WASHINGTON — The airliner plummeted in a supersonic spiral, hurtling full power toward a river, carrying 104 people to their deaths.
Crash investigators were startled to discover that the plane's "black boxes" had gone blank several minutes before the dive. One theory: Someone had pulled a circuit breaker in the cockpit and cut the power to them.
Investigators also learned that the pilot--a former star military flier--had been disciplined for deactivating the cockpit voice recorder on a previous flight and that he had been having financial problems.
Yet two years after the crash of SilkAir Flight MI 185 in Indonesia, the investigation remains open--with pilot suicide the leading suspicion. There is a strong circumstantial case, but officials are missing the final, clinching piece of evidence.
Incidents Occur With No Clear Warning
In-flight suicide by a commercial pilot entrusted with the lives of innocent passengers is virtually unthinkable. It is the paramount violation of the primary mission, akin to a doctor poisoning patients or a police officer gunning down citizens. When such incidents have occurred, there has been no clear warning, only shock and disbelief afterward.
"You are talking about a loss of their concern for the safety of the people they fly," said Dr. Richard Levy, a retired Air Force medical officer and psychiatrist from Portland, Maine. "In my mind, that would require an enormous degree of psychiatric disability."
A pilot in such an unbalanced state, Levy added, likely would have given himself away long before he got the chance to carry out his intentions.
Yet the unthinkable has happened--more than once. And in some cases, there is no disputing the evidence.
Investigators have blamed a 1982 Japan Air Lines crash that killed 24 people on a mentally unstable captain. He ditched his DC-8 in Tokyo Bay intentionally as other crew members struggled in vain to restrain him. The captain survived the crash and was placed in a mental institution.
In 1994, a Royal Air Maroc captain deliberately flew an ATR turboprop into a North African mountainside, killing all 44 aboard. The last radio transmission from the doomed plane captured the voice of the co-pilot, screaming: "Mayday, mayday, the pilot is . . ." before being cut off. Moroccan authorities concluded that the captain disconnected the autopilot and put the plane into a steep dive. Newspapers said he was distraught over a love affair.
