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Dark Waters of Self-Delusion: The crash of Transair flight 810

175 points by rwmj 3y ago

woliveirajr 3y ago
> "Of course, the reason was because First Officer Ryan had set both thrust levers to idle, and because of the control handover, no one pushed them back up again." > "In fact, with both engines at idle, the asymmetric thrust had disappeared, and it was trivial to keep the plane straight and level." > "First Officer Ryan even seemingly forgot that the left engine was at idle power because he put it there himself not even two minutes earlier." And here we have the primary cause of all the confusion. It was not trivial to keep the plane at level, if engines had no power. The "sexism", the "given their earlier conversation, he surely knew where arguing with Okai would get him (which was nowhere)" aren't the cause here.
- WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
  I’m inclined to cite not so much “sexism” as “32-minute rant”. For all I care, it could be tabs vs spaces, with the same outcome.
  - JJMcJ 3y ago
    An atmosphere of confusion and hostility.
  - blamazon 3y ago
    > As First Officer Ryan listened, interjecting only occasionally to affirm his captain So, I think the sexism is important to the explanatory narrative because it demonstrates the scale of the power imbalance between the captain and the first officer - the captain sat there and blabbed for 32 minutes including something so objectionable as musing about how if annoying women get murdered, it's their fault. Quoth the article: > “These are the kind of women you don’t wanna get married to,” he said. “You know, some men, they lose their temper and the next thing you know, the wife is dead, you know… they start punching them and kicking them, and they lost their minds, you know… they kill the woman… it’s the woman who can drive you to do crazy stuff, you know?” But the first officer was not empowered to object to that - not empowered to object for sexism and murder, not for tabs vs spaces, not for anything. There was, therefore, possibly nothing the captain could have said in that 32 minutes that the first officer would have objected to.
    - kortilla 3y ago
      Or the first officer just didn’t care. He didn’t call it up in the post interviews as something that he felt uncomfortable about. Sexism is shockingly rampant.
      - eastbound 3y ago
        [flagged]
        foobarbecue 3y ago
        Dang, that really sucks about your formative experiences. I'm sorry for you and hope you don't have to spend the rest of your life harboring a secret hatred for half of all humans. I'm guessing that at some level you realize women are people and it's not healthy or sensible to despise them as a group, but it's not an opinion you can just "fix". Have you tried counselling for this? And frankly, yeah, it's disqualifying. Having read this comment, I wouldn't consider hiring you for any position or voluntarily working with you at all until I had some assurance that you're able to transcend this issue. (n.b. I'm a straight, cis, white, man)
        jacquesm 3y ago
        > I personally despise women At some point you have to deal with the fact that your formative years are not an excuse for holding a life-long grudge against such a large group of people. This makes no sense at all.
        bbor 3y ago
        I’m having trouble parsing your comment. What behavior falls under “men being humans”? Like, “we’re all flawed” or the killing-your-wife idea from the article? Also obviously on board with the other comments explaining that bad childhood experiences are not an excuse to form beliefs you know to be biased and false.
      - cat_plus_plus 3y ago
        You don't think women might trade tirades about men when having off the record conversation with just two of them in the cockpit? People vent, it doesn't mean much by itself. If he had a fight with a male copilot, he may have had a different tirade.
- foobarbecue 3y ago
  No, sexism didn't cause the accident, but I'm glad the article brought it up. Those comments excusing men who murder their annoying wives were horrifying and frankly I think anyone who says stuff like that in the workplace (in this case, violating sterile cockpit) deserves to be exposed publicly (especially a divorce lawyer). And, it is relevant context, given the kerffufle about whether to follow the checklist and how flustered Okai became.
  - TheHappyOddish 3y ago
    > Those comments excusing men who murder their annoying wives were horrifying and frankly I think anyone who says stuff like that in the workplace (in this case, violating sterile cockpit) deserves to be exposed publicly (especially a divorce lawyer). These are obviously horrible things to say, but people "vent" all the time to their friends saying things they don't mean. I've head women who recently got broken up with say all men should die, people say they wish their manager got hit by a bus, etc. "Excusing murder" seems like the worst-faith interpretation here, and anyone who vents their angry thoughts being "publicly exposed" seems like it would do a lot more harm than good.
  - kortilla 3y ago
    > And, it is relevant context, given the kerffufle about whether to follow the checklist and how flustered Okai became. No it’s not. The call to not follow the checklist came from the first officer (focusing on flying the plane was higher priority). The captain didn’t challenge him on it because he agreed with the call. There was no “kerffufle” or even disagreement.
    - foobarbecue 3y ago
      I called it a kerfuffle because they started the engine shutdown checklist and then abandoned it after a couple of items, which seems pretty kerfuffly to me. I thought the discussion with Moore was relevant because that argument had been about Okai not doing procedures by the book, and because Okai has been previously reprimanded for failing to follow an engine shutdown checklist.
  - 3y ago
- lisasays 3y ago
  The article clearly identifies stress (and potential power/trust issues between the pilots), not sexism per se as a potential causative factor. As per other comments in this thread, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36591776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36591776
- PhasmaFelis 3y ago
  > The "sexism" Not sure why the scare quotes. What he said was definitely sexist and doesn't need defending; and no one's claimed his sexism was the cause of the accident, so that argument doesn't need refuting either.
- ricardobeat 3y ago
  The idling was not the cause either - the problem as the report points out is the 1m40s the captain spent trying to talk to the tower, instead of going through the checklist to identify the failed engine. That was before they were set to idle.
foobarbecue 3y ago
Excellent article. Taught me about the "sterile cockpit rule," which I think might be really useful at my work. Sometimes people start chatting at critical moments during operations and I think I might introduce the concept of "sterile cockpit" during those moments to get people's focus back.
- zgluck 3y ago
  Haven't been involved in realtime shit-hits-the-fan ops for some time now (phew). Are devops/SRE/etc people using voice comms these days during high impact incidents or is text (irc/slack/etc) still preferred?
  - foobarbecue 3y ago
    Dunno. I'm talking about working Curiosity and Ingenuity ops (Mars).
    - zgluck 3y ago
      :-) Cool. I guess I assumed you were deploying overly complicated glorified CRUD apps like (most of) the rest of us. So what do you use for comms during high impact incidents? Are you all in the same room?
      - foobarbecue 3y ago
        https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/file.xhtml?fileId=74511&version=1.0 https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/file.xhtml?fileId=74511&versi... is still pretty accurate. Uplink is still mostly work from home for Curiosity and Ingenuity. And as it happens... I do CRUD web apps too, offically about 20% of my time. Including that one. And for those we use text.
        zgluck 3y ago
        It would be really interesting to learn how you value text vs voice comms, for instance.
kortilla 3y ago
Warning: the author makes significant conclusions that are not corroborated by the NTSB. All of the commentary on the violation of the sterile cockpit rule and argument before departure are irrelevant to the actual cause, despite the author stating otherwise. There are some great lessons to learn from this (better flight control handovers during emergency, double checking which engine failed, applying thrust to both engines when nothing else works). The violation of the sterile cockpit rule and the asshole nature of the captain were not factors here as determined by the NTSB. The first officer gave him bad info and he accepted it. That is not a failure mode caused by being obstinate nor a “team player”.
- BoxFour 3y ago
  The author explicitly points out the nonappearance of the captains rant within the NTSB report. The author points out that NTSB report does allude to the captain's many instances of dubious judgment during the emergency. The author also highlights the protracted diatribe spanning thirty minutes, transpiring even during the hallowed period of the "sterile cockpit," implying a discernible lack of concentration on the imminent mission. The captain's unclear headspace became evident by his protracted tirade. He was likely mentally unfit for the task of captaining that day, and the rant was evidence of it.
  - halestock 3y ago
    My guess is that the NTSB wants to focus on causes that they can issue guidance for, rather than assign blame. Sure, the captain's state of mind most likely contributed to the incident, but it also revealed a couple of issues that warranted new guidance, which is a big part of what the reports are for.
    - kortilla 3y ago
      No, this is absolutely incorrect. The NTSB focuses on the cause, regardless of whether or not guidance can be issued based on it. The guidance itself will be focused on relevance, but the root cause is never tainted that way. If the NTSB thought the rant had absolutely anything to do with this, they would have mentioned it.
geocrasher 3y ago
Although he hasn't yet covered this incident, lovers of these kinds of breakdowns may enjoy Mentour Pilot. https://www.youtube.com/@MentourPilot/videos https://www.youtube.com/@MentourPilot/videos His accident breakdowns are fantastic, as are those by Juan Brown: https://www.youtube.com/@blancolirio/videos https://www.youtube.com/@blancolirio/videos
mschuster91 3y ago
For me, the biggest takeaway is "never fly under stress" - which can be dangerous even when flying small drones! The problem is when corporate culture, and be it because of understaffing or penalizing people for calling out, disincentivizes people from following that basic principle. A side note: The fact that such absurd crew confusion is still possible in 2021 doesn't exactly warm me up to the thought of twin-jets crossing over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
- icegreentea2 3y ago
  If by confusion you mean getting the failed engine wrong, there are already technical mitigations that exist (as noted by the article). They just haven't been retrofitted to ancient 737s.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Even to the latest 737s in fact. Boeing has successfully lobbied for an exception to having to install EICAS systems specifically to avoid having to re-train and re-certify pilots. And this was after they murdered hundreds of people in order to achieve the same goal with the 737MAX. The author mentions this in another article about the infamous British Midland flight: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/lefts-rights-and-wrongs-the-crash-of-british-midland-flight-92-or-the-kegworth-air-disaster-a3989feb4d3a#:%7E:text=On%20the%208th%20of%20January,height%20of%20just%20900%20feet https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/lefts-rights-and-wrongs-... > And yet, despite this fact, the Boeing 737 still does not come with an EICAS. 737s are rolling off the assembly line at this very moment without the system. This is because adding an EICAS would disrupt the continuity between the various 737 models, forcing pilots to receive separate type ratings for 737s with EICAS and those without. This feature of the 737 series is so fundamental that when a rule requiring EICAS on new models certified in the US came into effect at the end of 2022, Boeing and 737 operators lobbied Congress to grant an exemption, allowing the FAA to finish certifying the new 737 MAX 10 and MAX 7 without an EICAS. The pressure was immense: after all, major airlines didn’t want to buy the MAX 10 and MAX 7 if their pilots would have to acquire a new type rating to fly them, and if the airlines weren’t going to buy the models, then Boeing wasn’t going to build them, resulting in job losses and a shortage of narrow body airliners on the market. As a result, in the immediate future, 737s will continue to fly around the world without the benefit of EICAS, even though nearly every other modern airliner now has the system. There were of course compelling reasons behind the exemption, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a trade-off. Of course those arguments are BS anyway, the airlines are not going to stop buying airliners just because of some type rating requirements. It's not as if they have any choice. Boeing is just worried they'll buy Airbus instead.
Animats 3y ago
Shutting off the good engine after an engine failure is an error that has caused at least three previous crashes.[1][2][3] It can be surprisingly difficult to tell which engine failed. [1] https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2021/01/21/broken-fan-blade-shutdown-of-wrong-engine-led-to-fatal-e-11-crash-in-afghanistan-report-says/ https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2021/01/21... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegworth_air_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegworth_air_disaster [3] https://aerossurance.com/safety-management/bua-bac11-g-asjj-human-factors/ https://aerossurance.com/safety-management/bua-bac11-g-asjj-...
- Animats 3y ago
  Of those, 1) was a USAF aircraft, a 2-engine Bombardier aircraft. Despite the name, this is a small civilian jetliner. "Loud bang" and engine failure in cruise. "Because the warning signal did not immediately light up for the catastrophically damaged left engine — it took several seconds for its RPMs to drop below the point that would have triggered the signal — the crew didn’t immediately know which engine had blown. The pilots thought the right engine had experienced the emergency, leading them to shut it down instead of the left one. The shutdown meant the plane now had no engines operating, and happened relatively quickly, about 24 seconds after the fan blade broke." A restart of the wrong engine was attempted while the good engine was kept shut down. 2) is a well known disaster. "The aircraft was on a scheduled flight from London Heathrow Airport to Belfast International Airport when a fan blade broke in the left engine, disrupting the air conditioning and filling the cabin with smoke. The pilots believed this indicated a fault in the right engine, since earlier models of the 737 ventilated the cabin from the right, and they were unaware that the 737-400 used a different system. The pilots mistakenly shut down the functioning engine. They selected full thrust from the malfunctioning one and this increased its fuel supply, causing it to catch fire. Of the 126 people aboard, 47 died and 74 sustained serious injuries." 3) is from 1969, and is something of a period piece. This plane had three pilots; two in seats with controls, and a third one as "pilot in command" supervising but with no access to the controls. His comment, afterward, was “It is perhaps not quite correct to be ultimately responsible for the safe handling of an aircraft in an emergency unless occupying a seat from where this can be done. I feel, somehow, that had I been occupying either of the pilot’s seats I might have reacted differently; on the other hand, it is possible that had I not been present the two pilots might also have reacted differently.” That strange setup may have been a holdover from the British early WWII "aircraft commander" concept. This was borrowed from naval practice, where the officer of the deck tells the junior people who are actually driving the ship what to do. It turned out to be a terrible idea in the air, where things happened faster. But somehow British United Airways was doing it in 1969. Nobody questioned the pilot in command deciding, wrongly, which engine had failed.
cat_plus_plus 3y ago
That's some major scapegoating of flight crew, when their airline clearly has not maintained the plane properly and caused engine failure in the first place and airport failed to provide adequate ground control support. Easy to be a backsit driver/pilot when you are not flying a damaged plane over the ocean with nobody acknowledging that you have an emergency. Ideally sure, pilot and first office would have done everything by the book and maybe landed at airport safely. But life is never ideal, and I wonder if Transair offered a lot of paid time on simulator to periodically review every likely emergency scenario. Copilot saved captain's life by directing rescue crew to leave him alone in the water and focus on captain first, so I don't think they are horrible human beings.
- krisoft 3y ago
  > so I don't think they are horrible human beings I don’t think anybody thinks that they are horrible human beings. The article is certainly not implying that in any way about the copilot. The captain clearly has failings, as described by the article, but it is not implied in any way that he is a terrible human being. > some major scapegoating of flight crew I disagree. They had a perfectly flyable airplane and crashed it almost killing themselves. That is not good airmanship. Yes, all of those other things were also factors. I totaly understand that. The point of hearing stories like this is to understand what went wrong and how we can learn from them to not commit the same mistakes. Zero scapegoating.
- wsostt 3y ago
  I don’t think the pilots are being scapegoated when they ditched a working plane in the ocean. There were a lot of things that led them there and a lot of reasons it happened, but this crash was avoidable with proper procedures.
- rlanday 3y ago
  > That's some major scapegoating of flight crew, when their airline clearly has not maintained the plane properly and caused engine failure in the first place and airport failed to provide adequate ground control support. Most disasters result from multiple things going wrong together, hence the importance of addressing them individually.
ShroudedNight 3y ago
Based on the radio recordings, I wonder if the Captain would have had more immediate success with ATC if he had explicitly used the [seemingly?] recommended 'mayday' phraseology.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Yeah this comes up often as "mayday" is clear and short compared to the more usual American phraseology "I am declaring an emergency." I'm not sure why US avaiation has not changed that, but they have a lingo and seem to stick with it.
  - Vecr 3y ago
    US Pilots do use Mayday, but I'm not sure what the percent is. If you are squawking the emergency code you should at least use Pan-Pan, right?
- sitharus 3y ago
  It’s not a mayday situation as there isn’t any immediate danger for a single failed engine. The captain should have used the phrase ‘pan-pan’, which indicates an urgent situation but no immediate danger to life or aircraft. Also squawk 7700 as said in the article, which highlights the aircraft on modern radar systems.
  - somerandomqaguy 3y ago
    Eh, PANPAN is fine, but AFAIK the FAA and it's international counterparts views the use of MAYDAY in even a single engine failure as entirely appropriate. Partly because the pilot cannot be certain that a single engine failure hasn't caused secondary damage, or that it's a not symptom of another deeper problem (i.e. running out of fuel). And in part because the FAA doesn't want pilots to hesitate calling MAYDAY and potentially making the situation worse by staying in the air longer then they absolutely have to.
bloomingeek 3y ago
Maintenance, Maintenance, Maintenance! Many things bother me about this avoidable crash, but maintenance is the worst. Engine rotor blades have to be x-rayed for cracks and corrosion on a semi-regular basis. The company must be held responsible, just imagine the loss of live if this would have happened over landed areas. Also, the gauges tell the story, the captain should have verified what the 1st officer told him, especially with an engine failure. Thankfully, both survived.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
tantalor 3y ago
Why can't instruments clearly and directly indicate engine failure? It worked in Podracer!
- londons_explore 3y ago
  Detecting engine failure isn't trivial - a failed engine can still spin pretty fast with airflow going through it. Modern predictive techniques could easily detect engine failure (ie. "Here is the history of the last 10 seconds of the throttle position, and here is the current RPM, is the engine failed?"). But aircraft designs don't like to use such techniques - they prefer simple thresholds. And with simple thresholds, a bunch of engine failures can get missed, especially partial failures.
  - 7952 3y ago
    I think the is a big issue across aviation. The system just gives up and dumps the problem on the pilot who then has to parse conflicting data quickly. I wonder if it would be better to treat this more like a navigation problem. Fuse together different data with known error levels and show the pilot the result. And include more solid state sensors like GPS, gravity sensors, and cameras in the mix.
- EdwardDiego 3y ago
  > As I mentioned in my article on the British Midland crash, the most effective way to prevent this kind of accident is by fitting airplanes with an Engine Indicating and Crew Alerting System, known as EICAS, or similar equipment. These systems automatically monitor engine performance and, should an engine fail, will produce a message informing the pilots which engine is the cause of the problem, dramatically reducing the probability of an incorrect identification. However, retrofitting the systems onto older 737s, which are most at risk, is not required and may be impractical or impossible.
  - tantalor 3y ago
    Thanks for copying that snippet! It's probably the most interesting paragraph in the whole article. I'm baffled why it was left to very end. This should be the lead!
cyberax 3y ago
It's a good article. But at the same time, the UI design of the EPR readouts just sucks. It's hard to say whether the engine is idling or at the full power with a simple glance. And the fix would have been easy, just add a limiter at the 12 o'clock position and rescale the gauge accordingly.
zorrolovsky 3y ago
I really liked the story and the way it was told. I could sit there with the guys and experience their stress and panic. The point about sexism was unnecessary and detracting to the story. It's yet another sad sign of how political propaganda infects absolutely everything. I long the days where you could simply enjoy a story without having to endure references to any kind of cultural war (sex wars, identity politics, etc), or narcissistic virtue signaling from an author. Yes, sexism bad. Yes, woman were unfairly treated at some points in history. Yes, people should have sex to whatever consenting adult entity they prefer. But do we really need to plaster every single wall in life with those messages? To me it's just tiring. I need places where the relentless totalitarian narrative "our tribe good, that tribe bad" stops and I can simply enjoy life and smell some flowers. I can't help but think the author craved a tap on the back, and wanted to send a message saying: "please like me because I'm one of your gang. I despise sexism and this story is factual evidence that the rival gang (sexists) are incompetent assholes". But using the HN ethos, I should assume a positive intention from the author. Such a reading would be: "women are good intuitive thinkers, and the woman who walked out that flight knew the pilot was not competent". But if that's the intention, there's no logic or arguments to support it in the story.
- naikrovek 3y ago
  > The point about sexism was unnecessary and detracting to the story. It's yet another sad sign of how political propaganda infects absolutely everything. disagree. it goes to show what was on the Captain's mind when he should have been focusing on preparing for flight, and getting his head in the game. he was obviously rubbed raw by the interaction, and blamed it on sexist things rather than considering that maybe he had a hand in the outcome of the conversation with the woman in question. this lack of ownership of one's own actions as demonstrated by the captain was apparent throughout the entire article and was a factor in the crash, as described.
  - brightlancer 3y ago
    > he was obviously rubbed raw by the interaction, and blamed it on sexist things rather than considering that maybe he had a hand in the outcome of the conversation with the woman in question. If we consider that the captain spoke for 32 minutes, I don't think a half dozen quotes are necessarily representative of the 32 minutes. It's possible he spent 30 minutes talking about her poor technical performance and poor teamwork with other pilots, and 2 minutes making sexist remarks. But sexist remarks are much more sensational, plays to certain prejudices, and are more likely to drive clicks than criticism (perhaps warranted) of someone's professional behavior.
expertentipp 3y ago
Sometimes the best decision is to turn around and walk away, and burn that bloody bridge behind. Better actually if that people will avoid you in the future.
AdrianB1 3y ago
I read the article in disbelief. It sounds more like a dumb-and-dumber situation than a real situation in a cockpit with decently competent pilots, especially the captain is depicted as totally incompetent, from the initial radio communication to the rest of the adventure. It sounds like the kind of pilot than can barely fly in regular conditions and the co-pilot that is part time doing the job and not too well. I am not a commercial pilot, just GA pilot for 10 years. I know many cases of incompetence in GA, but never in commercial aviation, this is not how trained pilots should fly a 737 and I have no idea how they got the permission to do it.
- nottorp 3y ago
  > is depicted Based on this article the keyword is "is depicted". It starts with an ad hominem attack on the captain. And I didn't even see many mentions or quotes from the actual accident report. I did stop half way because it's simply too long for how much I care about the subject. I won't research it further either so I'll just end up with the pushing an agenda impression.
- prmph 3y ago
  I don't think the captain was that incompetent; I was surprised after reading the article , how there was little in it to support the veiled attacks on the captain it started off with. > I know many cases of incompetence in GA, but never in commercial aviation You mean you have never heard of commercial aviation pilots making mistakes? This can't be right.
  - AdrianB1 3y ago
    NTSB conclusion released a few days ago practically calls the crew incompetent (with nice words: "crew's ineffective crew resource management, high workload and stress").
  - AdrianB1 3y ago
    I heard about commercial pilots making mistakes, but not to be plain incompetent. Reading the article, even the transcription of the radio conversation is one example - I don't need the author of the article explain what is wrong there, I know it myself (2 weeks ago I had to renew my radio operator license, so I just had the refresher course). I don't even have too high standards for pilots, it is a basic expectations the airlines to hire and maintain competent pilots that will not crash planes on their first incident. This is because most of the plane accidents I know personally are either pilot error or technical problems that could be avoided or mitigated by any decent pilot.
1970-01-01 3y ago
Other than the clickbait headline, this was a very good article. And it turns out the author's take of a 'self-delusion' crew was irrelevant to the crash. The pilot got communicate, navigate, aviate totally backwards, which cost critical checklist time, but that wasn't the biggest failure. It was the first officer's bad engine analysis that led them into the sea.
rodelrod 3y ago
Captain Okai should be in the Airplane cockpit with Roger Murdock, Victor Basta and Clarence Oveur [0]. Missed opportunity. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OBZf0QdKdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OBZf0QdKdE
1970-01-01 3y ago
>(Public service announcement: if a husband murders his wife because he thinks she’s annoying, that’s the husband’s fault. I shouldn’t need to say this.) I'll tap this box open. The author goes out of their way to paint a bad picture of the pilot by switching "crazy" to "think's she's annoying". He absolutely should not rant about this on the company plane, however if a murderer has any history of mental illness, yes, a woman can literally drive you crazy. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/temporary_insanity https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/temporary_insanity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insanity_defense#Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insanity_defense#Usage
Admiral_C 3y ago
Author of the article here. Reading this thread, some commenters get it, but others have not. The sexism doesn't have anything to do with the crash, nor did I claim that it does. So why did I even bring it up? This is probably news to most of you, but I'm a woman, and let me tell you, when we hear a man say something like that, we pay attention. I was shocked when I read his statements in the CVR, and felt it would be eye-opening for some people to hear them. Nor is it character assassination to point out that the things he said are wrong and contribute to a hostile working environment for women. What could—not DID, but COULD—have actually contributed to the crash was the stress that the captain was under as a result of the incident. The hypothesis that he was stressed before the flight is supported by the length of his discussion of this one stressful topic, extending into periods where off-topic conversation was banned. Note that I specifically characterize this as a hypothesis supported by evidence; I didn't portray it as established fact, and I specifically pointed out that I was going beyond the NTSB report. However, the NTSB report doesn't say anything one way or the other about whether this was a potential cause of the captain's stress (stress which the report did identify as a contributing factor). I'm not contradicting anything in the report, but rather highlighting a connection which really stood out to me, from my particular perspective. So to those who say "if it was a problem, the NTSB would have mentioned it," is it not equally true to say "if it wasn't a problem, the NTSB would have refuted it?" To me, silence on the topic leaves the door open to independent analysis. If the NTSB didn't want people to make this connection, they should have addressed it. Lastly, I want to mention that I actually contacted the relevant NTSB investigators for comment before publishing this, but they declined interviews.
- reso 3y ago
  That one quote from the pilot is so egregious, I can't imagine it not being at least referenced in any long-form treatment of this report.
  - cutemonster 3y ago
    It seems problematic with pilots who get into arguments with others, based on those other people's gender, or in other cases maybe skin color or whatever. And who in that way make themselves upset, so they cannot concentrate on flying! Sexist pilots are an air safety risk? It's interesting in another way too: I think the crazy thing he said, suggests that he is a bit dumb. (Both for having such thoughts, and for sharing them with others, whilst being recorded.) Which is of relevance, I think. And might indicate that there was a recruitment problem as well. (The airline company hires dumb and sexist pilots?)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
eternityforest 3y ago
It's not quite a typical case of left-right confusion, but I wonder if it could be partially related. There seems to be a very wide range of abilities there. Some people seem to always know the difference, but for some of us we're giving directions by pointing, because a turn is coming up and we can't figure it out in time which is which. I wonder if the people involved had trouble with direction and mirroring in general?

175 points by rwmj 3y ago

> "Of course, the reason was because First Officer Ryan had set both thrust levers to idle, and because of the control handover, no one pushed them back up again." > "In fact, with both engines at idle, the asymmetric thrust had disappeared, and it was trivial to keep the plane straight and level." > "First Officer Ryan even seemingly forgot that the left engine was at idle power because he put it there himself not even two minutes earlier." And here we have the primary cause of all the confusion. It was not trivial to keep the plane at level, if engines had no power. The "sexism", the "given their earlier conversation, he surely knew where arguing with Okai would get him (which was nowhere)" aren't the cause here.

WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
I’m inclined to cite not so much “sexism” as “32-minute rant”. For all I care, it could be tabs vs spaces, with the same outcome.
- JJMcJ 3y ago
  An atmosphere of confusion and hostility.
- blamazon 3y ago
  > As First Officer Ryan listened, interjecting only occasionally to affirm his captain So, I think the sexism is important to the explanatory narrative because it demonstrates the scale of the power imbalance between the captain and the first officer - the captain sat there and blabbed for 32 minutes including something so objectionable as musing about how if annoying women get murdered, it's their fault. Quoth the article: > “These are the kind of women you don’t wanna get married to,” he said. “You know, some men, they lose their temper and the next thing you know, the wife is dead, you know… they start punching them and kicking them, and they lost their minds, you know… they kill the woman… it’s the woman who can drive you to do crazy stuff, you know?” But the first officer was not empowered to object to that - not empowered to object for sexism and murder, not for tabs vs spaces, not for anything. There was, therefore, possibly nothing the captain could have said in that 32 minutes that the first officer would have objected to.
  - kortilla 3y ago
    Or the first officer just didn’t care. He didn’t call it up in the post interviews as something that he felt uncomfortable about. Sexism is shockingly rampant.
    - eastbound 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - foobarbecue 3y ago
        Dang, that really sucks about your formative experiences. I'm sorry for you and hope you don't have to spend the rest of your life harboring a secret hatred for half of all humans. I'm guessing that at some level you realize women are people and it's not healthy or sensible to despise them as a group, but it's not an opinion you can just "fix". Have you tried counselling for this? And frankly, yeah, it's disqualifying. Having read this comment, I wouldn't consider hiring you for any position or voluntarily working with you at all until I had some assurance that you're able to transcend this issue. (n.b. I'm a straight, cis, white, man)
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        > I personally despise women At some point you have to deal with the fact that your formative years are not an excuse for holding a life-long grudge against such a large group of people. This makes no sense at all.
      - bbor 3y ago
        I’m having trouble parsing your comment. What behavior falls under “men being humans”? Like, “we’re all flawed” or the killing-your-wife idea from the article? Also obviously on board with the other comments explaining that bad childhood experiences are not an excuse to form beliefs you know to be biased and false.
    - cat_plus_plus 3y ago
      You don't think women might trade tirades about men when having off the record conversation with just two of them in the cockpit? People vent, it doesn't mean much by itself. If he had a fight with a male copilot, he may have had a different tirade.
foobarbecue 3y ago
No, sexism didn't cause the accident, but I'm glad the article brought it up. Those comments excusing men who murder their annoying wives were horrifying and frankly I think anyone who says stuff like that in the workplace (in this case, violating sterile cockpit) deserves to be exposed publicly (especially a divorce lawyer). And, it is relevant context, given the kerffufle about whether to follow the checklist and how flustered Okai became.
- TheHappyOddish 3y ago
  > Those comments excusing men who murder their annoying wives were horrifying and frankly I think anyone who says stuff like that in the workplace (in this case, violating sterile cockpit) deserves to be exposed publicly (especially a divorce lawyer). These are obviously horrible things to say, but people "vent" all the time to their friends saying things they don't mean. I've head women who recently got broken up with say all men should die, people say they wish their manager got hit by a bus, etc. "Excusing murder" seems like the worst-faith interpretation here, and anyone who vents their angry thoughts being "publicly exposed" seems like it would do a lot more harm than good.
- kortilla 3y ago
  > And, it is relevant context, given the kerffufle about whether to follow the checklist and how flustered Okai became. No it’s not. The call to not follow the checklist came from the first officer (focusing on flying the plane was higher priority). The captain didn’t challenge him on it because he agreed with the call. There was no “kerffufle” or even disagreement.
  - foobarbecue 3y ago
    I called it a kerfuffle because they started the engine shutdown checklist and then abandoned it after a couple of items, which seems pretty kerfuffly to me. I thought the discussion with Moore was relevant because that argument had been about Okai not doing procedures by the book, and because Okai has been previously reprimanded for failing to follow an engine shutdown checklist.
- 3y ago
lisasays 3y ago
The article clearly identifies stress (and potential power/trust issues between the pilots), not sexism per se as a potential causative factor. As per other comments in this thread, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36591776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36591776
PhasmaFelis 3y ago
> The "sexism" Not sure why the scare quotes. What he said was definitely sexist and doesn't need defending; and no one's claimed his sexism was the cause of the accident, so that argument doesn't need refuting either.
ricardobeat 3y ago
The idling was not the cause either - the problem as the report points out is the 1m40s the captain spent trying to talk to the tower, instead of going through the checklist to identify the failed engine. That was before they were set to idle.

foobarbecue 3y ago

Excellent article. Taught me about the "sterile cockpit rule," which I think might be really useful at my work. Sometimes people start chatting at critical moments during operations and I think I might introduce the concept of "sterile cockpit" during those moments to get people's focus back.

zgluck 3y ago
Haven't been involved in realtime shit-hits-the-fan ops for some time now (phew). Are devops/SRE/etc people using voice comms these days during high impact incidents or is text (irc/slack/etc) still preferred?
- foobarbecue 3y ago
  Dunno. I'm talking about working Curiosity and Ingenuity ops (Mars).
  - zgluck 3y ago
    :-) Cool. I guess I assumed you were deploying overly complicated glorified CRUD apps like (most of) the rest of us. So what do you use for comms during high impact incidents? Are you all in the same room?
    - foobarbecue 3y ago
      https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/file.xhtml?fileId=74511&version=1.0 https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/file.xhtml?fileId=74511&versi... is still pretty accurate. Uplink is still mostly work from home for Curiosity and Ingenuity. And as it happens... I do CRUD web apps too, offically about 20% of my time. Including that one. And for those we use text.
      - zgluck 3y ago
        It would be really interesting to learn how you value text vs voice comms, for instance.

kortilla 3y ago

Warning: the author makes significant conclusions that are not corroborated by the NTSB. All of the commentary on the violation of the sterile cockpit rule and argument before departure are irrelevant to the actual cause, despite the author stating otherwise. There are some great lessons to learn from this (better flight control handovers during emergency, double checking which engine failed, applying thrust to both engines when nothing else works). The violation of the sterile cockpit rule and the asshole nature of the captain were not factors here as determined by the NTSB. The first officer gave him bad info and he accepted it. That is not a failure mode caused by being obstinate nor a “team player”.

BoxFour 3y ago
The author explicitly points out the nonappearance of the captains rant within the NTSB report. The author points out that NTSB report does allude to the captain's many instances of dubious judgment during the emergency. The author also highlights the protracted diatribe spanning thirty minutes, transpiring even during the hallowed period of the "sterile cockpit," implying a discernible lack of concentration on the imminent mission. The captain's unclear headspace became evident by his protracted tirade. He was likely mentally unfit for the task of captaining that day, and the rant was evidence of it.
- halestock 3y ago
  My guess is that the NTSB wants to focus on causes that they can issue guidance for, rather than assign blame. Sure, the captain's state of mind most likely contributed to the incident, but it also revealed a couple of issues that warranted new guidance, which is a big part of what the reports are for.
  - kortilla 3y ago
    No, this is absolutely incorrect. The NTSB focuses on the cause, regardless of whether or not guidance can be issued based on it. The guidance itself will be focused on relevance, but the root cause is never tainted that way. If the NTSB thought the rant had absolutely anything to do with this, they would have mentioned it.

geocrasher 3y ago

Although he hasn't yet covered this incident, lovers of these kinds of breakdowns may enjoy Mentour Pilot. https://www.youtube.com/@MentourPilot/videos https://www.youtube.com/@MentourPilot/videos His accident breakdowns are fantastic, as are those by Juan Brown: https://www.youtube.com/@blancolirio/videos https://www.youtube.com/@blancolirio/videos

mschuster91 3y ago

For me, the biggest takeaway is "never fly under stress" - which can be dangerous even when flying small drones! The problem is when corporate culture, and be it because of understaffing or penalizing people for calling out, disincentivizes people from following that basic principle. A side note: The fact that such absurd crew confusion is still possible in 2021 doesn't exactly warm me up to the thought of twin-jets crossing over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

icegreentea2 3y ago
If by confusion you mean getting the failed engine wrong, there are already technical mitigations that exist (as noted by the article). They just haven't been retrofitted to ancient 737s.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Even to the latest 737s in fact. Boeing has successfully lobbied for an exception to having to install EICAS systems specifically to avoid having to re-train and re-certify pilots. And this was after they murdered hundreds of people in order to achieve the same goal with the 737MAX. The author mentions this in another article about the infamous British Midland flight: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/lefts-rights-and-wrongs-the-crash-of-british-midland-flight-92-or-the-kegworth-air-disaster-a3989feb4d3a#:%7E:text=On%20the%208th%20of%20January,height%20of%20just%20900%20feet https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/lefts-rights-and-wrongs-... > And yet, despite this fact, the Boeing 737 still does not come with an EICAS. 737s are rolling off the assembly line at this very moment without the system. This is because adding an EICAS would disrupt the continuity between the various 737 models, forcing pilots to receive separate type ratings for 737s with EICAS and those without. This feature of the 737 series is so fundamental that when a rule requiring EICAS on new models certified in the US came into effect at the end of 2022, Boeing and 737 operators lobbied Congress to grant an exemption, allowing the FAA to finish certifying the new 737 MAX 10 and MAX 7 without an EICAS. The pressure was immense: after all, major airlines didn’t want to buy the MAX 10 and MAX 7 if their pilots would have to acquire a new type rating to fly them, and if the airlines weren’t going to buy the models, then Boeing wasn’t going to build them, resulting in job losses and a shortage of narrow body airliners on the market. As a result, in the immediate future, 737s will continue to fly around the world without the benefit of EICAS, even though nearly every other modern airliner now has the system. There were of course compelling reasons behind the exemption, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a trade-off. Of course those arguments are BS anyway, the airlines are not going to stop buying airliners just because of some type rating requirements. It's not as if they have any choice. Boeing is just worried they'll buy Airbus instead.

Animats 3y ago

Shutting off the good engine after an engine failure is an error that has caused at least three previous crashes.[1][2][3] It can be surprisingly difficult to tell which engine failed. [1] https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2021/01/21/broken-fan-blade-shutdown-of-wrong-engine-led-to-fatal-e-11-crash-in-afghanistan-report-says/ https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2021/01/21... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegworth_air_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegworth_air_disaster [3] https://aerossurance.com/safety-management/bua-bac11-g-asjj-human-factors/ https://aerossurance.com/safety-management/bua-bac11-g-asjj-...

Animats 3y ago
Of those, 1) was a USAF aircraft, a 2-engine Bombardier aircraft. Despite the name, this is a small civilian jetliner. "Loud bang" and engine failure in cruise. "Because the warning signal did not immediately light up for the catastrophically damaged left engine — it took several seconds for its RPMs to drop below the point that would have triggered the signal — the crew didn’t immediately know which engine had blown. The pilots thought the right engine had experienced the emergency, leading them to shut it down instead of the left one. The shutdown meant the plane now had no engines operating, and happened relatively quickly, about 24 seconds after the fan blade broke." A restart of the wrong engine was attempted while the good engine was kept shut down. 2) is a well known disaster. "The aircraft was on a scheduled flight from London Heathrow Airport to Belfast International Airport when a fan blade broke in the left engine, disrupting the air conditioning and filling the cabin with smoke. The pilots believed this indicated a fault in the right engine, since earlier models of the 737 ventilated the cabin from the right, and they were unaware that the 737-400 used a different system. The pilots mistakenly shut down the functioning engine. They selected full thrust from the malfunctioning one and this increased its fuel supply, causing it to catch fire. Of the 126 people aboard, 47 died and 74 sustained serious injuries." 3) is from 1969, and is something of a period piece. This plane had three pilots; two in seats with controls, and a third one as "pilot in command" supervising but with no access to the controls. His comment, afterward, was “It is perhaps not quite correct to be ultimately responsible for the safe handling of an aircraft in an emergency unless occupying a seat from where this can be done. I feel, somehow, that had I been occupying either of the pilot’s seats I might have reacted differently; on the other hand, it is possible that had I not been present the two pilots might also have reacted differently.” That strange setup may have been a holdover from the British early WWII "aircraft commander" concept. This was borrowed from naval practice, where the officer of the deck tells the junior people who are actually driving the ship what to do. It turned out to be a terrible idea in the air, where things happened faster. But somehow British United Airways was doing it in 1969. Nobody questioned the pilot in command deciding, wrongly, which engine had failed.

cat_plus_plus 3y ago

That's some major scapegoating of flight crew, when their airline clearly has not maintained the plane properly and caused engine failure in the first place and airport failed to provide adequate ground control support. Easy to be a backsit driver/pilot when you are not flying a damaged plane over the ocean with nobody acknowledging that you have an emergency. Ideally sure, pilot and first office would have done everything by the book and maybe landed at airport safely. But life is never ideal, and I wonder if Transair offered a lot of paid time on simulator to periodically review every likely emergency scenario. Copilot saved captain's life by directing rescue crew to leave him alone in the water and focus on captain first, so I don't think they are horrible human beings.

krisoft 3y ago
> so I don't think they are horrible human beings I don’t think anybody thinks that they are horrible human beings. The article is certainly not implying that in any way about the copilot. The captain clearly has failings, as described by the article, but it is not implied in any way that he is a terrible human being. > some major scapegoating of flight crew I disagree. They had a perfectly flyable airplane and crashed it almost killing themselves. That is not good airmanship. Yes, all of those other things were also factors. I totaly understand that. The point of hearing stories like this is to understand what went wrong and how we can learn from them to not commit the same mistakes. Zero scapegoating.
wsostt 3y ago
I don’t think the pilots are being scapegoated when they ditched a working plane in the ocean. There were a lot of things that led them there and a lot of reasons it happened, but this crash was avoidable with proper procedures.
rlanday 3y ago
> That's some major scapegoating of flight crew, when their airline clearly has not maintained the plane properly and caused engine failure in the first place and airport failed to provide adequate ground control support. Most disasters result from multiple things going wrong together, hence the importance of addressing them individually.

ShroudedNight 3y ago

Based on the radio recordings, I wonder if the Captain would have had more immediate success with ATC if he had explicitly used the [seemingly?] recommended 'mayday' phraseology.

SoftTalker 3y ago
Yeah this comes up often as "mayday" is clear and short compared to the more usual American phraseology "I am declaring an emergency." I'm not sure why US avaiation has not changed that, but they have a lingo and seem to stick with it.
- Vecr 3y ago
  US Pilots do use Mayday, but I'm not sure what the percent is. If you are squawking the emergency code you should at least use Pan-Pan, right?
sitharus 3y ago
It’s not a mayday situation as there isn’t any immediate danger for a single failed engine. The captain should have used the phrase ‘pan-pan’, which indicates an urgent situation but no immediate danger to life or aircraft. Also squawk 7700 as said in the article, which highlights the aircraft on modern radar systems.
- somerandomqaguy 3y ago
  Eh, PANPAN is fine, but AFAIK the FAA and it's international counterparts views the use of MAYDAY in even a single engine failure as entirely appropriate. Partly because the pilot cannot be certain that a single engine failure hasn't caused secondary damage, or that it's a not symptom of another deeper problem (i.e. running out of fuel). And in part because the FAA doesn't want pilots to hesitate calling MAYDAY and potentially making the situation worse by staying in the air longer then they absolutely have to.

bloomingeek 3y ago

Maintenance, Maintenance, Maintenance! Many things bother me about this avoidable crash, but maintenance is the worst. Engine rotor blades have to be x-rayed for cracks and corrosion on a semi-regular basis. The company must be held responsible, just imagine the loss of live if this would have happened over landed areas. Also, the gauges tell the story, the captain should have verified what the 1st officer told him, especially with an engine failure. Thankfully, both survived.

deleted 3y ago
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tantalor 3y ago

Why can't instruments clearly and directly indicate engine failure? It worked in Podracer!

londons_explore 3y ago
Detecting engine failure isn't trivial - a failed engine can still spin pretty fast with airflow going through it. Modern predictive techniques could easily detect engine failure (ie. "Here is the history of the last 10 seconds of the throttle position, and here is the current RPM, is the engine failed?"). But aircraft designs don't like to use such techniques - they prefer simple thresholds. And with simple thresholds, a bunch of engine failures can get missed, especially partial failures.
- 7952 3y ago
  I think the is a big issue across aviation. The system just gives up and dumps the problem on the pilot who then has to parse conflicting data quickly. I wonder if it would be better to treat this more like a navigation problem. Fuse together different data with known error levels and show the pilot the result. And include more solid state sensors like GPS, gravity sensors, and cameras in the mix.
EdwardDiego 3y ago
> As I mentioned in my article on the British Midland crash, the most effective way to prevent this kind of accident is by fitting airplanes with an Engine Indicating and Crew Alerting System, known as EICAS, or similar equipment. These systems automatically monitor engine performance and, should an engine fail, will produce a message informing the pilots which engine is the cause of the problem, dramatically reducing the probability of an incorrect identification. However, retrofitting the systems onto older 737s, which are most at risk, is not required and may be impractical or impossible.
- tantalor 3y ago
  Thanks for copying that snippet! It's probably the most interesting paragraph in the whole article. I'm baffled why it was left to very end. This should be the lead!

cyberax 3y ago

It's a good article. But at the same time, the UI design of the EPR readouts just sucks. It's hard to say whether the engine is idling or at the full power with a simple glance. And the fix would have been easy, just add a limiter at the 12 o'clock position and rescale the gauge accordingly.

zorrolovsky 3y ago

I really liked the story and the way it was told. I could sit there with the guys and experience their stress and panic. The point about sexism was unnecessary and detracting to the story. It's yet another sad sign of how political propaganda infects absolutely everything. I long the days where you could simply enjoy a story without having to endure references to any kind of cultural war (sex wars, identity politics, etc), or narcissistic virtue signaling from an author. Yes, sexism bad. Yes, woman were unfairly treated at some points in history. Yes, people should have sex to whatever consenting adult entity they prefer. But do we really need to plaster every single wall in life with those messages? To me it's just tiring. I need places where the relentless totalitarian narrative "our tribe good, that tribe bad" stops and I can simply enjoy life and smell some flowers. I can't help but think the author craved a tap on the back, and wanted to send a message saying: "please like me because I'm one of your gang. I despise sexism and this story is factual evidence that the rival gang (sexists) are incompetent assholes". But using the HN ethos, I should assume a positive intention from the author. Such a reading would be: "women are good intuitive thinkers, and the woman who walked out that flight knew the pilot was not competent". But if that's the intention, there's no logic or arguments to support it in the story.

naikrovek 3y ago
> The point about sexism was unnecessary and detracting to the story. It's yet another sad sign of how political propaganda infects absolutely everything. disagree. it goes to show what was on the Captain's mind when he should have been focusing on preparing for flight, and getting his head in the game. he was obviously rubbed raw by the interaction, and blamed it on sexist things rather than considering that maybe he had a hand in the outcome of the conversation with the woman in question. this lack of ownership of one's own actions as demonstrated by the captain was apparent throughout the entire article and was a factor in the crash, as described.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  > he was obviously rubbed raw by the interaction, and blamed it on sexist things rather than considering that maybe he had a hand in the outcome of the conversation with the woman in question. If we consider that the captain spoke for 32 minutes, I don't think a half dozen quotes are necessarily representative of the 32 minutes. It's possible he spent 30 minutes talking about her poor technical performance and poor teamwork with other pilots, and 2 minutes making sexist remarks. But sexist remarks are much more sensational, plays to certain prejudices, and are more likely to drive clicks than criticism (perhaps warranted) of someone's professional behavior.

expertentipp 3y ago

Sometimes the best decision is to turn around and walk away, and burn that bloody bridge behind. Better actually if that people will avoid you in the future.

AdrianB1 3y ago

I read the article in disbelief. It sounds more like a dumb-and-dumber situation than a real situation in a cockpit with decently competent pilots, especially the captain is depicted as totally incompetent, from the initial radio communication to the rest of the adventure. It sounds like the kind of pilot than can barely fly in regular conditions and the co-pilot that is part time doing the job and not too well. I am not a commercial pilot, just GA pilot for 10 years. I know many cases of incompetence in GA, but never in commercial aviation, this is not how trained pilots should fly a 737 and I have no idea how they got the permission to do it.

nottorp 3y ago
> is depicted Based on this article the keyword is "is depicted". It starts with an ad hominem attack on the captain. And I didn't even see many mentions or quotes from the actual accident report. I did stop half way because it's simply too long for how much I care about the subject. I won't research it further either so I'll just end up with the pushing an agenda impression.
prmph 3y ago
I don't think the captain was that incompetent; I was surprised after reading the article , how there was little in it to support the veiled attacks on the captain it started off with. > I know many cases of incompetence in GA, but never in commercial aviation You mean you have never heard of commercial aviation pilots making mistakes? This can't be right.
- AdrianB1 3y ago
  NTSB conclusion released a few days ago practically calls the crew incompetent (with nice words: "crew's ineffective crew resource management, high workload and stress").
- AdrianB1 3y ago
  I heard about commercial pilots making mistakes, but not to be plain incompetent. Reading the article, even the transcription of the radio conversation is one example - I don't need the author of the article explain what is wrong there, I know it myself (2 weeks ago I had to renew my radio operator license, so I just had the refresher course). I don't even have too high standards for pilots, it is a basic expectations the airlines to hire and maintain competent pilots that will not crash planes on their first incident. This is because most of the plane accidents I know personally are either pilot error or technical problems that could be avoided or mitigated by any decent pilot.

1970-01-01 3y ago

Other than the clickbait headline, this was a very good article. And it turns out the author's take of a 'self-delusion' crew was irrelevant to the crash. The pilot got communicate, navigate, aviate totally backwards, which cost critical checklist time, but that wasn't the biggest failure. It was the first officer's bad engine analysis that led them into the sea.

rodelrod 3y ago

Captain Okai should be in the Airplane cockpit with Roger Murdock, Victor Basta and Clarence Oveur [0]. Missed opportunity. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OBZf0QdKdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OBZf0QdKdE

1970-01-01 3y ago

>(Public service announcement: if a husband murders his wife because he thinks she’s annoying, that’s the husband’s fault. I shouldn’t need to say this.) I'll tap this box open. The author goes out of their way to paint a bad picture of the pilot by switching "crazy" to "think's she's annoying". He absolutely should not rant about this on the company plane, however if a murderer has any history of mental illness, yes, a woman can literally drive you crazy. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/temporary_insanity https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/temporary_insanity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insanity_defense#Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insanity_defense#Usage

Admiral_C 3y ago

Author of the article here. Reading this thread, some commenters get it, but others have not. The sexism doesn't have anything to do with the crash, nor did I claim that it does. So why did I even bring it up? This is probably news to most of you, but I'm a woman, and let me tell you, when we hear a man say something like that, we pay attention. I was shocked when I read his statements in the CVR, and felt it would be eye-opening for some people to hear them. Nor is it character assassination to point out that the things he said are wrong and contribute to a hostile working environment for women. What could—not DID, but COULD—have actually contributed to the crash was the stress that the captain was under as a result of the incident. The hypothesis that he was stressed before the flight is supported by the length of his discussion of this one stressful topic, extending into periods where off-topic conversation was banned. Note that I specifically characterize this as a hypothesis supported by evidence; I didn't portray it as established fact, and I specifically pointed out that I was going beyond the NTSB report. However, the NTSB report doesn't say anything one way or the other about whether this was a potential cause of the captain's stress (stress which the report did identify as a contributing factor). I'm not contradicting anything in the report, but rather highlighting a connection which really stood out to me, from my particular perspective. So to those who say "if it was a problem, the NTSB would have mentioned it," is it not equally true to say "if it wasn't a problem, the NTSB would have refuted it?" To me, silence on the topic leaves the door open to independent analysis. If the NTSB didn't want people to make this connection, they should have addressed it. Lastly, I want to mention that I actually contacted the relevant NTSB investigators for comment before publishing this, but they declined interviews.

reso 3y ago
That one quote from the pilot is so egregious, I can't imagine it not being at least referenced in any long-form treatment of this report.
- cutemonster 3y ago
  It seems problematic with pilots who get into arguments with others, based on those other people's gender, or in other cases maybe skin color or whatever. And who in that way make themselves upset, so they cannot concentrate on flying! Sexist pilots are an air safety risk? It's interesting in another way too: I think the crazy thing he said, suggests that he is a bit dumb. (Both for having such thoughts, and for sharing them with others, whilst being recorded.) Which is of relevance, I think. And might indicate that there was a recruitment problem as well. (The airline company hires dumb and sexist pilots?)

deleted 3y ago

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eternityforest 3y ago

It's not quite a typical case of left-right confusion, but I wonder if it could be partially related. There seems to be a very wide range of abilities there. Some people seem to always know the difference, but for some of us we're giving directions by pointing, because a turn is coming up and we can't figure it out in time which is which. I wonder if the people involved had trouble with direction and mirroring in general?