Originally Posted by
Carl Spackler
The NTSB is a government agency. Government = the American people = "us".
Whether you or I or ALPA wishes they would hold off on releasing the hard data is immaterial. The chairwoman believes that since the data belongs to the public, the public should see it as soon as the data is available. Same with the probable cause finding...you can expect she will release that in a public hearing the minute the board makes its determination. She's one of those public servants who understands who she works for, and no amount of pressure or insults from ALPA will change her mind.
ALPA has no "right" to be part of this or any investigation. They are there only at the invitation of the NTSB. if there's any more mouthing off from ALPA, I predict they'll be thrown out of any investigative role here. I can't imagine the howls of "clown show" from alfaromeo/slowplay etc., had this been done by DPA.
Carl
I agree with ALPA on this one and I'd agree with DPA (read
anyone) who said this. The first day they used the preliminary data off the box to issue "data" Tweets. Those Tweets made the news because accident investigation speak is boring. Three days of speculation based on partial data that had not been verified and what is probably a full year before the final report comes out.
These pilots have been "tried" in public before their "trial" This is the same NTSB that hung the NWA 188 pilots out to dry. 140 character sound bites do not tell a story and the "news" agencies carrying it aren't interested in the truth either. Heck! I read here that the Rolls Royce engines must have iced up again. I don't like when pilots speculate in public without facts like on this forum that I saw quoted in another blog and I sure as sh18 don't like it when the news drones do it. Many of us on here are no better than the talking heads on this one. Pilots on here were
guessing about FLCH and other plausible errors even while the tweets were coming out and the radar plots showing a shallow descent.
I hope
none of us has to go through
anything like this, but we should all have the right to a clean investigation not tainted by partial data that hasn't been vetted. I'm terrified of the precedent the NTSB is setting for other countries, like the ones that try pilots for murder.
We
should be upset that information is coming out in a way that is not complete, not that the
factual information gets released, which it will in time and in context with a complete report.