Warbird Information Exchange
https://www.warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/

Is this a terrorist act or a suicidal death wish?
https://www.warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=38913		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  warbird1 [ Wed Dec 01, 2010 3:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Is this a terrorist act or a suicidal death wish?
Read this story:

http://aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentB ... 9fc5d2ceb&

I have many hours of PIC time in the B737 and something here just sounds fishy. I really don't see how the co-pilot can bump the control yoke to such an extent as to cause a severe nose dive while adjusting his seat. Maybe 3 or 4 times in my decade plus experience of flying this aircraft have I accidentally bumped the yoke while adjusting the seat. The few times during which that happened, it just displaces the yoke slightly and the airplane really doesn't do anything since it is most likely connected to the autopilot. In the one or two times where it disconnected the autopilot, the yoke displacement was such that it only caused a minor altitude deviation which was fully and easily recoverable. The passengers would never know what happened.

In the story, it states that "the report indicated that the pilot had to struggle with the co-pilot to regain control of the airplane, saying the two applied opposite control inputs on the control column." The fact that the co-pilot was applying the wrong control pressure is suspect. How can an airline pilot not know the very most basic aspects of flying which are taught on day 1 of flying school? I just don't get it. It sounds like the co-pilot wanted to crash the aircraft.

I know that some Third World countries have extremely low standards for airline pilots (scary low!) - especially for co-pilots, but this is beyond the pale. Did they hire this co-pilot right off the streets of India and teach him flying "on the job"?

I don't believe this story is accurate at all, there HAS to be more to this. I think that there are only a few possibilities on what happened:





1) The co-pilot had a suicidal death wish and was trying to kill everyone on board. Could it have been a terrorist act? This sounds very reminiscent of the Egypt Air suicide flight from several years ago:

http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2002/aab0201.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990

2) The co-pilot had some kind of medical condition, perhaps a seizure or something which caused his body to stiffen up and place unwanted pressure on the control yoke, thereby placing the aircraft into a dive. This has happened in the past and has precedent.

3) The co-pilot fell asleep during the Captain's absence and when awoken, he "freaked out" and was not able to come to his senses quick enough to react to the airplane.

4) The co-pilot had a Flight Attendant up in the cockpit with him and was "messing around". If they were doing something illicit, the tangled mess of arms and legs could have easily kicked off the autopilot and caused an uncommanded nose dive. In all the accounts I've read, there was no mention of anyone else in the cockpit, so I think this explanation is less likely, unless that information was withheld.

5) The co-pilot had somehow "faked" his way to get hired by "Air India Express" and had no, or little previous flying experience. In this day and age, I would like to think that would be nearly impossible to do, but given the location, it might be possible. This has precedent as well, as depicted in the movie "Catch Me if You Can", where Frank Abagnale faked his way into flying airliners:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale

6) The co-pilot "bought" all of his ratings and qualifications without really proving his skills and abilities of flying airplanes. This has precedent as well, with many flying schools "selling" ratings and qualifications, especially to those pilots from Third World countries. Like it or not, this has and still happens, though it is becoming less common, fortunately. Here in the U.S., the FAA has cracked down severely on such schools. I don't know about overseas training or training in India.

7) The co-pilot had decompression sickness where he suffered brain damage due to scuba diving before flying. This would account for his reaction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompression_sickness




It's stories like this that confirm my personal standard of never flying on most Third World countries' airlines. The standards, training and experience levels, in most cases, just don't compare to that of First World countries. There are exceptions, of course, but by and large, I avoid flying on them for the most part.

I believe we are not being told the whole story here. My position is that the Indian aviation authority has purposely withheld information from the press regarding what happened here with the hopes of not killing the Indian airline industry with bad publicity. From a public relations standpoint, the excuse they offer is one that is "palatable" to the uninformed general public. A terrorist or suicidal death wish is not.

Heads need to roll over this. The co-pilot should definitely be fired (unless this was a physiological/health issue) and an in-depth criminal investigation needs to be completed to see if any wrong-doing was accomplished, both with the co-pilot himself as well as everyone that trained or certificated him. This should NOT have happened.

Comments or anything I left out?
Page 1 of 1 All times are UTC - 5 hours
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
https://www.phpbb.com/