error is confirmed yet. It seems like a reasonable hypothesis, but what if the electronics glitched out and acted as though the cutoff switches had been flipped (the first time), even if they hadn't? All of the currently-disclosed facts still line up with that scenario IMO.

Even as a matter of safety/investigation hygiene, "pilot error" should be the conclusion of last resort, arrived at after months of poring over data, and because nothing else seems viable. If we decided to pin all aviation incidents on pilot errors, we wouldn't even have invented checklists (what do you mean you forgot, try harder the next time). "Natural" pilot errors lead to lessons that can be incorporated into de…

This is the difference between the official investigation and casual online comments for which it's OK to consider it pilot error once there is sufficient indication for that.
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