I have been thinking about this over the last week or so while not on WebSleuths - and obviously watching as things have "progressed" thus far, if you can call it "progressing"...
I have reached a sad but inescapable conclusion - Its Pilot Suicide.
For any of you who dissagree, I would suggest you read my essay below... if you agree, you might find my 100000000000 word essay interesting... and if you are beyond trying to reach a conclusion with this MH370 mystery now, then I won't be offended if you can't be bothered reading the lengthy rant below
I kind of just wanted I guess to try and explain how this scenario is almost unimaginable - not just for the horrific and obvious reasons we're all fully aware of as a tragic event, but from the perspective of someone who is immersed in the aviation industry and can maybe try my best to explain why lmost every pilot who has commented on this in the media has been so "standoffish" and "unwilling to just flat out call it" for what they are suggesting it is...
I also wanted to try and put some perspective and understanding into any of those unaware of just how difficult it is to make it to the career level these guys (both captain and co-pilot) were at. For every guy flying an airliner like that, there are a thousand who never achieved that dream. They are a "lucky" few... they got to where they were because they were very very very good at what they did, and being good at that also requires a very particular typee of person who is stable mentally, responsible and approved at the highest levels of medical and professional critique. I think it should be respectfully considered in their favor when one tries to ascertain a conclusion such as this being considered.
PILOT SUICIDE
Thoughts on MH370 and the whole phenomenon of Pilot Suicide in general, from a pilots perspective....
From the start, I think most would agree that I have been pretty vocal about my own personal hopes - and I guess self denial to some degree - that the flight crew (either one of them) are not responsible for a suicide event here.
As a pilot, it is a really dark subject to consider and in a strange way, its more than just a taboo... it kind of goes against everything we as pilots, and humans can imagine a highly trusted and experienced person with an impecable career history and huge personal passion and pride in their "job" ever doing. Such calculation, poker face leading up to and the unthinkable concept that doing this would likely have meant that the crew member in question would have walked past every one of his innocent passengers in full knowledge they were all blissfully unaware they were about to die at his hands. Its mind blowing.
Pilots are a weird bunch.. a mix between childish dreamers with their head stuck in the clouds and a no nonsense mindset which are co-existing somehow! Its the realization of something I think that most people who have been bitten by the flying bug would consider as almost magical... the ability to fly like a bird... its a common amazement and habit for looking up every time something is in the air, or just staring at the clouds and wishing you were there. I can only assume every pilot MUST share this in some way... and
that I believe, brings with it a certain compassion and appreciation for how amazing this world is and how incredible our achievements as humans have been. I might be an idealist though, granted...
I believe that (pilots such as these guys in question - who are at the top of their game flying massive start of the art airliners for major carriers, and of course the military high achievers) achieving to this level comes a certain vetting of the personalities of people on the way up this ladder. There are a limited number of job positions in such a safety regulated industry and that can only leave left those who share and apply a mutual understanding of the responsibility and trust these positions require. The lives and businesses many people depend on them as everything from their "flying bus driver who will get them to their destination safety" through to being the bravest and best pilot in the sky when they are defending a way of life for their country in a warplane.
Of course, there is going to be idiots in every walk of life... but there are countless stories and youtube video's of these people dispatching themselves to the pages of history. But for a pilot to get to the top levels (like I would class this) of a career in aviation, its a lengthy path. It is very very very rare to see anything less than the most professional and dedicated people make it this far.
On the face of it, the Captain appears to be a highly dedicated and passionate guy with 18,000+hrs and every possible glowing reference imaginable from his career CV. l'd like to think he is just too disciplined to do this. He has spent his entire life since the earliest age he could learn to fly I would hazard to say, throwing everything he can at achieving the position he was in, as the captain of that 777-200 - for that very respectable airline. He has sacrificed so much, family time, lifestyle and other personal dreams to get to where he was. Why go against everything you stand for as a person who obviously believed in freedom and a good way of life - in a moment of mass murder that puts you pretty fair and square in a seat next to Hitler in the pages of "History's Biggest A$$holes"?
The "Care Bear" and "Idealist" in me just doesn't want this to be possible and I still hold every hope the following is so terribly wrong... I would love to be able to say with full confidence "there's no way this was pilot suicide..." But I can't...
Unfortunate past instances provide a striking reality check for anyone who wants to believe the fantasy that this would never happen... To deny it is a bit of a wishful thinking "romantic of the skies" "Care Bears" "perfect world" mindset... I like to subscribe to it short of facts sometimes too, I admit... but that's probably part of the same dreamy mindset that makes us pilots the passionate people we are.... Its like doing the impossible... flying like a bird, faster than the speed of sound sometimes... and thumbing your nose at the fact that we humans were never designed to fly, let alone learn how to do it in such a short space of time, just over 100yrs for powered flight now - yet here we are
However, beneath all that dreamy passion, there is a deadly serious part of this that every pilot who wishes to have an equal number of landings to take-offs will never ever neglect to keep in sight at all times... because there's no pulling over and popping the bonnet when it all goes wrong up there - and everything from maint. of the aircraft through to understanding the physics of flight (as well as in depth knowledge and understanding of aerodynamics and flight envelope limitations, so on and so on) - are learnt and respected in a never ending process of self education - striving to always be a good, safe aviator.
I will be the first to admit - I am very known for my lack of ability to take anything much in life too seriously, it gets me into trouble all the time... just ask anyone who's had the frustration of dealing with me when they are being SUPER SERIAL!!!!
But I $h!t you not, you've never seen a more deadly serious person when I step onto the flight line or begin any kind of involvement in flight operations. The moment that anything flight operations and therefore safety related begins, my sense of humor and inability to see the serious side of life suddenly do the Harri Houdini and disappear.
If you, as a pilot want anyone to take you seriously, to trust you with their multimillion dollar aircraft, weapons or much more importantly, their PRICELESS LIVES... then you need to make sure you never let anyone mistake that line in the sand and accept that you will never know everything and you should never think that its acceptable to stop learning how to be the best (which is also to be the SAFEST) pilot you can be.
How does someone get to fly a 777-200 for a major airline like Malaysian Airlines?
There's a few answers, but generally does depend on the airline and the countries civil aviation regulations and rules, but I can tell you that in Australia, you can't just expect to do a basic commercial pilots licence and then jump into seat 0A of the nearest Qantas jet the next day.
In India however, I have it on good authority that you can walk out the door of an Australian Flight School with your shiny new CPL and straight into a new job as a first officer on board a 737NG with an indian airline. That's disturbing... nuff said.
As for Military transitions - They are very different in the sense that you can go from your "first time at the controls of a bug smasher (little basic trainer cessna class aircraft for lack of better explaination) to belting round with your hair on fire at over the speed of sound while your grinning from ear to ear and flying a cutting edge jet warplane in around 2-3 years. But of course to be given the honor of spending your days being paid to fly the worlds most capable and exlusive aircraft, comes with its own specialized training that is a little different to civilian pilots will experience in their own training - but for obvious reasons of course...
Either way, there are HUNDREDS and thousands of hours of flying required to achieve certifications at these high career type levels and that comes with even more hours of never ending study, other related training and (if following a commercial career) likely personal investment to do this by paying out HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS DOLLARS to get there. This is going somewhere.. bare with me...
The sacrifices made by people who are trying to achieve a career as a civilian airline pilot while they get these qualifications and build up those hrs are great. So many hrs and certifications and endorsements are needed before any airline worth trusting your life with will even look at your application. Its like being a poor uni student for 10 years straight - and often the pay isn't great once there either... its a passion and a lifestyle and a love... not really strong on huge paychecks though.
To put it in perspective - A basic commercial pilots licence (which will allow you to fly for financial compensation ... so any paid work, be it crop dusting or flying a jumbo) will require a minimum of 150hrs I believe under current Australian regulations... and that has gone up I think since mid last year to 250hrs minimum... (at say $300p/hr, so unless you land a cadetship - thats $75,000 of your own personal money - and realistically most people will take another 50hrs on top of this to qualify this and more) + ATPL certification (if you are wanting to fly for a passenger carrying service or even DHL/FeDex cargo I believe) + current IFR rating, Turbine rating (jet engines or turboprops) + retractable gear + multi-engine command rating + type endorsement + other extras such as specialized avionics and instrument endorsements, pressurized flight... the list goes on and on and on... its never ending and every one of those things takes from between 5-25hrs minimum (by law) to attain. Then there is a requirement to maintain currency in all these endorsements if you want to be a viable candidate for consideration of most commercial entry level positions... or if you to be funding this almost impossible dream privately in what would likely need to be a multi engine turbine (jet/turboprop) aircraft, well - you better have $2500+ dollars to hand over for every hr of that. The way most people go about this is to sacrifice their personal life for many many years by building a large number of flight hrs in basic bug smashers while chasing livestock around a remote farm/station in the middle of nowhere for a few yrs, or flying the highly risky jobs in places like PNG or Africa. The goal being to build up enough hrs for "on the job training" with a night time mail run operation or regional airline if your really lucky.
Military Training
Back in my time, I believe the figure being thrown around for what the Australian Gov't spent to train a pilot was just over A MILLION DOLLARS... Yes... $1,000,000.00
I have heard that is about $7,000,000 or more these days. That's a lot of money, no matter how you look at it and who's footing the bill, but of the thousands who apply each year, usually less than 150-200 actually get their wings each year... and of those about 20-30 will make "Fast Jets"... They only take "the best of the best, the cream of the cream" and there is so many hurdles in front of any hopeful applicant that will weed out anything less than the most dedicated, professional and relative to this - MENTALLY STABLE personalities.
Again, that said... the SilkAir pilot was a highly decorated ex Singaporean Air Force instructor who flew fast jets with them and was even a member of their elite display team. The type of pilot who is head hunted by airlines for his already vetted personal attributes, flying experience, second to none training and amazing career with the military. So point in case - When the best of the best has already laid out a precedent, no one is beyond capability or suspicion
I have tried to deny this to myself with some "unanswered questions" or "that doesn't sound like a logical chain of events" points of argument agvainst this theory. They have been holding my last bits of hope that this IS NOT PILOT SUICIDE. Unfortunately I also have come to some reasonable and just sadly realistic answers to counter these as well now... which now firmly places this as my most likely scenario for MH370.
1. Why would someone do this and knowingly murder all those innocent people? Why not just leave everyone else out of this and plug the garden hose up to your car instead?
Firstly, there is the possibility that he has a secondary mission objective here: Make the Malaysian Gov't look like the muppets they have shown themselves to be as a final personal bonus on the way out - reasonable to consider given the political background that has been raised. Seemingly it is not the primary goal though as there was no manifesto, confession or notice of intent - collateral damage that he saw as an opportunity play maybe?
And, well... the very questioning of this is itself flawed, because its attempting to find reason with the unreasonable. The facts are - this has happened before and a logical person in a sound mental mind state can't question the mind of a person in a state of mental psychosis is the unfortunate answer to that. History shows us this.
2. Why fly all the way down to see the penguins in Antarctica? Why not just plow it into the ground straight after takeoff?
The lead up of events shows that very careful thought was put toward covering the tracks here as we all well know by now. Won't detail it for this case right now, but Past Pilot Suicide events on major commercial airliners have shown that in almost every case, attempts were made by the offending crew member to cover their tracks. Fedex crew member attempted to make it look like an accident, SilkAir captiain pulled the fuses on the flight data recording devices and the same goes for other notable cases (Egyptair) that come to mind. The only thing that has usually given them away has been something as difficult to discern, identify or nail down as the "click" of the fuse being pulled on the CVR immediately prior to things going pear shaped... These are the actions of someone who knows what they are doing. They are actions taken with the intention of making the investigation of the incident as difficult to define with official conclusion as possible, for either reasons of personal, financial or family shame as a result of what they did. I believe the case of MH370 is a combination of all the above - executed purposfully to ensure that an undefined and unconfirmed official conclusion could not be reached that placed intentional blame on the crew member in question. The goal was to ensure this could not be attributable as a suicide, so life insurance policy's will not be voided and their family's will be paid out and financial problems that may have contributed (like silk air) are solved.
The reason MH370 has happened like it has and ended up where it did was simple - the pilot knew that the more time he put between initially compromising the planned flight and recovery of the aircraft was his priority. The more distance he could fly the aircraft (which of course is all the evidence!) into a remote deep ocean, without being detected, the more chance that CVR's FDR's and other "will give the truth away" evidence items would be lost forever (or for long enough to see the insurance policy's payed out or immediate family get out of dodge or grow old and die noone the wiser), making it less and less likely any lawful conclusion that will hamper his family's name and needs can be made against him.
3. Why the turnaround after a seemingly normal flight, back toward the Indian Ocean, why not something else that didn't involved going back over Malaysia etc (like say, getting shot down over korea or any number of other possible ways this could have gone)?
He had an intimate knowledge of the radar systems that were employed and most likely being utilized at the time. The region is very unstable politically and militarily, most "civies" are blissfully unaware of the tensions between us all here in the SE Asia region... most completely unaware that Australia and Indonesia have been in a really strange state of almost cold war for decades now, to a point where our bases are even at their minimum security alert levels taking the unspoken tensions with Indonesia into account and diplomatic ties are treated with the most sensitive thought and consideration... Its bloody annoying TBH, but that's why I'm a fan of solving disputes with laser guided munitions and I leave the talking to the diplomats who like to tip toe around facts
Epic post. I wonder who has been able to stick with this one till the end hahaha!
DH
