Originally Posted by
bigbusdriver
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.
Here's the bottom line: It doesn't matter what you or I or ALPA thinks. The chairwoman is the boss. She decides. As I said earlier, the data belongs to the public and the chairwoman has decided that the publics property should be released to them as soon as it's compiled. She'll do the same thing when the board arrives at a probable cause. By complaining so viciously about this, ALPA has isolated itself. Nobody agrees with their position other than
some of its own members. The vast majority of citizens agree with her decision to release everything as it's compiled. This was a major misstep by ALPA. They will lose political and public support as a result. The optics are horrible for ALPA. It looks like they're trying to hide something. Completely self-inflicted wound.
As I said earlier, if ALPA opens its mouth like this one more time, I predict the chairwoman will throw ALPA out of any investigative role.
Carl