AIR CRASHES AND MIRACLE LANDINGS -- Sixty Narratives by Bartlett Christopher

Author:Bartlett, Christopher [Bartlett, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OpenHatch Books
Published: 2011-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

The investigators had to resort almost entirely to supposition, as the aircraft did not have a cockpit voice recorder (CVR), even though CVRs had been made mandatory for US-registered airliners much earlier in 1965. [Opposition from the UK pilots’ unions had thwarted their introduction in the UK.]

It was impossible to know who did what and why. From terse communications with ATC, it was evident that the captain had been handling the aircraft, but it was not clear who had moved the droop lever.

The initial investigation was followed by a public inquiry with lawyers arguing for days without producing anything of significance that was not apparent from the original investigation. What were apparent, as in so many crashes, were the human personality factors that experience has shown increase the likelihood of a disaster.

On the flight deck, there were actually four pilots:

1. Captain Key, an uptight captain, who supported the company in the ongoing industrial dispute.

2. Twenty-two-year-old Second Officer Keighley. He had only very few hours’ line experience on the Trident. He was in the first officer’s seat next to the captain.

3. Twenty-four-year-old Second Officer Ticehurst, who was in the monitoring seat.

4. A Captain Collins in the jump seat behind Captain Key. This second captain was deadheading with his own crew to Brussels. Although a freighter captain on another aircraft type he too was qualified to fly Tridents.

Though technically qualified, Keighley was thought by instructors, both before and after joining the airline, to lack initiative and to be rather diffident. While they thought he would eventually make a good pilot, his relatively young age, unassertive character and inexperience meant he would have trouble coping with a captain known to be uptight and who had shown just before the flight he could get very angry.

Industrial action at the airline meant that some junior pilots had not had the extra training required to permit them to ‘legally’ occupy the third seat (behind the captain and first officer), which involved monitoring the flying pilot’s actions and performing certain technical functions that used to be done by a flight engineer and necessitated the extra paper qualifications. This quirk in the regulations in turn meant that the least qualified pilot was likely to be at the controls next to the captain.

Furthermore, prior to the flight, Captain Key had been involved in a violent argument in the crew room with another pilot about the strike, and Keighley had witnessed the captain’s violent outburst of temper. Thus, there would have been good reason for him to be very circumspect in his dealings with him and hesitate to do anything that might provoke him.

In addition, it was said that the considerable air turbulence must have raised Keighley’s certainly already high stress level.

The investigators thought the presence of Captain Collins might have distracted the junior pilots. The official report notes that when Captain Collins was found in the debris he was still holding an air freshener can in his hand. These air fresheners were standard issue for freighter captains, but one

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