One hour before the plane took off, Lina canceled the ticket, 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, and even most of the investigators returned to Washington by plane after the wrap-up reception the night before. Today, not many people remained at the investigation headquarters, only Lovins and a few young investigators remained.
After returning to the investigation headquarters, Zhuo Huan asked, "What's going on."
Because of the hangover last night, Lovins looked ugly. Wearing a crumpled suit, he was also very helpless: "There was news from Canada this morning. TSB (Canada Transportation Safety Board) received information that a fisherman called the TV station and said that he had salvaged a fish in September last year. Something, suspected to be a black box."
Zhuohuan: "Are you sure?"
Lovins: "Not sure, TSB has already contacted the fisherman, but the possibility is quite high. After the fisherman heard about the news yesterday, he immediately recognized the black box. And the black box was not completely damaged by the explosion. , and kept some orange-red color. He was very impressed by this strange color. It is expected that today, TSB officials will be able to get the black box and send it to Washington tomorrow.”
Zhuo Huan glanced at Lovins, then turned to look at his members.
"Well, let's go to Washington then."
At five o'clock in the afternoon that day, TSB gave accurate information, confirming that the metal cube mentioned by the fisherman was the black box.
On September 17 last year, when American Airlines 4012 fell into the sea and disappeared for a whole month, no one expected that its black box had drifted along the ocean currents to the waters of Canada and was caught by a fisherman.
At a distance of nearly two thousand nautical miles, the fisherman never thought that this thing would be the wreckage of the plane that crashed in Boston, USA. He lived in a small port town with underdeveloped transportation. After half a month of research, he couldn't figure out what this thing was, so he sold it to a scrap yard.
Fortunately, the waste disposal station in this small town is not working efficiently, and metal waste is piling up. TSB called hundreds of people to search for four hours, and finally found the black box.
It was buried at the very bottom of the mountain of garbage.
The parts printed with words and numbers are all muddy due to the explosion of the plane and the corrosion of sea water. But the other half is still bright orange-red. Even if it was hit by a strong force and drifted with the ocean current, it was not damaged in the slightest.
The wreckage of the plane was not found by salvage companies until December. But as early as September, the black box was caught ashore.
TSB personnel sent the black box to the NTSB headquarters in Washington overnight.
When the NTSB and American Airlines jointly issued a reward, neither side thought that the black box could really be found. This is probably the decision of fate. After the UAAG people and Lovins returned to the Washington headquarters, Lovins was quickly called to the office by his colleagues.
Su Fei craned his neck curiously, and took a few glances: "The black box hasn't been delivered yet, where is he going?"
Old Joseph smiled: "I don't understand, he is going to be promoted."
Su Fei: "Huh?"
No, what happened? I'm about to get promoted? Are your NTSB officials so easy to get promoted
Fucheng thought for a while: "NTSB didn't intend to issue a reward, and continued to search for the black box. After publishing the investigation report, they planned to end the case. It was Lovins who suggested continuing to search for the black box, and now his suggestion has been obtained so quickly It worked." After a pause, Fucheng looked at Lina, "Does the outside world think about this?"
Lina smiled slightly: "Vol, I like to talk to smart people. That's right, since the NTSB said in the afternoon that it had found the black box of American Airlines 4012, there has been an upsurge of discussions among the media, the public, and the Internet. Both NTSB and American Airlines have received great attention. Praise, just now I searched Twitter, and the top few searches are all praising NTSB. It’s been a long time since a government agency in the United States has been so highly praised by the public.”
Because the wreckage of the plane was salvaged in Boston Bay and soaked in seawater for a long time, the fuselage was fragile and rusted, making it inconvenient for long-distance transportation. So NTSB set up a temporary investigative headquarters in Boston to investigate the aircraft accident.
Now most of the instruments have been moved back to Washington, and the black boxes are easy to transport, so everyone came to Washington to continue working.
As old Joseph said, when Lovins came back, he was happy and refreshed. He said very enthusiastically: "Do you need me to help you contact the hotel? This is Washington, and I should entertain you."
Lina: "Lovins, you are questioning my ability to work again."
Lovins: "Oh my fault, sorry Lina, you must have arranged everything."
That night, after a good rest. Early the next morning, the black box was delivered to Washington by TSB staff.
It was placed in a metal container, carefully, and sent to NTSB headquarters.
Old Joseph was a little surprised: "Didn't it be delivered in sea water?"
Planes that crash in the ocean, when their black boxes are salvaged, are often preserved in containers filled with seawater. The principle is similar to archaeological tomb digging. The objects in ancient tombs will always maintain a stable physical state when they are not in contact with the outside air. Once the tomb is opened and exposed to outside air, light and heat, it will inevitably undergo physical and chemical changes and be damaged.
The black box is stored in seawater to prevent damage to the external environment of the black box and to prevent data from being affected.
Lovins explained: "This black box was fished out last September. The fisherman didn't know what it was, and it was impossible to keep it soaked in the water. Its external environment has been changed. After observation, the people at TSB decided not to store it in seawater to avoid further changes."
Speaking of this, Lovins frowned and looked at Zhuo Huan: "As I said just now, Patrick, this black box has been exposed to the air for nearly half a year. From the outside, it should not be damaged. It will definitely not be a problem to read the data directly after catching it. But now, after such a long time, can the data remain intact?"
Zhuo Huan said calmly: "Ask a professional." Then, he turned sideways, revealing the punk boy standing behind him.
Su Fei never thought that Zhuo Huan would give him such a good opportunity to pretend to be coercive? Also praise him for his professionalism
It took him a few seconds to react: "Oh yes, um, no problem. You don't know, this plane is the latest Airbus A390, and even the black box uses the latest EAFR data storage technology. ARINC767. When recording data, it will first collect the same frame rate from the message pool... "
As a professional air accident investigator, although Lovins's understanding of the black box is not as thorough as Su Fei's, he can still understand the general idea. What Su Fei said was not particularly profound, but it was easy to say, but also had to be done.
Lovins: "Please."
"no problem."
Soon, Su Fei and NTSB's professional data analysts analyzed the data of the black box of American Airlines 4012.
It takes three days to download data from even an intact black box. After all, the black box of American Airlines 4012 has experienced aircraft explosion, seawater immersion, and air exposure. A week later, Su Fei and others repaired it and downloaded the data.
Su Fei: "The data from the cockpit voice recorder will take two hours. The flight data has been downloaded, let's see this first?"
Zhuohuan: "Yes."
After the words fell, Su Fei tapped on the keyboard. After pressing the "enter" key, he raised his head: "Okay!"
In the next moment, the densely packed line graph of flight data was projected onto the big screen.
Su Fei: "The new plane is really awesome, Airbus A390, I love it so much. Its black box has recorded 89 items of data, a total of 89 items, all recorded! From time, pressure altitude, indicated airspeed, etc. Basic data, to yaw damper status, vibration warning of each engine, over-temperature warning... everything! The aircraft with the most complete records in the world is the Airbus A390, right?"
Hearing this, Zhuo Huan sneered.
Su Fei looked at him inexplicably.
Lina smiled and kindly reminded: "The most comprehensive one is the Maifei F485, which records 91 items of data, including the yaw damper command and the status of the spare rudder valve that Airbus A390 does not have."
Su Fei: "..."
Well, forgot there was an aircraft designer here.
Ignoring Su Fei, Zhuo Huan stood in front of the big screen and carefully looked at the detailed flight data map.
Zhuo Huan: "This one is enlarged."
Su Fei: "OK."
Zhuo Huan looked at it for a while: "Why did this area suddenly drop to 9,000 feet? It's still some distance away from Boston, and it hasn't reached the landing stage yet."
Fucheng looked through the information: "The recording of the air traffic control center recorded this passage. At that time, the plane encountered a small cyclone on the sea surface, which was not obvious on the weather radar. The captain Kyle in charge of radio communication contacted the tower, hoping to It can lower the altitude and bypass this area." After a pause, he added: "The weather on the sea is unpredictable, and seven or eight kinds of weather can appear in ten minutes. Therefore, it often depends on the weather radar equipped on the plane. Come to observe the weather. In order to avoid cyclones and storms, it is very normal to fly at a lower altitude."
In the penultimate thirteenth minute of the crash, the pilot lowered the flight altitude to 9,000 feet after getting permission from air traffic control. That is about 3000 meters high.
Since then, the flight of the plane has been very smooth and unobtrusive.
"Wind speed and wind direction, zoom in on this piece of data."
Su Fei immediately followed Zhuo Huan's instructions and temporarily blocked other data, only amplifying the wind speed and direction data of the black box.
On the large projection screen, the broken line of data that had been floating in a small range before, suddenly bumped up and down like a roller coaster when it reached the penultimate fifth minute. If the previous wind speed and direction data is like a child playing with a balance car, it is now a racer racing off-road.
Obviously, such outrageously exaggerated data is definitely an important reason for the death of American Airlines 4012.
Lovins has mixed feelings: "The weather on the sea is unpredictable... Vol, you are right, yes, this is the sea. It seems that the altitude of 9,000 feet did not let them avoid the small cyclone, or That cyclone was bigger than they thought."
Fu Cheng: "Maybe, it's a new cyclone."
Excessive wind speed and wind direction are absolutely fatal to an aircraft.
but.
Zhuo Huan: "This wind speed is not enough to cause the Airbus A390 to fall into the sea."
Lovins was taken aback, and was about to say, "How do you know, why don't you do an experiment first?" Suddenly, he suddenly realized something, and quickly shut up.
Oh, you've always disassembled, you know.
Zhuo Huan: "I have done a wind speed test on the Airbus A390. Under the high-altitude crosswind of 60 knots, its flight status will be affected. But as long as the driver operates properly, turn off the autopilot and perform manual driving, it can fly smoothly. , it’s just quite difficult.”
In the next second, he looked at Su Fei, and before he could speak, Su Fei had already made an "OK" gesture: "I have found the autopilot connection status data, RIP is right, they encountered Strong crosswind, after 30 seconds, co-pilot Tim turned off the autopilot and turned on the manual mode... Hey, wait a minute!"
Su Fei exclaimed: "In the penultimate minute, he handed over the piloting rights to Captain Kyle!"
Zhuohuan: "Call out the data!"
"Yes!"
Su Fei projected all the aircraft driving data on the screen.
I saw that before the plane crashed, the co-pilot did hand over the control to the captain, and the captain Kyle took control of the plane.
Old Joseph stared blankly at the data on the projection screen.
Suddenly, for some reason, his nasal cavity became dry, and a strong sour feeling surged up. Tongue swirls in the mouth, but no words can come out. Taking a deep breath, Old Joseph said, "I'll get a glass of water." After speaking, he turned and walked outside the house, and everyone looked at him.
Under the dim light in the corridor, the back of old Joseph suddenly became heavy with vicissitudes. He walked slowly, tired and tired, with a slight tremor in his shoulders. He raised his hand and wiped the corners of his eyes.
Fu Cheng watched him walk into the tea room step by step, and then looked away.
Fucheng: "In the investigation report submitted before, in terms of safety recommendations, there were long suggestions on crew communication, and it was suggested that there might be a communication barrier between the two pilots. But based on the flight data seen so far Look, after a minute of driving, co-pilot Tim found that he could not achieve the required technique, so he handed over control to the experienced captain. It took a minute to judge this fact, and the transfer of pilot authority went smoothly, This time difference is very reasonable. I suggest that this item be reconsidered in the new investigation report.”
Zhuohuan glanced at him: "Well, this suggestion is very reasonable."
Everyone looked down.
After co-pilot Tim turned off the autopilot and started to drive manually, there was a serious problem with the flight attitude of the plane. Bad weather severely hampered the plane's flight, and Tim's attempts to save it made matters worse. Kyle took over, but nothing improved.
The plane accelerated wildly and eventually plunged into the water.
This flight data seems to be normal, and it is a very routine case of air crashes where the pilot failed to save the plane due to the weather. The weather is the main reason, the pilot's skill is the secondary reason.
However, everyone has studied each data for a long time.
Lovins couldn't help it, and was the first to speak: "Why did it accelerate and hit the sea?"
Everyone raised their heads to look at him.
Lovins: "I can understand that in bad weather and such a strong wind, they didn't control the plane well, causing the plane to crash into the sea. But Tim made mistakes, flaws, and insufficient technology. Not only did he fail to save the plane, he also It’s okay to cause the plane to speed up and dive into the sea. What about Kyle? He is a former U.S. Air Force pilot, his resume is extremely good, and his flying skills are quite superb. With two minutes left, they were not high enough, only 5,000 feet from the sea...but why, when he was piloting the plane, was he still accelerating?!"
It's not accelerated liftoff, it's accelerated dive!
The same mistake, why did two pilots make it together
The young and inexperienced co-pilot made a wrong decision. Why did the seasoned and flawless captain follow suit
Zhuo Huan looked at the data on the screen, tapped lightly with his slender finger, and everyone looked at his finger together.
It was the last twelve seconds of the plane crashing into the sea. As if realizing that he was accelerating toward the ocean, Captain Kyle finally made the right decision and started to pull up the nose, trying to save the plane that was about to crash. But it was too late, the plane crazily rushed into the vast ocean with maximum acceleration.
"It's not that he didn't want to save it, it's just that it was too late when he realized it." Zhuo Huan raised his head and looked at the investigators in the room with a calm expression and cold eyes: "Then the question arises, why, at the beginning, the two pilots Didn't realize they were making the wrong decision and they were speeding toward the ocean?"
When the old Joseph returned to the office, everyone was checking the 89 items of data of the aircraft, accurate to the frame.
He heard the discussion before, thought about it, and found Fucheng.
Fucheng was sitting in front of the computer, looking at the last driving data curve of Captain Kyle.
"Volt."
Hearing Old Joseph's voice suddenly, Fu Cheng suddenly came back to his senses and looked up at him. "You're back, old Joseph."
Old Joseph pulled up a chair and sat down beside him: "I've heard what happened just now. It's really amazing. I can understand Tim's driving error, but that's Kyle Schulman. His resume is really Very good, I heard about him when I was in the Air Force, he is a very good Air Force pilot. How can he make such a low-level flying error."
Fu Cheng was silent: "I actually already have an idea, but you didn't come back just now, I want to discuss it with you and then confirm it."
Old Joseph was stunned: "It seems that our opinions coincide, and I also remembered one thing."
The two looked at each other and smiled.
Old Joseph: "How about we write down our guesses together and see if we think of going together?"
Fu Cheng: "Okay."
The two typed out the reasons they guessed on their mobile phones, and then showed them to each other.
What was written on Fucheng's phone was "ear vestibular hallucinations".
On Old Joseph's phone is...
Fu Cheng was stunned for a moment, then smiled: "Speed up to the sea... Well, you are more thoughtful than me, I'm not as precise as this."
Old Joseph laughed: "I'm just more experienced than you, and I've actually seen this kind of air crash before."
Soon, the two found Zhuo Huan together.
Zhuo Huan raised an eyebrow: "Huh?"
Old Joseph smiled and said, "Reid, have you ever heard of the Coriolis hallucination?"
Zhuo Huan was stunned. He frowned, and looked at Old Joseph and Fu Cheng.
"You mean... two pilots made a mistake together because of Coriolis acceleration hallucinations?"
As soon as the words fell, Su Fei shouted happily on the other side: "RIP, you have to praise me. It only took me an hour to download the data from the cockpit voice recorder. I'm such a genius!"
Everyone's expressions changed.
Zhuo Huan stood up: "Open it, listen to it from beginning to end."
…
There was a long silence, only the regular sounds of various instruments.
Suddenly, Captain Kyle's voice appeared. He didn't say anything special, just contacted the control tower, reported his flight status, and asked.
"This is American Airlines 4012, how many planes are on duty at Logan Airport today, Over."
When he got an answer, he turned off the radio communication.
It was quiet again in the cockpit.
After a long time, the voice of co-pilot Tim suddenly appeared: "Captain, do you want to land early?"
Waited for a few seconds and got no reply.
As if a basin of cold water had been poured on his head, co-pilot Tim stopped talking.
Finally, Captain Kyle finally answered. He reprimanded in a cold voice: "The takeoff has been delayed for half an hour. As a pilot, it is the most basic quality to ensure that passengers arrive at their destination on time and safely. "
There was a moment of silence.
Co-pilot Tim: "Yes, I see."
The two didn't communicate at all, and all the conversations were about flight data.
Until the fifteenth minute, Kyle asked the tower to lower the altitude. After getting clearance, Tim piloted the plane and lowered his altitude, trying to avoid the cyclone.
However, in the last five minutes, everything changed suddenly.
Captain Kyle's cold voice sounded: "Pay attention to the crosswind and ensure flight status!"
"Yes!"
The sound of violent and turbulent wind, even separated by more than 200 days and nights between life and death, was transmitted through the sound to the hearts of everyone present. The hurricane of up to 60 knots makes all the sounds in the entire cockpit become like a water curtain, humming indistinctly.
"Damn, what are you doing!"
"I'm sorry, Captain, please drive, I don't feel right!"
A beep sounded, and the captain Kyle took over the piloting authority.
"Fuck! What's going on, what happened!"
"Captain, it's not right, it's definitely not right, I'm dizzy, are we hallucinating?"
In the dark night, above the sea, the world is dizzy, without any visual reference. Everything was muddy, reason told them that something must have gone wrong, but their senses deceived them, so that they didn't even know what they did wrong.
Until the twelfth second from the last, the captain Kyle roared: "Shit, are we accelerating? Where is the direction?!"
From a high altitude dive straight down, you can already see the sparkling sea.
On the surface of the sea, the moonlight has a hazy color.
Tim said in horror, "Raise it up, raise it up!"
"Do not!"
"Do not!!!"
With a bang, everything returned to calm.
After turning off the recording that was only busy, Zhuo Huan glanced at Fu Cheng and Old Joseph, and then said to all the investigators present: "It seems that the matter is already obvious..."
"The cross-couple illusion."
"The so-called Coriolis acceleration illusion."
Coriolis acceleration illusion, one of the ear vestibular hallucinations. In a long-term regular flight maneuver, the semicircular canals in the pilot's ears balance out, making the pilot think that he is accelerating smoothly. At this time, when the outside world gives him a sudden change, the liquid in the semicircular canal will flow.
In an instant, the world changes, endless hallucinations devour all senses.
It has been hailed as the most dangerous vestibular hallucination, because the moment it occurs, it will produce a huge imbalance, leading to a series of autonomic reactions.
So even if the pilot is aware of it, it is almost impossible to save it.