Sigwx

The key two words are “so far”. That part of the investigation is so far not confirmed by the article as being completed. The media can take any quote and present it in any way they choose to, regardless of the ‘reputation’ of the outlet.

Reporter to Captain seen walking out of terminal to attend hospital for check up after an aircraft accident at an airport, escorted by police officers; “Captain!! CAPTAIN!! Where you drinking before or during the flight?!!”

Captain “Of Course I bloody wasn’t!!”

Headline - ‘Crash Plane Pilot denies he was drunk at the controls’

Inference is left at their disposal.

The Cali crash is a fantastic opportunity for CRM and human factors training. It is a treasure trove of learning opportunities and shows how a lack or breakdown of situational awareness and a breakdown in the human-machine interface can rapidly find you ‘behind the aircraft’, which as any aviator can tell you is not the place you want to find yourself. It requires immediate mitigation to avert potential disaster. However the aircraft did exactly what it was asked to do which fits in with the alleged quote from someone allegedly close to the investigation.

Mahan Air enroute from IKA to BEY is one example of a non-nefarious dive.

Sandeep1

I said earlier that there appears to be a group of FT posters who, for whatever reason, really don't want pilot suicide to be the conclusion. The last page illustrates this perfectly.

Wall Street Journal = Sensationalist, Corrupt
Chinese Authorities/Media = Completely Trustworthy

mtofell

Society doesn't want to come to terms with the fact that things just go wrong sometimes and there's no fix. "We" can't get in the head of a pilot that is hellbent on crashing a plane before he/she does and it bothers "us". Everyone wants a pound of flesh from the engineer that designed a faulty part. Or, they want to kill the stock of the company that designed a faulty plane. For some perverse reason it makes us all feel better if there is a monetary culprit. Suicidal pilot? Meh.... no one left to blame, shame and sue. Obviously, there are still other possible outcomes here but in the absence of some mechanical issue (that would/should have been disclosed by now) the cause of this crash is looking pretty clear.

dhuey

At least in the U.S., there would be plenty of suing with a suicidal pilot. The airline would likely argue that they are not responsible for their employee's intentional mass murder, but they (or at least their insurance carrier) would settle with the families for large sums.

Dave510

The claim isn't that it isn't a pilot suicide, but rather there isn't enough evidence to conclude anything.

However, there appears to be a group of FT posters who, for whatever reason, really want to push the conclusion that it's pilot suicide and there's a vast Chinese conspiracy to pretend it's not.

STS-134

Oh there's plenty of people to blame, shame, and sue if the pilot is suicidal. The airline, the people around that pilot that could have seen warning signs, etc. But it's a lot easier to fix a faulty part of a machine and reassure people that this won't ever happen again than to fix mental health issues.

Sandeep1

As I've said before, we are a group of anonymous internet posters on FT. Nobody is consulting us for anything. We are free to form our own conclusions based on what we believe is the likely outcome.

I'll never understand the whole "let's wait until the authorities tell us what to believe before we believe it" mentality on, again, an anonymous message board.

Lomapaseo

Agree (relative to the investigation details and our own conclusions at any time)

For some of us to read the same conclusions over and over suggests we need to skip.some posters
The problem for me is the assignment of blame often justified by a cover-up. This needs to be addressed by any of us to to keep the investigation and corrective actions above ground for the casual reader of this forum

dhuey

So far I haven't seen any indication that the Chinese government is doing anything to steer away from any conclusion that a pilot deliberately caused this crash. (BTW, "pilot suicide" doesn't really capture how that would also be a mass murder.)

Lux Flyer

The key in that statement is "so far", as in the investigation is still ongoing. People are reading way too much into the statement to try and make it fit their narrative, when a source saying "the plane did what it was told to do" means nothing. Here are two additional crashes that would also fit that statement.

American Airlines 587 also did exactly what the pilot input, but I'm sure you'll dismiss that since there was a mechanical issue with the stabilizer separating as a result of that pilot error.

So how about Air France 447, which we know from the full investigation that they stalled and failed to recover. However I can take an excerpt of the full investigation, and make a sensational headline out of it pretty easy. Even make a statement of "the plane did what it was told to do" would be correct, but how about this. "One pilot prevented the rest of crew from inputting flight controls necessary to recover plane from stall". Technically that is a true statement about the events of AF 447, does it tell anywhere near the full story the investigation told? Nope, but if that came out, people who wanted to fit a certain narrative would latch on and make it about how the the pilot was obviously suicidal which is why he didn't let the other pilots correct the stall. Point being, without the full context and data from the investigation, a single ambigiuous statement means nothing and is not enough to draw conclusions from, as many people in this thread are trying to do.

I don't think anyone here has said they "don't want pilot suicide to be the conclusion", but rahter have taken the approach of lets see what the data actually shows, instead of rushing to a premature conclusion. May I remind you, this last page of discussion came about when you came at LarryJ gloating about how the WSJ essentially confirmed this was pilot suicide and "I told you". And if you want to say the WSJ isn't being sensational, may I again remind you that you quoted the headline of "China Eastern Black Box Points to Intentional Nosedive" when what was actually said by an unofficial source was "the plane did what it was told". If you don't think thats being sensational and trying to click bait, then I don't know what to tell you.​​​​

As I showed above, it's not hard to use parts of the data from an investigation, form a statement that is factually true, but makes it into something sensational that was not actually the case when you look at all the data.

dhuey

It is indeed ongoing, but I don't think anyone should be surprised if the investigators conclude that one of the pilots deliberately caused the crash. At this point, it'd be surprising if the conclusion were anything else.

Sandeep1

Exactly. Some posters just keep repeating the same thing over and over, "let's wait for all the evidence to come out before making a conclusion." FALSE! That may be the correct approach for those charged with investigating what happened but once again, we are speculating about what we think happened on an anonymous message board. There is ZERO reason for us to wait until the facts come out.

mtofell

LOL.... people taking their time to wait for a complete investigation.

The nightly news pulling for each party does exactly the opposite of this and every one (again on BOTH sides of the political aisle) eats it up like candy. I guess I just wouldn't be hitching my wagon to the concept that anonymous posters on FT are all of the sudden taking their time to be objective and timely in forming an opinion.

MacLeanBarrier

Beware of pilots being falsely blamed again like what followed the two B737MAX crashes.

You cannot break open a cockpit door without smuggling onboard a power-tool or explosive to do so, it was tried and failed in December 2014 by Federal Air Marshal instructors tasked to do so. See Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations § 25.795, fully implemented since April 2003 to present day:

Since April 2003, all flight decks (“cockpit”) have been retrofitted to not only be bullet-proof, but resistant to being broken open by a person ramming into them. That same month, the largest pilots union publicly complained:

In July 2003, I told the media that Al Qaeda was plotting to again breach unlocked cockpits “either shortly after takeoff of shortly before landing”. My disclosure was cited in my January 21, 2015 Supreme Court of the United States decision affirming my lower circuit appeals court victories 7 votes to 2.

Published in July 2004, the 9/11 Commission report showed—page 158:

In December 2014, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) / Transportation Security Administration (TSA) directed a group of Federal Air Marshals (FAM) to U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland to attempt to break open the post-April 2003 cockpits—it was impossible without a powered impact-tool or explosives.

The 2015 Germanwings suicidal pilot crash tragedy was not similar to the China Eastern crash last March. The Germanwings pilot calmly and slowly descended the aircraft into the Alps. The China Eastern U.S.-built aircraft violently nose-dived into the ground as if the yoke was taken from one of the pilots and immediately wrenched to the max.

After years of the 9/11 victims, FAMs, flight attendants, and pilots complaining to oversight agencies and Congress about the need for a secondary barrier to protect the cockpit when it needs to be routinely unlocked, a watered-down law was passed in 2018: Barriers are only required to be installed on U.S. aircrafts built after October 2019.

Last year, when it became known that the airlines were still not installing secondary barriers, a former FAM and airline captain told the media that bad-actors will simply target the hundreds of aircrafts that don’t require barriers. https://www.fox46.com/news/local-new...rs-after-9-11/

Over 3 years ago, the president of the largest flight attendants union told Congress that wedging drink-carts and flight attendants using their “own bodies” to protect unlocked cockpits is “absurd”.

Although there are 46 co-sponsors for an “all aircrafts” bill (S. and H.R. 911) the Biden administration doesn’t need to wait for Congress to pass another law to require secondary barriers on all aircrafts. From existing law passed weeks after the 9/11 attacks: The Aviation and Transportation and Security Act of 2001:

“(Sec. 104) Directs the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to: (1) issue an order that prohibits access to the flight deck (cockpit) of aircraft…and requires that such cockpit doors remain locked while the aircraft is in flight, and (2) take such other action, including modification of safety and security procedures and cockpit redesign, as may be necessary to ensure the safety and security of the aircraft.”

During its investigation on my behalf, I explained to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel that any bad-actor knows that the cockpit will soon unlock when flight attendants futilely spin drink-carts sideways into the forward galley/main cabin entry. An ongoing CBS television series exploited this foolery.
To date, my sources in the airline industry and TSA inform me that not a single U.S. aircraft has a secondary barrier. Be leary of the “crazy pilot” theory...

LarryJ

They are wrong. My airline has airplanes with the secondary barrier.