Dreamliner Crash

[Pooter]

49 minutes ago, FUSEPLUG said:

What is the take from the AA bros on this Captain SteEveVe guy?  He's taking some internets hate for his constant YouTube commentary on this Air India crash.  

Just retire already.

Not an AA guy but its interesting that his first flying-related video was only posted 9 months ago according to his youtube channel. Since then he's posted dozens and dozens of them and the India crash videos went particularly viral with views in the millions. Don't know his age but from the looks of it he is nearing mandatory retirement and is attempting a career pivot to old man internet aviation influencer/guru.

[FUSEPLUG]

3 minutes ago, Pooter said:

Don't know his age but from the looks of it he is nearing mandatory retirement and is attempting a career pivot to old man internet aviation influencer/guru.

That seems to be the consensus.  Annoying if he's wearing company gear and talking about non-company stuff.  SWA has its influencers, but they seem to keep it in their lane.

[Pooter]

4 minutes ago, FUSEPLUG said:

That seems to be the consensus.  Annoying if he's wearing company gear and talking about non-company stuff.  SWA has its influencers, but they seem to keep it in their lane.

Possible stupid question, but is he wearing anything company-specific in those videos? Looked to me just like a generic captain outfit with white shirt, epaulettes, tie, and a fly safe lanyard, but I'm not smart on the details. And I would think AA would come down pretty hard on anyone wearing company-specific stuff postulating about random incidents, no?

[TreeA10]

Haven't watched Capt Steve.

[FUSEPLUG]

22 minutes ago, Pooter said:

Possible stupid question, but is he wearing anything company-specific in those videos? Looked to me just like a generic captain outfit with white shirt, epaulettes, tie, and a fly safe lanyard, but I'm not smart on the details. And I would think AA would come down pretty hard on anyone wearing company-specific stuff postulating about random incidents, no?

My bad if that isn't AA specific. You all look the same if you're wearing a striped tie and taxiing at 8 knots.  (I kid, I kid)

[Smokin]

4 hours ago, uhhello said:

Is he they guy in the pilot uniform doing videos?  If so, I don't watch just for that fact alone.

100%.  A blatant and unconvincing appeal to authority when I don't really trust anything that some random captain has to say, let alone some dude on youtube that has poor enough sense to do the video in uniform.  Far too many "experts" have never experienced a significant emergency themselves but are all to happy to leap to conclusions about an incident with a significant amount of assumptions that often turn out to be incorrect.  For example, there was the United plane that went off the end at Jackson Hole.  Many pilots that should know better immediately and with zero evidence publicly said that the pilots landed long and fast in bad weather.  Turns out the brakes weren't wired correctly and gave good enough braking that crews didn't notice for a couple landings in nice weather, but as soon as they asked for max performance for a short runway in the snow, the brakes gave something like 50% of what they should have.

[waveshaper]

On 7/14/2025 at 10:27 AM, Lord Ratner said:

Absolutely. I didn't see in the initial reports who was asking the question and who was denying touching the switches, I just assumed it was the fo denying it.

 

But if it was the other way around, I have no difficulty imagining your scenario. Like I said, High context societies... It was always 99% that this was going to be pilot error

Some updated info on who (most likely) turned off the engines fuel switches:

An initial analysis of the cockpit voice recorder recovered from the Air India flight that crashed last month reveals that the younger co-pilot asked the captain why he had turned off the plane’s fuel-supply switches, according to a US media report.

First officer Clive Kunder had the controls of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner for take-off and at the time of the crash moments later outside Ahmedabad airport, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal citing sources in the investigation, and it was he who asked flight captain Sumeet Sabharwal why he had flipped the switches, starving the engines of fuel.

It represents a potentially important new detail, emerging several days after a preliminary official report in the crash revealed only that the brief interaction had taken place, without naming who said what or quoting them directly.

- Etc,etc:

Air India cockpit audio reportedly shows first officer confronting captain over fuel switches

Edited Thursday at 12:19 PM by waveshaper

[HeloDude]

It appears the current reports suggest the Captain shutoff the engines…this along with reports that he had some problems with depression/mental illness in his recent past tells me what most likely happened. 

[FourFans]

The one bit of info I'm still curious to hear is where the IRO was throughout this whole sequence.

[Biff_T]

5 hours ago, HeloDude said:

appears the current reports suggest the Captain shutoff the engines…

I wonder why this guy didn't just rent a Piper Arrow and fly all by his lonesome into a mountain?

Edited Friday at 12:41 AM by Biff_T
I proofread after I post

[dream big]

11 hours ago, FourFans said:

The one bit of info I'm still curious to hear is where the IRO was throughout this whole sequence.

I may be mistaken but I believe only 2 pilots were scheduled; calling into light the shady work rest cycles of some of these airlines. 

[FourFans]

2 hours ago, dream big said:

I may be mistaken but I believe only 2 pilots were scheduled; calling into light the shady work rest cycles of some of these airlines. 

Wow.  That's a 9+30 flight.  That's brutal for 2 dudes.

[Vito]

 Everyone is so quick to embrace the suicide theory, however, I flew a sim session with a pilot who was very confused. He tried to shut off a hydraulic pump on the left side of the overhead panel (757) instead of a Pack, on his side. We chalked it up to the fact that he sucked and didn’t have the best reputation (He was a 63 yr old F/O). A few months later I heard he was medically retired and diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Perhaps this was a similar situation. Obviously a thorough investigation will possibly uncover this. 

[Standby]

12 hours ago, Vito said:

 Everyone is so quick to embrace the suicide theory, however, I flew a sim session with a pilot who was very confused. He tried to shut off a hydraulic pump on the left side of the overhead panel (757) instead of a Pack, on his side. We chalked it up to the fact that he sucked and didn’t have the best reputation (He was a 63 yr old F/O). A few months later I heard he was medically retired and diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Perhaps this was a similar situation. Obviously a thorough investigation will possibly uncover this. 

Damn, that’s a tough pill to swallow. Even more unnerving is that the hydraulics are square push buttons/switches and the packs are round rotary knobs. Having to look yourself in the mirror after that is rough. 

[Smokin]

I would totally buy that theory.  I've flown with a  64.5 year old that took long enough to answer EVERY radio call when they were pilot monitoring that ATC made a second radio call to us multiple times when the guy obviously heard it and was just still processing the first call for a simple freq change.  Many/most guys would be totally fine flying for a few more years but there are a few I've flown with that make a solid case for going back to age 62 rather than up to 67.  Problem is not just a simple IQ test; I'm sure they're just as smart as they were 20 years ago, but the synapses just don't fire in the same way as you get older.

But if this is the case, we will likely never know unless he left some concrete evidence.  It is taboo enough in the States to consider calling something like this out, I can't imagine anyone documenting anything like this in India.

[Lord Ratner]

3 hours ago, Smokin said:

I would totally buy that theory.  I've flown with a  64.5 year old that took long enough to answer EVERY radio call when they were pilot monitoring that ATC made a second radio call to us multiple times when the guy obviously heard it and was just still processing the first call for a simple freq change.  Many/most guys would be totally fine flying for a few more years but there are a few I've flown with that make a solid case for going back to age 62 rather than up to 67.  Problem is not just a simple IQ test; I'm sure they're just as smart as they were 20 years ago, but the synapses just don't fire in the same way as you get older.

But if this is the case, we will likely never know unless he left some concrete evidence.  It is taboo enough in the States to consider calling something like this out, I can't imagine anyone documenting anything like this in India.

My wife just had to deal with this in her career field (veterinary medicine) and after seeing what an absolute pain in the ass the entire ordeal is, it's now my number one reason why I am against changing the retirement age for pilots.

 

If we raise it again, we just need to admit that we are marching towards no age limit, and I really don't want to turn the first officer's responsibility into monitoring and reporting older pilots for losing the mental capacity to handle the job. And that's exactly what's going to happen. Everyone who's been through a first class medical or annual recurrent training knows what a joke it is. 

 

Wanna raise the retirement age? Fine. Then we do real, randomized, individual cognitive testing. Every year once you turn 55, and before your next flight if you are reported by another pilot. Easier to just keep it at 65, IMO.

[Hacker]

On 7/18/2025 at 7:21 AM, Vito said:

 Everyone is so quick to embrace the suicide theory, however, I flew a sim session with a pilot who was very confused. He tried to shut off a hydraulic pump on the left side of the overhead panel (757) instead of a Pack, on his side. We chalked it up to the fact that he sucked and didn’t have the best reputation (He was a 63 yr old F/O). A few months later I heard he was medically retired and diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Perhaps this was a similar situation. Obviously a thorough investigation will possibly uncover this. 

Same deal with this viral vid of the Purple MD-10 on final without the gear. After this incident, the Captain was discovered to have had a brain tumor.

 

 

[herkbier]

Uh, there were at least two on that flight deck.