Originally Posted by
Mr Optimistic
CAP: Là je sais pas là ça descend
I don't know we're going down
A bit of punctuation in the BEA report would have helped, but I'm aware that's difficult to clearly define from a colloquial discussion on a CVR tape...
"
Là je sais pas. Là, ça descend"
Expanded and interpreted: "From what I see, I don't know. As far as I can see, we're going down."
"Là je sais pas là. Ça descend"
Expanded and interpreted: "There I haven't got a clue" (repeating the first "là" to stress it). "But we're going down".
Just putting a comma or caps would have made the intonation and meaning clearer.
And literally of course "ça descend" = "it's going down", which can refer to a lot of things, even instrument indications.
This was in reply to a question as to what should be done. Is the Captain's reply to be taken as 'I don't know why we are descending' ie that he accepted they were but couldn't figure out why - if so, not very encouraging to the PF, or that he didn't believe that they were descending ?
I doubt we, as outsiders, will ever get to hear the original tape.
And I would expect even the BEA is still battling today to match up the real meaning of those CVR 'cockpit voice messages' with what they think the pilots were seeing.
Only a detail, but IMHO maybe in a full transcript, expletives should not be deleted..... They often indicate a state of mind, or fury, or bafflement, or a first reaction to a totally unexpected event. And the exact intonation often speaks volumes....
For the francophones among here, I'm just thinking of the difference between the short-and-sharp "merde" (as when burning your fingers on the stove) and the long-and-slow "ohhh meeerrrddde" (when the soufflé coming out of the oven has totally collapsed).
I expect my anglophone friends can come up with exactly similar examples.
I gather in the current BEA CVR transcript, expletives have already been deleted. Too bad.