This is a brief follow-up to my previous post. I obviously do not know what happened to Malaysia Arline Flight 370. Neither, apparently, does anyone else. There are a lot of talking heads on TV telling about how sinister it was for someone, presumably the co-pilot, to plot a course in the computer for a change in heading without discussing this with air traffic control. One problem is that the facts, including the timeline of events, keeps changing. Another is that all of the experts start with the assumption that the pilots were aware of a serious problem. Did anyone consider the possiblity that the pilots thought they were dealing with something minor, not worth reporting, and didn’t realize they had a serious problem until it was too late?
There are a lot of electrical appliances on an airliner that have nothing to do with the control system of the airliner. I suspect most of us can remember some electrical appliance starting to smell like smoke. There is not necessarily any significant fire or even flame. I personally have been on commercial airliners where someone smelled smoke. In one case it was a faulty coffee pot. In another case it was a faulty video projector.
In both cases the pilot did the same thing. Someone reported smoke. The stewardess reported this to the pilot. He turned the plane over to the co-pilot and came back to investigate. When he figured out the problem, he made sure it was fixed and returned to the cockpit. I doubt that either pilot reported this to air traffic control. But I would not be surprised if one or both of the pilots had asked the co-pilot to plot a course to the nearest alternative airport, as a precaution. Is this really that far fetched?
If a pilot thought he had a minor problem, not impacting the operating system of the aircraft couldn’t that also explain the sequence of events?
This reminds me of a funny story. A woman, well-known for her great cooking skills, was teaching her new daughter-in-law how to cook a roast. Before putting the roast in the oven she cut about a ½ inch slice off each end. The new daughter-in-law asked her why she did that. The woman said: “I’m not sure, but my mother always did that, so I just copied her.” So, she called her mother and said: “mom…why do you always cut off each end of the roast before putting it in the oven.” Her mom said: “I don’t know. my mother always did that so I copied her.” So someone called Grandmother and asked her about this. “Grandma, why did you always cut off each end of the roast before putting it in the oven?” Grandma replied: “because my pan was too small.” Sometimes the obvious is really obvious if you ask the right questions.
TDM