Originally Posted by
Lonewolf_50
At all, or by this particular crew? I find your confidence in your conclusion misplaced.
In this particular *situation*. I've always tried to give the crew and the aircraft a fair deal for as long as I've been involved in this discussion.
In this I agree with both BOAC and yourself - that had the situation been correctly recognised then recovery would be technically possible, but it would have required the training that it appears the pilots at the controls did not possess, or a *eureka* moment followed by instinctive flying.
Old Carthusian:
From one pilot to another, referring to the bit I Italicized-- they are inter-related. As variables, they act upon one another. (Won't wander off into how dynamic feedback loops reinforce one another, that analogy is perhaps too far afield).
As noted before, we are in agreement on most of the human factors, specifically in re training.
As to necessary and sufficient issues:
If no pitot icing, no wreck. That should not be glossed over.
If stall warning doesn't cut out or clip at 60 knots (sensed) would that be a critical difference?
Maybe and maybe not.
The apparent non-recognition of stalled condition is a serious issue, which takes us back to training and recency of experience, and even possible mis diagnosis of their situation.
You'll get no argument from me there.
the audio alerts, be they bogus or valid, became background noise within at least two brain housing groups ... and perhaps the Captain's as well. There's where we seem to agree on the psychology and task threshold piece.
The captain's arrival at that particular point in time seems to be a blessing and a curse in equal measure. It was the Captain that correctly diagnosed the stall condition (possibly in response to the PF's assertion that he had kept the flight controls at the back stops for some time) and had this realisation happened earlier, recovery might have been possible. However it looks to me as though the arrival of the captain distracted the PNF to some extent, when the PNF seemed well on his way to working out the problem, having noticed the PF's tendency to pitch up and attempted to verbally correct him multple times.
If this was the case, then similar things have happened in the past (e.g Kegworth, where the Captain's attempt to revisit the engine indications was interrupted by the radio - and the Mont St. Odile A320 accident, where the PF began to realise something was up with the altitude and vertical speed, but was interrupted by the PNF pointing out that they were off course laterally). Ultimately this comes down to CRM, and using it effectively.
@bear - The "serrata" you describe happen at the start of every THS movement on the graph, even when a large input is made and a smooth progression follows. The THS is behaving as it should, following the long-term trends of the elevator inputs. The reason you're seeing the "serrata" under AP control is because of the constant elevator and THS corrections that occur under autoflight. I'd be prepared to wager that close in, those traces don't look anything like as regular as they appear, and their apparent regularity is due to the limitations of the resolution and rounding maths in the rendering engine of the software used to draw the charts (which looks a lot like Microsoft Excel).