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National Geographic Channel's Air Crash Investigation

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Any of you guys watched the USAF B732 incident at Dubrovnik,Croatia episode last Tuesday?

 

What a shocking fact.The B732 is not even equipped with CVR at all!

 

Wonder what the USAF high command were thinking...

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Any of you guys watched the USAF B732 incident at Dubrovnik,Croatia episode last Tuesday?

 

What a shocking fact.The B732 is not even equipped with CVR at all!

 

Wonder what the USAF high command were thinking...

The USAF used the B732 initially as Navigator trainner,so just like other military airplane does not come equiped with a CVR.Latere it was modified as atransport aircraft by removing the Nav trainner consoles in the cabin.Was assigned to USAFE as a intheatre transport.

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Very interesting indeed.. You guys agree with the Pilot suicide theory?

Edited by Jay

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i do not agree with the theory that the pilot have commited suicide.....but i do agree on the defect on the parker hannifin rudder system....just my opinion.. :pardon:

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Despite what everyone saw on NG channel about pilot suicide theory, NG did not mention about this fact:

 

In 1999, a Los Angeles court's jury team found Parker-Hannifin to caused a defect which contributed to rudder hard-over in Silk Air 737 crash. Parker-Hannifin had to pay USD43.6 mil compensation to the families of 3 passengers killed in that crash.

 

The jurors decided that defects in the rudder controls of the Silk Air Boeing 737 caused it to plummet from an altitude of more than more than 10km, killing all 104 people aboard. Their findings are at odds with that of the NTSB, which concluded that there were no mechanical defects and that the Silk Air pilot crashed the plane deliberately. They put all of the blame for the crash on Parker-Hannifin, and none on Silk Air or Boeing, which manufactured the 10-month-old plane.

 

As a result of this LA court decision, in 1999 the families of 30 other crash victims have filed a lawsuit against Parker-Hannifin seeking USD 250 million in compensation. As per the court's record which I just pulled tonight, this case was settled by all parties in Oct. 2005 (settlement sum is secret).

Case name: In Re: Air crash/Palembang, et al in the US Dist Crt of US for the Dist of Western Washington (Seattle)

Docket #: 2:99-MD-01276

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Will Parker-Hannifin pay out (hundereds of millions I presumed) to settle out of court if they are reasonably sure that they will win the lawsuit?

 

3 + 30 families fought and got settlement. I wonder what happened to the rest....??

 

 

 

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Will Parker-Hannifin pay out (hundereds of millions I presumed) to settle out of court if they are reasonably sure that they will win the lawsuit?

 

3 + 30 families fought and got settlement. I wonder what happened to the rest....??

Sometimes, it is better to settle and focus on other battles....if it is cheaper to settle than fight, most co.'s executives opt to settle. A rough search of US court database shows that there are 2,000 ongoing cases where Parker-Hannifin is a party or involved in some way or otherwise (not necessary as a defendant or plaintiff).

 

Although USD46 mil is a big sum for all of us...it seems insignificant compared to USD 10 billion sales made by Parker-Hannifin this year alone (from Jan - July).

 

I suppose the rest of the families just took whatever compensation offered by Silk Air and decided to get on with their lives. Lawsuits can drag on for so many years (until your hair color becomes white) and still cannot see the money. Ordinary folks who lost their only breadwinner tend to take the money without thinking too much because they need it for immediate needs.

 

For example, within days after SQ006 crash, SQ offered families of dead passengers USD400,000 (SGD700,000) as settlement, which also prevented families from suing SQ in the future. A Chinese American family (a brother and sister who lost both their parents) persisted and sued SQ...the jury in a LA court awarded them USD15 million. After this lawsuit, SQ quickly settled several other pending lawsuits in US. This is a record-breaking sum in a US lawsuit involving air accident deaths.

 

One issue which is unfair is if you sue in US and win, you get award amounting to several million USD. If you sue in Singapore or Taiwan, you get so much less. The irony is that the value of life is so different in other parts of the world.

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In 1999, a Los Angeles court's jury team found Parker-Hannifin to caused a defect which contributed to rudder hard-over in Silk Air 737 crash.

 

Excuse my ignorance, but doesn't this 'smell' similar to the UA 737 crash in Colorado and the US 737 crash in Pennsylvania ? :o

 

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Excuse my ignorance, but doesn't this 'smell' similar to the UA 737 crash in Colorado and the US 737 crash in Pennsylvania ? :o

 

yeah pieter...i also felt something like tat....but doesn't that means that the rudder system made by parker-hannifin in deed causes trouble and do all of the 737 series in service nowaday use the rudder system made by parker-hannifin??? if yes...will that causes any more trouble in the future??? :o

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I guess am still quite unconvinced about the pilot suicide theory as he could have done it in a much more 'conventional' way than taking along many other lives with him. He may have financial trouble but he will have to overcome the first officer first if he is going to take the plane down......

 

Wai Hung, thanks for the link to the Air crash investigation series!!

Edited by S V Choong

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Excuse my ignorance, but doesn't this 'smell' similar to the UA 737 crash in Colorado and the US 737 crash in Pennsylvania ? :o

 

Maybe :) ,

 

United Airlines Flight 585 and US Air Flight 427 crashed because there is a small mechanism in the rudder that is in the wrong position and distributed the hydraulic fluids to the wrong places, causing the rudder to stop responding. This is based from what I watched the program, History Channel's "Modern Marvels."

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Swiss Court Convicts 4 in 2002 Air Crash

 

By HARRY ROSENBAUM – 1 hour ago

 

BUELACH, Switzerland (AP) — Four employees of a Swiss air traffic control company were convicted of negligent homicide on Tuesday in the 2002 mid-air collision of a passenger plane and cargo jet that killed 71 people — most of them vacationing Russian schoolchildren.

 

Only one Skyguide air traffic controller was on duty at the time of the collision over German airspace. That man, Peter Nielsen, was stabbed to death in 2004 by a Russian whose wife and children were killed.

 

Some of the defendants, who were not identified during the trial because of Swiss privacy laws, blamed Nielsen for not following proper procedures, but prosecutors cited a culture of negligence and lack of risk awareness at Skyguide, maintaining the collision was not solely Nielsen's fault.

 

Three of those convicted Tuesday — all middle managers — received one-year suspended prison sentences. The fourth was ordered to pay a $11,200 fine for his role in the collision, on July 1, 2002, of a Bashkirian Airlines plane and a DHL cargo jet near the south German town of Ueberlingen, killing the two cargo pilots and everyone on the passenger plane.

 

All four will have to pay court costs of $20,700.

 

Four other Skyguide officials were acquitted of wrongdoing.

 

Prosecutors had requested suspended prison sentences ranging from six to 15 months for all defendants.

 

Vitaly Kaloyev, the Russian who killed Nielsen, is currently serving a 5 1/4 year prison sentence.

 

Before his death, Nielsen told investigators that he had worked under stressful conditions on the night of the crash, because a colleague took a break and maintenance on the air traffic control system had affected monitoring and communications.

 

Prosecutors say neighboring control centers were not informed that the main telephone connection to Skyguide was out of order that night. German officials tried to warn Nielsen that the planes were on a collision course in airspace under Skyguide's jurisdiction, but could not reach him.

 

By the time Nielsen realized the problem, he gave the planes only 44 seconds' warning that they were getting too close to each other. He also mistakenly told the Russian plane to descend — sending it straight into the cargo jet.

 

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h7gDIw-...V6ynHX1vp8OxD9Q

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Swiss Court Convicts 4 in 2002 Air Crash

 

By HARRY ROSENBAUM – 1 hour ago

 

BUELACH, Switzerland (AP) — Four employees of a Swiss air traffic control company were convicted of negligent homicide on Tuesday in the 2002 mid-air collision of a passenger plane and cargo jet that killed 71 people — most of them vacationing Russian schoolchildren.

 

Only one Skyguide air traffic controller was on duty at the time of the collision over German airspace. That man, Peter Nielsen, was stabbed to death in 2004 by a Russian whose wife and children were killed.

 

Some of the defendants, who were not identified during the trial because of Swiss privacy laws, blamed Nielsen for not following proper procedures, but prosecutors cited a culture of negligence and lack of risk awareness at Skyguide, maintaining the collision was not solely Nielsen's fault.

 

Three of those convicted Tuesday — all middle managers — received one-year suspended prison sentences. The fourth was ordered to pay a $11,200 fine for his role in the collision, on July 1, 2002, of a Bashkirian Airlines plane and a DHL cargo jet near the south German town of Ueberlingen, killing the two cargo pilots and everyone on the passenger plane.

 

All four will have to pay court costs of $20,700.

 

Four other Skyguide officials were acquitted of wrongdoing.

 

Prosecutors had requested suspended prison sentences ranging from six to 15 months for all defendants.

 

Vitaly Kaloyev, the Russian who killed Nielsen, is currently serving a 5 1/4 year prison sentence.

 

Before his death, Nielsen told investigators that he had worked under stressful conditions on the night of the crash, because a colleague took a break and maintenance on the air traffic control system had affected monitoring and communications.

 

Prosecutors say neighboring control centers were not informed that the main telephone connection to Skyguide was out of order that night. German officials tried to warn Nielsen that the planes were on a collision course in airspace under Skyguide's jurisdiction, but could not reach him.

 

By the time Nielsen realized the problem, he gave the planes only 44 seconds' warning that they were getting too close to each other. He also mistakenly told the Russian plane to descend — sending it straight into the cargo jet.

 

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h7gDIw-...V6ynHX1vp8OxD9Q

 

I thought Vitaly Kaloyev mentally ku-kooooed ?

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Only one Skyguide air traffic controller was on duty at the time of the collision over German airspace. That man, Peter Nielsen, was stabbed to death in 2004 by a Russian whose wife and children were killed.

 

Well why kill him... The law is there, why not let the law solve this? And it seems contradict to the privacy law, how could the reveal who was the controller by that time anyway??

 

RIP to all the victims...

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Well.. when your kids and wife died, all your world can crumble down. Rationality is the last thing on your mind.

Anyway, I watched this one in Air Crash Investigator before, it's interesting that with the technology we have these days, mid air collisions can still happen.

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Well.. when your kids and wife died, all your world can crumble down. Rationality is the last thing on your mind.

Anyway, I watched this one in Air Crash Investigator before, it's interesting that with the technology we have these days, mid air collisions can still happen.

 

Technologies can only assist humans, who can only do so much. :pardon:

 

+++

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Well why kill him... The law is there, why not let the law solve this? And it seems contradict to the privacy law, how could the reveal who was the controller by that time anyway??

 

I guess he probably felt that any form of sentence will not do any justice, so he chose to take the law to his own hand. Indeed it is sad to see such a waste of life which could have been avoided in the first place.

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Synopsis

 

Helios Airways Flight 522

August 14, 2005

Boeing 737-300

Loss of cabin pressure, fuel exhaustion

 

Helios Airways Flight 522 departs from Cyprus. As it flies over Greece, air traffic controllers lose radio contact with it. Fighter jets are sent up to meet with the Boeing 737. One of the fighters draws alongside and its pilot sees that the First Officer appears to be alone and unconscious in the flight deck. Everyone visible in the cabin seems to be unconscious as well, and oxygen masks are dangling from the cabin ceiling. Then the fighter pilot witnesses someone enter the cockpit. The mysterious person appears to be trying to regain control of the aircraft, but it is too late. Soon, Flight 522 runs out of fuel and dives into a hill near Marathon, Greece. There are no survivors. After a thorough investigation, the mysterious person is found out to be a flight attendant who managed to stay conscious by using a portable oxygen mask as opposed to the aircraft's installed oxygen masks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mayday_episodes

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Still wondering, why during the pre-check the 2nd officer miss the switch. Is the cabin pressure switch not in the pre-check list. Any 737 capt can confirm on this.?

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