Piper Driver writes;
Piper_Driver
Yes - you need the engines or APU to maintain pressurization and ... a loss of pitot information as well as dual engine failure ... possible Stall/Spin situation they may have lost engine power. However I still see nothing to suggest engine failure was significant in the accident sequence.
It's unlikely but cannot be ruled out yet - and unlikely as it is, it could turn out to be true.
-- The A-330-xxx has proven itself as a frame which is reliable.
-- Air France has proven itself as a company able to hire, retain, and train excellent pilots.
-- The ACARS transmissions are intriguing but certainly not the "last word" regarding what AF447 experienced. ACARS is not rendundant like flight systems, and the "top" of the aircraft needs to be within 75 degrees of "up" for it to work - so we might not have ALL the transmitted messages regarding flight law, et cetera.
A loss of thrust after a serious upset *would* explain a lot - heavy plane, changing flight laws, degraded instruments...
And, of course, we need to consider all the time required to try to "fix" all the various things gone wrong - huge workload.
Simile:
You CAN clean the rain gutters, replace a sprinkler head or three, mow the lawn, pprune the shrubs, and sweep the driveway -if you plan to on any given Saturday.
But if someone knocks on your door and tells you that you have to get all those things done *immediately* it might make it hard to do any of them, even though you can do all of them "in your sleep," so to speak.
I think one thing we haven't considered in a logical manner in this thread is that the crew might have simply been overwhelmed.
Pilots are never overwhelmed - until they are.
No disrespect intended - but it is true.
I can hand you a list of 10 things to do and tell you to get them done in 10 seconds, and you will.
But should I hand you a list of 15 things to get done immediately, and then turn the lights out, and then start smacking you around, run a strobe light...
The end minutes of AF447 were clearly in the realm of test pilots, not line pilots.
Normally we speak of holes in Swiss cheese - I think here we are speaking of holes in Havarti.
My point is this: Even if we never find out what the actual cause(s) were with AF447, we should take some basic lessons from it.
Many of the respected pilots contributing to this thread have commented negatively on a lack of authorized hand-flying - this needs to change, as there is no substitute for a skilled pilot.
Many have commented on "shi77y" communications along that route. I believe them - and I don't know if this "brownout" exists because the countries won't spend the money needed for more powerful R/T units or whether it is due to weather conditions - but it clearly should be bitched about until it gets fixed.
I'm going to phrase this as "lightly" as I can.
Serious pilots need to hold Airbus accountable for many automation issues. I'm not - repeat, NOT - damning Airbus for their great innovations.
I'm simply saying that YOU should be holding their feet to the fire for every single thing you don't like about the software or the philosophy behind the software.
Personally, I'm in love with the man wearing the stripes in the pointy end, and the man next to him who might need to take over.
And, personally, I'm very hateful of anyone who even considers the possibility that a flight I'm on *should* crash every so many times, based on statistics.