The MH370 event bears some intriguing similarity to three other accidents —
The SilkAir MI185 crash into the Musi river in Indonesia on December 17, 1997; The Air France flight 447 which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, and the recent Asiana Airlines crash in San Francisco on July 6, 2013.
In the SilkAir crash, the radar returns disappeared and the aircraft went into a near vertical dive before crashing into the bottom of the river. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) of the U.S. determined that it was a case of pilot suicide, as the captain had deactivated the flight recorders. One hopes that the MH370 sequence of events stops with just the radar return anomalies and rapid loss of height.
In the case of AF 447, we had two inexperienced co-pilots in the cockpit at the time of weather encounter and the lack of experience resulted in the wrong interpretation of the auto flight system, resulting in the aircraft falling out of the sky, killing all on board.
The Asiana accident highlighted the fact that the captain under training was transitioning to the B 777 after several years of flying an Airbus aircraft. He misunderstood the auto flight system of the two types of aircraft. The investigation report will definitely highlight the lack of type experience of the pilot under training. In the case of MH370, even though the co-pilot had about 3000hrs, these were mostly on narrow body aircrafts. He was in the process of transitioning to the wide body aircraft. In the event of an emergency and the captain’s absence from the cockpit, there could have been confusion due to the change of type and lack of experience on type.
In Indian aviation, we never learn from past accidents; nor do our regulators or airlines show any interest in preventing a recurrence. The best example of confusion while flying a different type of aircraft is of the October 12, 1976 Indian Airlines caravelle aircraft crash, soon after take-off from Bombay. The pilot had been flying a Boeing aircraft during that time and opted to fly the caravelle as the captain was not available. The two types of aircraft have switches moving in opposite directions and the confusion resulted in the fatal accident. The loss of 158 lives in Mangalore is a tragedy that is still fresh in our minds but we see a complete lack of commitment to safety by the Ministry of Civil Aviation or the Director General of Civil Aviation. The recent downgrade by the Federal Aviation Administration of the U.S. is the result of the total apathy of authorities in India.