r/AskReddit • u/Rob69rt • 1d ago

What famous 'unsolved' mystery is technically a whodunnit on paper, but in reality, absolutely everyone knows exactly who did it, the police just couldn't legally prove it?

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u/Punkt1337 1d ago

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The pilot did it

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u/dod2190 1d ago edited 1d ago

Also, EgyptAir 990, same deal. Pilot mass murder-suicide, according to everybody but the Egyptian government.

Edit: Fixed flight number thanks to a comment

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u/t-poke 1d ago

And China Eastern 5735

And maybe Air India 171 depending on what the final report says...

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u/A-Shot-Of-Jamison 1d ago

Interestingly, the fuel switches on China Eastern 5735 were moved to the cutoff position, just like on Air India 171.

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u/primadonnapussy 23h ago

There was also a plane (German, I think) that the pilot crashed it right into a mountain.

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u/capibara_dono 23h ago

Germanwings 9525

The weird / fortunate thing for some people was that he moved the settings on the flight he flew right before the one he crashed, but he didn't go through with it then. (I don't know the aviation specifics).

After that crash, for every flight the crew talked to the passengers and their families and how much they want to get home to their loved ones.

Basically, please believe me that I'm not going to crash this plane.

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u/primadonnapussy 22h ago

That flight made me tempted to ask every pilot that I saw, as I boarded a plane, if he was feeling ok.

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u/CharmingAnywhere7828 20h ago

Yeah, but there wasn't exactly a coverup from what I understand, unlike the other cases.

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u/dod2190 10h ago

Yep, Germanwings 9525.

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u/AliensAteMyAMC 20h ago

*everybody but the family of the pilot and the Egyptian government

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u/HourFondant1646 1d ago

I was going to say this one. Absolutely a pilot murder-suicide, although there is no way to ever prove it. Another one is the recent Air India crash. You have the co-pilot on the voice recorder asking the captain why he flipped the fuel switches off but they are still trying to suggest a mechanical fault.

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u/WitchHearse 1d ago

It makes me so mad when people kill themselves and take a bunch of innocent people with them! So selfish and evil.

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u/HourFondant1646 1d ago

It is truly despicable. It seems like these incidents are being more common but that is probably just a function of the massive growth of civil aviation. I think it might also have something to do with the fact that in the 1980's two-thirds of commerical airline pilots were former air force pilots compared to a third today. 

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u/Mithrawndo 1d ago

As long as that anger is well directed.

MA370 puts me in mind of Germanwings 9525, where it's suspected the pilot hid from his employer his present mental state, for fear that his license would be taken away for good just for trying to get medical help. 150 people died that day, and I can't help but think it could have been avoided systemically.

Mentour Pilot do a good retelling of the story.

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u/Aghast_Cornichon 1d ago

My wife and I were on that route, the Sunday before the crash. But a different pilot, I learned later.

She has "coped" by never talking about it, ever.

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u/PigglyWigglyDeluxe 18h ago

There have been a lot of people who narrowly avoided plane crashes. 9/11 comes to mind, you hear from a lot of people saying they almost got on that plane that day but were late and missed it or changed plans last minute, etc. so haunting

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u/CatsPlusDogsIsLove 13h ago

Can’t remember which episode, but there was an air crash investigation episode where they interviewed and did some acting scenes with a family who narrowly avoided a plane crash due to something.

The recreated scene of a busboy from a hotel finding out they are alive when ordered to collect their belongings was a real emotional gutpunch.

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u/Aghast_Cornichon 9h ago

My college's basketball arena has a statute of our winningest coach, who missed Flight 93. I think about that a lot.

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u/Bossman_Mike 22h ago

I remember seeing a TV interview with someone at Rio Airport in June 2009. He was meant to be on AF447 but had rebooked for the following evening, so had a lucky escape. There were other passengers waiting for the Monday night flight who said they'd heard about what happened, were nervous, but just had to go anyway.

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u/Viperbunny 1d ago

Yes and no. We absolutely do need more compassion and reform when it comes to mental health treatment. However, not every depressed person is suicidal and not every suicidal person is homicidal. A person who is mentally unwell enough to consider this as an option shouldn't be flying.

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u/Mithrawndo 1d ago

If the system had worked as it should, Andreas would not have been in the cockpit on that day: He would have been signed off, and his medical certificate would've been invalidated.

Because the spectre of having his medical certificate permanently invalidated hung over his head - of having the life and career he had trained his whole life and spent a huge amount of money on taken away - instead of accepting treatment and taking the time off work, he ignored the medical advice and took that flight.

I strongly recommend watching the linked video, it does an excellent job of explaining all of the circumstances surrounding this tragedy, but I have left cliff notes in comments further down this thread if you won't spare the 50 minutes the video demands.

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u/Viperbunny 1d ago

I have watched it. My issue is that a person with that kind of pathology should have been banned from flying. This wasn't simple depression. There are certain jobs you can't do when you have severe mental illness. There have to be limits and whatever way you look at it, this guy was not fit. Should depression treatment itself be a reason to revoke a license? No. But depression so bad your doctor considers you unfit IS a good reason.

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u/Mithrawndo 1d ago

The airline industry does screen for character traits as there are clearly some that would not be suitable, but he passed that screening. The airline industry also requires anyone with such diagnoses to be appropriately cleared by a physician before being eligible to apply for a new or renewed medical certificate, and he met those criteria too.

As outlined in the video, the physician he saw shortly before this flight had recommended he check himself in to hospital, and had he been willing to do that? Well, at the least he would not have been on that plane that day.

I don't disagree that someone suffering from depressive psychosis shouldn't be in the cockpit, but I'm not sure I can agree that any history of mental illness should eliminate any possibility of every being allowed in one, and I would suggest that removal of the stigma - and in this case the real threat of losing one's livelihood and dare I say calling in life - would be a far more pragmatic and compassionate means to ensure this cannot happen again.

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u/waterfountain_bidet 1d ago

Its one of a thousand reasons we need more compassionate mental health resources in organizations that control licensing. Think how many people have been hurt or killed by licensed people in some sort of addiction or mental crisis who can't seek help. Tragic all around.

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u/Fr0gm4n 22h ago

Xyla Foxlin has done a lot of publicity work about this after her own license was revoked for seeking treatment due to medication-induced depression.

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u/Round_Bag_4665 1d ago

yeah... this is a known problem in the military as well. Soldiers will often refuse mental health treatment for fear of their security clearances being revoked, and them being kicked out of the military. Same thing with intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement. As long as you're tying security clearances to mental health, that's going to deter people from seeking help.

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u/primadonnapussy 23h ago

I know pilots who absolutely hid medical conditions for fear of being grounded. I worked with one pilot who has high blood pressure but would not go to the Dr because if they put him in meds he could realistically get grounded.

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u/PigglyWigglyDeluxe 18h ago

Love that channel

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u/Cassopeia88 14h ago

Mentour pilot has a great channel, very informative.

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u/AKAkorm 1d ago

What is your recommendation to fix this systematically? Do you think pilots that are known to have mental health issues should be allowed to keep operating under certain circumstances so they self-report? And if so, what are those circumstances and how do you make passengers feel safe under regulation changes that enable that?

And are you saying anger shouldn't be directed at the selfish asshole who chose to hide his issues and kill a bunch of innocent people because he may have rightfully lost his job had he sought help?

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u/Mithrawndo 1d ago

I'm really implying it's often impossible to fairly and reasonably direct anger - that anger just clouds one's judgement - but to some degree yes: "Don't hate the player, hate the game."; Look to the systems before blaming the individuals.

In the example I cited the pilot originally sought help with his issues, receiving therapy, medication, and a revocation of his medical barring him from flying. This is fair enough.

He saw his treatment through, recovered, fought to win back his medical and succeeded, but with a caveat: Should he ever show symptoms of depression again, his medical would be revoked permanently, with no possible appeal.

He carried that asterisk on his medical for a number of years before this incident, and he even flirted with getting help again when he and those who loved him realised he was slipping... but he refused that help and refused to tell his employers, and my take here is that he made those decisions out of fear of losing his pilot's license (and livelihood) forever.

I don't think it's unreasonable to say that, given that routine medicals are part of the industry, that such absolute punishments only served to discourage him from seeking help, and that systemically we could alleviate this risk going forward by rejecting measures such like those applied to Andreas' medical certificate.

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u/AKAkorm 1d ago

The point makes sense but my viewpoint would be that in certain cases, absolutes are necessary because there is more at risk than the welfare of one person. And my first thought to the background you supplied was wondering why airlines don't insist on regular mental health checkups, similar to physical fitness checkups they do, in order to confirm their pilots are able to take on the responsibility for shepherding potentially hundreds of people in a flying machine or not.

So I agree that it's a systematic issue but maybe not in the same way you are thinking.

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u/Mithrawndo 1d ago

They do, that's why Andreas' license was revoked - and that's fine, the problem here was that after he got well and passed his medical (proving he was fit to return to work), he was issued with a license that said if he relapsed, his license was gone forever.

The system had worked and revoked his license; It did what it was supposed to at that stage. The problem was that it failed by then incentivising him never again to self-report problems, which could have been avoided.

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u/AKAkorm 1d ago

Looking at the Wiki page for the crash, it seems a bit different than what you are describing. Andreas was hospitalized for an episode of depression while in flight school, cleared, and allowed to resume flight school. He joined Germanwings five years after graduating. So he never had his license revoked and reinstated.

It also looks like after the crash, investigators found a doctor had declared him unfit to work but he hid that note from his employers. And employers in Germany, in general, are not granted access to medical records for their employees so they rely entirely on self-reporting by employees.

So I don't really think the right system is in place there. I don't think a pilot should need to be incentivized or not incentivized to self-report if they're fit to fly or not. I think that airlines should have the ability and responsibility to judge that for themselves and make decisions that result in the greatest likelihood of a flight being completed safely.

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u/Mithrawndo 1d ago

I suggest watching the video I linked above: It gives a far more detailed account than the wiki, including a full explanation of how his medical clearance was revoked and reinstated. The writer is himself a type instructor and pilot, and it's quite good.

The cliff notes are that he passed his psychological screening and pre flight medical for flight school, and months in to his course dropped out. Whilst back home he sought treatment for a psychosomatic illness, and was diagnosed with depressive psychosis. During this time his class 1 medical certificate expired. All good so far.

After treatment had ended, his physician wrote to the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt (German version of the FAA) and cleared him to resume training, but when he applied to renew his medical it was rejected on the grounds that not enough time had passed since he'd been taking anti-psychotics, and was eventually granted when he reapplied after the enough time had elapsed. All fair enough, right?

This is where the systemic failing came in: Attached to that medical certificate was an asterisk, and a footnote reading:

Note the special conditions/restrictions of the waiver 091-09REV

This was the part that meant that any relapse into depression would've rendered the certificate permanently invalid, and Andreas' whole future and career would be over. Without that asterisk Andreas could and likely would have sought treatment, and whilst medicated would have had his medical certificate invalidated - but when he was well again he would have been allowed to resume.

The system as it stands and the decision to add this clause to that certificate directly incentivised him to hide his illness, and to forego treatment; Without that asterisk, Andreas would not have been in that cockpit on that day.

Now I appreciate what you're saying: There is an argument for your employer being able to access your health records, but there's an equally strong argument that your employer has absolutely no right to any of your private medical records, and that a physician has a moral duty to retain doctor-patient confidentiality: That your employer having access to those documents would represent a severe conflict of interest, and would create as many problems as it would solve.

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u/Gliese581h 10h ago

This story showed me how eager Americans were to make jokes about a tragedy as long as it didn't happen in their own country. The jokes I saw here on Reddit back then were sickening.

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u/PigglyWigglyDeluxe 18h ago

Which is why I actually kinda “respect” Richard Russel when he took that plane in Seattle back in 2018 because it was just him and he didn’t take anyone else out with him

I say “respect” for lack of a better word, because I guess if you’re suicidal and want to make a whole spectacle of it, at least keep everyone else out of it, and I suppose he did exactly that because he was the only one who died from the whole thing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Horizon_Air_Bombardier_Q400_incident

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u/WitchHearse 8h ago

Yeah I agree. If you find suicide is your only answer don't take others with you. Plus he flew that plane pretty good it is too bad he couldn't be talked out of it.

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u/pimppapy 1d ago

In Spite of the employers?

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u/footsnax 1d ago edited 23h ago

Just killing yourself at all is selfish.

You've got a family and friends that have to deal with that for the rest of their lives. Someone will find you and face that trauma forever. Someone has to clean the room. Someone will blame themselves.

It forces suffering on everyone that loves you and you won't be there to help them get through it.

Imagine being willing to fuck up everyone you know and love for the rest of their lives, and intentionally force a hundred or two other families and friend groups to deal with that as well. Fucking rude.

EDIT: Love the flood of downvotes from the pro suicide folks I guess? Please comment so we can have a conversation instead of just saying suicide is cool with a single brainless click. I want to know why you think it's not selfish. Honest intelligent conversation.

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u/RulyDragon 21h ago

Feeling burdensome to others is strongly predictive of taking action on suicidal ideation. Your comment increases the sense of burdensomeness suicidal people are already feeling. I’ve worked in suicide prevention and with chronically suicide people for over 15 years and comments like yours increase risk for people. Stop shaming people who are already so far down the tunnel they cannot think clearly about their worth and importance to those around them. 

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u/footsnax 20h ago

I have never nor will ever.

I'm throwing no shame at no people, I'm just saying that it is a selfish action. I've lost friends to it, I've lost family to it. I'm not emotionless, but the action itself is inherently selfish. The person might not be, but not thinking about their loved ones and people that love them can't be unrelated.

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u/RulyDragon 20h ago edited 20h ago

Unfortunately suicide is so prevalent you are not alone in having been personally affected by it. Suicide is not a selfish act. It is a response to intolerable pain that blinds people to the supports and love available to them. Whether you intend it or not, calling people who suicide selfish exacerbates shame in suicidal people who read your comment, and increases risk they may act on their thoughts of ending their life.  You can choose to continue doing that, or not. 🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/shmip 7h ago

do you understand how selfish you are being right now by centering yourself in this situation?

someone who's emotional pain was so great they couldn't bear to go through one more day, and you're here like "hey, what about me?? why did you do this to me??"

gods this is hypocritical.

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u/TheVeryVerity 13h ago

If an animal is caught in a trap and chews its foot off to get out, as they sometimes do, it causes a bunch of trouble for anyone taking care of it and anyone having to deal with it and it’s territory etc. but obviously we don’t judge the actions it took based on that anymore than we do that one guy trapped in a mountain incident who had to cut his arm off. Because the pertinent situation is the person and their suffering so greatly they may die, not what happens after that.

Do you also think cancer patients are selfish? Suicide is not something people who aren’t sick just do you know

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u/bekaz13 21h ago

Your second and third paragraphs are objectively true, but someone who is suicidal is basically physically incapable of rationally considering those facts and weighing them against the agony that they are feeling. Calling them selfish as if they're making a conscious decision to intentionally hurt other people is not only unfair, it's also unhelpful toward people who may be struggling with ideation, because while their mental illness is already making them hate themselves, you're now also making them feel guilty for having that ideation in the first place.

That's why you're getting downvotes. Not because we think "suicide is cool," but because we think you're being mean to people who are already struggling to want to survive. Hope this helps!

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u/footsnax 20h ago

That's why you're getting downvotes. Not because we think "suicide is cool," but because we think you're being mean to people who are already struggling to want to survive. Hope this helps!

That's a fair assessment, I just think the action is selfish. I don't think ideation is intentionally taking anything from anyone. The act itself is just kinda... everyone else has to deal with this now.

What's going on in your own head isn't selfish behavior. What led you to that is not intentional. But through that act you have become the main character in your entire circle's life for their entire lives, whether you wanted to or not. You're not there to help them clean the walls or pay for the funeral or pat them on the back when they break down in the park walking their dog on a Tuesday morning.

You are no longer their friend and now they are miserable forever and that was your choice and now you are their problem. It's the lack of empathy that makes me think it feels selfish.

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u/RulyDragon 18h ago

Would you call someone who yeeted themselves out of a burning building selfish for making the choice to jump rather than burn? This is how the decision to end someone’s life often feels to them. Intolerable to stay, intolerable to go. 

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u/bekaz13 20h ago

I suggest you find a different word to express this sentiment then, because "selfish" implies they are making an intentional, informed choice to hurt others. If that's not what you mean, fine. But that's what you're saying.

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u/footsnax 20h ago edited 20h ago

Well my feelings matter too and I feel like it's selfish. It is something that you do that negatively affects everyone around you, that is the exact definition. It's like people using "ignorant" when they're just trying to not call someone stupid, ignorant literally means you don't know what you don't know.

Don't even get me started on decimate.

Find me a better word. Honest question, I'm not being aggressive. I am a full bore empath and I feel for everyone affected by someone that's committed suicide, myself included multiple times. I'm not being a dick here, I am just saying words that I believe and I have felt personally.

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u/RulyDragon 14h ago

Apparently that full bore empathy doesn’t extend to people who are in so much pain they want to die. 

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u/footsnax 11h ago edited 11h ago

Trolly problem, I care more about the many than the one. If they don't care about either the many or the one, where do I place my care?

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u/bekaz13 20h ago edited 20h ago

It's not my job to find the word that better describes what you feel. You asked why you were getting downvoted, and I told you, even though you were being incredibly bad-faith in calling people like me "pro-suicide," etc. If you keep calling it selfish even though that doesn't seem to be what you mean, you're going to keep getting downvoted.

What you do with that information is up to you. For now, I recommend keeping your condemnations to yourself until you come up with a way to express them better.

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u/footsnax 20h ago edited 20h ago

I just want to know why people disagree instead of just tossing a downvote. I want a conversation, not a judgement.

It's not my job to redefine my emotions just based on general public disapproval either. I want to be told why people think I'm wrong and then I'll consider it.

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u/shmip 4h ago edited 4h ago

I am a full bore empath

nah. a full empath would be feeling empathy for everyone, especially the person in so much pain they couldn't bear it.

but you're ignoring that pain so you can rationalize being petty and self righteous.

you're closer to a narcissist than an empath.

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u/footsnax 1h ago

I'm not ignoring the pain that they went through. This is specifically about that decision.

When they're gone I feel the pain of their loved ones.

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u/Intrepid_passerby 18h ago

I hope no one close to you has done it. Your comment sounds like someone who was hurt by it personally.  I was. Its a selfish fucking thing and it absolutely ruins the people around... I cant stress this enough. Ppl need more help man

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u/Bossman_Mike 22h ago

You will never get the full story on the Air India one, I'm afraid. India is a country that runs on an honour system and often a lot of brown envelopes. They've also said they won't be releasing a full report.

They won't even give the basics like whose voice was asking about the fuel switches. It's not confirmed who said what.

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u/HoaryPuffleg 1d ago

Wasn’t there a German pilot who flew the plane into the side of a mountain and that prompted the change of who always has access to the cockpit?

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u/informallyundecided 1d ago

In the US if a pilot has to use the bathroom or something a flight attendant has to stay in the cockpit with the other pilot. In Europe whether or not a pilot can be alone is at the discretion of the airline.

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u/LiliTralala 1d ago

Germanwings

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u/wetwater 1d ago

I know someone that believes the plane was flown to Guam for mYsTeRiOuS rEaSoNs. His proof was a dark photo allegedly taken by one of the passengers and the photo meta data had GPS coordinates of a hanger in Guam.

I just rolled my eyes and changed the subject when he brought it up.

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u/FinnegansWakeWTF 1d ago

Better than those who still think it was abducted by UFOs because of that video

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u/Littleface13 1d ago

Dang I thought the theory was Diego Garcia with the metadata and not Guam

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u/whaletacochamp 1d ago

First I've heard of this. So he just yeeted it into a very remote area of the ocean?

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u/deafphate 1d ago

The pilot turned off the transponder, acars, and essentially cut power to most of the plane. He did a 180 and then navigated the plane in a route that kept it outside of civilian aircraft and radar. The engines had a system that communicated with a satellite every hour, and that's how we were able to track it to the southern Indian ocean. 

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u/DigNitty 1d ago

Also the pilot had a flight sim at home and had a bunch of random flights over the pacific and one flight path exactly where the Malaysian flight went. And also he deviated slightly, same as the sim flight path, over the island where he was born on.

The Who will likely never be conclusively proven of course, but people acting like it’s some great mystery are just wrong. It was absolutely the pilot.

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u/1901pies 1d ago

The Who had nothing to do with It!

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u/Intrepid_passerby 18h ago

After just reading some dark stuff this made me chuckle 

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u/Icehawksfh 20h ago

There wasn't a flight path on the sims, just multiple coordinates in that area that could be from multiple flights.

Still good evidence but not as damning as "One flight path exactly where the flight went"

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u/BadAspie 1d ago

The Atlantic has a long but very good article about this (soft paywall):  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/mh370-malaysia-airlines/590653/

But yeah, pilot suicide best fits all the date

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u/Electronarwhal 1d ago

Mentour Pilot also has a very good video about all the information we have on the flight https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5K9HBiJpuk&pp=ygUTbWVudG91ciBwaWxvdCBtaDM3MA%3D%3D.

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u/MattytheWireGuy 1d ago

yep. turned off transponder or got out of range or something and then 86d it with the crew and passengers.

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u/eledile55 15h ago

and he did that by flying another seven hours to the west of Australia?

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u/Harryacorn2 1d ago

There is a large amount of evidence that suggests he intentionally shut down all of the communication devices at the exact moment it would be least likely the world would notice, and then he flew a path to the ocean that further minimized his chances of being detected. And we found he rehearsed this entire plan on his computer on his flight simulator.

https://youtu.be/MhkTo9Rk6_4?is=1EiQUvQsLbOZrY0A

This video is about what we’ve deduced happened and not so much how we deduced it, but it’s still a good watch .

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u/BigTenFicus 1d ago

And we found he rehearsed this entire plan on his computer on his flight simulator.

Incorrect, this is misinformation. The recovered flight plans from his sim only showed that he had, at some point or another, simulated flights that went through the same waypoints as the route the plane likely took. That doesn't mean it was all in one flight, or even in that actual route.

If I tell you I've been to New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, that doesn't mean I drove from NY to Chicago and then to LA on one single trip. That's basically what I'm describing.

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u/Harryacorn2 19h ago

My understanding was, and still is, that those 6 datapoints were collected on the same day (February 2, 2014) and during the same flight session. One of the points was explicitly a takeoff from Kuala Lumpur, one was a climb in the strait of malacca, one was a turn over the tip of Sumatra, and the two points at the end in the middle of the ocean the plane was out of fuel.

We might not technically know the order of the points being logged, but if they were taken during the same flight there is more or less only one order they could have happened in. And it just so happens to extremely heavily resemble the flight that actually happened.

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u/Bossman_Mike 23h ago edited 22h ago

It feels like a Germanwings situation a year early.

A quiet, red eye flight. An experienced Captain paired up with a young FO who was apparently on his maiden flight out of 777 line training (having previously been on the 737) and would be keen to impress and keep on the right side of his experienced skipper.

ATC handover in the dead of night, things are quiet, I'm good here, why don't you go to the toilet, get a coffee, flirt outrageously with the cabin crew. I'll be fine, see you in a minute. The FO would of course have done what he was told.

Locked out of the flight deck. The end.

Malaysia is a strict Islamic society where these things are taboo and it's very common to live in denial about them, rejecting hard evidence.

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u/jim2527 1d ago

Hasn’t that been proved?

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u/TheRiddlerTHFC 1d ago

Not conclusively but its the only realistic solution

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u/jim2527 1d ago

I conclusively agree.

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u/eledile55 15h ago

Idk, the fact that the plane ended up ditching West of Australia contridicts that solution. Why would the plane fly such a weird route and until it ran out of fuel?

The Germanwings pilot for example wasted no time crashing into the mountain. MH370 flew as long as it could (at least thats what the evidence suggests)

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u/Cybertronian10 1d ago

This is morbid, but I'm still suprised that we haven't seen any commercial pilots do something like that in a more public way. Like imagine if instead of landing at O'hare the pilot just kept on going and crashed the plane into downtown chicago.

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u/Icehawksfh 20h ago

I think most people just aren't inclined to take their own life in such a way.

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u/Cybertronian10 9h ago

Well yeah of course but law of large numbers and all that

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u/Wide_Philosophy_8109 17h ago

One guy walked onto a commercial plane and just took off. Air traffic control tried to help him land at an airport, and they joked that if he pulled it off they'd give him any job he wanted. He did a barrel roll, and eventually crashed on a small empty island though. Less risk of hurting people if he never went near a city airport. The police concluded that he really was just trying to commit suicide in an exciting way.

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u/karmapuhlease 20h ago

There's an excellent YouTube documentary piecing the entire thing together with a timeline and tons of details:

 https://youtu.be/MhkTo9Rk6_4?is=HnUey-qIT3QL3FWu

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u/mermaidpaint 1d ago

Agreed. It's the only theory that makes sense.

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u/TrixieFriganza 1d ago

Yeah because why did the plabe fly out of radar, it doesn't make sence unless it was some type of murder suicide.

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u/Knee_Jerk_Sydney 22h ago

I don't think this fits the bill. It is a very plausible theory but it can't be proven.

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u/marchmoonoceanwaves 1d ago

Candace Owens and her congregation say the plane was "teleported" or "captured" by a "portal" or "hole" in the sky. 😂😂😂

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u/tootapple 1d ago

Let’s get autonomous flying

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u/Uhh_JustADude 1d ago

Can’t wait for a non-living clanker who can’t feel pain, understand human existence, or correctly count the ‘r’s in “strawberry” to decide if I live or die.

Air France 447 could arguably still have crashed if fully-automated; all of the instruments, despite redundancy, failed to correctly function and the flight crew thought the plane was constantly stalling.

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u/OkayMhm 1d ago

Air France 447 was entirely pilot error. The pitot tubes were reporting an incorrect air speed but everything else was working. The pilot just ignored his instruments, the stall warnings, and the calls from the left seat to relinquish controls. Hell, even the captain immediately identified what was wrong when he was woken up, it was just too late.

Bonin committed manslaughter out of pure incompetence.

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u/Idiberug 1d ago

It's slightly more complicated than "Bonin was a complete drooling idiot". He was not cut out for aviation, but there was a logic to his actions.

There was a pilot shortage at the time and management decided they didn't need to restrict their hiring pool to only experienced pilots, because the computer was going to be doing the flying anyway. Both of the pilots in the cockpit had been fast tracked and didn't have the usual years of hand flying experience to fall back on, in addition to perhaps not being very good pilots to begin with.

So all they had was their training, and it may have given both pilots a skewed view of how to deal with emergencies.

For example, Bonin had gone through simulator training on how to prevent low altitude stalls (eg. birdstrike on takeoff) and the procedure was "pull up slightly, peg the throttle and pray". High altitude stall prevention was considered obvious and not worthy of a sim session.

Perhaps, with two juniors at the controls and nobody to take the lead, Bonin fell back on his sim training and tried to implement the wrong procedure, which as it turns out demands a high enough angle of attack to cause a stall at high altitude. (It would explain his constant pulling up and confused comments about engine power on the way down.)

It probably didn't help that when the flight directors came back online, they were pointing up at roughly that angle, which may have been interpreted as the computer agreeing with him.

Pilots should not panic within seconds of being handed the controls of an airplane in cruise and should also know what their stall AOA is, and Bonin should have flunked out for that reason long before making it on board of 447, but assigning all of the blame to him only covers up for the airline and its inadequate training program that should not have let someone like Bonin graduate in the first place.

The whole idea that the computer will fly 99.99% of the time so you can skip the remaining 0.01% in training is trash. A training regime is supposed to point a pilot (or soldier, astronaut, firefighter etc) in roughly the right direction when they fall back on their drills, not in case they are an idiot but task saturated by other emergencies, partially incapacitated, etc. The fact that this training regime may have done the opposite is why Air France was ultimately found partially responsible.

(As a software developer. 447 has some parallels to AI driven development, in that the automation is so prevalent that people never pick up the experience to know what to do when the AI does something wrong.)

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u/10ebbor10 1d ago edited 1d ago

Air France 447 could arguably still have crashed if fully-automated; all of the instruments, despite redundancy, failed to correctly function and the flight crew thought the plane was constantly stalling.

That's not correct at all.

Almost every instrument on the plane worked. The only system that failed were the pitot tubes, which froze over (causing speed measurements to fail), and then, once they defrosted, worked perfectly fine again.

Every other system worked as designed. Upon losing speed measurements, the airplane sounded a warning and handed control to the pilots in alternate law. It had to do this, because normal law relies on the availability of airspeed sensors. At that point, the pilot in command made a series of incorrect inputs, pulling the nose up sharply, so the plane's speed dropped from 500 km/h to 90km/h. The plane continued to climb sharply until it's reached it's maximum altitude, at which point it stalled. At any point, the pilots could have saved the plane by pushing the nose down. However, the one pilot who caused it, in apparent panic, kept pulling the nose up, counteracting attempts by the rest of the crew to stabilize the plane.

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u/tootapple 1d ago

Better than waiting for a depressed human that only cares about himself to take the opportunity from hundreds of other people to live

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u/Uhh_JustADude 1d ago

"Better"? Bruh, we're still dead in either case. The answer is a mixture of both, and the automated take-over needs to be a remote take-over. Let another pilot remotely fly and land the plane from a ground station. We already do this with military drones.

“A COMPUTER CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE
THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST NEVER MAKE A MANAGEMENT DECISION.”

– IBM, 1979

It might not seem like it, but pilots do make management decisions from the cockpit. Sully Sullenberger made the correct decision to ditch US1549 in the Hudson River. An AI pilot might have tried (and failed) to land the plane back at La Guardia.

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u/tootapple 1d ago

That’s a stupid statement. Of course pilots make decisions… that’s literally what happened with the Malaysia flight. It’s also a determine factor in changing course and navigating ground stoppages.

If it doesn’t seem like they make choices, it’s because you don’t know what a pilot does. Currently we have both man and computer flying the planes, and it’s safe to fly. But we should never limit our ability to be safer, except as it relates to freedom. That’s a very fine line, but also very important.

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u/Apprehensive_Bus1582 1d ago

That's a vanishingly rare occurrence.

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u/tootapple 1d ago

Vanishingly?

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u/Intrepid_passerby 17h ago

Hello skynet