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

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/dark-waters-of-self-delusion-the-crash-of-transair-flight-810-a4eeb033bc00

by rwmj • 3 years ago

175 151 3 years ago

admiralcloudberg.medium.com

"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.

WesolyKubeczek2• 3 years 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• 3 years ago

An atmosphere of confusion and hostility.

blamazon• 3 years 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.

foobarbecue16• 3 years 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.

kortilla7• 3 years 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.

pessimizer• 3 years ago

It's bizarre to fantasize about cancelling a [not dead] pilot and trying to get his wife to divorce him.

rycomb• 3 years ago

Ryan —not Okai— is the one with a legal practice.

matt-attack2• 3 years ago

Those comments excusing men who murder their annoying wives were horrifying

You might think twice about your interpretation of this. It is mainstream psychology to recognize the effects that one human can have on another. Brainwashing happens. Induced mental trauma exists. Look at Charles Manson and the influence he had, look at Patty Hearst. Humans can have drastic influence over their victims (intentionally or unintentionally) and there should be no shame in the ensuing mental illness that results, and neither gender no perceived gender roles should diminish our sympathy for such victims.

To say carte blanche that no woman can mentally traumatize a man to the point that he should be considered a victim of brainwashing is a bit naive and likely sexist.

TheHappyOddish• 3 years 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.

lisasays• 3 years 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

PhasmaFelis• 3 years 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• 3 years 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.

foobarbecue16• 3 years 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.

zgluck3• 3 years 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?

foobarbecue16• 3 years ago

Dunno. I'm talking about working Curiosity and Ingenuity ops (Mars).

inopinatus• 3 years ago

That’s a yes. I have personally been on public cloud major incident calls. They are strictly on-topic only and generally only the incident coordinator, their offsider, and one or two SMEs, are authorised to speak. There may be hundreds or even thousands of listeners around the globe, most of which are there to fan-out status to impacted internal teams and major customers. However there will also be multiple text-based side-channels going on with the involved service teams.

duxup• 3 years ago

When I used to work networking tech support we had rules about how if there was a P1 network down situation that sales and account managers got their own conference call… and engineers had their own. (obviously we would sync up at some point, eventually)

It was also understood that non technical managers and etc could not wander over to the tech support floor.

It was absolutely critical in order to maintain good technical communication and etc. No drama, just matter of fact check lists and technical discussions.

A big bank could have all their ATMs down (sorry I did that once) and the discussion was all technical and cool and calm.

Our technical staff customers loved it too as their management were on the other call too ;)

Terr_• 3 years ago

I imagine such rules are easier to apply when it is a singular context and physical delineation of space. It takes advantage of our subconscious human rules of behavior.

An office-example might be if you had the super-serious conference room that is exclusively used for super-serious things. The physical context would affect how likely people are to follow the desired norms.

Kye• 3 years ago

“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”

kortilla7• 3 years 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”.

BoxFour3• 3 years 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.

halestock2• 3 years 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.

kortilla7• 3 years ago

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.

You jumped to the same conclusion the author did, which was that the rant was evidence of anything. Some people rant all of the time and sometimes it’s about sexist, racist, whatever things. It does not imply they are mentally unfit for captaining.

The NTSB would have called it out if that were the case. They did not. For an example of where they would, look at this flight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines_Flight_212

kakwa_• 3 years ago

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.

Reading through the article, that's not the feel I get. As presented by the article, the captain state of mind did had an effect, he was not at 100% of its mental capacities.

But reading through the CVR transcript, the communication between the first officer and captain was good, and the crew did fly the plane from take-off up until the end which implies that the breach of the "sterile cockpit" rule before take-off did not had any major effect. They were fully focused on the task of flying immediately before and during the emergency.

They simply both made mistakes/bad judgement calls.

In fairness, the captain did make more mistakes, and some of these mistakes maybe may have been avoided if he was in a different state of mind. But at the same time he was placed in a situation where these mistakes could occur and become catastrophic (very old and unreliable plane lacking maintenance and ways to easily troubleshoot an engine failure).

In my opinion, he, or any other pilot could have made the same mistakes even in a right state of mind. It's also an unreasonable assumption that pilots will always operate at 100% of their capacity.

matt-attack2• 3 years ago

Would the 30min discussion during cargo loading count against the sterile cockpit rule? Obviously the ground is less than 10,000 ft but surely there's a point in time that defines the "start" of the flight when the rule goes into effect.

ajross3• 3 years ago

It's not a transcription of the NTSB report. This is a post on a dedicated and reasonably well-thought-of aviation safety blog. I think it's reasonable to expect some editorializing and be expected to weigh the arguments on their merits.

The NTSB is great. They're not the final word on anything in particular.

kortilla7• 3 years ago

It’s an armchair analyst injecting their pet peeves into an otherwise narrated report of what the NTSB found.

It’s disingenuous to do a publication the final report and cause of a crash and blend in your own views without big disclaimers that they aren’t supported.

It’s no different than the author focusing on the ethnicity or religion of the pilots or even the phases of the moon and planets. There is what the NTSB said, and what the author pulled out of his ass. They are unfortunately blended together and pretty severely conflict in this case.

flaminHotSpeedo4• 3 years ago

The NTSB is great precisely because they deal in facts.

This article does not, yet presents speculation as fact, without critical context that the NTSB certainly considered.

Facts are important because you can learn from them, speculation about human behavior is sensationalist bullshit because you can't prove it and can't reliably prevent human error in the first place.

For example: only a handful of 372's were ever ETOPS certified and I'm pretty sure this plane was not one of them. Should airframes with lower reliability like that even be allowed to operate in areas like Hawaii in the first place? Clearly these pilots weren't prepared to handle the situation, what needs to happen (and what the NTSB aims to do) is to avoid putting any other pilots in the same situation, from a holistic perspective

geocrasher• 3 years 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

His accident breakdowns are fantastic, as are those by Juan Brown:

https://www.youtube.com/@blancolirio/videos

mschuster912• 3 years 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• 3 years 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.

wkat42422• 3 years 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-...

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.

jacquesm2• 3 years ago

You can extend that rule to the operation of any vehicle.

__david__• 3 years ago

You are 100% right… Though I also suspect the percentage of stressed commuters is quite high. I know when I was commuting (greater LA area) that it was often quite stressful. Finding the way to do it and stay happy was kind of a tricky thing (and changed day to day).

mschuster912• 3 years ago

Most vehicles don't have hundreds of people onboard or the mass and kinetic energy to kill hundreds (or thousands, in case it crashes into a skyscraper) more on the ground.

The closest you can get is a couple dozens on a bus, and we regularly have issues with tired/stressed drivers there and catastrophic incidents - but unlike airspace, next to zero enforcement of protection rules :/

Animats3• 3 years 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...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegworth_air_disaster

[3] https://aerossurance.com/safety-management/bua-bac11-g-asjj-...

Animats3• 3 years 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.

rpeden2• 3 years ago

The was also the Dover C-5 crash where a good engine was left at idle and the throttle for the failed engine was advanced instead.

Animats3• 3 years ago

Hm? A C-5 is a four-engine plane.

There was a C-5 crash at Dover after an engine failure, but it wasn't caused by shutting down the wrong engine.[1]

[1] https://theaviationgeekclub.com/an-in-depth-analysis-of-infa...

cyberax2• 3 years ago

Even more than that. There were a couple of incidents in the USSR. One with Tu-104 in 1961, when the pilot turned off the wrong engine, although in that case, instrumentation also failed properly to indicate the malfunctioning engine. Then there was a Tu-154 flight ЮХ372 in 2010, where incorrect engine failure indications prompted rash actions that resulted in a crash landing.

And the TransAsia Airways Flight 235 in 2015 with a very similar story to the one in the article.

jnsaff23• 3 years ago

There is also the very high profile Taipei crash [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransAsia_Airways_Flight_235

c7DJTLrn2• 3 years ago

I realise that the circumstances might not always allow for this and the issue may not always be visible, but if the plane is able to climb up to a stable altitude, why not have the captain or first officer leave the cockpit to go and visually confirm?

sclarisse• 3 years ago

Might be more difficult in a cargo jet.

cat_plus_plus2• 3 years 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• 3 years 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• 3 years 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• 3 years 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• 3 years 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• 3 years 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.

Vecr2• 3 years 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• 3 years 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• 3 years 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• 3 years 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.

tantalor2• 3 years ago

Why can't instruments clearly and directly indicate engine failure?

It worked in Podracer!

londons_explore• 3 years 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• 3 years 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.

EdwardDiego2• 3 years 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.

tantalor2• 3 years 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!

mrguyorama3• 3 years ago

IMO this isn't even an instruments problem. There have been many crashes stemming from pilots diagnosing the wrong engine as the problem and shutting down a working engine.

Where's the NTSB recommendation on creating an official policy on HOW to diagnose an engine? The abnormal checklists only tell you to "shut down the broken engine" but leave it up to you to ad-hoc a way to diagnose the problem in an emergency, which is the wrong time to be inventing something non-trivial. Boeing/Airbus/GE/Rolls royce, whoever should have an official document describing a procedure to test an engine for failure that pilots are expected to refer to unless it would be unsafe

cyberax2• 3 years 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• 3 years 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.

naikrovek2• 3 years 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.

brightlancer3• 3 years 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.

reso4• 3 years ago

Before this pilot crashed his plane, he said into the black box that when a man kills his wife, it's the wife's fault. This is excellent evidence that that sexism is alive and relevant in our world.

The fact that the pilot ranted about his female co-worker for 30 minutes, after engine start, in violation of cockpit hygiene rules, is how we know that the pilot's sexism is relevant to this plane crash.

prmph6• 3 years ago

he said into the black box that when a man kills his wife, it's the wife's fault.

That's not what I read. He said a woman can drive the man crazy. The use of the word "crazy" show that the captain understood that such an action would be madness. He simply highlighted how interactions with their wives could be so infuriating to some men that they do crazy things.

foobarbecue16• 3 years ago

I need places where ... I can simply enjoy life and smell some flowers.

You're reading an article about a plane crash.

user_7832• 3 years ago

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".

FWIW I think Admiral Cloudberg's not a guy. Fair chance they've experienced sexism themselves.

expertentipp• 3 years 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.

AdrianB13• 3 years 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• 3 years 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.

prmph6• 3 years 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.

AdrianB13• 3 years 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.

AdrianB13• 3 years 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").

1970-01-012• 3 years 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• 3 years 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

1970-01-012• 3 years 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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insanity_defense#Usage

Admiral_C• 3 years 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.

reso4• 3 years 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.

cutemonster4• 3 years 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?)

matheusmoreira2• 3 years ago

I was shocked when I read his statements in the CVR, and felt it would be eye-opening for some people to hear them.

That does seem to be the primary purpose of your article.

cutemonster4• 3 years ago

Disagree. To me, the main point was that the human brain fails, under stress. It starts imagining things, forgetting things.

But checklists, they stay the same, don't change, under stress. So, follow the checklists. But they didn't.

(Of relevance for software too, I think: DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering)

The sexist things are not just interesting, but of some relevance to the crash, for other reasons I think -- see my reply to the sibling to your comment if you want.

eternityforest• 3 years 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?

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

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