I wouldn't call it a hobby, more of a compulsion. After being heavily involved in the manufacturing side of commercial aviation for a few years I still feel a part of it. When accidents and crashes pop up on one of the news feeds I watch, I tend to follow them to their conclusion which is a year to 18 months or longer. The Airbus that went down in Pakistan had tried going around after landing on the engine nacelles with no gear (pretty sure the pilots didn't realize the gear wasn't down) and the wrecked engines failed shortly after go-around. It crashed with both engines stalled, the "windmill" deployed, and the gear down (manually cranked down, we presume). Gross pilot error? Wait for the report, if one if forthcoming as often they aren't from third-world countries. Last night I finally had time to read the recently released CVR transcript of the Atlas B767 that augered into Trinity Bay last year, that one is hair-raising because it appears from the transcript that those pilots took a completely sound and stable aircraft and crashed it all by themselves due to confusion, failure to follow any number of basic training and airmanship protocols, and gross incompetence. Three of them in the cockpit and they essentially guessed their way through the whole flight. SMH. NTSB investigations are fascinating to follow, those boys and girls know their stuff and the discoveries they make through the long and pedantic process are amazing. One thing you'll find is while the news wants one quick point of blame or failure to harp, it is NEVER that simple. There is always a long chain of failures that lead to a crash, many of them going back years or even decades. Every day there are untold failure chains in the making that get broken before disaster by good training, sound processes, good engineering, and not the least good people both in the air and on the ground. Sometimes they don't get broken in time and we hear about it on the news.
I've been following the B737 Max debacle since the beginning, trying to sort that mess out and there are so many distinct failures of man and machine (mostly man) in that situation that the mind boggles. Basically the two crashes before worldwide grounding are the fault of everyone involved in the whole product line, from the Boeing executives to the product vendors to the pilots and ground crews.
Nine 'O Nine is another one that's had my rapt attention. The interim report indicates another tragic chain of events which set up a ticking time bomb, mostly a lack of safety culture, safety oversight [fox guarding the hencoop so to speak] and lack of funds. Two engines on the same wing wholly unfit to fly for several reasons were still pressed into service by the PIC and the decisions made after they quit (like turning the plane INTO the two dead engines to return for landing, and not declaring emergency) contributed to the crash. The FAA yanked the Collins Foundation certification to fly ANY of their planes with passengers, and that decision is never made lightly, so much can be inferred from that fact alone. We await the final report, which I'm sure will be scathing.
Na, that can't be it.