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Old 2nd Jun 2011, 18:04
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Welsh Wingman
 
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Retired down by the sea in Pembrokeshire
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A word of caution

I have been reading PPrune posts for many years (always appreciate from afar what PJ2 has to say) before finally feeling compelled to register and throw in my thruppence worth (for what it is worth, having long since retired from B747 classics, from my retirement cottage...).

This reminds me somewhat of the Erebus/TE901 crash back in 79, where an air crash investigator (used to small aircraft investigations) put all the blame on the DC-10 flight crew. It took Justice Mahon to look at the systemic failings at Air NZ, and point out that programming the plane and the pilots of a low flying sightseeing plane near to high ground to fly to different locations in Antarctica was unlikely to result in a happy ending (particularly last minute amendments to the flight plan co-ordinates without notifying the flight crew). There is seldom a single failure leading to a plane crash, but rather an entire chain of unfortunate events that could have been, but were not, interrupted at any stage....

BEA have got to be very careful about what they release, including from the CVR/FDR, and will dare not release anything at this stage that they are not absolutely certain they can verify. To put it mildly, they don't want the lawyers of Air France and/or Airbus pulling anything they say/imply apart and we will have to be patient. I have confidence that BEA will get there, but they have huge domestic commercial sensitivities (albeit the last thing that they want is an international observer, e.g. from the AAIB, disavowing their final report) to factor in (rightly or wrongly) to avoid needlessly damaging on the road there and we must accept that.

The one thing that we can be certain about is that the BEA are, as we write to each other, going through all areas and particularly the interface between machine and pilots, and this will take time. There will be agonising/soul searching over Airbus design/philosophy issues and Airbus/Air France pilot SOPs - high altitude A/P and autothrust disengagement and the flight envelope/crew response implications, the lack of redundancy with the loss of air speed data (and why the Thales pitot tubes were not changed sooner, given this obvious redundancy issue and criticality to safe A/P operations), the PF's stick movements (backwards in particular) and the PNF's (& Captain's from FLT 350 down) ability to see these movements, that climb up to FLT 380 and the THS going to 13 for the duration of the alternate law flight, weather radar training and the possible weather deviation limitations for this plane on this particular route (unless the flight crew want to land in Bordeaux and endear themselves to flight ops...), why the pilots did not appear to recognise the high altitude stall at all (including no AoA indication or BUSS installation on this aircraft) when they had FLT 380 to get out of it (troubling to an old salt like me trained by the Fleet Air Arm in the early-60s to lower nose/increase power!) and the ability of flight crews to immediately correctly identify the problem and correctly respond if possible/permitted by the remaining systems (in the face of such an urgent problem, used to so much automation and never touching the manual trim wheel).

This all being said, keep up the good work and keep your thoughts/ideas coming. I bet somebody from the BEA will be taking a look at some of the more informed comments. Just be patient with the BEA. There will be a lot more, on the CVR in particular. For what it's worth, I don't expect and can't see (save for any "smoking gun" in relation to unexpected system performance outside of normal law) any party (Airbus/Air France/the flight crew) being totally "exonerated" on this one.......
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