The Truth about Silkair MI 185
Thank you Captain Wooblah. I also do not buy it and never have.
Also Slaverdude, I fully agree that there is no reason why either pilot had any thought of suicide or murder when they got up that day, when they took off in MI 185, or even right up to the pulling of the CBs. It was only in the next final minute that something disasterous went wrong.
Looking at the NZ Evening Standard of 15/16 November 1995, it quotes the copilots' flying school Students' Association calling for "full and frank disclosure" of the educational investigation of the flying school with the school refusing and citing commercial sensitivities.
The NZ Ombudsman Sir Brian Elwood was therefore called in by the newspaper but even he could not access 3 of the 23 recomendations being kept secret.
The newspaper also reported that when the NZ CAA was finally moved to audit the school and withdraw its approval, the school took out a court injunction to not just stop the withdrawal but prevent the CAA authority from even publicising its decision to withdraw approval.
The Omsbudsman also said that evidence of the investigations had already been destroyed to prevent substantiation of some of the comments made.
There was therefore already in place a culture of cover-up over the training and assessment of the copilots that even the Ombudsman, who is a very powerful independent NZ government official, was unable to overcome.
Given this known background of both problems with the training and assessment of the copilots, and of cover-up, it is not surprising that the copilot of MI 185 has not yet been properly investigated and that the investigations to date therefore remain officially inconclusive.
It is ironic that in that era of the early days of Human Factors (for which Erebus was a major trigger) SilkAir MI 185 conveniently and immediately reverted right back to "Pilot eror - blame the Captain" so that everbody else could walk away.