Fast News; Slow Conclusions

George’s Point of View

On this blog here, we are in the practice of posting quick news as we find it–the who, what, where, when, why of it all. Details are compressed so that we can present that quick notification of what just happened; and frequently, even the (minimum of two) news sources behind our reports do not agree.

Technically, the reality of any event could be compressed into such a quick format, because there is an ultimate truth which exists. But, it takes years for investigators to get to that ultimate truth. And when it does happen, the “why” is not going to be a single line or paragraph. It is going to be composed of hundreds of pages of documentation of all the facts that are revealed in the course of investigation.

Investigation is a painstaking process at best even if the accidents occur with witnesses and are recorded on video tape and multiple media perspectives such as the the black boxes. (And many times those records do not exist or are lost.) The investigative teams look at the obvious records, and then they go through the wreckage with a fine-toothed comb, examining concrete evidence, and use this evidence to put together the most accurate reconstruction of events possible. And frequently there are opposing perspectives of how something happened. Sometimes of the actual facts of the incident, only a partial percentage of concrete evidence is found; and sometimes it takes months or years to surface. When a new piece of evidence does surface, the entire conclusion may end up revised. (Think of the of the Titanic disaster which occurred in 1912 whose initial investigation closed that same year; and whose rediscovery in 1985, lead to a reinvestigation which actually begun in 1994, and salvage beginning in 1995.) Thus the investigative process can take an indeterminate length of time.

So we do apologize to our readers for putting anything at all in the “why” area of our records, because we well know that the why and how of what happened is simply not going to be concluded for a long, long time. We hope that it is understood that our presentation of the “why” is a cursory summary at best, but that the final conclusion that will be years in coming is the result of conscientious, painstaking, scrupulous investigation by seasoned experts.

To include the featured image in your Twitter Card, please tap or click their icon a second time.

Similar Posts

  • Fly Nigera? Maybe Walk.


    George’s Point of View

    Air Consult International recently audited the safety factors of Nigerian Airlines.

    Only Aero Contractor’s aircraft were all okayed.

    Virgin Nigeria Boeing 767-300 aircraft and Arik Air’s Hawker HS-125 planes were judged to be at risk. In fact, the executive jet charter business is deemed to be a risky business which has not kept up with general aviation safety standards, according to 234Next which somehow obtained the confidential report.

    The report says also that “The operating environment in Nigeria is still a difficult one. Vast areas of the country’s airspace do not have radar coverage and air traffic control is provided by radio and procedural means.”

    Of course, it is public knowledge that many African air carriers are on the European Banned list Non-EU air carriers are vetted against internationally binding safety standards established by the 1944 Chicago Convention and its annexes. Failing criteria include poorly maintained, antiquated or obsolete aircraft and the inability of the airlines involved to rectify their shortcomings and respect safety standards.

    Virgin Nigeria has deteriorated since its original audit, and is now operating with fewer employees and deteriorating standards. Also, HS-125 Executive jets operated by Arik Air got a Category 0 rating in the audit.

    To include the featured image in your Twitter Card, please tap or click their icon a second time.
  • | | |

    The Investigation of Sukhoi Superjet’s Crash holds Answers to Many Questions


    Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
    Contact photographer Egor Naumenko

    Today I read an article saying that the SuperJet that crashed on a promotional flight boils down to one question: pilot or plane? I have to disagree. It is not that simple. It takes a lot of coordinating systems to get a plane in the air, and it usually takes more than one error to take a plane down.

    If there is a problem with the plane, it is most likely the investigation will reveal it, and anything that comes out before the investigation is just speculation. (How much of the investigation will be made public often depends on the transparency policies of government, however.) So I am speculating here.

    Russian Aviation does have a lot riding on the success of this entry into the global aviation marketplace so we know it’s not a paper airplane they folded together in ten seconds or as many months. We suspect that the quality of the teams performing the design, construction, training and troubleshooting that went into the jet’s creation is about par for contemporary jet design. Which is to say the teams are probably very good. The plane has fly-by-wire technology but Sukhoi consults with Boeing on a “step-by-step project management … fully explored and translated into business reality by SCAC.”

    There are a number of problems that are coming to light with this flight.

    • Only the cockpit voice recorder was found. The FDR was not found.
    • The Emergency Locator Transmitter (which goes off, like an airbag, on hard impact) did not go off. The Sukhoi only has one(instead of two, which is the norm) Emergency Locator Transmitter which uses 121.5,203 Mhz. Indonesia receivers operate at 121.5,406 MHZ
    • The Terrain map is recorded in the panes database and shows on a display in vertical and horizontal forms. (Did this plane, which was a substitute plane) have an updated terrain map?)
    • The Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System/EGPWS should have gone off with terrain warnings after descending to 6000 feet, and these warnings should be in the black box. Wait…no black box was found.
    • Was this substitute plane compliant with all airworthiness guidelines and laws?
    • Multifunctional Transport Satellites (MTSAT) data revealed that the weather on the Salak Mountain at the time was bad. Cloud and raincover at Salak Mountain was 100 percent.
    • The Halim-Pelabuhan Ratu flight plan was considered safe, but on descent to 6000 feet, the pilot detoured from the flight plan.

    Sometimes investigations take the easy path and just blame the pilot. I’ve seen happen a hundred times before, when the pilot was blamed simply because he was not longer able to defend his actions. And while pilots are only human, and sometimes do make mistakes, sometimes those mistakes are caused by corporate pressures, pressure to meet deadlines, fuel quotas, scheduling, etc. What is pressure of corporate expectations on a joy flight pilot? Do we know if he was under orders to showcase the plane’s agility, possibly even to make the very move that crashed the plane?

    The pilot, 57 year old Alexander Yablontzev was experienced. He was Sukhoi’s chief test pilot and had spent more than 14 thousand hours flying. After retiring as Lieutenant Colonel from the Russian Air Force, he flew for Transaero and had a lot of hours. But the fatal flight was his first time flying in Indonesia. Did the crash occur because he was flying a strange, possibly wrongly mapped terrain, and recklessly “buzzing” the peak of Mount Salak to show off the plane’s versatility?

    No answers here. I’m just saying that the question is not so simply put.

    To include the featured image in your Twitter Card, please tap or click their icon a second time.
  • | | | | |

    AirBlue in Defiance of Court

    Although the court has ordered compensation, a spokesman of victims told the Peshawar High Court that “AirBlue has communicated to petitioners that compensation will be given to them once they step down and cases are withdrawn from court.” AirBlue also asked for a “universal relief agreement” release form for the 152 companies potentially responsible banning victims from suing.

    The chief justice advised the victims rep to file an application of contempt of court, and promised to continue the case until every heir is compensated.

    In George’s Point of View


    AirBlue should be taking the high road on this, and stop dragging their feet. The tragedy brought to a halt the lives of too many, robbed families of their futures. How can any of these families affected ever have any peace? Why—after already causing the ultimate harm to the victims, and the families of victims—must the airline do everything in their power to make the situation even worse?

    From the moment we are infants who learn to trust our feet to carry us, standing at the sides of our cribs, toddling across our parent’s floors into schools, and adulthood and life beyond, we are only able to stand on our own feet, to walk on our own feet, to negotiate the ground beneath us because we learn a sense of control. We know where the ground is, which way is up. We learn where we can place our feet just so, how to move, to balance, and how to negotiate the rules and laws and physics of the real world so that we can take the next step in our lives, and the next, and the next. All of this occurs because we learn to trust our environment, to trust ourselves in it.

    A tragic event like a plane crash turns our perceptions, our world, our lives inside out. It turns the ground to the ceiling. Our perception of reality is instantly distorted, turning peace and family into an ongoing horror. How can we take the next step when the ground beneath us has been stolen away?

    A tragedy like this shocks everyone–not just the families, but everyone who learns of the event–we are all left with the sense of being a boat unmoored, with the knowledge of a loss of control of the setting and circumstance of our lives. Everyone who learns of a crash like that of Air Blue faces a realization of the frailty of life. The word “shock” is appropriate, for the sensation is not unlike a zap of electricity that sizzles our nerve endings. For those of us who did not lose anyone, we may have an instant jolt, an instant awareness an instant empathy of the depth of grief, horror, pain suffered by survivors; but for survivors that jolt is no instant. It stretches on indefinitely into a future rendered bleak and dead.

    Healing may come; a sense of life may return, or even a sense of carpe diem. But even with healing, there is a loss of innocence, a loss of trust in life, in belief of “the future” because, after all, how grim the future is without our loved ones in it.

    For the families, reparation can never be made. How can they truly be “repaired” if the loved ones they lost can never be returned? The sense of the wholeness of their lives is forever a shattered glass. It is the responsibility for Jet Blue (and even for any of the 152 companies who are indeed partially responsible) to deliver promise instead of excuse, blessing instead of denial, empowerment instead of refusal, expedition instead of delay.

    There is a lot of guilt and responsibility sitting squarely in the lap of Air Blue.

    To include the featured image in your Twitter Card, please tap or click their icon a second time.
  • |

    Aviation Fatigue Regulation should Obey the Law of Common Sense


    In George’s Point of View

    I noticed today that Bloomberg’s Andre Zajac posted an article referencing William Voss, chief executive officer of the Alexandria, Virginia-based Flight Safety Foundation, who said “If anyone wants to advance safety through regulation, it can’t be done without further loss of life.”

    The point he was making is in reference the peculiar mechanism of aviation safety law.

    To go into effect, an aviation safety law must pass a cost-benefit analysis. This analysis is based on how much benefits outweigh cost (i.e. the cost of human lives). Where the problem occurs the recent fatigue rules exempt freight carriers. All-cargo operations are not required to abide by part rule p. 5-6, 15, 259. This is why IPA filed a Petition for Review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in order to challenge FAA?s exclusion of cargo operations from the final flight and duty time rule.

    Although the “FAA generally acknowledges that “factors that lead to fatigue are universal” (Rule p. 259) and that night-time operations (during pilots circadian lows) and operations that cross multiple time zones warrant stricter measures to guard against fatigue” cargo carriers are exempt.”

    Surely the FAA realizes that cargo pilots get just as tired as commercial jet pilots–perhaps more so because so many cargo flights are overnight flights.

    Does it really make sense to exempt all-cargo carrier pilots from fatigue regulations for financial reasons? Shouldn’t a rule governing pilot safety cover all pilots? Is an Airbus, Fokker, Antonov, Boeing 737 or 747 less destructive if it falls from the sky if it only has a payload and crew but no passengers?

    IPA Points.pdf

    Flight Member Duty Requirements.pdf

    FRMP Checklist.pdf

    To include the featured image in your Twitter Card, please tap or click their icon a second time.
  • |

    Air France Airbus Flight 447: Information Withheld

    George’s Point of View

    The next big question is whether or not information is withheld.

    That’s what some families are wondering, and that’s part of the reason why they’ve hired lawyers. Plaintiffs have access to more information; and they want to know what reason Air France has for not replacing a known Airbus problem, the pitot probes (airbus speed sensors.)

    What has been published is error messages based on inconsistent readings taken by the pitot probes.

    To include the featured image in your Twitter Card, please tap or click their icon a second time.

  • Tam Familes, 3 Years Later

    To the families who are now remembering the TAM Airlines Flight 3054 (JJ 3054) tragedy–the Airbus A320 which crashed on landing during rain on unfinished pavement in São Paulo on July 17, 2007…

    To the families–many of whom are my friends…

    July can not come and go without our remembering. As each spring recalls the winter, as each night recalls the day, on July 17, we remember.

    I hope that by this year, you have established some kind of family tradition that helps the family come together to remember.

    It is a privilege to recall the goodness of their lives–whether it be visiting their memorial, lighting a candle, planting a tree, or continuing acts of kindness in their memory. No candle burns long enough nor shines bright enough; no tree stands tall enough nor casts enough shade; no act of kindness is quite benevolent enough. And yet, doing something each year to help us actively remember carries on the act of life. Doing so carries the torch of memory, weaving the thread of yesterday into today and tomorrow. A ritual that one time may be a crutch at a later date will give our hearts wings, a ritual that reminds us that each life stands like the stones of a monument, a foundation sustaining all of us who continue.

    Let the loss not be in vain.

    No tears can bring back a loved one, but I hope that time has brought healing and cooled the pain, leaving only the sweetness of memory.

    My friends, celebrate the memory,
    George Hatcher

    To include the featured image in your Twitter Card, please tap or click their icon a second time.