Posts by user "tdracer" [Posts: 85 Total up-votes: 343 Pages: 5]

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.

Very true - which is why the mantra of 'never say never' is a big part of any accident investigation.
But we're talking about here is a failure that's never happened before - affecting two systems that are designed from the ground up to be separate and isolated from each other - occurring nearly simultaneously on both systems. That's where the odds against it become astronomical.

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?

Yea DAR, it's time for another break. It's been days since anything really new has been posted - just hamster wheel arguments of the same theories, and even stuff that I thought had been thoroughly discredited, dead, and buried has come back to life (e.g. TCMA and the fuel condition switches both unilaterally changing state).

If something new comes up - then either reopen or someone can start a new one.

Having gone on countless flight tests during my career, I was always impressed by the competence and abilities of the Boeing Flight Test Pilots. Most of the flight tests I participated in involved at least one engine shutdown and windmill relight (part of our standard 'First of Model' FADEC software cert flight). The pilots would always use extreme care to make sure they got the correct engine - including putting their hand on the fuel switch and having the other pilot confirm it was the correct switch before setting it to CUTOFF.

But even Flight Test pilots can have a brain fart. Didn't happen to me, but it did happen to one of my best friends. They were doing in-flight start testing of the 757/RB211-535 (and the Rolls engine is a bit notorious for being a fickle in-flight starter). They were doing a corner point condition when the test engine went into a hot start. One of the observers said something like 'it's gone hot, shut it down'. The left seat pilot calmly reached down and shutdown the good engine . Fortunately they were at about 30k, and they were able to recover and get both engines restarted before losing to much altitude.

I was told the Flight Test pilot in question was immediately demoted from "Experimental Flight Test" to "Production Flight Test" (where they do routine shakedown flights of new production aircraft prior to delivery).