Passengers held in their seats!
Quote...
The passengers, who had just a short time before been pressed into the backs of their seats, were now being held into their seats only by their seatbelts. "At this moment, I would have feared for my life even if I was sitting in the passenger cabin," said one A330 pilot after reading the BEA report. That the plane was in freefall would have been clear to all on board. The nose of the plane pointed skyward at an angle of 16 degrees. "That's more than immediately following takeoff," the pilot said.
Unquote.
Having flown many times and thinking about my built-in senses of horizontal and gravitational, I tend to agree. To me the unanswered question is then - why didn't the pilots realise they were pointed up towards the sky and they were falling like a leaf? They could see the altitude bleading away extremely rapidly. Could they not read the attitude also? At least they knew they were pulling up!
REALLY, did they think they were diving! Continuous efforts to pull up over more than 2mins had resulted in no reduction in loss of altitude, so why didn't they realise they were "going down backwards" - well, almost. It seems ridiculous in hindsight that pulling up over that length of time and not reducing the descent MUST only mean you are not diving, you are stalled. Easy to say now, but those guys are supposed to be professionals, yes?
A major contributing factor must be the 13 deg THS trim. I know, if you pull up continuously you will get the THS auto trim as well but for the autotrim to then later give up and LEAVE the aircraft in this trim, ESPECIALLY if pilots are trained NOT to touch the trim, is "less than desirable" IMO (mildly). Surely a recommendation needs to come from this unfortunate part of the control setting, either re-trim back to neutral when giving up or make the pilots check the trim wheel = SOP/training. Not the first time (Perpignan), lets make it the last.
Last edited by LandIT; 31st May 2011 at 12:10.