And that is what the FAA uses as the default answer to an inconclusive investigation.
The fact is that while climbing at V2+10 or 165knots, the rate of deceleration to 156 or stall speed was too rapid for the crew/engines to resond no matter who was flying. That combined with the loss of pitch authority from the partially severed/damaged flight controls made it impossible to fly out of. So instead of grounding the entire DC9-10/30 fleet they chose to use the default pilot error ruling. Our pilot group and ALPA have fought with the feds for years regarding the inaccuracy of this particular investigation...]
That is an interesting take on that old accidednt. I was sent to the public hearing as an ALPA observer only, since MEH was not ALPA at the time. At that time the gist of the investigation was why did a huge side slip angle develope late in the accident sequence. It semed that either the crew swapped rudder input and applied full right rudder after correctly having applied left rudder during rotation. That question was never answered other than the NTSB guessing that the crew did it. The compressor parts had penetrated and broken through the compressor case at high velocity. Pratt and Whitney mantained that all the parts went to the right of the tail. Yet parts were found on the LEFT side of the take-off runway, 19R. Pratt said that the parts flew so high up that the strong west wind blew them over to the left side of the runway. And yet there were holes in the vertical stabilizer with traces of ferrous metal on them. The only ferrous metal flying around back there were engine parts. I felt that perhaps the rudder control package was what was damaged. None of that was persued by the board. ALPA Safety had no voice at the hearing.
The fact that the engine overhaul agency in MIA had installed an obsolete style spacer which then failed seemed to be more important.
Loss of elevator control authority was not a consideration back then so I cannot comment on that but rudder reversal was a factor. The yaw angle became so great so fast that the left engine compressor stalled so violently that it self-destructed before the airplane hit the ground.
