Singapore's SilkAir Flight 185 crashed into the river in a suicidal dive at the end of 1997, killing the plane. The investigation into the accident revealed that the black box at the front of the aircraft was closed before the incident.
Airplanes are usually equipped with two black boxes, one of which is located at the front of the aircraft to record the conversation of the crew, and the other is mounted on the tail of the aircraft to record the aircraft's operating data. The two black boxes are resistant to high temperatures, fire, explosion, water, corrosion, and drops. They are an important basis for conducting aircraft accident investigations.
However, shortly before the plane crashed, the captain actually purchased a high-value insurance.
Was it the plane's own mechanical failure that caused the crash, or was it human manipulation?The question is shrouded in a layer of fog.
SilkAir Flight 185 is a regular flight between Singapore and Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.
The distance between the two places is less than 700 kilometers, and it takes less than 1 hour by plane.
At 3:37 p.m. on December 19, 1997, Flight 185 slowly took off from Soekarno Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, Indonesia, and flew to Singapore.
Flight 185 carried a total of 97 passengers, including 45 Singaporeans, 25 Indonesians, nine Britons, six Americans, three Britons, one Canadian and eight Chinese.
In addition, there were seven crew members on board, including Singaporean captain Zhu Weimin, first officer Duncan Ward, mechanic and four service personnel.
The plane began to climb to an altitude of 8,000 meters at 3:53 a.m., and the radar showed that the flight was normal. The crew conveyed to the ground crew the message that "Flight 185 is in good condition and everything is normal".
If all goes well, the flight will arrive safely in the beautiful Lion City of Singapore in less than an hour.
None of the passengers on the plane could have imagined that a catastrophe was about to struck, and it would be the last journey of their lives.
Flight 185 suddenly lost its balance 20 minutes later and began tumbling and falling downward at a speed of about 150 meters per second, like a wild horse that has escaped and is difficult to control.
The plane crashed down on the Musi River delta, 50 kilometers north of Palembang, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, about six minutes after the accident.
The plane crashed at an extremely fast speed, almost half the speed of sound, and the impact was enormous, mercilessly tearing the airliner into countless pieces.
As a result, the wreckage of the aircraft is spread over a fairly vast area, about 5 square kilometers.
Less than half an hour after the crash, thousands of TNI and fire department personnel rushed to the scene of the accident and immediately launched search and rescue efforts.
After receiving the news, the Singapore Air Force responded quickly and urgently dispatched four aircraft and three *** to the scene.
Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong stressed the need to go all out to carry out search and rescue at any cost.
However, they conducted a dragnet search for nearly 16 hours, but found nothing, not a single survivor, not even a complete body of the victims.
Due to the presence of several American passengers, the United States also sent a team of 18 experts to Palembang. The team, which includes specialists such as forensic doctors, pathologists and dentists, will assist in identifying the severed limbs to identify the deceased.
China's transport minister, Ma Baoshan, arrived at the airport quickly by plane to understand the situation, and he hoped to be able to explain to the families of the Chinese passengers who died.
SIA Chairman Tanah Banan travelled to Palembang to personally oversee the search and meet with the families of the victims to express their condolences to them. He assured that reasonable compensation would be provided to the families of the victims.
In addition to this, SilkAir also arranged for the families of the victims to be transported to Palembang so that they could board a ship to the crash site to participate in the religious ceremony of the deceased.
Despite this, the family's mood is still difficult to calm down. Their biggest concern was not anything else, but why the plane suddenly dived during normal flight, and what caused the accident
In the process of salvaging the wreckage and remains of the plane, search and rescue personnel put in a lot of hard work in order to find the black box.
The search made a major breakthrough eight days after the crash, when divers used a probe in the Musey River to successfully discover a black box (which was mounted on the tail of the wing), marking an important development.
On January 4, another black box (cockpit recorder) mounted on the front of the aircraft was found at the bottom of the Musi River, a task completed by a dredger from Singapore.
Half a month has passed, and the time of the plane crash is at this time.
The joy of the higher-ups was palpable, because they knew that once the data from the black box was sorted out, the truth about the air crash could be revealed. This is very gratifying for them.
Professor Dinan, Indonesia's director of aviation investigation, is about to travel to the United States to hand over the flight recorder to the US National Transportation and Safety Administration for testing in order to uncover the truth about this bizarre air crash as soon as possible.
Why?The reason is that there were American passengers on the plane, and Flight 185 was a 737-300 passenger plane produced by Boeing, and according to relevant regulations, the United States side is obliged to assist in investigating the cause of the crash.
At the same time, SilkAir also plans to transport the salvaged wreckage to a hangar in West Java for reassembly so that investigative experts can find the cause of the crash from another angle.
However, the news from the United States is frustrating and disappointing. Experts tried to analyze the black box data on the plane, only to be surprised to find that the cockpit call recorder (CVR) did not record within 8 minutes of the crash, which was very confusing. The reason is that the black box inexplicably stopped working.
The flight data recorder (FDR) also stopped working in the last two minutes before the crash, and it is not an isolated case.
Normally, the black box of an aircraft does not stop functioning, and such an event is extremely rare in the history of civil aviation.
Even if this happens occasionally, the probability of two black boxes stopping working at the same time is as small as a sesame seed falling into a pinhole, which is simply an incredible coincidence, and it is extremely rare in reality.
Therefore, American investigators focused their attention on Zhu Weimin, the captain of Flight 185.
Prior to joining SilkAir, Zhu Weimin served in the Singapore Air Force for 16 years and is an experienced "veteran driver".
Zhu Weimin performed well in the army, and was even selected to join the elite unit of the Air Force, specializing in aerobatics.
In 1992, after retiring from the Air Force, Zhu joined SilkAir Singapore. Due to his technical skills, he was appreciated by the top brass and was soon promoted to captain, while also being responsible for the training of pilots.
As far as objective facts are concerned, Zhu Weimin's future is bright, and he has no reason to cause the plane crash.
However, the suspicions of American investigators are not unfounded, and they have a total of three pieces of evidence.
On April 13, Zhu Weimin encountered problems landing at Manado Airport in Indonesia, but did not report it to the company.
In June, when he was about to fly to Jakarta, he turned off the cockpit recorder due to a misunderstanding with the control center of the tower.
The company stripped him of his qualifications as a flight route instructor due to two incidents, leaving him only as captain.
He returned to the airport in November because of insufficient thrust from the aircraft's engines, and made an overweight landing in violation of regulations, which he did not report afterwards. Therefore, the company warned him again.
As the investigation deepened, more evidence pointed to Zhu Weimin's unfavorability.
Zhu Weimin's personal ethics are obviously impeccable, and he has a deep relationship with his wife and takes responsibility. However, he is passionate about investing and fascinated by ** and real estate, and has been investing for a long time and has benefited a lot.
Investigators also found that Zhu Weimin had been losing money in trading for several months before the incident, because since July last year, the financial crisis in Southeast Asia has swept in, and there has been a downturn, resulting in huge losses for most stockholders.
Zhu Weimin is the same, losing more than $1 million in a few trades.
Investigators checked Zhu Weimin's account and found that before the plane crash, his ** account had been temporarily frozen.
According to his colleagues, the most bizarre thing is that Zhu Weimin purchased a number of accident insurance policies with an insurance amount of up to $3 million a few days before the crash, and the effective date of these policies happened to be the day of the crash.
The investigation team deduced that the captain Zhu Weimin suffered a loss in investment and a personal economic recession, which led to a sharp increase in mental pressure and could not bear the burden, which eventually led to a mental breakdown and chose to create a plane crash to seek relief, so that his family could also obtain high compensation to get rid of the financial difficulties.
The insurance company will resolutely refuse to pay, so Zhu Weimin chose to close the black box before the crash of Flight 185 to cover up his plot, and the airline will take action once it finds out.
Indonesian investigators and Singapore's SilkAir have defended their positions following the US National Transportation Safety Board's conclusions**.
If the conclusions of the US side are confirmed, the nature of the crash will change, and the airlines will be jointly and severally liable and face huge compensation.
Of course, they disagree with the conclusions of the investigation by the Americans, but they have not been able to find strong enough evidence to refute the conclusions of the American side.
Moreover, the data obtained from the air traffic control department seems to confirm the speculation of American investigators: radar data shows that before the plane crashed, there was a right-turn roll and backward spiral dive, that is, the wing ailerons were deployed in opposite directions to cause the plane to deflection, and then the tail elevator dived downward.
This is rarely the case with civilian airliners, and such a posture is adopted only when bombers drop bombs.
Only Air Force pilots can master the deflection maneuver after diving, which can accelerate the dive speed.
Indonesia and Singapore have questioned the above reasoning: How could Zhu Weimin, a man with a wife, children and a father, do such a thing?
Ghana Badi also thinks that Zhu Weimin is a conscientious person who is very dedicated and serious about his work.
On December 11, Zhu Weimin talked to him about the warning letter, and he personally admitted that he was guilty of not reporting the overweight landing to his superiors. Zhu Weimin explained that after the plane landed, he carried out a lot of effective work, such as assisting passengers to transfer to other flights, and communicating with engineers and maintenance personnel to discuss aircraft engine problems.
However, according to the conclusion of the US investigation team, the families of the victims of the crash appear to have been affected, and some of the families suspect that the crash was intentional and have filed a lawsuit against SilkAir.
In court, the plaintiff and the defendant debated fiercely whether the crash was caused by human error or mechanical failure.
The defense said that even if it was out of a desire to survive, the co-pilot would never stand idly by, but would intervene to prevent the crash from happening, if it was really the captain who caused the crash.
Lawyer Baston said in the Silkan crash lawsuit that if the captain deliberately caused the crash, there was little there was to be done to prevent the co-pilot.
They had received a variety of trainings, but had never received special training to face the captain's deliberate impact on the plane, so they were unprepared for unexpected accidents. In the case of unresponsiveness, by the time they realize the problem, it's already too late.
According to professional witnesses, if he had been in the co-pilot's seat, he would not have been able to react immediately and would have been stunned for a moment if he realized that the captain had driven the plane towards the ground.
According to witnesses, even if the co-pilot used a lifter to deal with it, it would have been very difficult for the pilot to reverse the downward trend of the aircraft if he kept pressing the horizontal tail trim controller.
During his cross-examination of Baston, Locke's defense attorney pointed out that Baston's speculation about the Mi185 crash was based on radar data, which was not sufficient to prove his point. Therefore, the conclusion that the MI185 was deliberately crashed by the pilot is untenable.
Baston admits a strong argument that the Mi185 fell at an angle of 56 degrees, which is more than horizontal. He believes that it is only possible for an aircraft to tilt to such an extent under human control, and that an inertial fall cannot reach this angle.
In 2001, the lengthy battle ended with the dismissal of the victims' families' appeals, meaning that each victim's family could only receive US$75,000 in compensation under the Warsaw Convention, an international aviation agreement, and could not demand a higher amount from SilkAir.
*In his judgment, the officer pointed out that there was no evidence to determine the cause of the crash or to suggest that someone had deliberately crashed into the plane.
The court was unable to confirm that the crash was caused by the deliberate or reckless actions of pilot Zhu Weimin and the co-pilot, as the evidence and facts presented in court were limited.
*The officer pointed out that since no one had been able to understand the situation faced by the pilot before the incident, "it is difficult to understand the decisions made by the pilots at that time and the risks that may be associated with each decision." ”
*The officer also pointed out that Pilot Zhu Weimin and Co-Pilot Duncan behaved normally before the crash. However, the court must speak on the basis of evidence, and cannot make a presumption of guilt this time just because Zhu Weimin has violated discipline three times before.
Despite the outcome of the case, the truth of the crash remains mysterious, and the question remains inconclusive as to whether it was caused by human factors or a mechanical failure.
From a legal point of view, the judge's judgment does not mean that Zhu Weimin is not at fault, so no matter how we make reasonable inferences, it is invalid. Due to the lack of sufficient evidence, it is impossible to confirm that he is the perpetrator of the air crash.
The survival of the co-pilot confirms Zhu Weimin's claim that the crash was controlled by man, but all the crew and crew members of Flight 185 were unfortunately killed, and this case lacks conclusive evidence and has become a rare unsolved case in the history of civil aviation. Unless the black box is artificially closed, there is no way to solve the situation.
In Japan, the same accident occurred 5 years later.
The crash on JAL Flight 351 was allegedly a deliberate act of the crash carried out by the captain, although the co-pilot tried to stop it but was unsuccessful. Fortunately, the tail of the plane touched the water first, resulting in the survival of two-thirds of the passengers, including the co-pilot. This circumstance conclusively confirmed the captain's guilt.
Eventually, the captain was able to get away with it because he was diagnosed with mental illness and was able to get away with it.
Civil aviation does require a high level of attention to the mental health and mental well-being of aircraft pilots. This is obvious. Turn the page in 2023