Air India 787 Crashes in Western India

For all the crap I gave some of you for baselessly blaming Boeing, I would have rather had that been a reality than this possibly being an intentional act/mass murder. What a horrible road this is starting to go down. Just terrible. I think there were infants in the manifest. How could anyone?
 
Last edited:
GLMS_NC said:
Those investigating know who said what in that cockpit. There are CAM mics; release that info. Also, release the full CAM audio so we can hear the switch movement and/or other sounds.

Due to their culture they are holding back info. This is a difficult topic to discuss/review. What we do know is a human up front moved the switches and there were two people up there. This tragedy was pre-planned by one of them as they knew when to flip the switch, what to say, and when to flip them back. Orchestrated.

The "check switches" statement is to help satisfy the flying public.

Very sad event
Click to expand...


Focus is on the captain.

 
35 AoA said:
For all the crap I gave some of you for baselessly blaming Boeing, I would have rather had that been a reality than this possibly being an intentional act/mass murder. What a horrible road this is starting to go down. Just terrible. I think there were infants in the manifest. How could anyone?
Click to expand...

I find it strange that people can't except that there are evil people walking amongst us.
 
35 AoA said:
For all the crap I gave some of you for baselessly blaming Boeing, I would have rather had that been a reality than this possibly being an intentional act/mass murder. What a horrible road this is starting to go down. Just terrible. I think there were infants in the manifest. How could anyone?
Click to expand...
Not only that, but timed it just about right for the plane to come down in the hospital.

This is a special kind of evil.
 
So with whiplash like intensity we’ve abandoned the FO as the evil among us to the captain? Again, what about waiting until the final report is out and all the evidence is known before declaring this or that person to be “evil”? Jeez
 
AKiss20 said:
So with whiplash like intensity we’ve abandoned the FO as the evil among us to the captain? Again, what about waiting until the final report is out and all the evidence is known before declaring this or that person to be “evil”? Jeez
Click to expand...
Well I’m assuming there was only two people in the cockpit. One or the other pulled the shutoff. At first it seemed the FO then the captain. How about all the talk of switches going off by themselves? Never bought that.

In two years maybe we’ll find out maybe not.
 
Lindberg said:
The "new details" seem to be speculation from people who've read the prelim.
Click to expand...
The leak (i.e. the Captain did it) came from someone who was a party to the investigation. It is believed that it was someone with the NTSB. If so, it was a very intentional leak, likely because they believed that the Indian authorities were covering up these details.
 
Yeah, that Chinese 737 seemed similar. The USA investigation pointed to deliberate, as they made an exit or were ushered out.

To this day there is no ‘final’ report, 3+ years. I agree it’s painful, bet let the truth out.
 
Albany Tom said:
Respectfully, that's just not true. For whatever reason, over the years I've had a lot of friends who have just generally been sad. More than one has said that the only reason they hang on is because they don't want to hurt, or let down, their friends and family. In my experience that's typical of depressed people. They suffer in pain every day, sometimes afraid of seeking help, but never wanting to hurt anyone. It's the mental equivalent of just hanging onto a ledge with their fingertips. At some point they just can't take it.
Click to expand...
I think there's a bit of a survivor bias in your post. And I'm sure that many hang on for those exact reasons... They're the ones that don't go through with it.

But I also think that once the decision is made, at least for some, the thoughts of others have been drowned out by the hurt in oneself.
 
Larry in TN said:
The leak (i.e. the Captain did it) came from someone who was a party to the investigation. It is believed that it was someone with the NTSB. If so, it was a very intentional leak, likely because they believed that the Indian authorities were covering up these details.
Click to expand...


Doesn’t surprise me at all. I follow Indian media and have family there - it was pretty much denial
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I think there's a bit of a survivor bias in your post. And I'm sure that many hang on for those exact reasons... They're the ones that don't go through with it.

But I also think that once the decision is made, at least for some, the thoughts of others have been drowned out by the hurt in oneself.
Click to expand...
I don't agree. I see the depressed and suicidal as all internal, with no malevolence. Those who commit murder, in my view, are driven just by evil - filled with anger, and with no concern at all for anyone else. Two completely separate groups. The former is trapped by their own pain. The latter driven by a need to cause suffering to others. The only reason the second group kills themselves is because in their mind they've served their purpose, and because they don't want to deal with the consequences. Trying to group those together, again in my view, would be like grouping together Audie Murphy and Ted Bundy. They both took lives, but for wildly different reasons. Lumping together murderers with depression isn't helpful in trying to get help for those with depression...and the number of people suffering from depression is far larger than the number of mass killers.

Not sure what you are suggesting with survivor's bias. I'd wager that everyone reading this forum now is a) alive and b) has some experience with someone in their group of friends or family that's experienced a suicide. I related a positive story. I'm not going to relate negative stories. I have more of those. But in those instances, there's no anger. If you or anyone else has anger around suicide it's understandable, but I believe it's misplaced. There's a lot of things to be angry with in this world, that's just not one of them. Again, just my view.
 
In some instances you waste time trying to understand the reasoning with seriously crazy acts. That could be school shootings, similar acts, or even that guy in WA who killed his daughters.

Just saying, a sane person can’t come to understand reasoning inside the insane mind. In a clinical setting, fine. I think you just have to try to prevent acts when encountered, the best you can.
 
Albany Tom said:
I don't agree. I see the depressed and suicidal as all internal, with no malevolence. Those who commit murder, in my view, are driven just by evil - filled with anger, and with no concern at all for anyone else. Two completely separate groups. The former is trapped by their own pain. The latter driven by a need to cause suffering to others. The only reason the second group kills themselves is because in their mind they've served their purpose, and because they don't want to deal with the consequences. Trying to group those together, again in my view, would be like grouping together Audie Murphy and Ted Bundy. They both took lives, but for wildly different reasons. Lumping together murderers with depression isn't helpful in trying to get help for those with depression...and the number of people suffering from depression is far larger than the number of mass killers.
Click to expand...
There's two different groups here - Suicidal people who take others out with them, and murderous people who commit suicide, often indirectly, in the process of murdering.

I think the second group generally kills people who they have a specific motive to kill, or they kill people as a means to achieve notoriety and posthumous fame. But in both cases, they're specifically making a spectacle of it - School shootings being a sadly frequent example.

But I don't think the Air India pilot was in that group. I think that group is more motivated by anger than by depression. Like you said, they're avoiding the consequences. And while a plane crash is certainly a spectacle, I think usually that latter group wants to take out more specific groups of people than just the random 200-some people who got on their airplane. I would also expect them to have either left a manifesto or said something on the CVR.

So, I'd posit that the captain was in the former group, and his pain was all-consuming enough that he didn't consider the effects on the families of his passengers.

Albany Tom said:
Not sure what you are suggesting with survivor's bias. I'd wager that everyone reading this forum now is a) alive and b) has some experience with someone in their group of friends or family that's experienced a suicide.
Click to expand...
Just that your examples of people who didn't do it because of thoughts about their family, or who tried and failed and were thinking of their family in how they did their attempt, are the ones who lived to tell you their stories. It may well be that the people within your extended circles who get to the level of no longer thinking about others are the ones who didn't live to tell their story.

EDIT: Sorry, I realized I used the wrong term. I meant survivorship bias.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
There's two different groups here - Suicidal people who take others out with them, and murderous people who commit suicide, often indirectly, in the process of murdering.

I think the second group generally kills people who they have a specific motive to kill, or they kill people as a means to achieve notoriety and posthumous fame. But in both cases, they're specifically making a spectacle of it - School shootings being a sadly frequent example.

But I don't think the Air India pilot was in that group. I think that group is more motivated by anger than by depression. Like you said, they're avoiding the consequences. And while a plane crash is certainly a spectacle, I think usually that latter group wants to take out more specific groups of people than just the random 200-some people who got on their airplane. I would also expect them to have either left a manifesto or said something on the CVR.

So, I'd posit that the captain was in the former group, and his pain was all-consuming enough that he didn't consider the effects on the families of his passengers.


Just that your examples of people who didn't do it because of thoughts about their family, or who tried and failed and were thinking of their family in how they did their attempt, are the ones who lived to tell you their stories. It may well be that the people within your extended circles who get to the level of no longer thinking about others are the ones who didn't live to tell their story.

EDIT: Sorry, I realized I used the wrong term. I meant survivorship bias.
Click to expand...
Ah. We're not as far apart in belief as I thought. I don't believe that a depressed/suicidal person ever gets rid of the feeling that they're action will harm their family, I say that in part because I believe that part of the reason that these people are depressed is that they feel everything, and too strongly. I think it's that they just can't take the pain anymore, and perhaps their feeling is that their existence is more of a burden than the pain will be. Which fits with not valuing their own life highly enough.

Survivorship bias could be part of the equation, but speaking to my friend in the hospital after, she truly didn't want to hurt anyone, even though she'd already made the decision to end it all, and was genuinely surprised at the support she received. She either believed, or convinced herself that nobody cared. When I was younger, I thought that often suicide attempts were cries for attention, and many weren't really trying. I honestly don't know if that is sometimes the case, but it wasn't in the case of my friend. It was just luck and the right person in the right place that caused her to survive.

I don't think the captain would be in that former group, because while I can believe there are people that evil in the world, I don't think it's related to depression. Perhaps it's that while suicidal people are haunted by sadness/lack of happiness, mass murderers in part just don't seem to have the humanity to care at all about anyone. To me, that's just evil. But maybe my world view is too black and white.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
There's two different groups here - Suicidal people who take others out with them, and murderous people who commit suicide, often indirectly, in the process of murdering.

I think the second group generally kills people who they have a specific motive to kill, or they kill people as a means to achieve notoriety and posthumous fame. But in both cases, they're specifically making a spectacle of it - School shootings being a sadly frequent example.
Click to expand...
Good explanation.

flyingcheesehead said:
So, I'd posit that the captain was in the former group, and his pain was all-consuming enough that he didn't consider the effects on the families of his passengers.
Click to expand...
I disagree... the captain was not stupid or outwardly deranged. He considered the consequences of murdering hundreds of innocents, and causing lifelong shame and grief to his family.

He didn't care about the terrible consequences one iota when he pre-planned, then perfectly arranged a well-choreographed and calculated crash. If proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he was responsible, he will go down in history as a cowardly, selfish monster.
 
Rick A said:
I disagree... the captain was not stupid or outwardly deranged. He considered the consequences of murdering hundreds of innocents, and causing lifelong shame and grief to his family.

He didn't care about the terrible consequences one iota when he pre-planned, then perfectly arranged a well-choreographed and calculated crash. If proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he was responsible, he will go down in history as a cowardly, selfish monster.
Click to expand...
So you knew this pilot?
 
Rick A said:
I disagree... the captain was not stupid or outwardly deranged. He considered the consequences of murdering hundreds of innocents, and causing lifelong shame and grief to his family.
Click to expand...
It sounds like suicide in general brings shame and dishonor to an entire family in India. I think he was trying to end it in a way that would not be discovered to be suicide, to AVOID the lifelong shame to his family.

Hence, the "I didn't" when queried about the switches... And it's a control that's easily accessible to both pilots, and there's no way to prove who did it or why. Probably sounded like a good plan at the time.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
It sounds like suicide in general brings shame and dishonor to an entire family in India. I think he was trying to end it in a way that would not be discovered to be suicide, to AVOID the lifelong shame to his family.

Hence, the "I didn't" when queried about the switches... And it's a control that's easily accessible to both pilots, and there's no way to prove who did it or why. Probably sounded like a good plan at the time.
Click to expand...


I have spent a decent part of my life in India, and in my opinion this is definitely a consideration. It’s shame to his family, his culture, the country. I have family members in my WhatsApp family chat who have said “an Indian would never do this”. The entire aviation community and media circus there is looking for the improbable explanation and denial of the most likely outcome. Mental health has historically been a taboo topic there and while changing the roots of that are deep in the older generations. So this being orchestrated to make it seem like it wasn’t suicide is a high possibility. They said he had an older dad. Without being able to confirm 100% I’m fairly certain the shame his dad will have to live with in his community if everyone found out his son is deliberately responsible for this was a consideration he thought of. It’s bashed into your head your entire life.. don’t bring shame to your family or community. This is going off topic but many parents have killed themselves in Indian society because their Hindu child has married a Muslim person, which among many things is a shame they can’t bare carrying in their community.
 
Nikhiln25 said:
The entire aviation community and media circus there is looking for the improbable explanation and denial of the most likely outcome.
Click to expand...
So, what is the base rate of pilot suicides vs. the base rate of pilots flipping the wrong switch?
 
Lindberg said:
So, what is the base rate of pilot suicides vs. the base rate of pilots flipping the wrong switch?
Click to expand...
Certainly we've all "flipped the wrong switch" at one time or another. But most of the time, it comes to nothing.
 
GLMS_NC said:
…but we are part 91 pilots. Not 121 or 135, where standards and performance requirements are different.
Click to expand...
To be a pilot of heroic virtue, demonstrated by a career dedicated to aviation, and to be associated with at least two verified miracles, IIRC. :biggrin:
 
X3 Skier said:
I thuoght I had logged into POA but apparently this is actually notes from an introductory survey course in Psychiatry for Pre Med Students :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Nope. Can't have anyone nearly so informed in a thread speculating on accident causes. :D
 
Lindberg said:
So, what is the base rate of pilot suicides vs. the base rate of pilots flipping the wrong switch
Click to expand...

Isn't the theory here that whoever did it flipped TWO switches, about a second apart? That just seems more deliberate than accidental to me.
 
strikes2k said:
Isn't the theory here that whoever did it flipped TWO switches, about a second apart? That just seems more deliberate than accidental to me.
Click to expand...
I don't believe that there is any question that TWO physical switches were thrown cutting off fuel to TWO engines.
 
 
kyleb said:
They refer to/reference Mary Schiavo as an aviation expert. There’s no need to continue reading after that.
Click to expand...
I’m not familiar with her. With so many theories going around, I hadn’t seen this other 787 fuel switch incident.

Thanks!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top