Preliminary report into Air India crash released

It’s interesting to see how many people are bending over backwards here to avoid coming to the obvious conclusion. If this was pilot suicide, it’s a terrible thing. If it was somehow an error (which seems very unlikely) or two defective controls (which seems even more unlikely), then it remains a tragedy. But I don’t need to do mental gymnastics to come up with implausible hypotheticals.

This comment stream on HN is not a jury. We don’t have to refrain from making judgments right now about what happened. There is nothing wrong with rational people reaching a preliminary conclusion based on available evidence.

Rational people should also remain open to revising their judgments/conclusions if new information becomes available.

And we shouldn’t demand any specific consequences for anyone absent a trial.

It’s nowhere near an obvious conclusion. A failure with the locking mechanism or muscle memory confusion are just as likely, and probably other theories I’m not thinking of. More investigation is clearly needed, which is why this is called a preliminary report.

Dual failure of the locking mechanism is extremely unlikely. These are not switches that are regularly used so a muscle memory issue also seems very unlikely (but is still the most likely non-suicide scenario)