Originally Posted by
jcjeant
DW
Urban legend ...
Sorry DW .. but this Captain was not mentally ill .. and that's not my opinion .. but it is the medical reports that attest after examination by experts that this pilot was not mentally ill
Norbert Jacquet ended up several lettuces short of an allotment. He paid the "medical experts" (actually university professors) to refute that assertion and then spent the next few years putting together a website filled with ever more paranoid claims that the French aviation industry was out to get him.
As a rule, that suggests a level of paranoia and mental instability considerably above the norm to me. "Here's the reason I was blackballed by my country's aviation industry to protect a dangerous aircraft design, and by the way here are three experts who have all concluded I'm not mad" is not exactly an introduction to inspire one with confidence.
@TurbineD
I wouldn't say I'm threading opinion between documented info - it's pretty obvious that Ray Davis's conclusions come from a lack of understanding regarding digital flight recorder information storage. This isn't me knocking him, this is just a fairly straightforward conclusion. Think what you may of the source, but pages 21-38 (original) of the Airbus rebuttal posted by Franzl go into considerable detail to explain it.
Also worth pointing out is that the BEA and Airbus rebuttals were separate entities and there was no collusion in producing the documents - the BEA invited Airbus to provide their own given the technical expertise on the DFDR technology they were using.
Maybe "shouting match" was an extreme description, but there is a definite increase in volume, intensity and interpersonal conflict from the moment the crew spotted the trees on the CVR.
The "philosophical" debate on FBW and protections aside, I was simply providing an example where the protections *did* in fact save lives from the actions of a captain who on that particular day turned out to not be as infallible as he thought he was.