Aircraft crash silk air?

Question

looking for some information about silk air 737 crash in the river with flight number 185 [indonisian].

how about pilot suicide in the A/C

Answer 1

CVR Transcript is here: http://www.dephub.go.id/knkt/ntsc_aviati...

Rest of report in the same folder.

Word of caution: the cvr transcripts do seem to be lacking some finer details...

Answer 2

What about pilot suicide. A good idea after an accident is to wait for the investigation to be completed and read the report. That's how you find some information.

Answer 3

Accident Analysis:

After the crash, there was substantial speculation that the pilot deliberately crashed the aircraft in a mass homicide/suicide. A 2004 court decision by the Los Angeles Superior Court in the United States ruled that the crash was caused by a defective servo valve in the plane's rudder resulting in a rudder hard-over. The rudder manufacturer, Parker Hannifin, was ordered to pay the three families of victims involved in that case US$44 million.

In the aftermath of the crash, several potential motives for Tsu's suicide were suggested, including recent financial losses, his taking out of insurance on his life the previous week, his receipt of several recent disciplinary actions on the part of the airline. He had also reportedly had several conflicts with Ward, the co-pilot.

Investigations later discovered his assets were greater than his financial losses, therefore that was not a clear motive for suicide. An official investigation by the Singapore Police Force into evidence of criminal offence leading to the crash found that there was no motive nor reason for any of the crew to deliberately cause the crash of the aircraft.

Tsu was formerly a Republic of Singapore Air Force pilot and had over twenty years of flying experience in the A-4SU and TA-4SU Super SkyHawks. His last appointment was instructor pilot of a SkyHawk squadron. Due to his flying experience, it was also highly unlikely that the aircraft lost control or fell into a stall of spin, as he would have had the experience to overcome such stalls and spins.

The circuit breakers for the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were tripped minutes before the abrupt descent, but not at the same time. A technical analysis of the trip recorded in the CVR and FDR of these circuit breakers was carried out by investigators and the evidence showed that the trips were manually activated and not an electrical malfunction. The radio continued to work after the failure of the recorders, which indicates that power failure was not a cause, however there was no conclusive evidence whether this was the action of the pilot or otherwise. This flight data recorder was old and had several periods of malfunction during the last days. It was precisely this lack of conclusive evidence, because of the switched off data and voice recorders, that made the case against Tsu impossible to prove.

The Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee, which led the investigation, was not able to find any conclusive cause and even several years after the fact, many conspiracy theories remain. Skeptics point to other difficult to explain accidents involving 737s which showed signs of quirky flight controls such as uncommanded rudder deflection, including USAir Flight 427 and United Airlines Flight 585.[citation needed] The pilot suicide theory and controversy is very similar to that of EgyptAir Flight 990.

FAA has ordered an upgrade of all B-737 before November 12, 2008.[5] All airlines must install a new rudder control system that includes new components such as an aft torque tube, hydraulic actuators, and associated control rods, and additional wiring throughout the airplane to support failure annunciation of the rudder control system in the flight deck. The system also must incorporate two separate inputs, each with an override mechanism, to two separate servo valves on the main rudder power control unit (PCU) and an input to the standby PCU that also will include an override mechanism.