I am referring to the accident just weeks ago in which an egyptian charter 737 plunged to the Red Sea shortly after take off from Sharm-El-Sheikh.The French (all tourists on board were French) recovered both black boxes and handed them over to the Egyptians who are in charge of investigation. This was like 10 days ago.Barely 3-4 days later I only read small piece of news on the Avweb site saying the accident is being blamed on pilot error (no info on what kind of eror). Now almost a week elapsed since this first revelation and there is absolutely no further information available anywhere and I looked everywhere on the internet.This is just my pure speculation ... but the said airplane plunged steeply into the sea below in a mere 17 sec. What kind of pilot error can cause something like that ? Doesn't it look similar to another similar plunge of another Egyptian airplane (767) which was blamed on a suicidal pilot a few years ago ? If this is another of the same "kind" Egyptians would do everything to keep details from the public to prevent panic among those who fly on Egyptian-piloted airplanes. I only hope French will soon start demanding more explanation from the Egyptians and possibly even ask for the black boxes to be handed over to them. Their Navy recovered them so I would suspect they do have some right to examine them as well.Michael J.

Don't forget that there have also been two more instances in the past where 737s had rolled over and plunged straight into the ground also....a UAL at Colorado Springs and a USAir going into Pitt.

Yea, I know and both were blamed on some sort of rudder anomaly if I recall and both resulted in the longest accident investigations ever conducted by NTSB.I don't doubt for a second that Egyptians would love to shift the blame to Boeing if they only had a sliver of a chance. They still loath NTSB for blaming their copilot for the 767 crash so I can see how they would like to take a 'revenge'. But the point is that since they were so quick to declare 'pilot error' without providing any further detail raises possibility that those boxes contain some really obvious and damning information they rather keep to themselves. Perhaps another call to Allah before pushing the stick or signs of struggle between pilots ??Michael J.

Not finding it on the free internet means little. It is estimated that the non pay internet contains 1-2 percent of published body of work, which includes periodical and daily.I was able to do a quick search of this on nexus/lexus at work and found 454 hits in the major newspapers alone. Almost half of those have been published within the 72 hours. This service states that it represents about a third of the current general publications.

>I was able to do a quick search of this on nexus/lexus at work>and found 454 hits in the major newspapers alone. Almost half>of those have been published within the 72 hours. Makes no difference how many, the important is what sort of information they contain. Any major airline accident is usually followed by fair amount of media attention once the black boxes had been retrieved. You see it in the 'free' internet and on major TV/channels. For this one - I see nothing of the kind. If you found some informative piece of information about this accident/investigation on your 'paid' services - please share it with us.Michael J.

Those two 737 accidents were blamed on the rudder actuator being locked in the full deflection position(bad...). Boeing has since redesigned the actuator and all 737s have this improved piece of equipment in it.

So does that mean a control hardover can be 100% ruled out now?

>So does that mean a control hardover can be 100% ruled out>now?I would think so, but I am not an expert ;)

Thanks for the assurances, but if I recall correctly, there has been at least one more rudder hardover incident that made the news even after the new PCUs were installed. Anyways, I'm of the belief that the only 100% things in life are death and taxes.

If I recall even before Boeing redesigned this rudder part pilots were supposed to undergo some simulation training to teach them how to either avoid or recover from such an occurance. So even with the 'old' style rudder this was preventable provided pilots had some extra training.Michael J.

So...how long ago did those particular two pilot undergo that training? Was it done for them each recurrent, or was it only a requirement during initial? Was the plane high enough for the said trained maneuver to be completed successfully? Where were they in relation to the crossover point? Did these two pilots realize what was happening in time to put said trained maneuver into practice?

Personally I doubt these questions (though valid) have anything to do with this particular accident. If there was any indication of such rudder anomaly Egyptians would be screaming bloody murder by now ...Michael J.

All these questions and more are going to have be asked. That's the whole point of a thorough investigation. Why not just let the investigators ask them for now before demanding an inquisition on the Flash Crash Coverup.

>All these questions and more are going to have be asked. >That's the whole point of a thorough investigation. Why not>just let the investigators ask them for nowI somehow sleep soundly knowing that Egyptian investigators will do everything in their power to exonerate their pilots. Michael J.

The first link from Google was a hit:http://www.laprovence-presse.fr/une.pdfCheers,Gosta.http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2betateam.jpg