Germanwings A320 Crashes in French Alps

[Hardy]

More on this. Googling around, the only reference I can find to the identity of the leaker mentions a senior FRENCH military official, which makes more sense. I did hear more than one reference to a U.S. military official during the week.

The IALPA has condemned the leak:
"The International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations (IFALPA) deplores and condemns yesterday's leaking of certain elements of the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of the Germanwings flight 4U9525," the association said in a statement. "Not only do these leaks contravene the internationally agreed principles of accident investigation confidentiality set out in ICAO Annex 13, they are also a breach of trust to all those involved in the investigation and to the families of the victims. Furthermore, leaks of this nature greatly harm flight safety since they invite ill-informed speculation from the media and the general public and discourage cooperation with investigators in future accidents."

[Mike Sheehy]

More on this. Googling around, the only reference I can find to the identity of the leaker mentions a senior FRENCH military official, which makes more sense. I did hear more than one reference to a U.S. military official during the week.

Armaghiac referred to it earlier on in this thread. Perhaps he knows ?.

[muppet]

I don't know what you'd think about this, Muppet, but I heard somebody on the radio on Thursday - former air accident investigator, I think - who said this was a highly irregular and unprofessional act on the part of some U.S. military character who was somehow involved in or had access to the cockpit voice recorder analysis. Apparently this gobshite leaked the information to the N.Y. Times, an action unheard of among accident investigators, it would seem.

Yer man on the radio was suggesting that, even if it was clear that it was pilot error or deliberate pilot action, it would be unusual to release this information in the immediate aftermath of the event, while families are grieving, emotions are raw, etc. Due process would be observed and nothing would be said officially until the full report was issued some months later, at the earliest.

I don't understand why the authorities decided to confirm the leak. I'd have thought all they had to say was that this was speculation and the report would be issued when the thing had been fully investigated. In particular, I can't understand why the Marseille prosecutor jumped into the picture with his press conference. Why the need, at this early stage, for his allocation of blame and his detailed description (including the outrageous and gratuitous stuff about the passengers screaming) unless it was self-promotion, political grandstanding or something.

I hadn't realised it was a leak. In fairness that changes things and I withdraw my criticism of the investigators, except obviously the person who leaked the info.

Normally it takes ages for info to come out, but there are good reasons for that.

[easytiger95]

Leaking is deplorable but is it not the protocol to bring out preliminary findings within days if they have a safety aspect to the them? In this case the rule of 2 is not standard for the majority of European airlines, as I understand, but now, in the aftermath of this information being released, this has changed.

Not condoning the prosecutor from Marseilles by the way.

[armaghniac]

The original leak was in the NY Times, French agencies didn't carry the story at first, and the suggestion was that this came from an American on the investigation. But the rest of the data came quickly afterwards, not from Americans.

[muppet]

Leaking is deplorable but is it not the protocol to bring out preliminary findings within days if they have a safety aspect to the them? In this case the rule of 2 is not standard for the majority of European airlines, as I understand, but now, in the aftermath of this information being released, this has changed.

Not condoning the prosecutor from Marseilles by the way.

My understanding is that there should be a preliminary report within 30 days. That is usually just a statement of facts that have been gathered and confirmed. It rarely has conclusions or findings.

[trileacman]

In particular, I can't understand why the Marseille prosecutor jumped into the picture with his press conference. Why the need, at this early stage, for his allocation of blame and his detailed description (including the outrageous and gratuitous stuff about the passengers screaming) unless it was self-promotion, political grandstanding or something.

I think you do understand so. Alot of shite like this in the world today unfortunately and worse still a plethora of once reputable media agencies who are only delighted to encourage such behavior.

[seafoid]

Other than going to use the toilet is there any good reason for a member of the flight crew to leave the flight deck during flight (under normal circumstances)?

Put a bog in the cockpit....

Almost always...no.

However there are exceptions to everything. For example on the ground while taxiing a pilot might want to visually inspect the wings for snow or maybe a passenger says they see something broken or open on an engine (this does happen). But that stuff would be done on the ground.

As an aside, I am not comfortable with the way every piece of info is immediately released to the press. It is hard to see at the moment, but there could still be undiscovered evidence that would change everything. As a wild example, imagine if they now found the co-pilot had been deliberately drugged in some way.

If the investigators were being remotely professional, they would wait until they had gathered and analysed as much evidence as possible, before allocating all of the blame onto one dead person. That is not to say they are wrong, just that they can't be sure they are right yet.

That is very much the way with modern media.
Rubbernecking is another problem.   

[muppet]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/air-canada-ac624-touched-down-335-metres-short-of-runway-tsb-says-1.3013979

A bad week for aviation got even worse. Thankfully everyone survived.

[Milltown Row2]

Flying this Friday lol!! Tenerife....

[Boycey]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/03/31/crash-germanwings-video-final-seconds/70726960/

That's grim, how long will it take for it to be on the Internet...

[DennistheMenace]

Not sure I'd want to watch that, quite peverse.

[Esmarelda]

I haven't read the full thread so apologies if something similar has been put up.

http://russia-insider.com/en/germanwings-crash-not-full-story/5140

[muppet]

I haven't read the full thread so apologies if something similar has been put up.

http://russia-insider.com/en/germanwings-crash-not-full-story/5140

If the gist of that is criticism of the investigation I would tend to agree.

However some of it is complete nonsense.

The Air France Captain must be deaf if he needs to use headset to speak to his colleague in an A320. They are not noisy at all. My guess is the Air France Captain flies a different aircraft and assumes it is as noisy as that one.

He is correct about the 'knob' not making a beeb. It is silent.

His third point is half right. They should have heard the alarm for someone trying to get in to the cockpit. But then he blows it by suggesting they couldn't hear anything because of the 'ambient noise'. As I said, it is not noisy.

I think it would be possible to hear someone breathing heavily in the cockpit, depending on how heavily. However the only way to be convinced would be to release the recording. But at this stage the French have screwed up the investigation so badly, many people wouldn't believe them anyway.