Talk:Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231

Untitled
Admin i may have this wronf but i just fixed a redirect this one will loop back i think mark nutley (talk) 23:29, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Pitot
March 9, 2014 in the opening paragraph is the phrase "pilot heat." Is the correct phrase "pitot heat?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.1.1.105 (talk) 17:54, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks well spotted it has been corrected. MilborneOne (talk) 18:46, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

NTSB did not tell the entire story
I am personally aware of at least a partial NTSB coverup in its investigation of this accident. In the final accident report the NTSB made numerous references to the CVR tape, which was recovered intact. However, the NTSB did not print the usual readout as an appendix to the report. I believe the reason for not doing so, was because that tape had other comments on it that both ALPA and the NTSB did not want the general public to know about, because it was a highly unprofessional conversation, which diverted their attention from the carrying out of their proper duties, while operating that flight.

The unprofessional conversation that occurred before takeoff, included an agreement to engage in "musical chairs," i.e., allowing the unqualified Second Officer to fly the plane. It was while they were switching seats, quite illegally, that they screwed up the pre-takeoff checklist and failed to turn on the pitot heat. That failure led to the crash and the death of all three.

I am not making this up. I had several conversations with various ALPA pilots who were close to the ongoing accident investigation, while it was being conducted by the NTSB. They all told me the story about the musical chairs and about other comments that were on that CVR tape.

Years later, I spent a few days in John Galipault's office (at that time he was the director of the Aviation Safety Institute in Worthington, Ohio) researching accident reports. He was very generous and allowed me to go thru any accident file I wanted and he refused to charge me any fees, other than what I wanted to pay, to ensure I at least covered the costs of my using his copy machines.

When I pulled the NTSB report on this NWA accident, I was surprised to discover the usual readout of the CVR tape was not at the end of the report. I asked John about that particular accident and why the CVR printout was missing.

John grinned and said that the NTSB not only did not print it out in the report, but they also took care to destroy that tape so no media could ever get their hands on it.

According to John Galipault, the captain had gone back to the galley, shortly after takeoff to fire up the coffee pot, while the Second Officer was flying the plane, and the First Officer was occupying the Captain's seat and handling radio conversations with ATC. John also confirmed what I had heard about other unprofessional comments, made by those pilots prior to takeoff.

In short, Galipault had independently confirmed what I had heard years before, from several different ALPA pilots, who were privy to what was being uncovered during the actual accident investigation.

Putting that all together, ESPECIALLY since the usual printout of the CVR was missing in this particular report, I have come to the conclusion that there was a bit of a cover-up by the NTSB, about the COMPLETE FACTS of that accident.

To be fair, I am not suggesting that the actual proximate cause of the accident was not the failure to turn on the pitot heat. It is true that was the direct cause of the loss of accurate airspeed information, which did lead to their improper response and the stalling of the plane and then loss of control.

However, I am saying that they should have revealed what was said on that tape and that they did engage in "musical chairs," allowing the Second Officer to fly the plane, even though he was not qualified to do so.

It is likely, that if those pilots had not engaged in a highly unprofessional conversation, prior to takeoff and had not engaged in seat swapping during that time, that they would have run the pre-takeoff checklist properly and they would have turned on the pitot heaters, absent that kind of distraction, and that would have prevented that crash.

Finally, if the NTSB had not covered up that portion of the facts they discovered during their investigation of that NWA ferry flight, they would have clearly condemned that seat swapping practice, as they FINALLY did after the crash of the UAL DC-8 freighter, during takeoff at DTW, on January 11, 1983.

That makes me think, if they had done that in 1975, then the possibility is strong that UAL DTW crash would not have happened either, because United's pilots would have been put on notice years earlier by UAL's management, that anyone caught engaging in seat swapping, would be out of his pilot's job forever.

AFTER that DTW crash, UAL management did come out and make it clear that would be the price paid by any pilots who got caught doing what had been going on for so long, on many different airlines, until it was finally stopped, after the '83 DTW TO crash.

I fully expect to be called a liar and all kinds of other names, for disclosing this bit of information. But, I have no good motive for making up such a story. The only reason for me to disclose it now, is because I believe it to be true. It has bothered me for all these years to know this but never having said so publicly, until about 4 years ago.

I think that covering up any portion of the facts discovered during an NTSB accident investigation, is a very bad idea, no matter who might be hurt by such disclosures. The lessons learned from ALL the facts of an investigation can and does prevent the loss of future lives. In my view, the saving of many future lives is much more important, than the saving of the reputations of some pilots who made some very stupid mistakes. EditorASC (talk) 22:32, 26 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The FAA certificated the 727 without a stick-pusher and when Dan Air in the UK wished to use a 727-100 the CAA refused them permission to operate it unless a stick-pusher was fitted, as the aircraft has an unstable pitch-up at the stall with an aft CofG. Boeing then developed and fitted an excellent stick-pusher for the Dan Air aeroplane and the CAA subsequently certificated it. The CAA also required the Hawker Siddeley Trident, Vickers VC10, and BAC One-Eleven all to be fitted with stick-pushers before they would certificate them.


 * The Flight 6231 crew, on a night flight with an erroneous 400 kt on the ASI, mistook the stick-shaker stall warning for signs of high Mach buffet and so raised the nose to lower the airspeed. The 727 has no Mach buffeting at speeds right up to 0.95 M and there is only any slight buffeting on the approach to the stall with flaps up and so presumably they were unaware of this. With no stick-pusher to protect the aircraft from stalling the crew continued to raise the nose and the aircraft then entered a deep stall.


 * I believe the root cause of the accident was that the crew were rushed and in a hurry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.8.216 (talk) 15:37, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Article blocked by Google?
Has this article been blocked or blacklisted by Google for some reason? My search on "Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231" will show this talk page, but not the main article, which only shows up in the "About" sidebar (i.e. it's not in the main list of search results). Results are the same in multiple browsers, whether logged into Google or not. Meanwhile Bing and DuckDuckGo give the article as their first search result with no problems, and other Wikipedia articles on plane crashes show up in the main body of results as usual. Goldenband (talk) 01:03, 8 April 2022 (UTC)