Originally Posted by
syseng68k
I brought my two lads up to question everything, especially the things they trust the most :-). You seem to be basing absolute trust in the BEA...
Then you misunderstand me. I am very much a believer in the "question everything" ethos. However, where a lot of people seem to stop is at questioning apparent authority and leaving it there. I'm also inclined to "question the questioners" as it were. It's by adhering to the first while neglecting the second that the really dumb conspiracy theories propagate - from claims that the moon landings were faked to all the 9/11 bobbins, and yes - the idea that the BEA are somehow politically motivated to protect Airbus.
when of course, everything they say has political / legal implications and will be phrased in a particular way
Based on everything I've read over the years it would seem that of all the players, the BEA are the least likely to be politically motivated - their reports tend to be very dry and factual on the whole, not unlike the UK AAIB (both being effectively departments within the relevant civil service, albeit independent from the regulatory office). It is the lawyers in the civil and criminal proceedings who seem to be the real political animals, aided and abetted by a press who have an insatiable appetite for a juicy scandal.
It is through this alliance that most of the rumour surrounding these cases seems to have been established, and on thorough investigation, few if any of these rumours turn out to be credible - however they've done their work, as the rumours tend to be propagated years or even decades later
Not only for what they say but in particular, what they don't.
No accident investigation report can print things that have not been proven, nor do they tend to print aspects of the investigation that turned out to be dead ends at the end of the investigative/experimental work - that's true of all the major agencies in the world and always has been.
With respect, to be truly impartial, you need to question a lot more, rather than appearing as an apologist at every turn :-)...
I'm a little offended at that insinuation to be honest - I've explained my take on questioning and impartiality above.
The fact is that the motivation behind a lot of the "questions" on here is based on incorrect information relating to the BEA, and a quixotic desire to hurt Airbus because of a misunderstanding of the motivation behind the introduction of FBW - as well as an incident more than two decades ago that didn't go their way.
[EDIT : In addition, those clamouring for the BEA to release information on aspects of the investigation that led to potential causes being ruled out seem to forget that this information is not released within the reports themselves, but tends to come in the years following, from interviews conducted with the investigators for books like MacArthur Job's - or for TV/film purposes. I noted a while back that the Mayday/ACI series on NatGeo has blocked it's final show of the 2012 season to be on AF447 - could be interesting, even if it's a high-level overview. ]