China Eastern 737-800 MU5735 accident March 202
 

When I was flying in China, the crew would typically comprise of a very junior First Officer and a slightly less junior First Officer, trained in either the US or Australia. They would return to China and their FAA or CASA Pilot License would be taken off of them or voluntarily surrendered. They would be under the thumb of crusty ol' dudes who had no clue about CRM and TEM, would shout at them and insult them, sometimes they would be hit. I have personally witnessed the shouting and insults, while flying jump seat. For a Chinese pilot to fly for the airline and certainly before they become Captain, they must join the Communist Party of China -as if that has any relevance to serving as a flight crewmember. The airline management would fine them or penalize their pay IF they called in sick or told Crew Scheduling they had insufficient Crew Rest. I constantly flew with young Chinese FOs who were sick or grossly fatigued (not more than 4 hours sleep). These young FOs barely spoke English, though some were better than others. By the time I would fly with them they had 750 to 2,500 flying hours. They would be considered for Captain upgrade after 2,500 flying hours. One of my functions was to sign the Chinese FOs Pilot Logbook to certify their flying hours. Whenever I discovered any exaggeration or erroneous entries, overstating what we/they did, I would refuse to sign their Pilot Logbook, unless they changed it. I found most of the FOs were pretty timid. The more junior they were, the more timid they were, though I had one new FO decide he would change my fuel order, because he believed he knew better with his whopping 750 flying hours. I would typically fly with one FO outbound and they would swap seats and I would fly with the former jump seat FO, inbound. I flew with about 200 FOs. I would guess that 10% were cooperative and I felt they had real potential as aviators. Half of that number I would consider as friends and had the potential to become great pilots.

I asked many FOs why they became pilots and told those who offered pathetic replies or who did it for the uniform or salary or to make their their daddy and mommy or girlfriend proud, that they should consider another career, like driving a taxi. Another Asian airline I flew with, we were operating a Heavy Crew. I would fly the crap weather and make the approach and landing at a snowbound airport, then fly the jump seat, to LAX, and fly us back to Asia, after our Crew Rest. So, dig this situation . . . The Asian Captain who replaced me, a very nice guy, too nice was a retired Major in his country's Air Force. His Asian First Officer from the snowbound airport to LAX was a retired Brigadier General in the Air Force. I refer to them as Captain-Major and General FO. Cathay Pacific was parked opposite direction and de-icing. Falling snow, ramp and taxiways covered with frozen snow and slush, text book definition of Icing Conditions. The European Cruise Captain just completed external preflight of our 744. He invited me to go outside to show me the aircraft would in fact need to be de-iced, when he asked me, General FO, said, "No need." Have you EVER heard of an FO telling a Captain what to do or making decisions for him? I went outside and yep, it needed de-icing. I came back inside and asked Captain-Major, if he would like to take a look for himself, when General FO said, "No need." I was effing livid. I grabbed the SOP, the Boeing Manual, removed the pertinent pages, lifted the Yoke clip and let lit loudly snap and told him to read it. "There is a need." Guess what his reply was? "No need." I looked to Captain-Major, and he looked like a spent dick, shriveled and withdrawn into his seat.

THIS IS WHAT GOES ON IN ASIAN COCKPITS, though the power gradient is not often weighted toward the FO . . . That particular FO was the senior most FO at the airline and for whatever reason could not be upgraded to Captain, yet ruled the roost -except when flying with me and he couldn't fly well, at all. I gave him an opportunity to show me how great he was at Cruise, Autopilot Off. General Dick!

So, relate the aforementioned to MU5735.

Lastly, for consideration, Andreas Lubitz, (GermanWings) passed the DLR, which has a high failure rate. The MMPI, NEO-PI-R, FFM, PILAPT, COMPASS, and consider the most stringent test with about an 8% pass rate, the DLR, did not predict the actions of Andreas Lubitz. Suppose after an airline pilot takes and passes one of the Psych Tests with flying colors, but develops a terminal cancer or some other disease that is a death sentence and he has nothing to live for . . . Would any of those Psych Tests predict the terminal illness and the change in that pilot's mental health. NO! In fact, the authors or designers of those Psych Tests would not have a clue what makes a pilot or what it takes to be(come) a pilot. According to the studies done for the US Army, to predict who would make the best candidates and who would be likely to graduate, I would have been on the bottom of the Bell Curve, my Senior TAC told me I would not make it and that he wanted my resignation on his desk. I snapped to attention, saluted, and replied, "You will have to kill me first. I will not resign." I graduated with my class. In fact I was the first Class Leader and held the position the longest. Not only did I graduate with my original classmates, I was offered my first choice assignment. I bounced from that springboard to become a Captain flying Boeing 747-400, 747-300, 747-200, 737-800, and 737-700 transport category jets. Our last Class Leader and Honor Grad had not even accomplished that during his aviation career. Thus, I standby the aforementioned statement, In fact, the authors or designers of those Psych Tests would not have a clue what makes a pilot or what it takes to be(come) a pilot. You have to believe in yourself and you have to have a real passion for it, probably since boyhood.

What, on all three displays - both PFDs and the Standby ? Highly unlikely that all three would simultaneously display massive pitch-up.

Mind, you that Swedish CRJ did a similar thing when only the Captain's AI display went wrong.

From what FWRWATPLX2 posts - very worrying and concerning - it seems that we might never know the truth?

This accident is more like a problem of protocol and sharing results with the public it seems.
We have the trajectory, no obvious technical problems with the accident aircraft and no current change requirements for China's active fleet, all pointing in one direction...

Sure, daylight and pretty clear sky, as it seems.

With such a scenario, there would have been no successful recovery, halfway down.

Trim: I don't want to rule out the "control" through trim. The leaked message is just too cryptic to let it have been a "normal" yoke control of the airplane.

Investigation: There is probably not that much physically left to investigate, given the airplane is largely shattered in small pieces. So, it's largely only FDR/CVR.

What I am suggesting is, there are more tech ways to move the pitch control surfaces, than only the yoke and trim switches itself. Having an open mind to these aspects might be useful, instead of diving onto a suicide scenario.

For example, remember the recent fight between FAA and Boing about the YES/NO cable rerouting, because short-circuits were presumed to be able to cause the trim motor to move, without the trim switches being activated (Or the trim-disable switches being effective). We also know, that manual trim with the trim wheel is only theoretically possible. And we also know, stopping a run-away trim by holding the trim wheel will also be challenging.

There are simply too many fuzzy aspects, not really fitting an upfront suicide scenario.

Quick comments ; on the suicide hypothesis, nothing concrete so far, so let's give it a bit of time until the CVR analysis either confirms or infirm that. Would it be only out of respect for the pilots and the victims families.

FWRWATPLX2 : Andreas Lubitz was a highly intelligent young man who knew all the answers to give and which box to tick before joining, he became later totally obsessed with losing his licence, and flying was his only passion and that drove him totally outside the edge. The very sad thing is that everyone around him knew he had lost it, his girl friend, his parents , his brother , his psychiatrist and most of the dozen of doctors he consulted in the 6 months before his act. Sadly none of them could prevent him for reporting sick , even less in quitting the job. . This loophole is still there , in Germany at least .Mental illness is a huge issue and many companies do not know how to deal with it.

He was ill and this was known. This is why he had to interrupt his flight training and pause. He got cleared to return after medical examination and by special permit. Only then things went out of control.

You are missing the point. The leak suggested the "plane did what it was told to by someone in the cockpit". That would rule out runaway trim in my opinion. I will concede, the leak is no more reliable than a paper tissue condom.
Either way, runaway trim has a memory item drill. Given the demise of the Max, I'd have thought any Boeing crews would be pretty hot on that.

My point was that a CFIT might be the result of a loss of situational awareness (for whatever reason) rather than criminal intent.
I also wonder if perhaps the initial descent might be because of a decompression event or other emergency (or the pilot believed there was one) and then somehow the leveling out from that manoeuver was botched. This scenario could fit both the flight profile and the "pilot inputs" info.

The actual cause of the accident will be discernable from the flight data recorder parameters of control column position and elevator and stabilizer position v aircraft flight path.
ICAO Annex 6 Part I, App 8 states the basic requirements for the FDR, it is mandatory to have had both the primary flight control surface and the primary flight control pilot inputs. Force inputs are not mandatory unless they are also displayed to the pilot in some form that they are not on the B737, however, the DFDAU may still be recording that data and providing it to the DFDR. (have looked at both outputs, with and without, and also separately recorded the forces by a tap from the databus for test purposes (429), which was not recorded by the DFDR (717), but was being measured). The integrity of the control run can be ascertained from the position data of the control input and the control position, and that will tell immediately whether the flight path was a deliberate action or not. If CAAC doesn't release the data, then it will be up to the next of kin to take action to subpoena the data. CAAC accident reports alone have questionable value beyond any data they provide; wasted lots of time with the lunacy that passes for analysis in their reports. Great food, good beer, accident reports not so much.

ATC Watcher wrote:
The very sad thing is that everyone around him knew he had lost it, his girl friend, his parents , his brother , his psychiatrist and most of the dozen of doctors he consulted in the 6 months before his act. Sadly none of them could prevent him for reporting sick , even less in quitting the job

Anyone one of them so close to Andreas could have easily picked up the telephone and called airline management or Luftfahrt-Bundesamt. That is all it would have taken. Every Aviation Regulator, around the world has a Safety Hotline.

@ATC Watcher; where did you get this information from? It makes it sound like it was obvious as daylight and if so then those around him should bear some responsibility. Bearing in mind his parents disagree with the findings of the investigation and claim it wasn't suicide - they can't be included in your statement.

When a person commits suicide part of the pain of those left behind is the feeling that they should have seen it coming and should have done something - they feel in some way responsible. But the sad reality is that if it was that obvious then either someone would have done something to prevent it or they are complicit in the process (in general).

Maybe, I am missing the point less than you think. Read this post:

“The plane did what we read back from what the sensors of the cockpit flight controls registered on the FDR."

Or so to say, don't blindly trust sensors / sensor registrations, when things did go haywire. A sensor could register trim switch activation, whereas the factual situation might be a short circuit, simulating the trim switch activation.

And, of course, runaway trims are a hot item for Boing 737 crews, though we also know, that "the manual trim wheel is there because of regulations", "manually stopping that trim wheel is quite a challenge to put it mildly" and "manually trimming using the trim wheel is a demand that largely only works during certification demonstration" (and not, when things go haywire).

We do have the situation of a complete recovery, as well an initial action to return to the original FL and then, things go haywire again. All accompanied by obvious attempts to "stay on course in a turbulent handling situation". This is not something that much compatible with a suicide attempt.

Decompression event and then nose over into a >45 degrees dive ? Hmmmm.

The issue with suicidal people is, they often live a life to socially please other people. With the consequence, those people become very hesitating to report that person to the authorities, etc.

Yes Capt Hindsight at work again . For the direct family as Boeing driver 99 said, they are in complete denial of the suicide version , embarking in the cockpit fumes theory , they certainly would not have called the airline or the LBA .
But they all knew he was not mentally well and should not have been flying , That was my point here.
. As to the medical staff all of them the law in Germany is absolutely strict , total confidentiality is mandatory . You could loose your practice if you called the authorities. These strict laws date back from 1945-46 following the Nazi times where mentally sick people were denounced by their doctors and ended up being euthanatized . Even after the event , most of those doctors do not feel guilty , they followed the law they say. I am glad I am not in their shoes .

Boeing Driver 99 :
How do I know the details? Too long to explain and not for internet, send me a PM if you want. Just to clarify a point : it was not obvious at all to anyone that he would commit this mass murder , or even that he would commit suicide , as far as I know no-one predicted that , but those I mentioned that they knew he was not mentally well lately, totally obsessed about losing his license, did not sleep , and should not definitively have been flying , Many of the 40 or so doctors he consulted in the last months gave him papers to stay at home and not work, but he disregarded them ( some were found in his home afterwards) and he continued to fly. As to who should bear responsibility ? I do not want to be entering that debate, read again the way I phrased my earlier post ..

As an incident investigator said ; what can we do to prevent this from happening again ? and can it happen again? . I do not have an answer to the first question (,the F/A in cockpit was a knee jerk reaction that did not last long) but to the second question : sadly , it is a yes.

You'd rather interpret the 'limited use' Flight Radar information as indicating 'a complete recovery'. That's quite a bold assumption to make. That event (the reduction in descent and initial climb) could quite easily have been some form of oscillation due to the dynamic forces (completely outside the realms of any tested envelope) that lead to a further structural failure. Or a structural failure that then lead to an oscillation returning to the original steep descent profile.

All I know is the aircraft entered a quite extreme profile. The information in the open domain at present indicates no conclusive explanation as to why. The investigation team may have a lead on the causes. A 'supposed' insider thinks the team know the aircraft behaved 'as commanded'. I don't personally think that insider leak holds any weight. I still think there are many possible causes, and yes, suicide could be plausible in my opinion. But so could aircraft malfunction or pilot error.

Kinetic energy (and potential energy too) values are relative to the frame of reference you choose, however changes in kinetic energy during a collision are not. No matter which inertial frame of reference you will compute the collision in, the dissipated energy during the collision will always be 1/2*m*v^2.

For example if you consider the frame of the Earth, the initial energy is 1/2*m*v^2, final energy is zero, so energy dissipated is 1/2*m*v^2. If you consider the frame going at the same speed as the airplane, the initial kinetic energy is that of the Earth, and that kinetic energy becomes slightly less after the collision due to the impact (and small change of momentum of the Earth). The change is still 1/2*m*v^2

Good point. Real outliers though these events in the air in any case...