Posts about: "CVR" [Posts: 256 Pages: 13]

Originally Posted by MissChief

I agree with sabenaboy.

The subject of pilot suicide is not distasteful, but for many it is taboo.

I understand this. Many historical accidents caused by pilot incompetence could well have been quickly labelled as suicide, only for their errors to show up in the subsequent investigation.

Looking for a rational explanation is a normal way to go, and suicide is not rational in most peoples' eyes.

However, this tragic event looks highly probable to have been caused by a deliberate action. And shutting off the fuel controls immediately following rotation is impossible to justify as an accidental move.

I remember calling the German Wings accident as a likely suicide event as soon as I heard about it. Nevertheless I was open to hostility and recriminations on this website for quite a few days, once my carefully-worded contribution was not deleted.

I do wonder if any further information can be gleaned from the FDR, which has not already been shared. I hope so. And of course, the CVR contents require further analysis.

Nobody in their right minds takes any pleasure, woke or not, from learning of a suicide, particularly one that involves the death of many innocent people.

Originally Posted by Captain Biggles 101

With the greatest respect, I don't think any deliberate act has been proven. Allocating blame on assumptions should be avoided. People should work on facts, and then unconfirmed assumptions.

The only known fact is that engines for some reason were shut down. The other known fact is that there is a recorded indication that the start lever command was recorded as both cutoff in short succession then followed by idle detent causing a restart attempt.

I think the key unknowns here are important.
1. Was the start lever position recorded, or only the electrical signal? My money is on an electrical signal not position, therefore the manual positioning of the start levers is not conclusively proven.

2. The bulletin for locking mechanism for the start levers has been mentioned in the preliminary report. This is a huge unknown. Did that mean that in a failure that the levers could both move into cutoff at the same time? This occurred exactly as the aircraft was rotating and increasing pitch.

3. The information from the CVR if taken at face value must not be discounted. No pilot actually confirmed conclusively seeing the other move the switch. This could have been an assumption noticing an engine failure, seeing the start levers positions in cutoff or indeed seeing the start levers moved deliberately. This is a huge critical unknown.

4. One pilot asked 'why did you cutoff' and the other responded 'I didn't'. This is not a confirmation of anything for sure. In fact it is equally a suggestion nobody pilot moved the switches as it is saying they did. This is not conclusive. This raises an important question, was this genuine, did either pilot have any reason in their life to attempt to do this and then cover their actions? There is zero suggestion here either way, but hopefully investigators will already be looking at their backgrounds and state of affairs.

5. There is no indication who or what commanded the engines back to idle detent again. There is proof of both engines attempting to restart. I would take this as confirmation of teamwork existing on the flight deck, and this would suggest a lack of deliberate interference by either pilot. Should that have been deliberately done, so much more could have happened. It just hasn't been alluded to in the preliminary report.

My own impression is that it did not appear to be a situation of a deliberate act to crash. I say this as they appear to have both tried to save the aircraft and immediately restart the engines and recover taking some critical timely actions demonstrating competent reaction.

The timing of the commanding fuel to cutoff os critical imo. The aircraft was pitching. If an accidental command to cutoff occurred then I feel this however unlikely would have been made instead of another action. The only likely thing happening at that exact time or due 2-3 seconds after lift off was gear up. The CVR and recorded timing of engine failure in relation to that challenge and response in SOP will be key imo. Did the challenge for gear up occur before the idle detent electrical signals? Also, the focus should be on that bulletin for the locking mechanism for the start levers.

I just cannot imagine an experienced crew doing this by accident and the information just doesn't suggest a deliberate act.

My post is just to highlight huge lists of unknowns. The media appears to have made their mind up that the flight crew did this. I just highlight that is definitely not confirmed yet. We have a whole list of unknowns and conflicting communication that raises more questions than they solve.

I would urge zero conclusions be made, and RIP the crew and passengers. There are zero conclusions to what happened yet in my opinion, and I think the suggestion to relatives of the flight crew and families tragically killed that this is a known pilot deliberate action simply cannot be made at this point. We must not blame the flight crew prematurely or pretend we know what happened. I think the media should take note and back off from all the assumptions.

Originally Posted by ACW342

Back in the days before it became illegal I used to blag my way into the cockpit on short haul flights using my RAF ID card. Part of the cockpit checks, if the third seat was occupied, was the question "Pax, seat belt on and secure?" to which I always responded "Seat Belt on and secure". I am sure that that Question and Response is still used on check lists and if that is the case that Q&R would have been recorded on the CVR. That should, hopefully, do away with the 'third person in the cockpit\x94 theory ACW342

Originally Posted by double-oscar

It would have been useful if more of the CVR data had been released so as to see the crew interaction. Also the language used on what was released seems to refer to a third person.
However, from an operator perspective. Captain PM, FO PF. PF selects TOGA and follows the thrust levers, Captain confirms Thrust Set and replaces FO hands on the Thrust Levers. 80Kt call by PM, acknowledged by PF. Aircraft calls V1, Captain should withdraw hands from Thrust Levers and calls Rotate at Vr. PM is looking for confirmation the aircraft is climbing and calls Positive Rate. PF confirms and calls Gear Up. At this point the PF will be looking through the HUD looking to follow the flight director, the PM would be checking LNAV had engaged and at 400\x92 checking THR REF and VNAV SPD. However, at this point a loss of thrust occurred. So how was this apparent to the PF who would have been looking out with both hands on the control wheel. Reduction in pitch? GPWS call-out? Decreasing N1 on the engine instruments? EICAS ENG SHUTDOWN? What did the PM see? Who called out the situation? Were any actions called for? At some point as the generators went off line all the FO instruments would have blanked. Did the Captain assume control? I don\x92t think I would have been thinking about the Fuel Cut-Off switches at that point, yet they were specifically mentioned which does mean the switches were moved and it wasn\x92t some internal fault.
Hopefully, as the CVR is further analysed some more information will come to light.

Originally Posted by AirScotia

No-one has discussed the concept of suicidal ideation, where a person may idly 'play' with ideas of how to end their life. If someone 'played' with the idea of how to end their life but make it look accidental, I think they might come up with a scenario such as this.

Ideation doesn't always result in an actual act, but if the thoughts came from life factors not being fully brought into consciousness, there may be a 'dream sequence' moment where they actually do the thing they've played with in their mind. It's not pre-planned or intentional, and the person who's acted out may not even be consciously aware they've done so.

Originally Posted by za9ra22

That totally clears up any doubt then, because a media interview where claims are made without any substantive evidence at all are clearly to be taken as gospel.

What I found interesting when viewing the Captain's background, was that he was a long-time carer for his aging father, and had called home before the flight to confirm that he would be in contact again once arrived in London. Also that he was highly respected with no history of difficult personal interactions, and had passed all medical clearances.

I'm sure we're all open to actual evidence though.

Originally Posted by OldnGrounded

No doubt you are most qualified to opine on the likelihood of the events you refer to. But no one is qualified to make confident pronouncements about what actually happened in the absence of evidence, and that's what some of us are objecting to.

Originally Posted by Good Business Sense

Could be - we have a group of some 200 or so oldies ex. airline who had a thrash at this subject this morning - if you know how the system works (FDR, CVR, accident investigation, etc.) you could suggest that you could manipulate the scenario and that it would be hard to prove who actually did it. The transcripts with the actual words, tones and emotions could well point to who did it but could it be proved?

Originally Posted by Musician

The short answer is that we wouldn't have CVR recordings if that was possible.

Basically, the cockpit voice recorder records the pilots incriminating themselves. It was only possible to get pilots to agree to have a CVR in the cockpit by assuring them it would only be used in accident investigations. For example, on the 787's EAFR you can read out the data on a laptop connected to the onboard network, but you can't read out the CVR unless you physically access the device.

Air accident investigations must safeguard that status. Their success depends on the guarantee that the investigation results can't be used to incriminate the pilots legally. But while courts cannot subpoena the CVR recording from the accident investigation, they wouldn't have to if the board released a full recording or even just a full transcript.

In my opinion, that is why this preliminary report is vague on who said what, and what exactly was said.

The CVR must not become a constant "anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law" in the cockpit.

I'd be happy if any lawyers in the thread (e.g. WillowRun 6-3 ) could correct or confirm.