Originally Posted by
helimutt
It is now exactly a week since the accident happened. Short of brief statements by the AAIB telling people what they already knew, there has been what can only be described as a deafening silence with regard to the cause. Would we be correct in thinking that, due to zero statements regarding the mechanical causes of this tragic accident, it can be assumed that the aircraft didn’t suffer a mechanical malfunction ? Or is this normal to have no word, even if it was found to be say a mechanical defect ? Obviously I’m not saying it was, but I seem to recall in previous events, that a failure of a particular item on an aircraft would render that type grounded until further investigation could rule it out. By not having any AD or SB issued, is it fair to say that the AW 169 has not suffered a catastrophic mechanical failure, but the cause is more likely to be external forces of some description, (drone strike) or pilot error? (I doubt it’s pilot error but that we have no details whatsoever yet)
It's actually pretty rare to ground all examples of a type without some pretty solid evidence there have been multiple failures in the same mode across at least two incidents. The wreckage only departed the scene yesterday and the FDR could (par example) indicate TR performance loss without an immediate and obvious cause without further forensics.