SilkAir MI 185
 

A pdf version of Flight Safety Australia will be available next week at:
www.casa.gov.au
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The Civil Aviation Safety Authority has just published a report in its journal Flight Safety Australia which should picked up by the media, for the sake of Australians who have to forsake our very safe airlines and fly with foreign carriers.

Without making a judgment, the report says "readers can draw their own conclusions."

The report of a crash in December 1997 seems to show that the aircraft, carrying 102 people, was destroyed by a deliberate act of the captain, who, it is claimed, was in serious financial difficulties. It seems he switched off the cockpit recorders and sent the loaded airliner into an inverted dive at over the speed of sound, an action which required a positive, deliberate, control input up to the moment the aircraft began to break up before impact.

The investigation was one of the most comprehensive possible, but "the Indonesian National Transport Safety Committee ... produced an evasive and worthless report," contradicting the careful findings of the non-Indonesian investigative bodies.

A further report in Flight Safety suggests that there is a deep-seated official reluctance to admit it is possible "that anyone who would commit suicide would also kill so many innocent people alongside him." The pilot involved had been reported and indeed demoted for landing too fast and trying to "reduce flight times."

Travellers would be well advised to study this excellent article and consider its import.

The MI 185 article mentioned is one of the best I have ever read. Mac Job who wrote the story from his study of the accident reports and from his personal involvement as an expert witness in a subsequent civil action in Singapore, is to be congratulated on putting it altogether in a superb piece of writing. This is one Flight Safety Australia edition pilots should hang on to for future reference.

If Mac Job wrote it I'd be interested in reading it.

Everyone knows that bloodey maniac killed himself and
murdered 102 innacents dispite what LKY and his Court
sprooked.

Pass on the link please NC when the PDFs available for
downloading.

Mac's article is (as is usual for him) a masterpiece of assessment and unique understanding. Thanks Mac:D

tipsy:ok:

Agreed. His Mt Erebus write-up was excellent too... if you can get your hands on it, do so.

As far as I am concerned, Macarthur Job is a living legand!

I have the first three of his "Air Disaster" series of books which cover the important accidents that changed the way things were done in the jet-age airline industry. (Not meaning to trivialise any airline accident that is not mentioned in the books of course but there are some that had a profound effect on the industry.)

It's not just what he writes (absolutely thorough research into every minute detail) it's how he writes it (almost like a thriller novel at times) that keeps you wanting to read on. Plus the diagrams that accompany the text are just amazing.

I learned so many essential lessons by reading these three books. They should be compulsory reading for anyone involved in the airline industry, including management.

ISBN 1-875671-11-0 (Volume 1)
ISBN 1-875671-34-X (Volume 2)
ISBN 1-875671-19-6 (Volume 3)

I can't recommend them highly enough.

Thank you Mr Job.

And there's more
 

Hey Blip,

If you liked the first three "Air Disaster" books, you should also read his 4th one, which focussed on "The propeller era".

He also wrote a book called "The old and the bold", which is a collection of GA type accidents and incidents. Fascinating and sobering reading!

DIVOSH!

.......what/who ultimetly controls an A/C???? A human being, there in lies the situation that we have witnessed with SILKAIR MI 185.
You can make a plane to perform almost flawlessly, but not the PIC
Expect it to happen again, maybe not now but sometime in the future.


F

I was living in Singapore at the time and I agree with Slasher. Captain of 185 was a high flyer in the SAF but didn't make it into SIA so went to Silk Air, considered a second best to ex SAF pilots and something of a loss of face. Progression to SIA was not impossible but he would have been junior to some of his previous 'Juniors' who did make it straight into SIA, everything else is history. We who lived there at the time had little doubt but no evidence as to the cause.

There was a heap of evidence as to the cause in the 49 page document from the NTSB to the Indonesian NTSC. It's all there.

Maybe I should have said legally acceptable evidence Casper.

The evidence was legally acceptable, if not politically. It's just that the NTSC ignored it.

Absolutely none of the evidence suggested any malfunction of the aircraft or its systems.

The evidence obtained during the investigation included:
* Autothrottle disconnected. Engines at high power settings.
* Stab trim at the full electric down position.
* CVR and DFDR circuit breakers pulled manually.
* Radar plots (he forgot to s/w off the transponder) indicating a descent rate of some 30000 fpm - only one way that can be achieved!
* Horizontal distance travelled during the dive was only some 3 nm - only one way to achieve that, too!
* Aircraft inverted at the point of impact.
* No sqawk 7700 or mayday calls.

Recovery was possible but not attempted. Both pilots were above average in manipulative skills and both well trained in recovery from upsets or unusual attitudes.

It was all there, including the real financial problems being faced by the PIC - just politically ignored.

One point I've wondered about, and we will never know, is how did he make young Mr. Ward a non participant in the event. RIP

The final info on the CVR was the snap of the seatbelt being unbuckled as the PIC prepared to leave the cockpit. Approx 5 minutes later, the F/O replied in a normal voice to Jakarta ATC (source: ATC tapes).

When the PIC returned to the cockpit, the most likely scenario involved his advising the F/O that he was needed in the cabin regarding a leaking tap etc.

Pulling the CVR cb was obviously not noticed by the F/O. Pulling the DFDR cb, however, causes a MASTER CAUTION light to illuminate and that was why the PIC wanted the F/O out of the cockpit.

All suggestion and scenario, but the most probable.

Evidence ignored? by who? Do you really expect a company/country to admit guilt?
Rather like QF1, deny, deny, deny...and hope it goes away.

Mac Job is not the superstar you all make him out to be.

If you met him and spoke to him, as I have, you would realise that.

He's just another bloke with an opinion!...not necessarily the correct one!

(I have) ( Done that too), (or necessarily the incorrect one either)

So dear Amos, what's your spin on MI 185, go on let us in on it so we can compare it to that of Mac's.

Please

tipsy

You've taken umbrage when none was meant, Tipsy.

Just stating a fact.

In the case of MI 185, Mac Job has the correct version. He has had access to ALL the factual evidence and that evidence supports only one possibility - deliberate pilot input.

I too thought the article was great, however I was interested as to why the US court still found fault with Parker Hannifins rudder PCU?

Watching that cornerstone of aviation fact, Air crash Investigation (note sarcasm), the program postulates that other factors were responsible citing evidence such as similarities between SA 185 and UA 585 rudder hard over, the fact that the FDR had been switching itself off in the preceding flights etc.

I could be wrong but I believe the LA court case with Parker Hannifin is in appeal.