Posts about: "ICAO" [Posts: 30 Pages: 2]

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• Built the thread up to July 10, 2025, 12:31:00
• Add subjects: Relight, 51 Day Issue, Fuel Cutoff Switches (detent), ICAO, Fuel Cutoff Switches, Memory Items, Annex 13, Simulation Scenarios.
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Just to endorse CaptainBiggles101 post #557. Speculation based on this preliminary report should not start encouraging the simplistic mass media attitude of \x93we don\x92t know what happened so it must be pilot initiated\x94, Don't put together complicated theories about potential sequences of crew actions to give that an air of authority.

We have a very limited initial report which meets the ICAO requirement to produce one. It may or may not be written in the investigators and/or authors\x92 native language, and will have been the subject of considerable \x93negotiation\x94 before release as to its contents. While the bald facts are stated, some cannot be taken at face value without much more context. For example the use of the word \x93transitioned\x94 rather than \x93moved\x94 or \x93placed\x94 in regard to the fuel switches positions may be significant.

There is a summary of only two elements of intra-crew voice communications, which again may or may not be in the right language, and one radio message, as yet unattributable to individuals. Everyone here should know that there are many missing elements which could be just as significant.

It\x92s highly regrettable that even \x93reputable\x94 media use such summaries and extracts in headlines and jump to simplistic conclusions. The complete story may be totally different and follow an extremely improbable sequence of events. This is nothing new - for example forty years ago the BBC\x92s first broadcast report of the crash of JAL 123 B747 included a statement that first information indicated it to be \x93almost certainly the result of pilot error\x94. I was the ranking IFALPA spokesman at the time and quickly got this removed from their reports with a later apology from the head of BBC news. The accident was actually due to catastrophic structural failure following an inadequate repair of a tail-strike 7 years earlier, and the crew had struggled heroically for 30 minutes to keep an a physically unflyable aircraft airborne.

I mention it simply to illustrate that professionals here should do as little as possible to feed unverifiable conclusions, and follow the mods guidance. Rant over.
Steve

The investigation is following the ICAO rules, and those rules don't agree with what you'd like to see.
You can bring your objections to the attention of ICAO and lobby them to change the rules, but given these rules have been in place for decades - and have generally worked quite will - I doubt there going to change them just to satisfy your curiosity.

I'm confident I'm far from alone. I do take objection to the connotations of your suggestion that my motivation is to "just to satisfy [my] curiosity". If you read what I wrote, my motivation has nothing to do with anything as trivial as satisfying my curiosity. But I'm assuming you meant no offence.

However, the 'bottom line' is that you're almost certainly correct and this investigation will carry on for however long the investigators choose to take, while choosing to reveal or withhold whatever they chose to reveal or withhold, and ICAO will continue to do the things that bureaucracies tend to do. In the meantime, the thousands of family members and friends of the deceased will be at the mercy of speculation and leaks of unknown origin.

There are good, valid reasons for the ICAO accident investigation rules - and one of those rules says they'd don't release information until it is properly vetted and validated. As I posted previously, the preliminary report actually had more data that most - it would have been very easy for them to have simply said that the engines quit - one second apart - starting 3 seconds after liftoff. Instead they added detail, including a brief synopsis of a pilot conversation regarding the fuel switches. All this is factual. What they don't release is non vetted information and speculation - such as who moved the switches and why - because that's still being investigated.
Early releases of unvetted data can not only cause unproductive public reactions, it can result in external pressures being applied to the investigative team that can adversely affect their ability to come to the correct cause. Furthermore, I cannot recall a single preliminary report that contained anything like an actual CVR transcript. Those are routinely included in the final report, but not preliminary reports. About the only time you'll see unvalidated information is when there is a suggestion that there is an imminent air safety threat - in which case appropriate emergency inspections are ordered (sometimes even aircraft groundings).

I have a pretty vivid memory: In the aftermath of the Chicago DC-10 crash when the engine ripped off the wing, a couple of days later some department head (I don't remember if he was FAA or NTSB) stood on the podium holding a broken bolt and pronounced that it was the reason the engine came off. Unvetted information that turned out to be complete BS - but resulted in massive outrage that 'the engine was held on by one bolt' - more BS. Fortunately it didn't derail the investigation - and even had a silver lining in that the order bolt inspections lead to the discovery of the actual pylon structural damage that had caused the engine mount to fail. Similarly, after the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster - I watched the clueless head of NASA stand in from of the TV cameras and state as fact that a piece of foam could never have punched a hole in the Columbia wing (obviously never studied that mass*velocity squared thing) - which of course we again know was complete BS.

I've been involved in a few fatal accident investigations - the big one being the Lauda 767, where I was called in early. I was one of the first people to see the FADEC NVM readout that made it painfully obvious that the T/R had deployed at 23,000 ft. - something that we didn't think could happen. We (Boeing) had missed something, and a lot of people had died as a result. It really bothered me (more than once during that investigation, when I got home from work, I just sat down and drank a large glass of Scotch). And not being able to discuss any of it with anyone not involved in the investigation just made it worse. But I knew the rules, understood why there where there, and I followed them.

Strictly speaking, they are SARPs (Standards and Recommended Practices) for accident investigation, not rules.

has the Indian media cited the AAIB as a reference? A lot of people have spouted nonsense on this subject regardless of nationality- the most popular aviation influencers/commentators have changed their stories about 3-4 times already and amplified outright Misinformation

im not sure how that justifies those with privileged information clearly on the US side leaking undermining the official investigation that is being run with international observers from multiple countries and in line with ICAO guidance

I\x92m not saying it is but it gives off more fuel to idea that Boeing has deep sway inside the US elites and institutions

your last paragraph is conjecture, we can speculate but the job of the investigators is to be 100% accurate, it\x92s easy for us to sit on the sidelines and throw out whatever theories we like but their responsibility is much higher

if US entities aren\x92t happy with the tone/substance of the preliminary report their is a mechanism for them to provide there own findings at a later date, this cloak and dagger selective leaking stuff really is uncalled for

No, however:

While I have not studied France's law applicable to aviation accidents generally or investigations in particular, it is my understanding that French law does allow earlier, or more direct, participation - or both - in aircraft accident investigations. Annex 13, on the other hand, does not contemplate determination of blame or liability which are substantially the same thing as sought to be determined by prosecutors (albeit in a different form of court proceeding).

Also, one of the most fundamental principles, if not the most fundamental principle, underwriting all of what ICAO does - at least within its traditional or historic remit and not drifitng off into DEI or strident environmental causes - from the Convention through the Annexes and SARPs, is standardization. Obviously criminal investigations will not be, and could not become, standardized across the States which are active in the international civil aviation sector.

At the time of the Alaska Airlines door plug incident and its aftermath, long-time aviation policy worthies decried the way in which the status of the NTSB investigation had been dragged into the criminal matter against Boeing pending in federal district court in Texas. Their reasoning was that accident investigators must have access as unfettered as possible to sources of information, and the presence of criminal processes necessarily makes people reluctant to speak or provide information otherwise. With this reasoning in mind, it could be agreed that although Annex 13 and pertinent SARPs are not the ultimate in investigatory enlightenment, criminal inquiries (and the French version of same) are not an inherently better approach.

Of course, when reasonably specific and articulable facts point to potential criminal conduct, that is a very different matter.

Of course they aren't the "'be-all-and-end-all' of accident investigations." And whether or not I can identify errors in the prosecutor's investigation \x97 and indeed whether there were any errors \x97 is entirely irrelevant to the issue here.

Annex 13 investigations are the way international aviation, via the ICAO, has agreed to investigate accidents. The Annex provides for procedures, rules and standards. The integrity of the investigations, generally, is undermined when parties step outside that framework. Whether or not the French prosecutor's actions in the Germanwings case did particular damage to "anyone," and whether or not there were errors in that criminal investigation cannot be the basis for an assessment and/or rejection of the Annex 13 provisions and procedures \x97 because sensible and deliberate analysis of systems is not based on single elements or incidents.

First off, as has already been pointed out, the French prosecutor was not working to ICAO standards for an accident.
Ok, so they put in the preliminary report that the captain intentionally turned both fuel switches to CUTOFF, causing the crash. The Captain and his family is vilified, criminal investigations are launched. Vengeful relatives of those killed in the crash attack - perhaps even kill - members of the captain's family.
Then it turns out that it's NOT what happened... The captain's reputation and his family have already been destroyed - irreparable damage has been done, and no amount of retractions and apologies for the mistake are going to correct that.

Is it really too much to ask that we allow the investigation team to verify and validate their information before we throw someone to the wolves?