fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2622 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2622 ⌋

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I just read an article about Tu-104 (a Soviet jet airliner) and its development history and it messed my feelings up a little.

Early on, there was a problem with the design that caused the plane to "jump" at high altitudes and be carried away by moving masses of air. A few crashes happened because of this.

And then there was this guy, Harold Kuznetsov, a pilot who was flying on one of these, and his plane "jumped" during one of his flights. Knowing that he was about to crash, he contacted the flying control officer and was telling them every detail of what was going on with the plane up until the moment it flew into the ground.

And the thing is, his descriptions were what enabled the Soviets to improve Tu-104 so that the number of crashes was seriously reduced.

And it's just. Ouch.

Very depressing. That reminds me of some Titanic images I saw earlier of the ocean floor, and perfectly aligned shoe/pants just sitting on it. It made me think, wow. These are bodies. This is where these people ended up that night.

Hits you hard.

...I'm gonna be thinking about this for a while.

OK, so you obviously never ever ever never ever want to watch NatGeo's Air Crash Investigations. BUT, at the end of every program (after they've shown how the crash happened, and what the investigators did to find out what went wrong), they do make a point to say, "Because of XYZ, now planes around the world are much safer."

....so what I'm trying to say is, if this guy was a test pilot (and sounds like he was a quick thinker), he knew his chances of being injured or even killed were much higher than the general population. Sucks to say, but it was part of the job, and maybe he really loved his job, right up until the end? /diedwithhisbootson etc. Especially if he knew there was a chance he could help prevent accidents in the future.

He wasn't a test pilot, his was a regular passenger plane. Some sixty people died in that crash, too. He tried to steady the plane when it was going down, but the controls were useless at this point.

Though I'm not really saying that his death was useless or that somebody should have done something (with their equipment, it is doubtful if there was any other way of finding out about the design shortcomings*). It just... impressed me. Especially since I had had a rather lousy day and it struck me how there are people like him who die like this and then there are people like me who get a chance to live until they are eighty-something. It sounded pretty unfair at the time.

*although it is worth noting that the Tupolev bureau's policy regarding these things was NOT a good one. In fact, Tupolev always denied that there was any such problem and, when asked about the cause of the crashes, said that the pilots were bad at their job.

If you think that's dedication to science, there's a similar story about a doctor who overdosed on cocaine (while attempting to figure if there was a dose that might be used for anaesthesia) and recorded the entire thing in journals, right up until he died. Google Dr. Edward Katskee.

I don't think this one was about science, but yeah, Jeeesus Christ, those stories stun me, too. There was another Russian who did that (Dr. Pirogov) - he was dying from natural causes, though. His students gathered around him and were all sad about his dying, but he told them to record what he'd be saying, and he was describing everything he experienced. And his students were crying and writing his descriptions down.

Also, Arthur Conan Doyle experimented on himself while studying the properties of gelsemium. This resulted in his publishing his first medical article, "Gelsemium as a Poison". :D Thankfully, it did not have any effect on his health.

UPD. I googled Katskee, and... uh. um. Ouch.

Edited 2014-03-09 01:06 (UTC)

Oh fuck. That is metal as shit.

Ironic that you post this on the very day an Asian airliner with 237 people on it disappears over the water between Malaysia and Vietnam.

...

I'm not even sure what level of SJW this is.

Like, seriously. Is somebody really using plane crashes the way they'd use money in a bank? "My plane crash costs more than yours"? "You should buy my plane crash rather than sticking with your shitty one"? "My plane crash has Asian people in it"?

No SJW thing (EW). I just thought it was ironic that you posted something about plane crashes from long ago on a day where a plane crash occured in the here and now.

Aw, sorry. I had a bad day, so I'm gloomy and quick to jump at people. I made unnecessary assumptions.

Edited 2014-03-09 02:46 (UTC)

It's okay, it happens.

As sad as deaths like this are [and don't get me wrong, I agree they're sad!], it also restores a little of my faith in humanity that these people knew they were going to die/be in a very bad way - and by all rights should have been freaking out - but still went ahead and did this kind of thing so that maybe it would help someone figure out how to prevent it. That's pretty remarkable.

Then again, I'm a sap so Ymmv.

this's inspirational.
I just wanted to add that there's a black humor song, which meaning I've just realised. It goes: tu-104 is the fastest plane, tu-104 will never fall. To a music they usualy play on tragic events. I didn't know the crashes were so widespread.

[ SECRET POST #2622 ]

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