Posts by user "Lead Balloon" [Posts: 49 Total up-votes: 0 Pages: 3]

Despite my understanding and agreeing with the merits of the arguments made by commercial pilots about the potentially deleterious effects of cockpit videos and the publication of raw recorder information, I think it would be prudent for commercial pilots to brace for a mugging by political reality. If the truth is that the course of events in the cockpit of AI171 is 'pretty clear' from the recorded voice and data recorders, the political pressure to reveal, 'soon', what is 'pretty clear' is likely to become overwhelming in the context of previous tragedies. And any impediment to that happening in future tragedies, because of pilot resistance, will be steamrolled. If pilots want to argue that they will be 'less safe', I wish them luck in getting popular support.

From post #918 (number as at the time of this post):

I've desperately grasped at technical rather than human factors as the explanation for this tragedy, but have had to abandon that hope.

Yes. When the measured engine parameters match the FCS switch positions and match the trajectory of the aircraft and ..., there are few, if any, remotely likely explanations other than physical operation of the switches.

Who says?

And do you know the accuracy range of that "0.1" you quoted?

As background I should declare that I am a long-term, trenchant critic of many of the decisions of AVMED personnel within some government regulatory authorities. Their decisions seem to me mainly to achieve an increase in the propensity of pilots not to disclose matters to AVMED or - and this important bit - to seek help from anyone because of the fear of what will happen if 'something gets back to' what could be an overreaching AVMED bureaucracy.

I can see from your posts, slats11, that you're 'in the trenches' on this extraordinarily important issue. What are your thoughts about how to encourage complete openness of flight crew about potential mental health and other medical issues?

The recorded switch position data, the recorded engine performance data, the aircraft performance and trajectory after take off, the RAT deployment and open/ing APU inlet, the cockpit voice recording that has been selectively and carefully paraphrased in the preliminary report and the physical and electrical design and separation of the switches and the wiring for each system prove, to whatever standard of proof anyone wants to nominate, that BOTH fuel cut off switches were physically switched OFF 'shortly' after take off, then BOTH switches were physically switched back ON 'shortly' thereafter.

Give the FSC switch/wiring defect theory away, hamsters.

I think it's simply inhumane to put the thousands of family members and friends of those who died in this tragedy through the stress caused by the protracted uncertainty as to who did what, and why, in the cockpit. And my view is that the scope for ongoing speculation does no favours for the interests of pilots or aviation safety.

The cockpit recorder almost certainly enables the investigators to distinguish between the voices recorded and identify which of those voices belongs to the PIC and which to the FO. And, based on my reading of previous posts, the cockpit recorder may have even picked up the 'clicks' of the fuel control switches. And the investigators almost certainly know which of the PIC and FO transmitted the MAYDAY. That all resolves to a small number of likely scenarios, which scenarios have been described (repeatedly) in this thread, all of which should already have been formulated by the investigators.

For the life of me, I cannot see the point of the investigators not coming out and saying: "At this point, we are confident of at least these facts: ... Unfortunately, it follows that we are confident that either the PIC or FO switched off both fuel control switches seconds after take off. That all leads us to be confident that one of X combinations of actions occurred in the cockpit, but we have yet to have any confidence as to what motivated any one or more of those actions: ..."

Look at how many NTSB update briefings occurred in the wake of the mid-air collision involving the CRJ and Blackhawk at DCA. The ATC recording is publicly available. What damage was done, to whom, by those update briefings or the publication of the ATC recording?

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.

Perhaps it follows that Annex 13 investigations aren't the 'be-all-and-end-all' of accident investigations? Are you able to identify any error in the French prosecutor's investigation or how it did damage to anyone that should not have been done?