UAAG CH42

One hour before the plane took off, Lina canceled the flight tickets, and everyone returned to the investigation headquarters.

In the empty investigation headquarters, most of the machines had already been transported back to the NTSB headquarters in Washington. Even most of the investigators had flown back to Washington after the summary cocktail party the night before. Now, not many people were left at the investigation headquarters; only Lawrence and a few young investigators remained.

After returning to the investigation headquarters, Zhuo Huan asked immediately: “What’s going on?”

Because of the hangover from last night, Lawrence’s face looked bad. He was wearing a wrinkled suit and was also very helpless: “This morning there was news from Canada. The TSB (Transportation Safety Board of Canada) received information that a fisherman called the TV station saying he had salvaged something last September and suspected it was a black box.”

Zhuo Huan: “Is it confirmed?”

Lawrence: “Not confirmed. TSB has already contacted the fisherman, but the probability is quite high. After hearing the news yesterday, the fisherman immediately recognized the black box. Moreover, the black box was not completely damaged by the explosion and still retained some orange-red color. He was very impressed by this strange color. It is expected that TSB officials will get the black box today and send it to Washington tomorrow.”

Zhuo Huan glanced at Lawrence, then turned to look at his members.

“Okay, let’s go to Washington then.”

At 5 PM that day, TSB gave accurate news, confirming that the metal cube the fisherman mentioned was indeed the black box.

On September 17 last year, exactly one month after AA4012 crashed into the sea and disappeared, no one expected that its black box had drifted with the ocean current to Canadian waters and was casually fished up by a fisherman.

Separated by a distance of nearly two thousand nautical miles, the fisherman never thought this thing would be the wreckage of a plane that crashed in Boston, USA. He lived in a port town with underdeveloped transportation. After studying it for half a month and failing to figure out what it was, he sold it to a scrap yard.

Fortunately, the waste processing station in this town was inefficient, and metal waste piled up like a mountain. TSB gathered hundreds of people to search for four hours and finally found the black box.

It was buried at the bottom of the garbage mountain.

The parts printed with text and numbers were all murky and unclear due to the plane explosion and seawater corrosion. But half of it was still bright orange-red. Even after being hit hard and drifting with the ocean current, it didn’t suffer any damage.

Until December, the aircraft wreckage was found by the salvage company. But as early as September, the black box had been fished ashore.

TSB people sent the black box to NTSB headquarters in Washington overnight.

When NTSB and American Airlines jointly issued a reward, neither side thought they could really find the black box. This was probably a decision of fate in the dark. After the UAAG group and Lawrence returned to Washington headquarters, Lawrence was soon called to the office by his colleagues.

Su Fei stretched his neck curiously and took several looks: “Isn’t the black box not delivered yet? Where is he going?”

Old Joseph chuckled: “Don’t understand, right? He’s going to be promoted.”

Su Fei: “Huh?”

Wait, what happened? Promotion just like that? Are NTSB officials so easy to promote?

Fu Cheng thought for a while: “NTSB originally didn’t want to issue a reward and continue searching for the black box. After publishing the investigation report, they planned to close this case. It was Lawrence who suggested continuing to search for the black box, and now his suggestion has yielded results so quickly.” Pausing, Fu Cheng looked at Lina, “Any opinions from the outside world?”

Lina smiled slightly: “Fu, I just like talking to smart people. Yes, since NTSB announced finding the AA4012 black box this afternoon, a wave of discussion has been set off in the media, the public, and the internet. NTSB and American Airlines have been greatly praised. I just searched on Twitter, and the top trending topics are all praising NTSB. US government agencies haven’t been so highly regarded by the public for a long time.”

Previously, because the aircraft wreckage was salvaged in Boston Bay and had been soaked in seawater for a long time, the fuselage was fragile and rusty, making it inconvenient for long-distance transportation. So NTSB set up a temporary investigation headquarters in Boston to conduct the aircraft accident investigation.

Now most of the instruments had been moved back to Washington, and the black box was also convenient to transport, so everyone came to Washington to continue working.

As Old Joseph said, when Lawrence came back, his face was full of joy and he looked refreshed. He said very enthusiastically: “Do you need me to help you contact a hotel? This is Washington, I should entertain you.”

Lina: “Lawrence, you question my work ability again.”

Lawrence: “Oh my fault, sorry, Lina, you must have arranged everything long ago.”

That night, after a good rest. Early the next morning, the black box was personally delivered to Washington by TSB staff.

It was placed in a metal container and carefully delivered to NTSB headquarters.

Old Joseph was a bit surprised: “Not sent over in seawater?”

When black boxes of planes crashed in the ocean are salvaged, they are often preserved soaked in containers full of seawater. The principle is similar to archaeological excavation; objects in ancient tombs maintain a stable physical state without contact with outside air. Once the tomb is opened and exposed to outside air, light, and heat, inevitably, physical and chemical changes will occur, causing damage.

Preserving the black box in seawater is also to not destroy the external environment of the black box and prevent impact on data.

Lawrence explained: “This black box was fished out last September. That fisherman didn’t know what it was, and even less likely to keep it soaked in water. Its external environment has been changed. TSB people decided not to preserve it in seawater after observation to avoid further changes.”

Speaking of this, Lawrence frowned and looked at Zhuo Huan: “Just like I said just now, Patrick, this black box has been exposed to the air for nearly half a year. Judging from the appearance, it shouldn’t be damaged. If the data had been read directly when it was first salvaged, there would definitely be no problem. But now, after so long, can the data still remain intact.”

Zhuo Huan said lightly: “Ask the professional.” Saying this, he turned sideways, revealing the punk boy standing behind him.

Su Fei never thought Zhuo Huan would give such a good opportunity to show off to him? And even praised him as professional?

It took him a few seconds to react: “Oh right, yeah, no problem. You don’t know, this plane is Airbus’s latest A390, even the black box uses the latest EAFR data storage technology, benchmarking ARINC767. When recording data, it will first collect the same frame rate from the message pool…”

As a professional air crash investigator, although Lawrence didn’t understand the black box as thoroughly as Su Fei, he could understand the gist. What Su Fei said wasn’t particularly profound; saying it is easy, but doing it is what matters.

Lawrence: “I’m counting on you.”

“No problem.”

Soon, Su Fei and NTSB’s professional data analysts began data parsing on the AA4012 black box.

Even downloading data from an intact black box takes three days. After all, the AA4012 black box had experienced a plane explosion, seawater immersion, and air exposure. A week later, Su Fei and others finally repaired it and downloaded the data.

Su Fei: “The cockpit voice recorder data needs another two hours. The flight data has been downloaded, look at this first?”

Zhuo Huan: “Mm.”

As the voice fell, Su Fei typed on the keyboard. Pressing the “enter” key, he looked up: “Done!”

The next moment, dense flight data line charts were projected onto the big screen.

Su Fei: “New planes are really awesome. Airbus A390, I love it so much. Its black box recorded 89 items of data, a full 89 items, all recorded! From basic data like time, pressure altitude, indicated airspeed, to yaw damper status, vibration warning of each engine, over-temperature warning… Everything! The plane recording the most complete data in the world is probably the Airbus A390, right?”

Hearing this, Zhuo Huan sneered.

Su Fei looked at him confusedly.

Lina smiled and reminded kindly: “The most complete one is the McFly F485, recording 91 items of data, including the yaw damper command and standby rudder valve status that the Airbus A390 doesn’t have.”

Su Fei: “…”

Fine, forgot there’s a plane designer here.

Ignoring Su Fei, Zhuo Huan stood in front of the big screen, carefully examining this detailed flight data chart.

Zhuo Huan: “Zoom in on this part.”

Su Fei: “OK.”

Zhuo Huan stared at it for a while: “Why did this part suddenly drop to 9000 feet? It’s still some distance from Boston, not yet at the landing stage.”

Fu Cheng flipped through the materials: “The air traffic control center recording has a record of this section. At that time, the plane encountered a small cyclone on the sea surface, which was not obvious on the weather radar. Captain Kyle, responsible for radio communication, contacted the tower, hoping to lower the altitude and bypass this area.” Pausing, he added: “The weather on the sea surface is unpredictable; seven or eight kinds of weather can appear in ten minutes. So often rely on the plane’s own weather radar to observe the weather. To avoid cyclones and storms, flying at a lower altitude is also very normal.”

Thirteen minutes before the crash, after receiving permission from air traffic control, the pilots lowered the flight altitude to 9000 feet. That is, an altitude of about 3000 meters.

Since then, the flight of the plane was very smooth, with nothing too noticeable.

“Wind speed and direction, zoom in on this data.”

Su Fei immediately followed Zhuo Huan’s instructions, temporarily shielding other data, and only zoomed in on the black box’s wind speed and direction data.

On the large projection screen, the data line chart, which had been fluctuating in a small range before, suddenly fluctuated up and down like a roller coaster at the fifth minute of the countdown. If the previous wind speed and direction data were like a child playing with a balance bike, now it was a racer in off-road racing.

Obviously, such ridiculous and exaggerated data was definitely an important reason for the AA4012 crash.

Lawrence felt complicated: “The weather on the sea is unpredictable… Fu, you are right, yes, this is the sea. It seems that lowering to 9000 feet didn’t allow them to avoid that small cyclone, or that cyclone was more exaggerated than they imagined.”

Fu Cheng: “Or perhaps, that was a new cyclone.”

Excessive wind speed and direction are absolutely fatal to a plane.

However.

Zhuo Huan: “This wind speed is not enough to make the Airbus A390 crash into the sea.”

Lawrence was stunned, just about to say “How do you know, do you want to do an experiment first”, suddenly he realized something and quickly shut his mouth.

Oh, you dismantled it, you understand.

Zhuo Huan: “I have done wind speed tests on the Airbus A390. Under a high-altitude crosswind of 60 knots, its flight state will be affected. But as long as the pilot operates properly, turns off the autopilot, and switches to manual mode, it can still fly smoothly, just quite difficult.”

The next second, he looked at Su Fei. Before he could speak, Su Fei had already made an “OK” gesture: “I have found the autopilot engagement status data. RIP is right. In the fifth minute of the countdown, they encountered strong crosswinds. Thirty seconds later, Co-pilot Tim turned off the autopilot and started manual mode… Eh, wait a moment!”

Su Fei exclaimed: “In the second minute of the countdown, he handed over the piloting rights to Captain Kyle!”

Zhuo Huan: “Bring up the data!”

“Yes!”

Su Fei projected all the flight piloting data onto the screen.

It could be seen that before the plane crashed, the co-pilot indeed handed over the piloting rights to the captain, and Captain Kyle took control of the plane.

Old Joseph stared blankly at the data on the projection screen.

Suddenly, somehow, his nasal cavity became dry, and a strong sourness surged up. His tongue rolled in his mouth, but he couldn’t say a word. Taking a deep breath, Old Joseph: “I’ll go pour a glass of water.” After speaking, he turned and walked out of the room, everyone looking at him.

Under the dim light of the corridor, Old Joseph’s back suddenly became vicissitudinous and heavy. He walked slowly, exhausted and tired, his shoulders trembling slightly. He raised his hand and wiped the corner of his eye.

Fu Cheng watched him walk into the pantry step by step before withdrawing his gaze.

Fu Cheng: “In the investigation report submitted earlier, in the safety recommendations aspect, there were lengthy suggestions on crew communication, and it was proposed that communication barriers might have appeared between the two pilots. But looking at the flight data currently seen, after piloting for one minute, Co-pilot Tim found he couldn’t reach the required technical level, so he submitted control to the experienced captain. Judging this fact in one minute and smoothly transferring piloting rights, this time difference is very reasonable. I suggest reconsidering this item in the new investigation report.”

Zhuo Huan glanced at him: “Mm, this suggestion is very reasonable.”

Everyone looked down further.

Since Co-pilot Tim turned off the autopilot and started manual piloting, serious problems appeared in the flight attitude of this plane. Bad weather seriously affected the flight, Tim tried to save it but made the situation worse. Kyle took over, but there was unexpectedly no improvement either.

This plane accelerated crazily and finally plunged headlong into the water.

This flight data seemed normal; it was a very typical air crash case affected by weather where pilots failed to save the plane. Weather was the main reason, pilot skills were secondary.

However, everyone studied each item of data for a long time.

Lawrence couldn’t help but be the first to speak: “Why did it accelerate into the sea?”

Everyone looked up at him.

Lawrence: “I can understand encountering bad weather, such strong wind, they didn’t control the plane well, causing the plane to crash into the sea. But Tim made operational errors, had flaws, insufficient skills, not only failed to save the plane but also caused the plane to accelerate and dive into the sea, let’s leave it at that. What about Kyle? He is a former US Air Force pilot, his resume is incomparably excellent, his flying skills are quite superb. I can understand he couldn’t save this plane; after all, there were only two minutes left, their altitude wasn’t enough, only 5000 feet from the sea surface… But why, when he was piloting the plane, was it still accelerating?!”

Not accelerating to ascend, but accelerating to dive!

The same mistake, why did two pilots make it together?

The young and inexperienced co-pilot made a wrong decision, why did even the experienced, flawless captain follow suit with such a stupid move?

Zhuo Huan looked at the data on the screen, his slender fingers tapping gently. Everyone looked at where his finger pointed.

That was the last twelve seconds of the plane crashing into the sea. As if only realizing he was accelerating towards the ocean then, Captain Kyle finally made the correct decision and began to pull up the nose, wanting to save this plane about to crash. But everything was too late; the plane rushed crazily into the vast ocean at maximum acceleration.

“He didn’t not want to save it, just realized it too late.” Zhuo Huan looked up at the investigators in the room, his expression calm, gaze cold: “So the question comes, why, at the beginning, did neither pilot realize they made a wrong decision and were accelerating towards the sea?”

When Old Joseph returned to the office, everyone was conducting a detailed frame-by-frame investigation of the plane’s 89 items of data.

He heard about the previous discussion, thought for a moment, and found Fu Cheng.

Fu Cheng was sitting in front of the computer, looking at Captain Kyle’s final piloting data curve.

“Fu.”

Hearing Old Joseph’s voice suddenly, Fu Cheng snapped back to reality and looked up at him. “You’re back, Old Joseph.”

Old Joseph pulled a chair and sat next to him: “I’ve heard about what happened just now. Indeed very strange. I can understand Tim making piloting errors, but that’s Kyle Shulman. His resume is really excellent. I heard about him when I was in the Air Force; he was a quite outstanding Air Force pilot. How could he also make such a low-level flight error.”

Fu Cheng was silent for a moment: “Actually, I already had an idea. It’s just that you weren’t back just now, so I wanted to discuss it with you first and then confirm.”

Old Joseph was stunned: “It seems our opinions coincide. I also remembered something.”

The two smiled at each other.

Old Joseph: “Why don’t we write down our guesses together and see if we thought of the same thing?”

Fu Cheng: “Okay.”

The two typed out their guessed reasons on their phones respectively, and then showed them to each other simultaneously.

What was written on Fu Cheng’s phone was “Vestibular Illusion”.

What was on Old Joseph’s phone was…

Fu Cheng paused slightly, then smiled: “Accelerating into the sea… hmm, you considered it more thoroughly than me. I wasn’t precise to this step.”

Old Joseph laughed: “I just have more experience than you and have really seen this kind of air crash case before.”

Soon, the two found Zhuo Huan together.

Zhuo Huan raised an eyebrow: “Hmm?”

Old Joseph smiled: “Reid, ever heard of the Coriolis illusion?”

Zhuo Huan was fiercely stunned. He frowned, his gaze moving between Old Joseph and Fu Cheng.

“You mean… the two pilots made errors together because of the Coriolis illusion?”

Just as the voice fell, on the other side, Su Fei shouted happily: “RIP, you must praise me. I downloaded the cockpit voice recorder data in just one hour. I’m truly a fucking genius!”

Everyone’s expression changed.

Zhuo Huan stood up: “Open it, listen from beginning to end.”

…

Long silence, only the rhythmic sounds emitted by various instruments.

Suddenly, Captain Kyle’s voice appeared. He didn’t say anything special, just contacted the tower, reported his flight status, and asked.

“This is AA4012. Are there many planes on duty at Logan Airport today, Over.”

After getting an answer, he turned off the radio communication.

The cockpit returned to tranquility.

After a long time, Co-pilot Tim’s voice suddenly appeared: “Captain, do you want to land early.”

Wait for a few seconds, no response.

As if cold water was poured on his head, Co-pilot Tim stopped talking.

Finally, Captain Kyle answered. He scolded coldly: “Takeoff was already delayed by half an hour. As a pilot, ensuring passengers arrive at the destination punctually and safely is the most basic quality.”

Silence for a moment.

Co-pilot Tim: “Yes, I understand.”

The two didn’t have any further exchange; all dialogue was about flight data.

Until the fifteenth minute, Kyle requested the tower to lower altitude. After obtaining permission, Tim piloted the plane, lowered altitude, wanting to avoid the cyclone.

However, in the last five minutes, everything changed drastically.

Captain Kyle’s cold voice sounded: “Watch the crosswind, maintain flight status!”

“Yes!”

The sound of the violent and turbulent wind, even across the distance between life and death, across more than two hundred days and nights, transmitted through the speakers to the bottom of everyone’s heart present. The hurricane up to 60 knots made all sounds in the entire cockpit seem separated by a water curtain, buzzing indistinctly.

“Damn it, what are you doing!”

“Sorry, Captain, please take over, I don’t feel right!”

With a beep prompt sound, Captain Kyle took over the piloting rights.

“Fuck! What’s going on, what happened!”

“Captain, wrong, definitely wrong, I’m dizzy, are we having hallucinations.”

In the dark night, above the sea, the world spun, without any visible reference objects. Everything was murky. Reason told them something must be wrong, but senses deceived them, making them unaware of where exactly they went wrong.

Until the last twelve seconds, Captain Kyle roared: “Shit, are we accelerating? Which direction is it facing?!”

Diving straight down from high altitude, the sparkling sea could already be seen.

On the sea surface, moonlight cast a hazy color.

Tim said in horror: “Pull up, pull up!”

“No!”

“No!!!”

With a boom, everything returned to peace.

Turning off the recording that only had a busy tone left, Zhuo Huan glanced at Fu Cheng and Old Joseph, then said to all the investigators present: “It seems things are already very obvious…”

“Cross-coupled illusion.”

“Also known as, the Coriolis illusion.”

Coriolis illusion, one of the vestibular illusions. In a long-term regular flight movement, the semicircular canals in the pilot’s ears reach equilibrium, making the pilot mistakenly think he is accelerating smoothly. At this time, when the outside world suddenly gives him a changing movement, it will cause the fluid in the semicircular canals to flow.

Instantly, the world changes, and endless hallucinations swallow all senses.

It is hailed as the most dangerous vestibular illusion because the moment it happens, it creates a huge imbalance, leading to a series of autonomic nervous reactions.

So even if the pilot realizes it, it is almost impossible to salvage.

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