Air Crash Investigators Chapter 8

A pilot does not control an airplane by adjusting the handlebars or pedaling like he does on a bicycle.

First of all, it should be clear that airplanes are undoubtedly huge. Even the flaps that control the aircraft's rise and fall are several meters long and cannot be moved by ordinary people.

So when pilots control the aircraft, they certainly don't rely on brute force, but a complete control system.

A hundred years ago, this system was implemented with the simplest pulleys and steel cables, using the principle of levers and was called a mechanical system.

Later, the control system developed into a hydraulic system. Through the hydraulic pump, human power is amplified to achieve control of the aircraft. For example, the pilot only exerted 1 Newton of force, but the hydraulic pump can amplify it hundreds or thousands of times, similar to the principle of a jack, so that this huge aircraft can be controlled.

Today, with the development of computers, telex systems are becoming mainstream.

Let the computer control the aircraft.

This view is still controversial in the industry.

Several major aircraft manufacturers have different focuses and there is endless debate over whether pilots or computers should be the main focus.

But there is no dispute that they all use fly-by-wire systems on their new aircraft.

The McFei F435 uses a fly-by-wire system.

Soon after the crash, investigators ruled out running out of fuel. Their next suspicion was not that the pilot had hijacked the plane to commit suicide, but that there was a problem with the fly-by-wire system.

Computers make mistakes.

The explosion caused some damage to the aircraft's fly-by-wire system, but after three months of careful inspection, the European Aviation Safety Agency ruled out the possibility of a computer short circuit.

At this time, the background investigation of the pilot was completed, and the co-pilot Shoji Maeda came into the public eye and became the focus of media discussion.

Regarding the four engines that shut down at the same time, previous investigators only roughly checked the appearance to see if there was any obvious damage and did not ask any further questions.

Just as Ethan Fu said, all four engines shut down at the same time.

If there was really something wrong with the engine itself, how could all four engines fail at the same time? But now Patrick Zhuo asked them to start with the engine, and everyone found it incredible, but there was nothing they could do, so they could only start with metal fatigue.

Metal materials will suffer structural damage after repeating the same work tasks for a long time.

Quantitative change leads to qualitative change. When tiny cracks and damage accumulate to a certain extent, fracture will occur.

This is metal fatigue.

Previous investigators did not conduct a detailed inspection of the engine, so it is very likely that they mistakenly attributed the collapse of engine parts caused by metal fatigue to an explosion after the crash.

What everyone has to do now is to find every key part and check it in detail to determine whether they were damaged before or after the crash.

This is a physical job.

It took everyone a whole day to check it together, and they only finished one twentieth of it.

At this time, the black box was sent over by Maifei Company.

The moment he saw the black box, Alex Su's eyes filled with tears and he ran up excitedly: "Is this for me?"

Old Joseph didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "Look how happy you are."

Alex Su was overjoyed. After he and the staff sent the black box upstairs, he ran down and said to Ethan Fu, "Brother, I'm sorry, I have to leave you alone. I have to do another great cause. Don't worry, when I repair the black box, I can prove that RIP is wrong and save you from suffering."

Ethan Fu smiled gently: "Okay, I'll wait for you."

Alex Su suddenly felt that he was carrying the hope of the whole village to defeat the big devil, and returned to the second floor with a noble mood. When he left, he kicked in the direction of Patrick Zhuo, and Ethan Fu opened his eyes wide in surprise. After Alex Su left, he turned his head and looked in the direction where Alex Su had just kicked.

That man doesn't look like the devil at all.

He was wearing a white T-shirt and a black jacket tied at his waist. His long hair was pulled back and tied into a small bun. He held a flashlight in his right hand and a metal fatigue detector in his left hand. He sat on a high stool inside the No. 1 engine, shining the flashlight upwards and carefully checking every part inside the engine.

He was extremely focused, as if there was a water curtain isolating him from the noisy voices outside.

There seemed to be light in those eyes.

Ethan Fu looked away calmly.

Repairing the black box was more difficult than Alex Su had imagined.

In fact, if the black box was so easy to repair, McFei Company would not have spent several months to complete the repair.

Twenty-three days later, the metal fatigue assessment of the engine was completed and no metal fatigue was found.

On the other hand, the black box has not been repaired yet.

It took 23 days to inspect all four engines from the inside out, but nothing was found. The UAAG people had no objection, but the investigators from other organizations had some private objections.

When Ethan Fu came out of the tea room to get some water, he heard an investigator from the European Aviation Safety Agency whisper to his companion: "Although Mr. Patrick Zhuo is recognized as a talented aircraft designer in the industry, this is an accident investigation, not aircraft design. This is his second time participating in an aircraft accident investigation. He has no experience at all and wasted more than 20 days in vain."

"To be precise, this can be considered his first time. The black box of the Rogge Airlines crash four years ago has never been recovered from the sea. After more than three years of investigation, no clues were found."

"I don't disrespect Mr. Patrick Zhuo, but maybe he is more suitable for building airplanes instead of investigating air crashes... er..."

Ethan Fu walked past the two of them, holding a cup of water.

One of them said hurriedly: "Fu, don't get me wrong, that's not what we meant."

Ethan Fu stopped and turned around, looking at them, and said word by word in a calm but firm voice: "He is Reid Irvin Patrick Zhuo."

Having said that, he walked away.

Behind them, two investigators from the European Aviation Safety Agency looked at each other in confusion.

They didn't understand what Ethan Fu had just said.

The black-haired young man took a few steps with a cup of water in his hand and turned the corner. Suddenly, he stopped.

After a long while, Ethan Fu said calmly: "Teacher Zhuo."

Patrick Zhuo held a cup of coffee in his right hand and leaned back against the wall. He lowered his head and took a sip of coffee, then turned his head and looked at Ethan Fu. "You always seem to have this expression."

"Teacher Zhuo?"

"Calm, peaceful, neither sad nor happy." Standing up straight, Patrick Zhuo thought for a moment, "When he smiles, he's polite and distant, and when he doesn't smile, he stands there like a statue. Oh, yes, it's a bit like that."

Ethan Fu looked in the direction of his finger.

Grace is a typical French person, full of romance and sense of ritual. Even when she temporarily works in a foreign country, she always puts a SEEROSE everlasting flower bear on her desk. The pink rose bear is treasured in a glass cover and tied with a black gift knot.

Retracting his gaze, Ethan Fu said: "I don't understand what you are talking about, Teacher Zhuo."

Patrick Zhuo looked at him deeply.

for a long time.

Mr. Long Legs stretched out his legs and gave the order: "Let's go downstairs and take a look."

At night, the staff returned to the second floor to sort out the metal fatigue data that had been checked previously. The first floor was empty with only four huge engines.

There were confidential parts everywhere, so the two threw the disposable cups in their hands into the trash can when they went downstairs to prevent accidents.

As Patrick Zhuo walked, he said, "Excluding weather and human factors, if there is an error in the flight system, what is the most likely error?"

"Fly-by-wire system."

"So determined?"

"Yes." Ethan Fu added: "You just said it's most likely, not 100%."

"What if it has to be the engine?"

Ethan Fu raised his head and looked at him, finally revealing a puzzled expression: "Why does it have to be the engine?"

Noticing his gaze, Patrick Zhuo smiled and pointed to his head: "Intuition."

Ethan Fu: "The current monitoring results show that no part of the engine is damaged. Except for the damage caused by the explosion after the crash, it is intact."

Patrick Zhuo said to himself: "On January 17, 2008, when British Airways Flight 38 landed at Heathrow Airport, all four engines shut down and the plane made an emergency landing on the lawn in front of the runway. Fortunately, no one died. Subsequent investigations showed that the cause was a poor design of the engine's heat exchanger. When the plane was flying over Russia, the temperature was too low and the water in the fuel condensed into ice. The ice slag blocked the oil pipeline, and the engine had no oil, so it naturally shut down. Does it sound familiar?"

Ethan Fu nodded.

He used to be a pilot, but after he was transferred to UAAG a month ago, he studied a lot of accident investigation materials, including the British Airways Flight 38 accident.

Ethan Fu: "Because this accident was caused by ice, after the plane crashed, all the ice melted into water and disappeared. So it caused a great obstacle to the investigation process. It took AAIB 8 months to find out the truth."

Patrick Zhuo: "Does it sound familiar?"

Ethan Fu was stunned.

Patrick Zhuo laughed, his voice casual: "It's very similar to this time. When flying over the Arctic Circle, the water will disappear, so the murderer cannot be found. This time, the murderer also disappeared strangely."

With a buzzing sound, it hit Ethan Fu's brain.

The face of the statue, which was described as an everlasting flower, finally showed a variety of emotions. He said hurriedly, "You mean, this time it's also a water problem?!"

"Did I say that?"

Ethan Fu was stunned: "Teacher Zhuo?"

Patrick Zhuo did not answer, but suddenly asked: "What were you looking at when you touched the charred ground at the initial impact point at the crash site a month ago?"

Ethan Fu opened his lips slightly.

"Or, what did you see?"

The hawk-like gaze shot straight at him, penetrating into the eyes of the black-haired young man.

Patrick Zhuo had a barely perceptible smile on his face, but it didn't reach his eyes. He looked sharply at the black-haired young man in front of him. It was hard to tell what kind of look that was, but Ethan Fu felt a hint of hope and desire from it.

This man seemed to be expecting something, waiting for him to give some kind of answer, and then use his answer to prove something.

What is it?

After thinking for a long time, Ethan Fu said: "Can you not laugh if I tell you this?"

Patrick Zhuo had never expected such an answer: "What?"

Ethan Fu looked at him seriously and repeated his words word by word: "Can you stop laughing?"

"...Um."

Ethan Fu: "I feel like it's its fault."

"he?"

"It, the McFlyer F435... that plane."

Patrick Zhuo: ...

Ethan Fu: "You said you wouldn't laugh!"

Patrick Zhuo covered his cheeks: "Did I laugh?"

Ethan Fu: ...

His face gradually became hot, and Ethan Fu regretted it very much. Why did he give such an answer? Wouldn't it be better to just make up something or ignore the man's question like he did a month ago? The only thing he was thankful for was that it was night time, the lights on the first floor were not on, and no matter how bright the moonlight was, it couldn't illuminate his slightly red cheeks.

The shame in his heart was gradually turning into anger, but just before it exploded, a hand so cold that it almost made him feel lonely gently pressed down on his head.

Ethan Fu slowly raised his head.

Patrick Zhuo rubbed his hair, then bent his fingers and tapped his forehead lightly.

"Thanks, I like that answer."

The man walked around him and turned to go upstairs.

Halfway up the stairs, Patrick Zhuo stood in the middle of the stairs and turned to look at Ethan Fu: "Alex Su said that the black box will be repaired tomorrow. Do you want to know the answer?"

The moonlight was not bright enough, but it illuminated the man and the young pilot standing at the bottom of the stairs.

Ethan Fu couldn't help but step onto the stairs and walked to the side of this person.

***

The next day, the black box was repaired. Alex Su imported all the flight data into the computer. He was about to sort out the data in detail when Patrick Zhuo interrupted him: "Listen to the CVR first."

CVR, cockpit voice recorder, records all sounds on the aircraft.

On the second floor of the investigation headquarters, dozens of people tensed their backs, waiting for the final answer.

Alex Su nodded and began to import the data in the CVR.

In an instant, hundreds of sound wave curves appeared on the computer screen.

Patrick Zhuo: "Use Fourier transform to separate the sounds in the cockpit. I want to hear what the pilot said and the instrument prompts in the cockpit. For now, I will only listen to the last thirty seconds."

Half an hour later, the sound of Japan Airlines JL917 thirty seconds before the crash slowly rang out from the speakers.

"Make sure to tighten the throttle."

"Throttle tightening confirmed."

"Flaps 30 degrees."

"Flaps open 30 degrees."

"Prepare to lower the landing gear...wait, I suddenly lost thrust."

"Check engine switch condition."

"Engine switch is on."

"Where's the accelerator?"

"Four engines shut down. Ah, hurry up. The plane is going to crash!"

"Ah, get up, pull up!"

A shrill alarm sounded, and the ground collision warning system of the Maifei F435 announced over and over again in a cold voice--- "GLIDESLOPE! GLIDESLOPE! GLIDESLOPE!"

"Ahhhh it's going to crash!"

"boom---"

There was dead silence at the investigation headquarters.

No one knew how long it had been before a cold and indifferent voice rang out.

Patrick Zhuo: "Japan Airlines JL917 air crash has been confirmed to be free of human factors."