Quote:
Originally Posted by blueash
You obviously have some direct knowledge of this concern. However on this flight, the pilot is Indonesian and the copilot is Western European. As you described the problem as being Asian non-captains who won't question the pilot, here we have a copilot who is French. Additionally, the reports online of last communication " when one of the pilots "asked to avoid clouds by turning left and going higher to 34,000 feet (10,360 meters)," Murjatmodjo said. It was last seen on radar at 6:16 a.m. and was gone a minute later" So it seems that the pilot was planning on avoiding, not flying into the storm. It is possible there was a storm larger than anticipated, but clearly the pilot, if this report is correct, attempted to NOT fly into the storm.
Is there any issue with senior pilots ignoring the warnings of other flight crew members or is it just that the non-pilots are culturally constrained from expressing their concerns to a senior officer? Or both?
Whatever the cause(s), we all share the hope that this aircraft is found and that there are survivors.
Edit: I think I should note that what I am seeing online is that the pilot asked for a change. I cannot find anywhere whether permission was given, denied, or even needed, or whether the request was for a change at the time of the contact or for a change say five minutes further into the flight. Someone with inside information of how these contacts are treated, please comment.
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My origional response to the OP was made as an example of one of the possibilities in this case. Over the last 4 years there have been at least 4 or 5 crashes involving Asian airlines and at least two that I know of involved serious communications issues in the cockpit similar to those that I gave as an example. The most memorable was the Korean Airliner in LA that was on an approach path that was too low(pilot error). It hit the seawall.
We do not know what was the proximate cause of this tragedy and as I previously mentioned such incidents are usually the results of a series of events including flight crew decisions that determine the fate of the plane and passengers .