Dear George,

Irrational could be changing, now, what was had claimed before.

Like the NTSB saying in the 1989 NTSB Sioux City Final Report, the ‘probable cause’ to their references in their earlier National Airlines Final Report. That National Report found no probable cause but suggested ‘not understood vibrations’. That Report also drew in three earlier fan explosions as references and citing these as so similar, they were used for “comparison purposes”. That Report also expressly ruled out engine over speed as “pure conjecture”.

But now, in the Sioux City Report, and where the probable cause was a metallurgical defect, the NTSB listed just the National accident, and relabeled the National’s probable cause to be “engine over speed”. Daring not to also re-label those three other references, they now were simply left out. Presto ! – by doing so, the NTSB could now present the Sioux City accident as a ‘once-off’ (only happened once) when – in fact – it was 5th fan disk uncontained explosion (National, and the three others there having ‘no probable cause’ were now not relevant, separated and with no connection to Sioux City).#Irrational could be claiming as factual what scientific testing had ruled out.

In the NTSB’s ValuJet 592 Report, the NTSB claims “one or more” of the oxygen canisters carried in the cargo hold self-ignited and flooded the compartment with oxygen and thus started, and made that fire possible. They didn’t test their theories of self-ignition and the quantities of oxygen released, they had the FAA Technical Center do it. Contrary to all of this, the Tech Center tests said that, even if self-ignited, the canisters heat was only 400 degrees (525 degrees is needed to ignite the packing materials said to have ignited) and that the actual oxygen released is ‘insignificant’ (“local hot spot”). Lest they discredit the NTSB theory, neither of these FAA findings found their way into the NTSB’s Report. The Report also ignored another letter buried in the Docket, a oxygen manufacture’s statement that such self-ignition was unheard of, and “highly unlikely”, and thus the NTSB’s probable cause holds. Lost too was that four months after the loss of ValuJet, the aircraft manufacturer (Douglas) issued a warning to remove the fuselage insulation blankets (keeps the cabin areas warm) because of two earlier Douglas product (MD-88, MD-11) fires and that because of this, the Douglas method for fire testing was now deemed invalid. Four years later the FAA issued an airworthiness directive (AD) saying to check for burning below the cargo area (electric heaters for the static pressure sensors) and then issued yet another saying what Douglas said four year earlier – to remove the (acoustic) insulation blankets because of in-service fires and that the earlier flammability tests were invalid. Simply, ValuJet flight 592 was the precursor and warning to the coming loss of Swissair flight 111 in 1998 but the NTSB’s probable cause with ValuJet served to obscure, or hide, the long-known problems of insulation blankets that failed the flammability tests. Whose tests were these ? – Douglas and Boeing’s – the FAA had taken the manufactures’ word for it all. Now, and years after these two horrific losses, the FAA has just created it’s own flammability standards – ones that none of these two most used insulation blankets could pass. Oh yes ! – the FAA is giving the industry to 2016 to get these flammable materials out because, as they said, ‘of cost considerations to the industry’.

Irrational could be claiming a scenario as unique when dozens of other reports exist.

In the NTSB’s Report on the loss of American Airlines flight 587, the NTSB blamed the American Airline’s pilots aggressive use of the rudder pedals in American’s A-300 model aircraft. But the Report doesn’t address 20 other rudder incidents (largely from the SDR database) where the pedals and rudder where reported to be moving on their own (uncommanded rudder). A few reports called the movements ‘sudden’, and another “violent”. The words “violent” seen in the SDR and also in a Aviation Safety Report filed by pilots was missing in the NTSB in their Accident/Incident database report. “Sudden ” and ‘Violent’ described the scene as the American pilots fought with the aircraft for seconds and then losing all control. Worst yet, 3/4th of these other 20 reports weren’t on American Airline or on the A-300s but rather four other carriers including United, Fed Ex, America West, Air Canada and on different models, A-319s and A-320s.

Irrationally yours,

ANON