Fatal 2022 China Eastern Airlines plane crash points to deliberate fuel cut-off
Posted by Srihari_stan@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 56 comments
Posted by Srihari_stan@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 56 comments
Amazing_Ease@reddit
‘The first being that a Boeing crashed’, no the first being that the cutoff switches were moved to off at cruising altitude and that it subsequently crashed, no further detail in the article. You really seem to lack comprehension skills. You also conveniently ignored my comment about the MAX 8.
Main_Violinist_3372@reddit
If there actually was a “mechanical failure” instead of deliberate pilot action, then you have to ask yourself why there hasn’t been another grounding of the 737 and why there hasn’t been anything found.
Surprisingly, I haven’t seen any of the 50-cent Army come out in the masses as was the case with the Indian ultranationalists who came out in full after the prelim report came out for Air India 171 pointing to a pilot suicide as well with that crash.
flightist@reddit
Especially given the CAAC is probably the last regulator on the planet that would let a Boeing fault slide even a little bit.
Main_Violinist_3372@reddit
Yeah you would think that given this new Cold War of sorts between the USA and China, this would be China’s chance to highlight another grievance about Boeing.
AFCSentinel@reddit
On average, how many million flight hours on our modern airliners per "fuel cut-off switch moving itself"? Because, look, I don't think I've heard of fuel cut-off switches moving themselves in the past ten years or so, minimum. So either someone moved them deliberately. Or we have some massive, massive issue with fuel switches that would require everyone to ground the aircraft types involved in "mysterious fuel switch cut-off crashes" in a similar way we rightfully did with the 737 MAX and the MACS disaster. At the very least I'd expect China and India to lead in that regard, because it seems that those switches moving themselves seems to be a localised issue to those countries.
ExocetHumper@reddit
Cutoffs are one of those paradoxical switches. You can't hide it somewhere because if you have a "unplanned inflight rapid engine disassembly", you better cut the fuel off ASAP with an easily accessible button.
At the same time, because the button is easy to covertly press, irredeemable scum can decide to take everyone down with them.
There is no right or wrong place to put the button, youll just trade one risk factor for another.
Mean_Passenger_7971@reddit
There are so many switches that could spell disaster if pulled by a malicious pilot. Hide the fuel cutoff, you have the fire switch that accomplishes a similar goal. Hide that and the depressurisation panel becomes an easy way to kill everyone in 20 seconds. Hide that and we need to keep in mind the pilot can at any time disconnect the AP and put the aircraft in an unrecoverable state.
It’s a battle we can never win.
bupkisjr@reddit
Some folks will use this as the argument to get pilots out of the flight deck, I.e. complete automation.
SexySmexxy@reddit
good thing machine systems never malfunction
xxxxxxxsandos@reddit
It’s not even just cut offs, it’s just safer when there’s redundancy. Redundancy is always going to require some switch a suicidal pilot can flip.
AFCSentinel@reddit
I think the button placement and how it works right now is perfect and proven over millions and millions of flight hours.
As I said, I don't remember reading about accidental presses of the button in a very long time. The only news stories I remember are deliberate actions - and then those two cases in India and China where something "mysterious" happened with the fuel switches.
So like... if the fuel switches are fine, and apparently pilots working all across the globe can work just fine with the way the switches they are but it's just in two countries where those fuel switches cause mysterious problems... is it the fuel switches or is it something with those countries?
ExocetHumper@reddit
India and China are not known for being on par with CRM and mental health screenings of EU and NA.
AFCSentinel@reddit
But to fix that, you need to admit that there is a problem in the first place. And I think until these countries come clean, there's always going to be a certain extra risk...
Known-Diet-4170@reddit
keep in mind this was a 737 NG not a MAX, the caut out swithces in those are actually levers and require a large and deliberate pull before you can cut them off (action that also require a large deliberate action) it is phisically impossible to turn off an engine accidentally
that being said even if it was retrofitted with the new swithces used in the max and 787 it still not possible though it would be easier to do it discretely given the smaller action needed to move them and they relatively smaller size (they are still the largest switch in the cockpit)
Hareboi@reddit
The report states that the autopilot was disconnected and the control column was pulled hard left and pushed forward immediately after cutoff. I don't think there's an issue with the switches.
AFCSentinel@reddit
Exactly! So we have a different kind of issue, that happened both in India and in China, countries where, let's just say, national pride might sometimes override the need for transparency. Where admitting that deliberate pilot action caused crashes might be viewed as a stain on the country or the airline and so it's better to deflect and bury what really happened...
Amazing_Ease@reddit
In AI171 the cutoff switches moved to cutoff during the most critical part of takeoff. This was apparently at cruising altitude, so they could've recovered very easily, very sus.
BeenThereDoneThat65@reddit
That’s because you don’t have a clue what you are talking about
Amazing_Ease@reddit
I may not be a pilot but I am an aerospace engineer, so I do know what I’m talking about. This article fails to mention the flight controls being pushed down to a dive, probably because it’s the SCMP.
BeenThereDoneThat65@reddit
No you are not. And no you don’t
Amazing_Ease@reddit
Alright Mr ATPL, what are you trying to say? That a dual engine failure/cutoff at cruising altitude automatically leads to a nosedive?
flightist@reddit
I don’t know what that ATPL was saying but this one will pretty happily say that if ‘bullshit from Boeing’ is your principal theory when an airliner dives into the ground from 30,000 feet and it’s near total radio silence - aside from short, cryptic releases about all the many things that weren’t abnormal that day - for 4 years from the investigative body that happens to be the same regulatory body which maintained the MAX grounding for twice as long as basically every other jurisdiction, then your assertions that you “know what you’re talking about” aren’t really convincing anybody, regardless of what you claim to do for a living.
Amazing_Ease@reddit
Are all pilots this aggressive and fail to reason? Not a great trait to have in the cockpit. Makes me doubt your claim to you being a pilot. As mentioned in my edit I no longer think it’s bullshit from Boeing after new information which was never mentioned in the article. I can only interpret any information I read. As for the regulatory body I have no idea what you’re trying to say. What is a fact is that Boeing did blame pilot error in the MAX before discovering the MCAS issues, so they have a track record of bullshitting.
flightist@reddit
Nothing aggressive here, simply stating that you’d have to be completely unfamiliar with this accident and the circumstances around the investigation (including who’s conducting it and how motivated they’d be to let Boeing co-opt the process) to reach your “seems like bullshit from Boeing” conclusion, whether or not you subsequently revised that position upon learning a second fact (the first being that a Boeing crashed) about the accident. You plainly don’t know what you’re talking about.
moderngamer327@reddit
One of the pilots pushed hard forward and left immediately after cutoff. It was 100% intentional
highdiver_2000@reddit
the cockpit is not a bar. You can't just up and leave
Amazing_Ease@reddit
In that case makes more sense, the article doesn’t even mention that
bbqroast@reddit
Just reasoning purely off the information in the article, if it was really a broken set of switches simultaneously failing, wouldn't that be quite recoverable?
Even if it was some sort of unrecoverable hard shutdown, the pilots could glide the aircraft and attempt a landing while calling for help.
sarcastic_beav@reddit
Unfortunately, I feel like this will be used to fuel even more conspiracy theories in the case of AI171…
“look the ntsb is just blaming all boeing crashes on deliberate actions to cover up defects with their aircrafts”
claws76@reddit
The fact that the Indian govt. is sitting this long on the findings, tells me they found pilot error and are witholding it for public sentiment. I won't pretend I know what happens behind closed doors in these scenarios, but I know people can finish entire thesis work in less time.
Tyler_holmes123@reddit
I mean its common knowledge air crash final reports usually take more than a year to be out. So lets wait out a few months and see
Cleeecooo@reddit
Yeah and the interim report came out on time. So despite a lot of media coverage saying otherwise, we don't currently have any reason to believe that the report will be whitewashed.
vargyg@reddit
Just like the Chinese government with this one.
Rootsman64@reddit
And Egyptair 990.
FutureHoo@reddit
It’s been less than a year. This is a pretty standard timeline for an air crash investigation that too with a topic of such sensitivity
MandroidHomie@reddit
So this makes 2 suicidal pilots in 3 years.
EineBeBoP@reddit
Almost like mental healthcare for pilots is the bigger issue.
Financial-Island-471@reddit
So what? People have an opinion on everything nowadays just because they can. Earth is flat, 5G is mind control or whatever. Nobody cares, we are the aviation industry, and our jobs are to keep the people flying safe, and as long as the vast majority of the industry is sane, we are good.
PitifulEar3303@reddit
Why no voice recording?
Hmm? Cover up?
Federal-Property-395@reddit
If a pilot wanted to, they can turn off the CVR on purpose
And with the fuel cutoff being intentional, if the pilot wanted to end it he could easily turn off the CVR and have it classed an accident
Hour_Analyst_7765@reddit
Is there are any legit operational reason to do this?
I mean, if pilots are OK talking about whatever private topic up there, I guess go ahead (if it won't upset anyone). But it may be embarrassing if CVR gets out. But is that a reasonable foundation though? Or is this among similar lines why we also don't have cockpit video recorders because privacy? (these accidents create an urge to introduce them)
I don't see why a pilot would want to cut off CVR if their main job is to fly the plane and perform briefings, manage pax, weather, fuel and route.. etc.
xXCrazyDaneXx@reddit
It overwrites itself after a couple of hours, which means the pilots have to be able to cut it off in order to save any audio of an incident where they landed safely.
avar@reddit
No, there could also be a "stop loop recording" button. It's not like there's a technical reason for this, the aircraft could trivially ship with sufficient storage to record the last year of voice data if we wanted it to.
PC-12@reddit
The answer to both of your proposed models of operation is that the boxes have to be as simple and as durable as possible. More functions = more chance for failure or data corruption.
More memory = more that can be corrupted.
The proven way is in most airlines SOP - if you have an incident/accident, and the aircraft will remain powered after landing, you pull the breakers to protect the data. Keeps it simple, protects the data, and the CBs being pulled are a huge signal that something went wrong (in case it isn’t otherwise obvious).
Known-Diet-4170@reddit
at my airline (and i belive any airline) it is policy to pull the cvr cb after landing if something out of the ordinary happened and the cvr recordings may be needed for subsequent investigations
Federal-Property-395@reddit
Not in the air. There are legit reasons, e.g. replacing the CVR (dont wanna electrocute the technician) or to diagnose issues. It could also be turned off after the aircraft has landed due to an emergency to preserve the recording and not let it overwrite itself (sometimes you might have power running and the CVR on for hours even after an emergency landing)
But in the air, it should never be turned off
Fredovsky@reddit
CVR can be turned off but usually not the FDR I believe, which would record the position of the cutoff switches.
clackerbag@reddit
You can disable either the CVR or FDR by pulling the appropriate circuit breaker if you wanted to.
Hot_Net_4845@reddit
This information was gained through a private individual requesting an FOIA to the NTSB. The NTSB sent the CVR data back to the CAAC and no longer have it
PitifulEar3303@reddit
Why NTSB no keep backup?
FaydedMemories@reddit
iirc, NTSB don’t release audio files after issues with media/etc in the past and it causes issues with pilot unions/etc too, so they only release transcripts.
From what I recall of the person that said they filed the FOIA request (they posted here a week or two ago), they were told that the NTSB either no longer had the audio files or wouldn’t release them*, and there no transcripts held by NTSB as their job was to get the audio files off the CVR and provide them to the Chinese investigators who would then transcribe them.
I think I’ve read that typically the investigation agencies hold closed briefings of the CVR/transcript to prevent leaks and the only times they’re disseminated further is in official reports/briefings, it’s completely plausible the NTSB has never held a copy of the transcript outside of an office somewhere in China.
(* I have no idea of the specifics of US FOIA but if it’s anything like the countries where I am familiar with similar legislation there is usually a carve out for not providing information that may jeopardise various things, including the ability for the organisation to operate, I imagine NTSB would still have copies of the audio, and I’m sure the media have challenged the policy of refusal to provide tapes/audio in courts, unsuccessfully given the NTSB continue their policy/stance)
charlie_30@reddit
Because it's not their investigation?
YMMV25@reddit
Didn’t know that was still in question.
ForsakenRacism@reddit
Way to beat around the bush with that headline
Signal-Session-6637@reddit
The Naked Pilot has an interesting opinion on mental health for flight crew.
post-explainer@reddit
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