The Future
Hello All,
This has been a very informative thread with some extremely qualified contributors. I suspect it has been fed with some information and watched for ideas and I hope the following is noted.
I don’t post often but looking at the bigger picture, there had to be a reason why the aircraft flew into a weather system that, quite possibly, no aircraft could withstand.
The ultimate reason for the accident most likely lies within the flightdeck, the recorders may show what happened following the encounter with the weather system but in my opinion the most important point is that current and future aviators learn how to avoid the same mistakes. It will take years (if ever) for nuts and bolts systems to be built that can protect an aircraft from this sort of encounter.
The damage to the flightdeck will have been significant but following the kind of impact you mainly suspect, I know that the forensic diagnostic abilities of crash investigators are capable of discovering much.
I desperately hope that what is left of the controls within the flightdeck are retrieved, it could all be as simple as both radar displays being dimmed along with flightdeck lighting being at maximum.
For some reason they flew into a weather system that someone with conscious thought would never dream of doing.
If that is the case, the emphasis on weather avoidance needs to be changed. If it is not the case, the following is still worth considering.
Currently I fly the most modern Boeing widebodies and have flown Airbus. The Weather Radar Systems are now all automatic but not easy to interoperate. Automatic Video Enhancement is great but it removes the ability of the radar operator to interoperate a Raw Radar Picture. I know this requires skill but surely that’s what you all pay me for.
These days I am presented with the same sort of radar picture in central Europe for a cloud with only a few thousand feet vertical extent and a bit of rain as I get at 35,000ft crossing the ITCZ. The ability to display raw radar would be wonderful and pilots would absorb the skills required and information provided rapidly. In my opinion one of the worst “advances” in aviation has been the reduction in the ability of the pilot to use or improve his technical skills, specifically in this instance, in radar interpretation.
Current training about what is significant weather is poor and the attitude of Air Traffic Control in some regions of the world tends to lead pilots to only avoid significant weather if they are given permission.
In some circumstances a Green radar return is irrelevant, other times it is a “MUST AVOID”. With the modern enhanced video display, quite often all I can do is “have a nibble” at the edge, avoid if it bumps, go through if it’s OK. That is not a scientific way of working or protecting my passengers in the best way.
I desperately hope that every effort is made to recover all possible evidence. Heartbreakingly, nothing can be done for the lost souls, it must be the safety of future air travellers that should be cared for.
I hope that BEA will be following this thread, they will never admit it but, if my post nudges them to recover all that may shed any evidence on the accident, it was worth the effort. (I hope Boeing see it as well, their radar pictures are not adequate!)
Last edited by woodvale; 8th May 2011 at 18:16.