Originally Posted by
MurphyWasRight
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That is not a transcript, it is a carefully crafted summary at best that leaves out a lot of details.
You actually make a very good point here. The ET302 preliminary accident report was a product of the Ethiopian Ministry of Transport (MOT) which is the government department that oversees the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA) who are the folks that were responsible for establishing the training and certification standards for Ethiopian Airlines and the Ethiopian Aviation Academy (of which both pilots were graduates). Ethiopia itself does not have the best reputation when it comes to various human rights such as free expression, and its authoritarian and hierarchal government structure is not the type that would welcome any information that might prove embarrassing to itself or its flag carrier. For that reason, it is highly more likely that the MOT would make a “carefully crafted summary” to put the ET302 pilots in the best possible light than the reverse.
I would submit that the Ethiopian MOT has a very strong bias against publishing anything that would call into question pilot training, certification, and/or competency issues. Thus, any statements issued by the MOT regarding flight crew actions or competency should be viewed with the same degree of skepticism as we give toward statements by Boeing regarding the safety of the 737 MAX design and statements by the FAA regarding the integrity of the certification process.