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Old 23rd Mar 2014, 17:45
  #7549 (permalink)  
bratschewurst
 
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"According to the World Health Organization, the rate of suicide in Malaysia is close to the lowest on the planet; a tenth or so of rates in European countries."

But, is this due to Malaysia's measurement criteria? In a society where suicide is taboo (and not saying this applies), facts on the ground may be interpreted to uphold the norms. Durkheim spoke to this in his classic Suicide.
A fair point. WHO data is self-reported by country. But suicide is taboo to some extent in most countries, including the 150 or so reporting higher suicide rates than Malaysia. I doubt that a 10-1 or 20-1 ratio would be explained entirely by reporting bias.

"The rate of suicide-by-loaded-aircraft amongst pilots is vanishingly low as well; statistically it's zero plus noise. Pilot suicide is a highly unlikely explanation for this incident. Unfortunately, so are all the other possible explanations. "
The commercial aircraft accident rate is also vanishingly small, too, isn't it? What % of this rate is due to pilot suicide?
I found 4 or 5 incidents of pilots deliberately flying aircraft with passengers into the ground over 30 years. I haven't tried to figure out how many fatal accidents there've been amongst airlines during the same period, but I know it's way, way more that that. Pilot suicide causes a tiny proportion of what is already a tiny number.

No one is arguing that pilot suicide is not a possible explanation for this event. But, when all the possible explanations are historically so improbable, I think it's a mistake to believe that one is less improbable than another. There's simply not enough data to come to any statistically meaningful conclusion. And it's really not fair to the two pilots in question, even though it is the conclusion that many people will draw if, as I believe is likely, the wreck site is never found.

There was a Northwest DC-6 that crashed into Lake Michigan in 1950 that still has not been found. The longer nothing is found on the surface, the harder it will be to locate the main wreckage.

If there's one lesson that must be taken from this incident, it is that the industry needs truly reliable tracking of commercial aircraft from takeoff to touchdown. The amount of bandwidth needed for such tracking is not large, especially if data was sent more often when the aircraft was not obviously in cruise (ie, constant heading, speed and altitude). Or, of course, such a system could be built on the existing ADS-B infrastructure. If something like that had been in place two weeks ago, the CVR and FDR would already be in the lab.

Disappearing aircraft and unsolved mysteries are very bad for business.
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