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Old 13th Mar 2009, 16:00
  #2055 (permalink)  
TheShadow
 
Join Date: Sep 2000
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That Deadly Pitch-up Trim State Explanation was established at the beginning

Safta said at post 1630 http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/3...ml#post4770070
Today we simulated the Turkish scenario in a B733 simulator. At 1800 feet AGL and established on the ILS, we retarded the throttles to idle, simulating what the Turkish B738 autopilot did. The aircraft started trimming slowly at first, and then more and more rapidly to maintain the glide slope. We allowed the stick shaker to activate and after around 8 seconds of stick shaker we applied full thrust and attempted a recovery without reconfiguring. With the control yoke pushed as far forward as it could go, the aircraft started to accelerate and a climb was initiated and it appeared that we were recovering. Note that this is with the yoke pushed forward against the forward stop. Then, all of a sudden, the aircraft entered a deep stall as the rudder lost effectiveness and the aircraft forward speed rapidly bled off and we entered a 6000 ft/min plus rate of descent until impacting the ground in an apparent tail low attitude.

The reason for our not recovering was due to the extreme amount of trim the autopilot had applied while attempting to maintain the glide slope. The only way that we could have recovered would have been to apply extensive nose down trim during the initial recovery.

We performed this exercise twice and both times produced the same result. We firmly believe that this is what was the cause of the Turkish crash.
Only confirms exactly what Belgique already said much earlier in post 645
headed "Think G-stall"
In the 15 seconds between 09:25:23 and 09:25:38 UTC, at around 350 to 400ft agl, soon after breaking cloud, and with Auto-throttle not obliging with any drag-opposing thrust, the aircraft stick-shaker would have cooked off and the surprised pilot would have disconnected the autopilot and selected an SOP max-power, yet immediately encountered the fierce zooming effect of low-speed max power pitchup. However combined with that nose-up couple, at autopilot disconnect, additionally and fatally, courtesy of the insidious effect of auto-trim, he'd have also unexpectedly liberated a yoke-full of max elevator backtrim and nose-up stabilizer. That he would have been then pushing and fighting that powerful nose-up pitch couple would be without question.
and 648
and 699

and later repeated/expanded upon by UNCTUOUS at post 1385
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