Nomadd wrote:

There's a difference between a depressed person who ends his life and a mass murderer.

Cubsrule wrote:

Avatar2go wrote:

Cubsrule wrote:

A U.S. person =\= “the U.S.” Is there any evidence of a government leak?

All the articles are quoting anonymous "US officials". So who else would it be if not the government?

A government official without authorization doesn’t speak for the government. It’s no different from the fact that (for instance) a UA employee criticizing AA on a.net doesn’t mean that UA as a company is critical of AA.

Avatar2go wrote:

Cubsrule wrote:

Avatar2go wrote:

All the articles are quoting anonymous "US officials". So who else would it be if not the government?

A government official without authorization doesn’t speak for the government. It’s no different from the fact that (for instance) a UA employee criticizing AA on a.net doesn’t mean that UA as a company is critical of AA.

Yes, but a government official who has access to data with which the government was entrusted under condition of confidentiality, is a far more serious thing. The Chinese will not look at this and say oh, it was just a few rogue employees. It will be viewed as official action, with the US government being responsible, whether sanctioned or not.

Avatar2go wrote:

Cubsrule wrote:

Avatar2go wrote:

All the articles are quoting anonymous "US officials". So who else would it be if not the government?

A government official without authorization doesn’t speak for the government. It’s no different from the fact that (for instance) a UA employee criticizing AA on a.net doesn’t mean that UA as a company is critical of AA.

Yes, but a government official who has access to data with which the government was entrusted under condition of confidentiality, is a far more serious thing. The Chinese will not look at this and say oh, it was just a few rogue employees. It will be viewed as official action, with the US government being responsible, whether sanctioned or not.

ZaphodHarkonnen wrote:

Nomadd wrote:

There's a difference between a depressed person who ends his life and a mass murderer.

Not really. People taking their own life in this way and those suffering from illnesses like depression are thinking and acting irrationally.

If this is true it's yet another piece of evidence we, as humans in general, need to change our approach to mental health issues in areas we like to pretend can have no weaknesses. All workers should feel like they can get treatment to manage long term illnesses without putting their livelihood or sense of self at needless risk. It will increase risk in some areas yes, but it will lower the overall risk. Only accepting perfection is stupid and actively dangerous. We allow pilots to wear glasses or to resume their job after breaking bones. We design and allow failure in so many mechanical systems in planes to get rid of as many single points of failure as is feasible. Why can't we do the same for mental health?

travaz wrote:

I find it interesting that the SCMP ran the story so quickly. I agree that maybe the Chinese want this floated in the press to see what the reaction is. Just my 2 Cents

stinson108 wrote:

Time to develop a full proof system where the cockpit door cant be locked when there is only one pilot on deck.

Avatar2go wrote:

travaz wrote:

I find it interesting that the SCMP ran the story so quickly. I agree that maybe the Chinese want this floated in the press to see what the reaction is. Just my 2 Cents

The SCMP is a Hong-Kong outlet owned by Alibaba. They have more freedom than much of the Chinese press. The comments have numerous anti-China postings, but those are likely filtered in China.

It is possible that China is allowing the US to leak the story. I'd be a lot more comfortable with that than having the NTSB leaking confidential information. Their mission requires confidentiality as established by law and cooperative investigative agreements. I guess we'll see when CAAC responds.

lightsaber wrote:

ElroyJetson wrote:

ABC News is also reporting it appears to be a pilot suicide.



https://www.yahoo.com/gma/chinese-plane ... 55700.html

That was a hard link to read (I muted the video by choice). I'm sad to hear this. RIP to the passengers. That is not an easy conclusion to come to.

Lightsaber

ElroyJetson wrote:

I agree, The Key quote from ABC News: .The officials who spoke to ABC News point to the plane's flaps not being engaged and landing gear not put down. The near-vertical descent of the plane, they believe, would've required intentional force. Investigators also looked into one of the pilots' personal lives and background and believe he may have been struggling through certain issues right before the crash, ABC News has learned..

zeke wrote:

ElroyJetson wrote:

I agree, The Key quote from ABC News: .The officials who spoke to ABC News point to the plane's flaps not being engaged and landing gear not put down. The near-vertical descent of the plane, they believe, would've required intentional force. Investigators also looked into one of the pilots' personal lives and background and believe he may have been struggling through certain issues right before the crash, ABC News has learned..

Gear and flap position have no relevance to attitude, and you can place an aircraft into a near vertical dive vertical dive very quickly through inattention and mishandling.

Loss of control in flight is still the largest cause of fatalities, and it can happen rather quickly without the crew being aware of what is happening.

Eg.

“ The pilot of a single-crew certified jet is climbing to FL410 on the An airplane in flight unintentionally exceeding the parameters normally autopilot with the throttles at max continuous thrust. During the climb, he notices that his airspeed is somewhat lower than expected. He reduces the vertical speed, thinking that doing so will allow the aircraft to accelerate. This action, however, is not enough and the aircraft continues to slow. Unbeknownst to the pilot, there is a malfunction in the angle of attack indication system that will prevent the stall warning system from functioning. The aircraft continues to slow with the autopilot holding altitude by applying increasing amounts of back-stick pressure until, during a moment when the pilot is distracted, the aircraft stalls without warning. An abrupt roll to the right that exceeds the autopilot bank limits causes the autopilot to disengage, resulting in an aggressive pitch down as the aircraft rapidly rolls back to the left. As the startled and disoriented pilot attempts to regain control of the aircraft, his instinctive control inputs actually aggravate the situation, and the aircraft executes five full rolls
to the right and a vertical dive before control is eventually regained. The aircraft experiences a 25 per cent over-G resulting in permanent deformation of the structure”

From https://dfa5nxhqcvh4w.cloudfront.net/wp ... n-UPRT.pdf

PixelPilot wrote:

vegas005 wrote:

[twoid][/twoid]

M564038 wrote:

This is ridicolous. It’s only been a month. There is no reason at all to claim there has been too much time consumed yet. Data recovery from damaged storage can be very demanding, and have to follow strict protocol. Then there are the analysis itself. Although the data is super-easy to read «like a flight simulator», the time is spent on recovery, reconstruction, verification and re-checking, after reading the data there is analysis and protocol. A month is a very short amount of time to get it right.

Yet the fleet is flying again, and no directives from Boeing, China, nor the FAA. They know....

ElroyJetson wrote:

I can only cite the multiple media reports indicating likely pilot suicide. In fact the ABC News headline called the crash an intentional act and stated neither Boeing or the Chinese have found any mechanical issues with the aircraft, and reported the pilot in question appeared to have been "struggling through issues" that may have led to the crash.

stinson108 wrote:

Time to develop a full proof system where the cockpit door cant be locked when there is only one pilot on deck.

flyingturtle wrote:

The prevailing thought is that the single pilot in the cockpit must be able to lock the door - and he also must be able to override the lock when the correct code is entered. Likewise, a simple system with two keys (each of the pilots carries one) is not a good idea.

Why?

A terrorist points a gun to the pilot, and forces him to enter the code. To try to save his own life, he'll enter the correct code, even if it would doom all passengers (in a 9/11 scenario, for example). The pilot remaining in the cockpit must be able to sacrifice any crewmember's life if he thinks he can save the whole plane.

I know it's sordid, but it's the exact problem that doomed the Germanwings plane. A terrorist-proof door is always a pilot-proof door.

Nomadd wrote:

There's a difference between a depressed person who ends his life and a mass murderer.

zeke wrote:

ElroyJetson wrote:

I can only cite the multiple media reports indicating likely pilot suicide. In fact the ABC News headline called the crash an intentional act and stated neither Boeing or the Chinese have found any mechanical issues with the aircraft, and reported the pilot in question appeared to have been "struggling through issues" that may have led to the crash.

There is multiple news outlets rehashing the same WSJ article, NONE of them have the data or the report. I have made perfectly clear pilots can place aircraft into undesired aircraft states followed by loss of control. Like I stated previously, the Atlas Air accident is not different to what is being reported here, all that has actually been reported is the aircraft followed pilots control inputs. It is a big leap from that to say suicide. Newspapers want to say suicide as guess what, that generates income. NOT ONE HAS THE SOURCE DOCUMENT to be authoritative.

Lack of mechanical failure does not rule out an inadvertent incorrect selection or mishandling, have a look around and see how many incidents there have been where pilots have made the incorrect section for pressurization on the 737.

Also have a look around at NTSB reports provided to other countries that have asked for assistance with FDR/CVR readout, all the NTSB report will be is a factual report, they will not speculate on the cause.

32andBelow wrote:

Avatar2go wrote:

If the US leaked this ahead of the Chinese determination, CAAC will not be very happy with the NTSB. It is rather shocking, and may have implications for the future.

What are they going to say? They probably would have never released if

ElroyJetson wrote:

I understand your opinion. Sources cited from the NTSB in numerous articles state differently.

ZaphodHarkonnen wrote:

Nomadd wrote:

There's a difference between a depressed person who ends his life and a mass murderer.

Not really. People taking their own life in this way and those suffering from illnesses like depression are thinking and acting irrationally.

If this is true it's yet another piece of evidence we, as humans in general, need to change our approach to mental health issues in areas we like to pretend can have no weaknesses. All workers should feel like they can get treatment to manage long term illnesses without putting their livelihood or sense of self at needless risk. It will increase risk in some areas yes, but it will lower the overall risk. Only accepting perfection is stupid and actively dangerous. We allow pilots to wear glasses or to resume their job after breaking bones. We design and allow failure in so many mechanical systems in planes to get rid of as many single points of failure as is feasible. Why can't we do the same for mental health?

Strato2 wrote:

Was this like the Germanwings flight in so that the other pilot left the cockpit and the other was then able to do his murderous deeds?

ElroyJetson wrote:

More news sources are now reporting the crash appears to be an intentional act including the BBC and Reuters.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61488976

.https://www.reuters.com/world/china/fli ... 022-05-17/

Avatar2go wrote:

travaz wrote:

I find it interesting that the SCMP ran the story so quickly. I agree that maybe the Chinese want this floated in the press to see what the reaction is. Just my 2 Cents

The SCMP is a Hong-Kong outlet owned by Alibaba. They have more freedom than much of the Chinese press. The comments have numerous anti-China postings, but those are likely filtered in China.

It is possible that China is allowing the US to leak the story. I'd be a lot more comfortable with that than having the NTSB leaking confidential information. Their mission requires confidentiality as established by law and cooperative investigative agreements. I guess we'll see when CAAC responds.

ElroyJetson wrote:

I can only cite the multiple media reports indicating likely pilot suicide.
Sources cited from the NTSB in numerous articles state differently.

flybucky wrote:

Even if this was deliberate pilot action, I think it was different than Germanwings. In Germanwings, the pilot was able to lock out the other pilot and was alone in the cockpit. He had a gradual steady descent.

If MU5735 was deliberate pilot action, it was most likely a struggle in the cockpit. First, there were 3 pilots in the cockpit, so it's much harder to lock out 2 of them. Also, the ADS-B data showed that it was a wild descent, with erratic vertical speed, and likely extreme roll angles (possibly 360º). All that would have been unnecessary if a single pilot was alone in cockpit.

So for those reasons, I think it is different than Germanwings.

ryanov wrote:

Intentional control movements do not need to mean suicide. There have been numerous accidents caused by pilot input where the inputs by the pilot were indeed intentional, result of those inputs was not.

Spetsnaz55 wrote:

Unfortunate situation of pilot suicide. I hope the mental health training the Chinese pilots went through right after the crash helped

zeke wrote:

Germanwings accident had the autopilot engaged until impact with the ground. As you said it was a gradual descent until impact.

Strato2 wrote:

By definition Germanwings flight 9525 was no accident.

Avatar2go wrote:

CAAC is saying they spoke to NTSB, and were assured that NTSB did not release any
information to the media. So they are treating it as an unfounded rumor of the US press. Their position is that their investigation continues.

JerseyFlyer wrote:

If aircraft get to be so safe that pilot suicide becomes a significant cause of passenger fatalities in crashes, there will be a clamour for pilotless planes.

We need to start measuring crashes avoided by pilot action, that would not have been avoided had the plane been pilotless.

JerseyFlyer wrote:

If aircraft get to be so safe that pilot suicide becomes a significant cause of passenger fatalities in crashes, there will be a clamour for pilotless planes.

We need to start measuring crashes avoided by pilot action, that would not have been avoided had the plane been pilotless.

OldB747Driver wrote:

It is probably a stretch to believe a "Newspaper of Record", in this case the Wall St Journal, would publish such information without meaningful confirmation despite some of the odd inferences included in the report (Well of course pilots think about lowering flaps and landing gear when they are staring directly at the ground above barber pole! The landing gear might be reasonable, but the flaps? No...)

That said, the "leak" of such information in the U.S. may have less to do with embarrassing China as putting a finger on the scales of the proposal by airlines to extend medical certification of pilots to the age of 67... I'm on record trying to extol the virtue of experience in the cockpit, but due to human biology and typical aging, there is a limit to the usefulness of that concept and this incident may be used as a way of manipulating opinion on potential legislation on the matter, thus the "U.S. leak".

As I've stated in prior posts, I'll give the crew the benefit of the doubt until the evidence is well and truly "in", but it certainly looks like, walks like, and quacks like a duck.

zeke wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

That was a hard link to read (I muted the video by choice). I'm sad to hear this. RIP to the passengers. That is not an easy conclusion to come to.

Lightsaber

The video I get when I open that link is very old, they are talking about just discovering one of the black boxes and citing “intelligence sources” that it was intentional because of the high rate of descent, not the actual data retrieved.

ABC contacted the NTSB, the NTSB did not confirm any of the details, the only officials that would have access to the FDR/CVR are with the NTSB.

In reply 1076 above the SCMP is quoted

“ Data recovered from the black box suggests that someone in the cockpit input controls that sent the plane into its deadly descent, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with US officials’ preliminary assessment of the incident. ”
Zeke - thank you for bringing this up, I was thinking the same thing. There are a number of scenarios where pilot inputs could result in an unrecoverable dive - suicide/murder is just one of those scenarios. I'm not saying it wasn't pilot suicide/mass murder, I'm just saying we can't draw that conclusion just because the FDR showed deliberate action by the crew

I would suggest the exact same words could be used to describe Atlas Air Flight 3591, it was the pilot control inputs that resulted in the near vertical descent.

ElroyJetson wrote:

OldB747Driver wrote:

It is probably a stretch to believe a "Newspaper of Record", in this case the Wall St Journal, would publish such information without meaningful confirmation despite some of the odd inferences included in the report (Well of course pilots think about lowering flaps and landing gear when they are staring directly at the ground above barber pole! The landing gear might be reasonable, but the flaps? No...)

That said, the "leak" of such information in the U.S. may have less to do with embarrassing China as putting a finger on the scales of the proposal by airlines to extend medical certification of pilots to the age of 67... I'm on record trying to extol the virtue of experience in the cockpit, but due to human biology and typical aging, there is a limit to the usefulness of that concept and this incident may be used as a way of manipulating opinion on potential legislation on the matter, thus the "U.S. leak".

As I've stated in prior posts, I'll give the crew the benefit of the doubt until the evidence is well and truly "in", but it certainly looks like, walks like, and quacks like a duck.

There are a number of outlets left, particularly in aviation, that still seem to be reputable. I find it highly doubtful that the WSJ, Reuters, or the BBC would not properly source their articles. Until further evidence is presented ( if it is presented) their reporting indicates it was likely an intentional act by the pilot. I see no reason to disbelieve them based on the facts presented.

gwrudolph wrote:

I tend to agree with you. While not impossible, I do find it hard to believe that not one, but multiple worldwide-respected news sources would tolerate stories without proper sourcing. That’s exactly what gets reporters at highly reputable news sources suspended or fired.

Flight data indicates a China Eastern Airlines plane that crashed in March was intentionally put into a nose-dive, according to US media reports.

Brianpr3 wrote:

on Egypt 990 why is it that their investigators say it was a mechanical failure while us investigators say it was intentionally crashed into the ocean

flybucky wrote:

You have to be careful when claiming something has been corroborated by multiple media reports. Nowadays, a lot of articles are simply re-reporting other articles (basically the same as retweeting it). You have to actually read the article to see if they got their own sources, or if they're just re-reporting. I've looked at all the articles, WSJ, BBC, Reuters, SCMP, etc. And with the exception of one, they are all merely re-reporting the original WSJ article. So those don't count as additional sources.

The only article I've seen so far that isn't solely re-reporting the WSJ article is the ABC article (which was re-reported by Yahoo). "The officials who spoke to ABC News point to the plane's flaps not being engaged and landing gear not put down. The near-vertical descent of the plane, they believe, would've required intentional force." That shows that ABC actually spoke to the officials themselves, and also provided additional information not in the WSJ. https://abcnews.go.com/International/ch ... d=84782873

I'll also add that the flaps and landing gear not being down doesn't mean it was definitely suicide. The plane could have lost control initially due to other reasons. And once it's going too fast, the pilot's not going to be lowering the flaps or landing gear.