Posts by user "JustusW" [Posts: 39 Total up-votes: 110 Page: 2 of 2]¶

It actually does by absence and previous mention of the relevant SAIB regarding the switches. The investigating team has looked into the switches in general. In the description of what was found any deviation from expectation, especially in context of that SAIB, would certainly have been mentioned. They do not. Hence there is no reason to believe anything out of the ordinary was observable.

I find that statement problematic. I have my own reasons to be skeptical of the field, mostly because of its continued lagging behind the evidence on neurodivergence. But the tools used for suicide risk assessment are surprisingly solid at this point. Of course application of those tools is where it usually falls flat. There are specific and proven tests for assessing general depression and its severity as well as specific and proven tests for assessing suicide risk. Nothing is ever certain in this field, especially since the veracity of any kind of self reporting is basically impossible to determine, but for cooperating individuals as well as for certain types of masking we have tools that are very accurate if applied correctly.
The issue in the context of Aviation is the stigmatization and risk of job loss...

We have to be a bit more careful with wording here. Prevalence of Major Depression is roughly twice as common in women than in men. [1] While it is correct that more men than women commit suicide, depending on what study you prefer somewhere between 2 and 4 times as many, the number of attempts however is skewed in the other direction with more women attempting suicide than men by a similar margin. [2] The difference is commonly attributed to the utilization of different means.
Notably, and as I wrote earlier, the prevalence of depression in pilots does _not_ show a significant difference between women and men, with female pilots even having a lower prevalence for moderate depression as measured in the aforementioned study. Same disclaimer applies obviously: The utilized PHQ-9 test is not useful for the assessment of suicide risk. It is however very reliable in detecting and gauging severity of depression or conditions presenting with similar symptoms. This is strongly indicative of an anomaly and needs to be examined. My personal suspicion would be the misattribution of a stress related condition like Burnout to depression. Note that Occupational Burnout also comes with the potential for suicidal thoughts but has a much lower actual suicide risk. [3]

The number of pilot suicides is thankfully far too small to be useful for any kind of statistical analysis. I have no idea why you would exclude the only actually confirmed pilot suicide where we have a psychotherapists treatment data as evidence. The evidence for MH370 is entirely circumstantial and treating it as a confirmed pilot suicide is very unhelpful for a discussion based on facts. The SilkAir incident classification by the NTSB is similarly based on circumstantial evidence exclusively. Without personally analyzing either report and reinspecting the evidence I again find it unhelpful to simply treat it as confirmed.

That being said, I fail to see the similarities of either case and the Air India accident. All known pilot suicides and all suspected ones happened in cruise, not during takeoff. All known or suspected cases have some kind of evidence of one or more causal psychological events (notably not with MH370). And that is evidence as opposed to company rumor mills. Evidence that is notably absent in any way shape or form in this instance. In case of the Germanwings accident the police was investigating the murder-suicide and informed the public within a week of the accident.

In the case of MH370 there is a single notable similarity: The theory of pilot suicide is being thrown around despite the complete absence of hard evidence towards a mental crisis. There is highly circumstantial evidence based on supposedly reconstructed "waypoints" that are very roughly similar to the theorized course the airplane may have taken. A theorized course on which we have continued to not actually find the wreckage. And even that circumstantial evidence is entirely absent here. The best explanation for the known facts in the Air India case would be human error.

The bottom section of either switch can be clearly seen in this post accident photograph. There is nothing visible where your theory would require a well visible detent.

The EAFR was read out only a week or so before the preliminary report was published. There is no such transcript yet. That transcript requires significant analysis, especially for the timeframe where recording was limited to the Cockpit Area Microphone. It will need removal of audio artefacts, noise, voice analysis for attribution, etc.
There is no secrecy. There simply is nothing to release yet as the actual investigation is just getting started with the preliminary gathering of evidence nearing completion.

Saying so doesn't make it so. There is nothing "simple" about pilot suicide, major depression is a complex condition to begin with and the aviation context adds multiple complicating layers of conflicting motivation. I have stated before that depression and suicide are being displayed irrationally here by a number of people. It's simply not a magic explanation you can just wave at any behavior you don't understand. That's not how that works.

All known cases of pilot suicide have indicators that are not present here. In some cases (like the often mentioned Germanwings incident) those indicators were such strong evidence that the criminal case was open and shut in days or weeks. Those weren't "simple" cases either, but they had the evidence one would expect from a pilot suffering such a complex condition. Nothing of the sort is known about either the Captain or the FO.

Suicide is almost always the last step in a long history of suffering from (mental) illness. Suicidal ideation is what the medical field calls thoughts (ideas about) suicide. It's a comparably common symptom shown in around 5-20% of adults worldwide with strong variation correlating with external factors, such as economic well being, occupation, stress, etc. Assessed globally Pilots, as far as relevant studies are available, seem to fall into the lower bracket of prevalence of suicidal ideation with a lower than expected prevalence when compared to the general population from their respective country of origin down to the rate observed in the general population of economically stable and strong countries.

Cases where pilot suicide is suspected (any case where at least some level of evidence is present but either no or only an officially disputed final assessment exists) also generally follow the same patterns. Attempts at concealment are known to happen, but make up only 10%-30% of completed suicides in the general population. This does include the gray area of potentially successful concealment which would lead to the assumption of an accidental death.

In almost all cases a recurring pattern is also the topic of certainty. In suicidal ideation it is a very common theme that any issues are projected into the future and the uncertainty of those issues generates anxiety. Many survivors of suicide attempts reveal that they considered the certainty of their own death to be preferable over the continuance of uncertainty and the associated anxiety. While we are far from being able to authoritatively call this a definitive mechanism in the psychological conditions related to suicide it is strongly implicated and subject of ongoing research. My personal way of explaining this to someone unfamiliar with depression is that your brain is quite literally poisoning you and generating so much trauma that the idea of ending it becomes preferable. Patients in this stage of major depression show a determination and rationality in their drive towards that goal that is often the primary source of perceived irrationality from the outside. They routinely ignore any and all information that is not relevant to their goal. The means are often chosen with preference of perceived certainty over any other motivation, including harm to others.

Summarizing:
1. Suicide is overwhelmingly the last step in a history of mental illness and almost exclusively presents without that in cases of immediate, significant and obvious trauma.
2. Attempts of concealment are of low probability in a suicide.
3. Methods of suicide are commonly chosen based on perceived certainty of success.

These indicators are all negative for the Air India accident. There is no indication of a prolonged history of mental illness, there is no immediate, significant or obvious trauma. Theorizing an attempt at suicide by either of the pilots requires the assumption of a major attempt at concealment. And most importantly: The method chosen is not following the pattern of maximizing certainty, the probable reason why all confirmed and even all suspected cases of pilot suicide happened in cruise flight.

The theory of suicide is thus, in this particular case, a bad fit.

If we are assuming an (intentionally) concealed medical condition there are much simpler and more likely candidates available. Any type of cardiac issue could lead to a clot and a stroke. A stroke fully explains what happened here. A clot triggered by the acceleration of the takeoff run could very reasonably present as a stroke in the timeframe given here. If the victim belatedly realizes what happened he may develop the wish to stop the situation, which in a stroking brain could absolutely lead to the shortcut of "turning off the engines is done at the end of flight". Or the stroke victim is trying to hold onto something and grabs the switches relatively close to the relaxed hand position after releasing the thrust levers at V1. Other conditions can rapidly present and impact judgement, motor function, or both. If we are willing to attribute the Captains recent decision to retire and be with his father as a potential change in character we might even fall into a number of neurological conditions that may be causal.

But there are even simpler explanations than a concealed medical condition. Maybe one of the pilots had previously finished recurring training for evacuations on the runway and had discussed this with his colleague ahead of the flight. The final memory item for those is turning off the fuel pumps. This kind of Action Slip is well documented. It's not very likely, thus I have no issue believing no one reported observing that type of a slip in a simulator, but it's not like accidents with this level of weirdness are common. There is however a good indicator here fitting the situation of at least one of the pilots: The Captain may have been preoccupied with his wish to retire soon and spending time with his father. While the latter makes absolutely no sense in a suicide it could be part of the causality for an action slip. Also note this post about inadvertent activation of switches despite majorly different modes of activation.

In the end here are three observations based on the preliminary report:
1. Any type of mechanical fault is unlikely and no immediately supporting evidence has been found.
2. A human factor is currently the most likely candidate for the cause of the accident.
3. The type of human factor is not being speculated upon in the preliminary report.

Note that the report specifically states:
No further reference is made to any medical conditions, which is expected as these would fall outside the guidelines for inclusion in a preliminary report.

Attribution of an unclear accident to suicide is contributing to a problematic pattern of stigmatization and increases the likeliness of concealment of (mental) health issues associated with that stigma. In addition it precludes proper analysis of a potential inadvertent mishandling of controls. Both Airbus and Boeing commonly utilize this position and type of guarded switch. Both are sufficiently protected against accidental movement but nothing else. In many smaller aircraft setting the Master Switch to Off would not lead to engine shutdown. There are even reports of what we could consider negative training, by flight instructors demonstrating this fact by turning the Master Switch off in flight. Other commercial aircraft utilize different schemes, Embraer was mentioned right at the beginning of this thread by moosepileit as requiring Throttle Levers at idle for Fuel Cutoff as well as positioning those switches on the overhead panel .

Having just done a full review of this entire thread with regard to human factors I find it a bit sad to note that from the start there were multiple people with backgrounds in accident investigation present that pointed out human error and gave proper reasoning or even corroborating evidence in the form of accident reports. There are also multiple people repeatedly injecting their theory of pilot suicide either without providing any evidence or referring to baseless rumors from media reports. Notably those same people often rejected any other possibility of human error. They also repeatedly make statements of fact that are contradicted or not covered by the preliminary report. Any discussion of mental health seems pointless at this moment in time since there is no actual interest in the topic beyond occasionally going "It's suicide, duh". If anyone is interested in the topic I can once again only recommend taking a look at the Pilot Mental Health Campaign Research Page and other resources presented there.

I think the other worthwhile takeaway from this thread has been stated rather early, with the very applicable nod to a better layout regarding critical functionality that has no reason to be present in close proximity to regularly used flight controls.

Which is commonly what they are doing in those cases. You might find the basis of the actions by someone suffering from major depression and at risk of suicide hard to understand, but that doesn't change their existence. A common thread in suicidal ideation is that the anxiety and pain generated by the psychological situation is countered with the thought of ending it by suicide. Suicide is commonly an attempt at ending an (internal) severe suffering. A suicidal person perceives their behavior as rational. Hence they take great care to make sure their plan works.

In so many words: Yes. The research is absolutely crystal clear on this. I won't claim the combination of concealment and less than assured lethality is out of the question, but it would be extremely a-typical. The psychological mechanisms favoring certainty would only be reinforced by the motivation to remain undetected. But it's ultimately impossible to assess the thinking of a theoretical suicidal pilot. Maybe the two most recent incidents and the fact that both were quickly identified as suspect played a role here.

Under the assumption that there was a medical condition being hidden there are numerous less contrived possibilities.

I fear we could discuss comorbidities until we're blue in the face. But no, I wouldn't dismiss the possibility of it being suicide, no. I just consider it to require any kind of actual prove instead of prove by the inability to come up with better explanations. As for the topic of concealment: It's obviously a grey area but the previously quoted 10-30% prevalence is based on studies trying to figure out exactly that. I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable opining on that number.

Suicidal ideation does frequently present with both imagined as well as examined scenarios. Especially in more severe cases many victims have a history of attempts. The impulsive variants are typically in lesser severities of depression and are actually more common in people with lower levels of suicidal ideation. It would certainly be the most likely scenario for a suicide that I could come up with. It's especially prone to happen in cases with sudden traumatic events on top of an existing baseline condition but can occur in any other condition as far as I know. It would also fit somewhat with an unremarkable history as a person suffering from mild to moderate depression might consider being able to cope on his or her own. And then obviously be less prepared for a spontaneous urge. The troubling part here is that it would be indistinguishable from an action slip without additional evidence as to the pilots state of mind. The observable scenario would be something like this: Immediately upon reaching v2 the Captain moves both fuel cutoff switches to their off state in quick succession. When queried by the FO he denies having done so and remains passive until impact.

This is a plausible scenario, but also one that would be impossible to determine causally. Try for yourself, but you can use either rationalization for the behavior and even use the same rationalization for the opposite behavior. There is no way to predict how anyone would react in that situation and no way to determine either way what that behavior indicates. Not even moving those switches back into the on position by himself would give a reliable clue as to his state of mind. The report would probably default to Human Error in this case, as the intent could not be determined.
The resulting suggestions, ironically, would be basically the same as well. Ease access to mental healthcare, improve training for avoidance, and most importantly: Improve resilience of systems against this type of action.

Based on the numbers available to us right now I can almost guarantee that if you have taken more than 10 flights in your life one or both of your pilots or colleagues on the other seat suffered from symptoms of moderate to severe depression. And you will with almost absolute certainty never actually know. The true question people need to ask themselves is "Do I want my depressed pilot to have access to psychotherapy or not?"

The only new information I could find is this: https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/India...be/ar-AA1JFQJo

It's a downside of human curiosity where the natural instinct to go "how did that happen?" goes to "who is to blame?" and out come the pitchforks. Add to that the recently supercharged tendency for "Sippenhaft" (roughly "family culpability") in public discourse and these things are a recipe for disaster...
You could add on that statement that the father also wants a court to tell everyone that HE did nothing wrong. Because dollars to donuts that's what has happened and he's probably getting death threats already...

Just remember the \xdcberlingen aftermath... Grief hits hard and makes people do really bad things.

I was taught that when you insert blame into the process safety suffers. I can't imagine Safety Culture is taught differently today. Sadly it seems many are out to do just that in the case of this investigation. This will be a watershed moment for Indian aviation safety and probably set the tone for decades to come. Let's hope that they manage to pull it off, despite the adversity. As far as I can tell there is no more current information than the previously discussed preliminary report?

So here's what we'll be discussing next:
1) How Air India faked this emergency.
2) How Boeing is covering up this massive safety flaw.

Although just by the description alone I can't even create a mental image of the failure mode given the actual construction of the switches. Not only are they latching into the detent, but what could possibly apply a downward force? Would gravity alone move a switch of this type even if the guard was completely removed? By their nature switches tend to be mechanically bistable, meaning they have two stable positions regardless of any switch guards.
Maybe someone with actual knowledge of the switches can chime in here. For me this sounds very strange and raises all sorts of red flags.

Source: He made it the eff up. XD
Well, to be fair, he probably just missed a word. Namely the "a". Because the incident 787 was very much grounded. *sigh*

There is way too little known and way too many possibilities for why the airline would ground an aircraft with any kind of issue on that particular switch. It should be noted, that the source for this "incident" is itself highly questionable. Just one of the many "aviation safety experts" with a notable lack of any actual safety work in their CVs but an impressive list of press releases...

Also the consensus was that it was nearly impossible for the fuel cutoffs to leave the seated position. Obstruction of the detents is and always will be a distinct possibility. In this case it would have actually worked as intended, as it forced the crew to remove or fix the detent issue before being able to operate the flight normally.

In fact an obstruction or damage to the switch guard detent is pretty much the only way I can imagine this working if, for example, the detent ring itself was twisted or otherwise misaligned relative to the switch motion of travel it might have been kept from actually latching into the switches own stable position explaining why it moved into the other stable position. Which again would be a safe state as it would occur before engine startup was even attempted.
I doubt we will ever get an update on this one though.

I don't think either of the fuel cutoff switches are on the MEL. They're probably considered safety critical given the whole "fire and death" thing they're supposed to guard against.

Christ almighty... When I was quipping about the MEL I didn't actually expect a pilot to take off with a faulty item very very very definitely not on it...

So much for the quality of this "Safety Matters Foundation". There is guidance. If it's broke and it's not exempt your aircraft is grounded. Considering this happened AFTER the incident discussed in this thread it almost makes me reconsider the accidental double switch movement theory... They might never have swapped the switches as per the original directive, and it might just have been common practice to mash dem buttons until they "stuck".
How do you fly an Air India plane post AI171 and do that if it's not widely employed common practice?

I mean, now it almost makes more sense. Air India might just routinely be flying with deformed or misaligned detents on their fuel cutoff switches.
This is beginning to sound like the least insane explanation...

Well actually... There was a common problem with those switches. It was the topic of a rather old Airworthiness Directive and discussed extensively. Going off memory alone it was possible for the detents to be misaligned or otherwise damaged preventing the switches from correctly latching into either locked position.
As per the AD they _should_ have been replaced. It _should_ have been impossible for any switches with the issue to still be used on an aircraft over a decade after the AD. But maybe Air India just decided to not follow that AD? Or maybe there is a small subset of 787's where they didn't? And what the hell did they check last year when they supposedly went over all their 787's and inspected that very set of switches?!
I'm baffled and a bit speechless right now...

If the detent is misaligned/damaged enough the upper stable position may not be fully reachable and the switch might instead rest in a pseudo stable position prone to collapse due to vibration or other outside forces.

> The FAA issued Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) No. NM-18-33 on December 17, 2018, regarding the potential disengagement of the fuel control switch locking feature. [...] Both fuel control switch were found in the \x93RUN\x94 position.

So correction first: It wasn't an Airworthiness Directive, it was just an SAIB, but also the above is the only information provided by the preliminary report. Notably they did not comment in any way on the state of the guard/detent.
I'd not dismiss this event so out of hand. After the 171 crash every single pilot flying for Air India surely has heard that those switches are blamed, right? For any of them to be willing to faff around with those seems alarming and, for me at least, points to possible normalization of deviance. It may be practice for them to not treat these switches as a potential flight safety issue.

If a safety feature requires a specific way of operating the item that is easily missed or otherwise performed erroneously it is, in fact, not a safety feature at all.
If they actually know of a repeatable way to move those switches inadvertently that would be a _big_ deal. I've said my piece on the insanity of the placement of those switches in this thread and others but if there is an "incorrect" way to work them that is a very serious problem.