I often write about the NTSB’s "party system." That’s the NTSB’s practice of asking airlines and manufacturers for help in determining an accident’s cause. If you ask me, it’s a bit like asking the fox for help in figuring out what happened to the chickens. The party system allows industry participants to bias NTSB probable cause findings in their
NTSB Animation Suggests Continental Flight 3407 Pilot Error
By Mike Danko on
I blogged here on whether it was icing that caused the crash of Flight 3407, or whether the pilot simply pulled back on the yoke when he should have pushed forward. The NTSB’s animation, using data gathered from the aircraft’s black boxes, makes a strong case for the latter.
The video is 2…
Is the Black Box Really Black?
Actually, the black box is day-glo orange. And there are two of them.
The first is the Cockpit Voice Recorder. It records not just what is said in the cockpit, but also all the background mechanical sounds that provide clues to determining the chain of events leading to the accident. The NTSB, along with other parties to…