for takata
Fact#3: Emphasis was also put on the crew training for detecting any possible Air data issues ; the fact is that possible Air data issues must be, in any case, monitored in flight because there is plenty of different cases following various "contaminations" of an anemometric chain.
This is not a single case issue with a single procedure to follow as it is too complex to indentify correctly what is causing those Air data to be unreliable at the first place.
With that mouthful digested after reading it thrice, I am curious:
What tools are provided the flight deck crew for inflight trouble shooting and remedy of this complex failure mode? QRH and ECAMS are two resources that seem obvious to me, are there others?
It is apparent to me that cues and warnings to the crew that something is amiss are available, but what is unclear to me is the immediacy of the prompt. (Compare to an engine low power alert, a chip detector alert, fire alert, low oil pressure alert, where immediacy is due to "on/off" threshold of a switch being met). {If you wish, use "warning" rather than "alert" in the above.}
From numerous posts, the average A330 aircrew are aware that airmass data can be wrong, even though correct airmass data is integral to the aircraft functioning properly and safely. (This is not an alarmist comment, as the average aircrew are also aware that the engines can go badly wrong, and power is integral to a passenger jet operating properly and safely).
What is unclear to me is whether or not this failure mode, airmass data to the pilot displays and the flight computer, is insidious, or "creeping up on you," in nature.
Can you help me understand?
To put this in context, a few decades ago the squadron I was in lost an aircraft (not the crew) thanks to an insidious fuel transfer problem going undetected for long enough for it to become a problem. The result was that fuel on board was not all usable. Once they were aware of the problem, they did their best to overcome this malfunction but ran out of gas before finding somewhere dry to land. Put another way, they were playing "catch up" once they were alert to the problem. (I operate under the feeling that AF 447's crew were playing "catch up", but Friday may prove me wrong).
for cogsim:
Realistically, we (as pilots) don't know anything about the hairy situations that were successfully negotiated by computers. And somewhere in there lies the paradox setup by the false dilemma of "either computer or human" type thinking.
I agree with your false dilemma point, but am not comfortable with the "ignorance is bliss" state of the point preceeding it. The cold comfort of statistics is that the odds are that we can wallow in bliss on your (or my) next trip.