Originally Posted by
bud leon
Nowhere is there any verified information that the Captain asked for confirmation from the crew. JP7000 quoted a news report which said that the captain said the crew agreed that they were cleared for take-off. Despite the fact that we don’t know what the Pilot said in Japanese, that is not the same thing. But this thread has turned that third hand unverified information into a fact that the Captain asked the question and then bias-led conclusions have been drawn.
Originally Posted by
alfaman
One wonders what it says about the culture of those posting, doesn't it...
That is a good question that should be analyzed. I find in the general culture of the people posting on these forums(which is mostly my culture) to be rife with unsubstantiated speculation, people saying things as fact when they don't know it is fact, leading to a lot of bad information being stated, and an unwillingness to admit having been wrong. It is a real downside of our culture. In addition, there is a significant percentage of our culture that is not willing to start harsh truths because it will hurt people's feelings even if the cost of that is damage or lives. The former three items are long-standing issues that have been around for probably millennia. The last one is a more modern thing that can be just as destructive, especially in an area like aviation. A good example is the automatic praising of the crew and then it turns out that the crew made significant errors or the condemning of a crew and then discovering that they were other unknown circumstances that were beyond anyone's capabilities. All based on assumption and wishful thinking.