AF 447 report out

[VNAV PATH]

They tried TOGA at 37000 feet. That's a level of incompetence that is otherworldly. I'm not the litigious sort, but AF and Airbus should be sued for every sou they can be forced to disgorge

That was the procedure by those days : ( refer to the report )

- TOGA and 5 ° pitch , above 5000 ft ...

[NigelOnDraft]

Carjockey...

@Nigel on Draft
Quote: Is their no backup system available in the event of pitot tube failure?

Quote:
Well, yes there is. The other 2 pitot tubes. Trouble is when there is a common problem affecting mroe than 1.

So that means that there is no effective backup system, correct?

Disagree. Many systems on aircraft are duplicate, but identical systems. Not just ASIs, but Altimeters, Engines etc. If we followed your logic, on a twin engine aircrraft, one would be RR, one GE etc.

That was my point, there are obviously major faults in the system design

Diaagree. Pilots are on aircraft to fly them, and the ability to be cope when the automatic systems fail. Not v-v. APs are there to reduce fatigue, increase capacity & accuacy (RVSM). After any major / multiple failure, if the integrity of the AFS cannot be assured, it should audibly and clearly "give up", as it did here, not try to fly the aicraft with incomplete / inadequate / non-verifiable data.

But how effective was the training / skill / practice in this case?

Insufficient. And I would say it was, and still is, in most airlines across the world. The majority of pilots do not have a solid depth of expeirence to fall back on, and of those that do, few get (or take) the opportunity to keep those skills current.

Please do me a favour and tell me who you are and which airline you fly for, because I do not want to be on any flight under your control

Well I won't, since it would break the T&Cs I work under. But if you really are anything to do with aviation you could work it out

As an aside, I have a military background, both jet instructing, and fast jet flying. I tend to manually fly, at work, to/below 20K'. I fly / display / compete and teach GA inc aerobatics and upset training. I teach / fly display ex-mil jet trainers / FJs. I am very lucky to be able to do that, and to have had the opportunity / luck to have the training I got. It is not available to all. It might be that background that leads me to hope I could have coped with the situation these guys found themselves in. It is that background to realise that many might not fair much better than this crew did.

The report covers it under "startle factor". Unless and until we take crews, in sims or aircraft, and regularly (say a <6 month cycle, not ~3 yrs) give them unanticipated multiple systems failures and expect their raw handling and management skills to cope, we will get (a few) such accidents.

[Clandestino]

Originally Posted by petrolhead

Why has no one asked what they were doing in that cloud in the first place?

I spend a lot of time in clouds and no one has ever asked me what I am doing there in the first place.

Originally Posted by petrolhead

Why did they not take vectors like other aircraft?

No one has ever taken vectors in the middle of Atlantic and this is not going to change for a considerable time.

Originally Posted by petrolhead

Was the radar display turned up so they could see it?

It was. Getting acquainted with the matter discussed saves bandwidth.

Originally Posted by deSitter

I mean, was there any evaluation at all of the weather ahead?

Yes. Covered in interim 3 and final report.

Originally Posted by deggers316

what wrong with flying "by the seat of ya pants"

When you are supposed to fly by instruments, each and every part of it.

Originally Posted by Organfreak

Once terminal velocity is achieved (can't fall any faster), vertical acceleration ceases, and thus no Gs are felt.

At terminal velocity vertical acceleration ceases at 1G exactly, thus 1G is felt. Anyway, believing the somatogravic and balance senses is actively discouraged in instrument flying - for a good reason.

Originally Posted by soylentgreen

To me, the question is this:

Given an identical situation, what % of professional pilots (or perhaps '3 man groups of pilots') would flub it and crash the plane?

Those who have been paying attention know that between Nov 12 2003 and Aug 07 2009, there were 37 recorded cases of unreliable airspeed on A330/340 worldwide. 36 of them ended without damage to aircraft or injury to anyone. One ended up in airframe write-off and death of all on board.

Study you proposed has already been done. Results are in the final report. Your notion that:

Originally Posted by Soylentgreen

A big part of this was the human-machine interface, which did an extremely poor job of letting the pilots know what was actually going on.

...is not confirmed.

Originally Posted by soylentgreen

Thanks to those who liked my post

You are welcome, even as I liked it as a very good example of bad science.

Originally Posted by ChrisJ800

they are also flying close to coffin corner.

Read the final report and let's get rid of this nonsense of coffin corner on modern turbofan transports once and for all.

Originally Posted by deSitter

And I just can't imagine a pilot who has no interest in airplanes

Lucky you. I even need not imagine and can not object when I get rostered with such individuals. They have all the necessary paperwork in order and I can't even get additional pay for 1 1/2 pilots operation.

Originally Posted by Rengineer

Could any of you professionals here explain what knowledge of flight physics is taught to pilots in their training

This: CDBDA AADCD BAADC CADCB BABCD AACDB BACDA. I kid you not.

Originally Posted by Rengineer

how much most of them will remember after ten or so years on the job?

Depends on individual, as mentioned in DP Davies "Handling the big jets", chapter 11: To airline pilots. Those in love with flying will know it. Those in love with status, don't really know it even as they pass the exams by rote learning from question databanks.

Originally Posted by Rengineer

I would have thought that any pilot, in instrument conditions, would monitor basic things like their artificial horizon and variometer, displayed on the primary flight displays.

Certifying authorities share your belief.

Originally Posted by Rengineer

Do we have to conclude that these don't give enough of a clue to diagnose a high-altitude stall?

No. Final report doesn't give comprehensive list of all A330/340 events but does point that reaction to stall warning in cases that could be analyzed was either maintaining the attitude or pushing. Never pulling. Either reaction kept the aeroplanes flying. Stall warnings were recorded, stall never.

Originally Posted by JOE-FBS

I was taught (over simplifying slightly for discussion) that if you don't know what is happening with the airspeed, set cruise power and put the AI in the middle with the wings level and things will settle to a point where you are in control again. Does that work at M0.8 at FL350?

It does. Issue is no one on the flightdeck recognized the unreliable airspeed. CM1 just added to CM2's confusion as he first said "we have no good indication of speed" just to warn "Watch your speed" few seconds later.

Originally Posted by lomapaseo

It's impossible to train for every specific malfunction as it is impossible to annunciate every specific malfunction. Somehow there must be a balance.

How about getting more guys like Walter Hughen, Samuel Tyson, Robert Schornstheimer, Dennis Fitch or Eric Gennotte into flightdecks?

Who?

My point exactly.

Originally Posted by fireflybob

Flying is very simple but there are a lot of people around trying to make it as complicated as possible.

To get to the point where it is easy takes dedication, capability and a lot of work. Those management types that think any of the ingredients can be omitted and 18 mths quick courses can turn anyone into pilot are fooling... probably on the others' expense.

Originally Posted by carjockey

Is their no backup system available in the event of pitot tube failure?

It's called pilots.

Originally Posted by ATC Watcher

The answer to that one was given during the BEA debrief/press briefing : There was a sudden Christmas tree with lots of warning , sounds including ice pellets hitting the windows and most probably the PF concentrated his action looking at one thing only and erasing all others, especially the sounds. This is a normal physiological reaction apparently.

Well then, if this is normal, all the other crews made abnormal reactions, yet it saved their bacon.

Originally Posted by chuks

I have noticed with interest the sort of stall recovery training given in two-crew aircraft. Where once we were taught, in little airplanes, to get the nose well down and accept a loss in altitude, the advanced way to do this was presented as a call-out of 'Stall!' at the first indication, going to full power, but putting the nose on the horizon reference and powering out with no or very little loss of altitude.

Pretty demonstration of inability to differentiate between "approach to stall recovery" and "stall recovery". Not a factor if you manage to spend all of your flying life above 1.3 Vs or 1.23 Vs1g.

[TimeOnTarget]

Clandestino, you have the patience of Job.

Thank you Sir.....

[Rockhound]

The July 6 edition of The Globe and Mail, Canada's so-called "national newspaper", carried what I thought was a poorly-written, incomplete and therefore misleading story on AF447 and the BEA report. Be that as it may, it included the following:
For the last 10000 m of freefall, the last two minutes, only test pilots might have pulled off the sort of dramatic, aggressive effort needed to save the plane. That might have involved throttling back one engine to force a wing drop, to drag the nose out of its 40-degree up angle into a dive.
A letter to the editor appeared next day from a pilot who claimed to "have flown and instructed on all classes of aircraft from the most primitive biplanes to the most sophisticated transports and fighters". In regard to the above quote, he wrote:
"All that was needed was full power on all engines and a release of elevator back pressure and the plane would have flown out of it in seconds. You do not "drag" an aircraft out of a nose-up condition - you basically let go of it, and it will drop its nose all by itself.
Maybe this suggestion has been covered in a previous thread, in which case, apologies, but I'm not a pilot and would be interested to hear what the experts have to say.

[Turbine D]

Posted by deSitter

Well there was a quite gibbous Moon that night, should have provided plenty of visual stimulus with the lights dimmed.

True, if you were headed to Rio, not true if you were headed from Rio (moon position in the sky that night). Anyhow, they were in the cloud when things started going awry.

Posted by TampaSLF

Would have been scary in that 330 having a hunch what was happening.

Only hunch you would have had was the angle of the wine in your glass sitting on the tray table.

Posted by qqantum

As expected, the BEA Report is comprised of carefully crafted smoke — placing blame on the pilots of course — and distraction from the real issues of airplane design and regulator oversight failure that truly were the causes of the accident:

Read page #3 of the BEA's Final report. No blame is placed on the pilots per-se, only a report out of what they did or didn't do during the course of the event. Of course, this leads to cause or probable cause of the accident. I might add, ISASI's Forum Magazine - July/Sept 2012 issue, read Patrick R. Veillette's article on LOC. A LOC accident is defined as "An aircraft put into an unrecoverable position due to aircrew, aircraft or environmental factors, or combination of these." I am not sure the use of the word "unrecoverable" is correct in all incidences of LOC, but in this instance the aircraft was not recovered.

A review of the CVR transcript (Final Report, Appendix 1) plainly indicates the confusion in the cockpit that resulted from the total loss of airspeed indication, which occurred at a time when they were attempting to avoid the worst of the weather (icing, lightning, and severe turbulence).

IMO, they avoided late. There was no lightning or severe turbulence, review the turbulence and time table contained in the final report.

The inexperienced FO, who was flying, made a radical pitch control input (full aft stick), which was not noticed by the more experienced FO, as he could not see the opposite control stick in the darkened cockpit (the A330 has independent control sticks, and so the normal means by which one pilot will instantly know what the other pilot is doing with his control stick

The experienced FO knew what the less experienced FO flying was doing. Review the CVR tape and words to the effect "Go down", "No, you are going up", etc.

This drastic control input caused the trimmable horizontal stabilizer (THS) to automatically apply full nose‐up trim — a condition that while dangerous, in that it seriously compromised any attempt at recovery, was not detected by the pilots, as they made no mention of it;

Know how the mechanics of the aircraft works. Stick back, elevators respond, THS moves to relieve pressure on elevators. Conversely, stick forward, elevators respond, THS moves to relieve pressure on elevators. You can see the trim wheels move and you can see the actual degrees, up or down, it is positioned at.

[jcjeant]

"All that was needed was full power on all engines and a release of elevator back pressure and the plane would have flown out of it in seconds. You do not "drag" an aircraft out of a nose-up condition - you basically let go of it, and it will drop its nose all by itself.

Not valid for A330 AF447 (think about the THS !! read also above Turbine D message)
Already explained at long in many messages here and in the Tech Log forum ......

"have flown and instructed on all classes of aircraft from the most primitive biplanes to the most sophisticated transports and fighters"

He certainly never fly a Airbus FBW (or read about) .. despite all his experience ....

[BOAC]

Indeed, jcj - Rockhound's 'pilot' was talking out of his seat cushion.

[DOVES]

As expected, the BEA Report is comprised of carefully crafted smoke — placing blame on the pilots of course — and distraction from the real issues of airplane design and regulator oversight failure

1. The loss of airspeed information caused a change in the FCS mode,
2. The FCS Mode change resulted in loss of the envelope speed and angle of attack (AOA) limits — no stall protection — no overspeed protection — no bank angle/pitch angle protection —
3. The inexperienced FO… made a radical pitch control input (full aft stick), … not noticed by the ‘other’ FO, (the A330 has independent control sticks, and so the pilot doesn’t know what the other pilot is doing with his control stick);
4. This caused the horizontal stabilizer (THS) to automatically apply full nose‐up trim — …
5. The Flight Data Recorder (FDR) indicates that, incredibly, the stall warning ceased (as designed) while the airplane was still in a deeply stalled condition, then reappeared when recovery action was attempted, adding even more confusion to the situation.

6: If I remember well some fuel had been transferred to the tail (which I suppose happens automatically during cruise, like on MD11, to reduce fuel consumption) making it even more hopeless, if they wanted and had tried, to exit the condition of deep stall they were in.

Who knows how many glitches are hiding behind the automation of AB?
On our skin we discovered a few:
- You loose the manual cotrol of throttles under 50 'R.A.
- The Flight Path Angle was easily confused with the vertical speed.
- The autothrottle is excluded by removing the Flight Director/s
- The ground spoilers do not extend unless there is a weight of 1000 kg on both the landing gear,

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

[chuks]

Ooh, snarky!

Got something for everyone there, Clandestino?

What was presented as 'stall recovery training' was just what I wrote about, reacting to the first indication of a stall. That might be part of the problem, not going any further than that, showing, indeed, inability to differentiate between approach to stall and stall itself.

What works okay for recovery from an approach to a stall might not work for recovery from a stall itself. It seems to be that people want to keep things simple, perhaps a bit too simple?

[Rockhound]

Thanks for taking the time to respond, Jcjeant and BOAC.
What about the following remedy for the situation?:
throttling back one engine to force a wing drop, to drag the nose out of its 40-degree up angle into a dive.
Rockhound

[BOAC]

Yes, it would 'upset' the stable condition, but it is unnecessary. All they had to do is push forward on the stick and lower the nose. 'Standard' normal aeroplane stall recovery - possibly not the way AB pilots are indoctrinated.

[Clandestino]

Originally Posted by chucks

What was presented as 'stall recovery training' was just what I wrote about, reacting to the first indication of a stall. That might be part of the problem, not going any further than that, showing, indeed, inability to differentiate between approach to stall and stall itself.

Closer, but not yet there.

Stall recovery training was never on the repertoire of ordinary line pilots' type rating & recurrent training as far as I remember. Once you have mastered stalls during basic training, the idea was that your aerodynamics knowledge enabled you to recognize that what you could get away with in trainer is very risky business in transporter so you would react promptly and correctly as soon as warning signs were present. Basically: airline pilots were supposed to initiate prompt and correct recovery action when stall warning went off so they wouldn't get near the stall at all. Theory was confirmed in practice even with UAS on A330/340. Except once.

For further info, have a look at: "Case of TAM flight on 12 November 2003", page 87 of the report in English. Panic pulls were interrupted by panic pushes as the stall warning went off. Rollercoaster ride eventually evened out without stall.

Originally Posted by DOVES

1. The loss of airspeed information caused a change in the FCS mode,

Surprise, surprise. What would you want autopilot to do? Follow possibly wrong data?

Originally Posted by DOVES

The FCS Mode change resulted in loss of the envelope speed and angle of attack (AOA) limits — no stall protection — no overspeed protection — no bank angle/pitch angle protection

What was it supposed to do? Air data are unreliable, that's why speed and alpha protections went off line. Attitude protections switched themselves off so not to eventually drive the aeroplane out of envelope when air data protections are off - these two groups really can't work without each other.

Originally Posted by DOVES

The inexperienced FO… made a radical pitch control input (full aft stick), … not noticed by the ‘other’ FO,

Who cares about input on the other stick? Where was he looking at? Attitude? Altitude? Perhaps, but then, notwithstanding the source of the upset, he did not understand what was going to happen to aeroplane flying near ceiling and climbing excessively at all.

Originally Posted by DOVES

This caused the horizontal stabilizer (THS) to automatically apply full nose‐up trim

Per design. As would full nose down stick make FCS try to achieve -1G so it would go full nose down with elevators and wind the THS down until this is achieved. You can't hit -1G in upright stall so full stick forward demand cannot be satisfied until the aeroplane is flying again.

Originally Posted by DOVES

The Flight Data Recorder (FDR) indicates that, incredibly, the stall warning ceased (as designed) while the airplane was still in a deeply stalled condition, then reappeared when recovery action was attempted, adding even more confusion to the situation.

Nice try but this is trying to have it both ways: first CM2 doesn't pay attention to stall warnings for 54 seconds, then all at sudden he can hear it but assumes "STALL STALL" means "pull-up!"

Originally Posted by DOVES

You loose the manual cotrol of throttles under 50 'R.A.

Not true. This is the one even I didn't hear of. Where did it come from?

Originally Posted by DOVES

The Flight Path Angle was easily confused with the vertical speed.

Modification to correct FCU display was effected more than a decade ago. As if it was easy to confuse normal three degree approach descent V/S of about 700 fpm with 3000 fpm on VSI.

Originally Posted by DOVES

The autothrottle is excluded by removing the Flight Director/s

Huh? What are we talking about F/D off or F/D fail?

Originally Posted by DOVES

The ground spoilers do not extend unless there is a weight of 1000 kg on both the landing gear,

As if it is normal to roll down the runway for 755 meters on just one main landing gear. Anyway, modification to spoiler logic that automatically prevent such an occurence were incorporated at least a decade ago.

Originally Posted by deSitter

Well there was a quite gibbous Moon that night, should have provided plenty of visual stimulus with the lights dimmed.

I have my reasons to believe AF447 operated under so-called "Instrumental flight rules" so outside visibility was not supposed to be a factor.

[kcockayne]

I am not an expert in flying large pax a/c. I am a retired ATCO. Therefore, I restrict myself to what I understand of the technicalities of this incident (very little ) & qualify that with my experience of life.

It would seem to me that in life very few people (or firms) are ready to shoulder the blame (the more so when the subject is a catastrophic incident). Most people & organisations seek to avoid blame & responsibility as best they can. All the more so when they have a vested interest.

So, professional pilots are reticent to acknowledge that their colleagues could possibly have made what seem to be elementary mistakes.

Airlines seek to avoid taking a share of blame which would expose them to litigation.

Aircraft manufacturers, the same.

The last 2 seek to put pressure on the investigation authorities to avoid them publishing anything (or too much of anything) which might facilitate or ease the process of litigation being initiated against them.

& the Investigators are "mindful" of the repercussions which could occur to their national flagship manufacturers & airlines if they publish anything which pins the blame too firmly on the manufacturers or the airlines.

It is my suspicion that may be what happened here. I make no accusations; but, I draw on my experience in ATC & life in general when I suggest that no single element in this equation was particularly more to blame than any other.

I have seen, & been involved in, ATC incidents (of which I had a FULL understanding) & know that the investigators did not always get their conclusions totally correct. I do not know if these did.

My sympathies go to the crew, who faced a horrendous situation, & who, consequently seem to have "taken leave of their professional senses" - quite how & why is beyond me ! & to the passengers & their families.

Above all I hope that the full & exact reason for this crash is now publicly known & that a similar situation will never re-occur.

[bubbers44]

We all know this aircraft couldn't climb and still have 1.3 buffet protection so they lost IAS and climbed at an impossible 14 degree deck angle. What genius figured this checklist out? Nobody, it was the incompetent pilots that did it. We need to hire people that can control their aircraft, not monitors of autopilots.

[SLFinAZ]

Indeed, jcj - Rockhound's 'pilot' was talking out of his seat cushion.

Actually he was entirely correct. The 1st step in unusual attitude recovery is to unload the airframe...period. No pilot...let alone "professional" pilot should maintain a particular control input for as long as the PF did. Obviously the trim issue becomes a significant complication and either manual trim or continued full deflection would be required to correct the trim.

Had the PF simply unloaded the airframe the moment the stall warning sounded the entire incident would most likely be one of the dozens of "recoveries" from this malfunction. Only his continued incompetence generated the stall then forced the trim so far out of sorts.

So...in the early stages of the upset the statement is entirely correct...

[deepknight]

All of us who fly for a living, or even just for pleasure, will eventually, experience a moment when tiredness, confusion, distraction, fear or any other human factor degrades our ability. Nevertheless, when that happens, it is all the more crucial that we fall back on our basic training of pitch and power. No matter how complex the aircraft - and an Airbus can be flown in its basic law like any other - those are our means of survival. This is just another example of a crew getting distracted by unexpected events and failing to do just that. My company, and I'm sure many others, are now revisiting basic upset recovery in the sim. These guys had everything they needed before them to tell them what the aircraft was doing, from attitude to groundspeed (available on the MCDU and independent of any pitot/static combination) The only thing they didn't have was the ability for one of them to see at a glance that the other guy was doing. That it the one major fault of the Airbus. Maybe the other guy's sidestick position should be shown on the PD.

[Case One]

Originally Posted by Clandestino

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rengineer
Could any of you professionals here explain what knowledge of flight physics is taught to pilots in their training

This: CDBDA AADCD BAADC CADCB BABCD AACDB BACDA. I kid you not

What?

Originally Posted by Turbine D

Posted by deSitter

Quote:
Well there was a quite gibbous Moon that night, should have provided plenty of visual stimulus with the lights dimmed.

True, if you were headed to Rio, not true if you were headed from Rio (moon position in the sky that night). Anyhow, they were in the cloud when things started going awry.

Well, they turned through 180 degrees on the way down, I wonder if they really were IMC the entire time. Not that this should matter, they had attitude information throughout.

Originally Posted by DOVES

- You loose the manual cotrol of throttles under 50 'R.A.
- The autothrottle is excluded by removing the Flight Director/s

Most of my manual landings are in manual thrust and I've yet to loose control of the engines. Switching both the FDs off puts A/THR in SPEED mode which is the reason for several Airbus procedures.

Originally Posted by Clandestino

Quote:
Originally Posted by DOVES
1. The loss of airspeed information caused a change in the FCS mode,

Surprise, surprise. What would you want autopilot to do? Follow possibly wrong data?

Don't be silly, how about downgrading to another mode such as attitude hold?

Originally Posted by Clandestino

Quote:
Originally Posted by DOVES
This caused the horizontal stabilizer (THS) to automatically apply full nose‐up trim

Per design. As would full nose down stick make FCS try to achieve -1G so it would go full nose down with elevators and wind the THS down until this is achieved. You can't hit -1G in upright stall so full stick forward demand cannot be satisfied until the aeroplane is flying again.

I don't think so. Although (speed stability protection aside), in Alternate Law the SS is still providing load factor demand, and the aeroplane is stressed to minus 1g, I don't think you can read that as the FCS would demand minus 1g. However Airbus manuals are cr@p, so I can't be certain - can you?

And again I'm afraid:

Originally Posted by Clandestino

Quote:
Originally Posted by DOVES
The Flight Data Recorder (FDR) indicates that, incredibly, the stall warning ceased (as designed) while the airplane was still in a deeply stalled condition, then reappeared when recovery action was attempted, adding even more confusion to the situation.

Nice try but this is trying to have it both ways: first CM2 doesn't pay attention to stall warnings for 54 seconds, then all at sudden he can hear it but assumes "STALL STALL" means "pull-up!"

When someone is panicing I think you can have it both ways, they are not thinking logically, and this design feature does not help.

Airbus make a good product, but their philosophy was radical and is over a quarter of a century old now. It is high time for a comprehensive review based on operational experience, not just tinkering and more AB Coolade. They could start by surveying pilot opinion of various features of their products.

Won't happen, business as usual.

[The Dominican]

A340 zoom-climb inquiry backs shock tactics

And the hits just keep rolling in

[Organfreak]

Well sir, I think "shock tactics" is a bit of unfortunate colorful journalism, but the actual idea contained in the article, of "training for surprise" and "startle factor" is timely, if not already too late. It's been mentioned previously that it's not gonna be EZ to startle/frighten some guys in a sim, for obvious reasons. Maybe if I strolled in, with my hair down to here, and announced that I was in charge? Would that do it?

Also, as stated here a brazillian times, apparently some Airbus crews need to read and understand their FCOMs, and receive upset recovery training pronto. Maybe they wouldn't be quite so scared if they knew WTH was going on!