Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Suicide and Commercial Aviation

The possibility that one of the pilots of the missing Malaysian jet committed mass murder/pilot suicide is an ugly prospect - and evidence increasingly points in that direction - though clearly no one knows what happened at this time.

If this is indeed the case it would be, at least, the 5th mass murder/pilot suicide on a commercial airliner  (the SilkAir crash was not a slam dunk, but certainly highly suspicious) in the last 15 or 20 years (including 9/11). Wrap your mind around that for a minute.

Not "pilot error". "Pilot Suicide", but instead of hanging himself in the garage he decides to go out with a bang - and take hundreds of other innocent people along with him.

Spy satellites show no mid air explosion, but they do show a sudden turn in the aircraft. Could some mechanical failure have occurred? Sure, and if that was the case the crew would have had plenty of time to communicate a problem... but there was no such communication and no distress signal.

That's disconcerting.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was thinking similar things about all the pilot suicides.

That said, some people think it is at least possible that a sudden electrical malfunction and fire incapacitated the radio, transponder, and other avionics, and that the pilots attempted to turn around using whatever means left to them.

In any case, what I also find unsettling is how hard it has been for the authorities in the area to even agree where the radars, civilian and military, even last recorded the plane.

I wonder if an airliner off the coast of the US could similarly confuse and elude our FAA and air defense radar and crews? I never would have thought such was possible most anywhere near any populated landmass anymore.

Stephen B.