AIr France Passenger Jet drops off Radar

[Pegasus747]

Air France passenger jet drops off radar
From correspondents in ParisAgence France-PresseJune 01, 2009 08:08pm

"Very worried" ... the Air France passenger jet went missing over the Atlantic off the Brazilian coast / AFP
Dropped off radar over the Atlantic
216 passengers, 12 crew on board
"We are very worried"
AN Air France passenger jet with 228 people on board is missing after dropping off the radar over the Atlantic off the Brazilian coast.

Flight AF 447 was on its way from Brazil to Paris. It had 216 passengers and 12 crew on board, Air France said.

"We are very worried," a Paris airport official said.

"The plane disappeared from the screens several hours ago. It could be a transponder problem, but this kind of fault is very rare and the plane did not land when expected."

Air traffic control lost contact with the Airbus A330 at 0600 GMT (1600 AEST) after it took off from Rio de Janeiro bound for Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, where it had been due to land at 0910 GMT (1910 AEST).

Airport authorities have set up a crisis cell at Charles de Gaulle.

More to come ... <My thoughts are with the crew and passengers

[Keg]

An expanded report.....probably more info in the main rumour and news section also.

Air France jet with 231 people on board 'drops off radar'

An Air France passenger jet with 231 people on board is missing after dropping off radar screens over the Atlantic Ocean on a flight from Brazil.

Air traffic controllers lost contact with the Airbus A330-200 at 0600 GMT, eight hours after it took off from Rio de Janeiro bound for Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

A spokeswoman for the airline said today: "Air France announces with regret that it is without news of flight AF447 from Rio to Paris, which has 216 passengers aboard, and shares the fears of the families involved."

Air France said that there were a total of 15 crew aboard the plane, including three technicians.

An official at the Paris airport authority said: "We are very worried. The plane disappeared from the screens several hours ago. It could be a transponder problem, but this kind of fault is very rare and the plane did not land when expected."

The aircraft was due to arrive in Paris at 11.10 am (0910GMT), which means that it would have been approaching the coast of North Africa or Spain when it lost contact.

Airport authorities have set up a crisis cell at Charles de Gaulle and Air France said all those waiting for the flight would be given access to a special waiting area at the airport's second terminal.

The aircraft in question, tail number F-GZCP, came into service in February 2005.

President Sarkozy's office said that he had asked authorities to "do all they could" to help find the missing aricraft. In a statement, the Elysée said that the President had been informed of the loss of contact this morning and had expressed "the greatest anxiety"

Source: Timesonline.co.uk

[Boomerang_Butt]

Geoffrey Thomas yapping his trap on aussie Sky News makes me want to :yuk: talk about sensationalising things and some of his responses to reasonable questions can only be described as outright scare-mongering.

Sadly it looks as though the outcome will not be good, I guess now all we can hope for is that everyone may be returned to their families quickly so that this process is not too drawn out for those concerned.

I really do hope this does not indicate a problem with the airbus in general, too early to say either way. Sad day indeed.

[Mr. Hat]

How does this Thomas bloke get away with some of the "journalism" he comes up with?

Checked Rumours and News but nothing new to report. Very concerning indeed.

[1746]

From FlightInternational:

"Civil air traffic control authorities in Brazil, Africa, Spain and France have all failed in their attempts to contact the Air France Airbus A330-200 which vanished en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris overnight.

French military air traffic control, says Air France chief executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, has also tried to reach the aircraft but "without success".

Flight AF447 departed Rio de Janeiro at 19:03 yesterday. Air France confirms that it experienced "strong turbulence" while flying through a thunderstorm at about 02:00UTC.

The aircraft then generated an automated message about a quarter of an hour later, at 02:14UTC, which Air France says was "indicating a failure of the electrical system" while the flight was in a remote coastal region.

Air France has confirmed the aircraft as airframe 660, registration F-GZCP, which had accumulated 18,870hr in flight. The twin-jet, powered by General Electric CF6-80E engines, was put into service in April 2005.

The carrier says the captain had logged 11,000hr including 1,700hr on A330 and A340 aircraft.

One of the two co-pilots had a total of 3,000hr, the other 6,600hr, with 800hr and 2,600hr on A330/340s respectively.

Air France adds that the aircraft last checked in for maintenance on 16 April.

It has confirmed that 216 passengers, including eight children, plus a crew of 12 were on board the flight."

[heads_down]

of course looking at the big picture, this does nothing to increase the traveling public's confidence, in view of the financial crisis, swine flu, refusal of insurance coverage for any swine flu related expenses, direct or indirect.

The media even says of the aircraft, believed to have ditched into the ocean with virtually no hope for survivors was

"The same type of aircraft is used by Qantas..."

[turtlehead]

Check out the Flight Deck Forums.........more speculations............

Composite materials??.....lightning strike??.........all a big guess at the moment:confused:

[Jabawocky]

"The same type of aircraft is used by Qantas..."

Great Logic!

I guess the FTDK better give up his machine, look what it did to Buddy Holly and co....:hmm::rolleyes:

[tasdevil.f27]

Thomas is in full swing on Sunrise this morning, talk about dribble :mad:

[Keg]

I'm surprised no one has yet drawn the link between the aircraft type and what happened near Learmonth last year to a couple of other A330s.

It'll only be a matter of time before the media picks up on it.

[Sand dune Sam]

Unconfirmed reports of TAM aircraft seeing something on fire over Atlantic..1200SIGWX chart had FRQ TS up to FL530 crossing the aircraft's track..........RIP:(

[NAMPS]

I'm surprised no one has yet drawn the link between the aircraft type and what happened near Learmonth last year to a couple of other A330s.

It'll only be a matter of time before the media picks up on it.

Keg, you are correct.

AT least 228 people are believed dead after a catastrophic failure on board an Air France plane over the Atlantic Ocean.

Anxious families gathering at airports in Paris and Brazil have been told any hope of survival is slim.

The Airbus A330 overnight service from Rio de Janeiro to Paris suffered multiple technical failures before crashing into the Atlantic, the airline's chief executive said today.

"A succession of a dozen technical messages" sent by the aircraft around 2.15am GMT (10:15pm AEST) showed that "several electrical systems had broken down" which caused a "totally unprecedented situation in the plane," said Pierre-Henry Gourgeon said.

"It is probable that it was shortly after these messages that the impact in the Atlantic came."

Mr Gourgeon said that military planes had narrowed down their search area to a zone of a few dozen nautical miles half-way between Brazil and west Africa. Three Brazilian navy ships are on their way to assist in the search.

Will Sunderlanders of Melb Burn Relatives of those on board the flight raced to Rio de Janeiro's airport, numb with shock and disbelief at the certain tragedy that had befallen their loved ones.

Bernado, one of the first to arrive at the city's airport, had despair edging into his voice as he explained his brother and sister-in-law where on the missing Airbus.

"I called Air France right away, and they told me they didn't have information. That's why I decided to come to the airport," he said, declining to give his last name.

Vasti Ester van Sluijs, said she had jumped into a taxi as soon as she heard her daughter's flight - had disappeared from the radar over the Atlantic Ocean.

"My daughter Adriana Francesca was on the plane," she said, shocked.

Her daughter had been on her way to Paris for a connecting flight to Seoul, for business, she said.

In Paris distraught relatives were ushered into a cordoned-off area of the main terminal at Rio at Charles de Gaulle airport, expecting the worse after officials said flight AF447 appeared to have had an electrical failure.

Uniformed teams from Air France and the airport manning the desk refused to say how they had broken news to the relatives.

At a refreshment stand in the arrivals hall, waitresses said they had served a couple in tears.

Shortly afterwards, two young women, their eyes swollen with weeping, brushed away questions by reporters, one of them saying: "Now is not the time."

France's minister in charge of transport, Jean-Louis Borloo, said there was a "real pessimism at this hour'' about the fate of the aircraft.

"We can fear the worst," he said on Europe-1 radio.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his "extreme worry'' and went to Charles de Gaulle to meet relatives awaiting news of their loved ones.

"We have no exact idea what happened. It's a catastrophe the likes of which Air France has never seen," he said.

"We have come to meet the families who are extremely dignified and courageous. Everyone can well imagine what a mother who lost her daughter, a fiancee who lost her future husband, are thinking.

"I told them the truth, which is that the prospects of finding any survivors are very slim."

Airbus said the A330 has a good safety record, with no fatalities ever on a commercial flight. One did crash in 1994 during a test flight in southern France, however, killing seven people on board.

In October last year a computer glitch caused a Qantas A330 to climb before nose diving over Western Australia injuring dozens of passengers.

In November 2007 six people were injured in a "depressurisation incident" during the test flight of an Airbus A330 to be delivered to Air Mauritius.


Air France A330 flight AF447 missing | World News | News.com.au (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25573700-401,00.html)

[emudodo]

Can anyone involved with the Airbus 330 confirm that CASA issued an A/D, or at least some sort of notification, of a possible problem with with bonding of strucures around a tank vent valve, which included warnings about flight near lightning. This was being aired on radio in MEL this morning as a possible cause of the (probable ) hull loss.

[Checklist Charlie]

emudodo

This was being aired on radio in MEL this morning as a possible cause of the (probable ) hull loss

An aviation professional will know how to find this information whereas the peddlers of news (sic) wouldn't.

[denabol]

There is a cloud cover update picture of the area and a rather cautious but it seemed to me reasonable report here. The Geoff Thomas stuff on TV this morning was nutty.

The Air France mid Atlantic mystery will be hard to unravel - Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2009/06/01/when-an-airliner-goes-missing/)

[Boomerang_Butt]

I just love how when asked if loss of contact was a regular occurence, GT implied that if that happens then everyone on board is doome... what a crock of :yuk: Just because you have faulty comms doesn't mean the a/c is no longer airworthy! Sure, it presents problems, but of itself would not equal what has happened to AF.

Can someone please ask Sunrise & Sky to use clips of Greg Feith instead? At least he actually knows something about accident investigation... :ugh:

[teresa green]

Just be careful on this one guys the journos will be trolling, any concerns might be better on Q.

[QSK?]

More here, particularly with respect to the receipt of ACARS messages:

Crash: Air France A332 over Atlantic on June 1st 2009, aircraft impacted ocean (http://avherald.com/h?article=41a81ef1/0004&opt=0)

[blueloo]

Yeah lets get Greg Feith out of retirement.

We need someone on TV with no dress sense - appalling shirts and and revolting ties...... what a legacy.

...but yes you are correct, at least he knows abit about aviation, whereas some of our other reporters are quite happy to display NFI.

[Boomerang_Butt]

Blueloo, my comment about GF was prompted by someone on the R&N thread saying he appeared on a news program regardinf AF447 (sorry not sure which)

Wasn't aware he retired, yeah can recall a few people making comments about the braces & tie look... but hey, no doubt that he knew his stuff, in fact I'd say he knows more than 'a bit'

[blueloo]

Greg Feith Net! (http://www.gregfeith.net/)

Scroll halfway down..... (video section)

Oh yes - I agree, he does know more than a bit.

I just find him amusing.

[aussie027]

Given the water depth estimated at approx 15000' at the impact site, the recovery of wreckage and esp the data recorders will be extremely difficult. They are talking of using ROV's as at that depth the water pressure is approx 6700 lbs or 3000KG per sq inch.:eek:

If the recorders are still bolted in place in a large piece of tail cone wreckage as opposed to just lying free on the ocean floor an ROV may very well be of no use.
If it was a high speed impact like Swissair 111 where the plane was shredded into tens of thousands of pieces most smaller than a keyboard they may indeed be easier to" pick up", if they survived.

This accident once again should raise the issue of why ejectable FDR/CVR combo packages are still not fitted to commercial aircraft, esp those that spend most of the time over the worlds oceans.( We always seem to forget our planet is 70%covered by water)
Cost differences between any new type of recorders and old as well as retrofitting existing aircraft as opposed to fitting as original equipment will of course be the main issue, as always . (The experts will do the cost benefit analysis and decide against it as they have done with other safety improvements like fire suppression systems and many others.)
The idea is not new by any means but has not been implemented except by some military arms. See links for a little initial info. Note the 1st article date----

Remove Data Before Impact | Air Safety Week | Find Articles at BNET (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0UBT/is_11_14/ai_60475900/)

Crash Position Indicator/Crash Survivable Flight Data Recorder Ejectable versus Nonejectable (http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA132329)

faa and recorder Resources | BNET (http://resources.bnet.com/topic/faa+and+recorder.html)

Maybe they will mandate this type of system for the future, maybe not.:uhoh:

[Boomerang_Butt]

Blueloo, I don't know whether to find that amusing or scary....!

There's a lot of talk about salvage operations and capability of different countries. Aussie, with regard to the data recorder still be attached to prt of the a/c structure... I thought they were designed to separate on impact so easier to find? Or is that just porky pies I've read?

Whatever the outcome, I have a feeling this accident is going to make waves in the industry, and that a lot of learning will be done. Every accident teaches something, but for some reason I get the vibe that this one will be a stand out for various as-yet-unknown reasons.

[Stationair8]

Listening to the 5pm radio news on the way home, the journalist said, "the aircraft is believed to have had a faulty speedometer".

[CazbahKid]

Just saw Sky News and they were interviewing Greg Feith about the A330.

Too bad the subtitle underneath him was:

PETER GOELZ

Can they get anything right? :rolleyes:

[Boomerang_Butt]

Sacrilege! How could they not know who Greg Feith is?!?!

I mean, c'mon we gave them the answer on a platter, we all know they just read pprune anyway...! who else has ties like that??

Back to the serious subject of this thread... promising signs now that more debris & passengers have been found, anything which gives the investigators more to work with is good.

It's a bit difficult with the pax though, when they say things like "Is this plane an Airbus A330?" and when you say yes they give you a scared look or mutter that they 'don't want to die like Air France did' (kid you not that was an exact quote)

[Angle of Attack]

I thought they were designed to separate on impact so easier to find? Or is that just porky pies I've read?


No they are located in the rear as it's the area least likely to become mince or fragmented metal in a catostraphic impact. Its porky pies there is no design for them to seperate, it's all about chance of survival.

Finding more and more bodies is no more promising signs IMO, theres a fairly good idea of what happened already. Even cursory reading should have shown anyone that. :ugh:

[bullamakanka]

Fairly good idea what happened already?? Have you found the FDR and CVR?

Maybe a VERY basic outline and thats about it.

Bulla

[Keg]

Breaking news on Ch 10 tonight indicated that two names on the passenger list had links to terrorism. I have no further info than that and it is a journo source after all so who knows.

Lots of water to go under the bridge on this one yet!

[blueloo]

maybe Greg Feith can verify that for us Keg :E

[Boomerang_Butt]

Sorry, I meant 'promising signs' as in, it's a lot more than they had a few days ago. Before any debris was found it would have been extremely difficult to pinpoint an area where AF could have ended up, as it's such a large area. In no way did I mean the term 'promising' to be disrespectful to anyone.

While you may have an idea of 'what happened', I do not (other than guessing/speculating) and as I am not an investigator I won't presume to post anything near a 'cause' here. If by 'cursory reading' you meant the AF447 thread in R&N I actually have been following that, but as the expertise there far outweighs mine, I was merely making an observation that the more is recovered, the more information is gained. i don't think any investigator would argue with that.

The media (and by extent the public) are now becoming in my opinion obssessed with the A330. Jetstar had an unfortunate incident which good news for them was not worse, but now the media are emphasising the fact that the aircraft maker is the same.

Bet they'd freak if they remembered the run of Boeing accidents a few decades back. Or how about Embraers, or ATR, or or or... Just wish they would use statistics to back things up, rather than sensationalise things.

Oh wait, that doesn't sell papers, does it? :ugh:

[DutchRoll]

Yeah, but that's the media isn't it?

I mean, we have to live with them whether anyone likes it or not. They'll always sensationalise, leap to conclusions, and use non-technical, incorrect, and trivial terms that joe public can understand. We just have to deal with it.

Just like every other "connection" they've made, it will blow over eventually.

[Jabawocky]

You think the public are worried about the A330, apart from a handling / test flying cock up in the 90's, the only other hull losses for A330's has been from Tamils and a dodgey cargo shipment corroding a hull from China:ooh:.

So until this AF crash the A330 has really had a good run. The B777 was doing really well until a kero slush puppie bent one at LHR.

So which one do you think has a safety perception issue?

J:E

Popcorn anyone?;)

[teresa green]

Had a few beers in a aircrew bar in Honkers, talking to european pilots who said the word is, blocked pitots, due to heat failure, leading to a trip into coffin corner, don't know quite where they got it from, but seemed fairly sure, said they heard it from Air France pilots, so who knows, it is certainly possible...........

[Boomerang_Butt]

Jabawocky, that was my point, I know that the A330 has a pretty good record (no hull loss in commercial service until now) but from looking at the sheep on board bleating repeats of the news, saying it's a death trap and making comments that they don't want to die, well you can see the sensationalists have done their job...

I'd just like to see some reporter actually do the research and compare between the two, for clarity's sake. But we know that won't happen...

I think it's just that Boeing has been around longer, so pax feel more comfortable. The smart ones know it could happen to any of us (there for the grace of god etc)

[Going Boeing]

PARIS, July 29, 2009 (AFP) - The top pilots' union at Air France demanded on Wednesday that European airspeed monitors be replaced by US-made models across the airline's fleet after a new malfunction was reported this month.

An Airbus 320 equipped with new speed probes made by European electronics giant Thales was flying from Rome to Paris on July 13 when the sensors, known as pitot tubes, broke down, Air France said late Tuesday.

The SNPL pilots' union demanded the Thales monitors be replaced by those made by US-based Goodrich, which provides pitot tubes to 70 percent of the world's aircraft.

Air France decided on June 12 to upgrade all pitot probes after pilots raised the alarm following the crash of Flight 447 in the Atlantic with 228 people on board, the airline's worst disaster in its 75-year history.

The union said the Goodrich models' record showed it had been problem-free. "We are asking that the fleet be modified with sensors that have not been the object of any complaint," said union spokesman Erick Derivry. The SNPL "wants the entire fleet to be equipped with Goodrich models that would replace the Thales sensors," he told AFP.

Air France said the malfunction of the probes on the Rome to Paris flight "lasted only a few seconds" and did not jeopardize the safety of the passengers. But French air safety officials are investigating the incident.

French investigators have said that the faulty speed monitors were a factor but not the cause of the June 1 crash of the Airbus that was flying through heavy turbulence on a flight from Rio to Paris.

Speculation has focused on the speed sensors, which fed inconsistent readings to the cockpit just before the plane went down.

The pilots' union spokesman said that the latest problem onboard an Airbus jetliner showed there was a "body of elements showing that this incident was similar to other incidents and to the accident involving Flight 447."

Replacing the pitot tubes with the new Thales models "will not bring about the hoped-for improvements," said Derivry.

Another pilots' union earlier this month accused French and European air safety bodies of ignoring warnings about the faulty speed probes such as variations in airspeed data in severe weather conditions.

Source : AFP
Company : Air France

[Going Boeing]

PARIS, July 30, 2009 (AFP) - A French survey vessel has begun scanning the ocean floor for black boxes from an Air France jet that mysteriously crashed in the Atlantic last month, killing 228 people, investigators said Thursday.

The Pourquoi Pas? vessel from the French oceanography institute IFREMER arrived Monday at the disaster site to launch the second phase of the search for the flight recorders, said the French air accident bureau BEA.

"The survey work of the ocean depths has begun in the area considered the most likely location," using sonars, the Nautile mini-submarine and the Victor 6000 robot for deep-sea exploration, said a BEA statement.

French and Brazilian search teams on July 10 ended their efforts to locate the signal of the black boxes of Flight 447 when the batteries powering the emissions were believed to have run out.

The Airbus 330 crashed in a storm on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1 with the loss of all 228 people on board, the worst disaster in Air France's 75-year history, and one that has yet to be explained.

French investigators have said the task of finding the flight recorders was formidable after debris was found scattered across the remote area some 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) off Brazil's coast.

The black boxes -- which are actually clad in orange metal casing to protect them and make them visible -- could be lying on the ocean floor as deep as 3,500 metres under water, in rugged terrain.

Phase two of the search is due to end on August 22.

The black boxes are designed to emit a signal for at least 30 days after a crash. One of the devices records flight data and the other captures the voices of the crew and other cockpit sounds.

French investigators also "took note" of an offer from Airbus to help fund a third phase of the search over a broader area, the BEA statement said.

Airbus is willing to spend up to 20 million euros to help in the search for the flight recorders, their airplane maker's chief executive Thomas Enders told La Tribune daily.

"We want to know what exactly happened," he said. "We are supporting an extended search by making a big contribution."

The newspaper said Airbus was willing to give between 12 and 20 million euros (16.8 to 28 million dollars) so that the search could be extended by "at least three months."

Source : AFP
Company : Airbus, an EADS N.V. company (Paris: EAD.PA)

[Going Boeing]

Air France plane bumps Brazzaville building

BRAZZAVILLE, July 30, 2009 (AFP) - An Air France Airbus A330 hit a building just after landing in Congo's capital Brazzaville and was banned from taking off with any passengers, Civil Aviation Minister Emile Ouosso said Thursday.

The incident occurred on Wednesday night at Brazzaville's Maya-Maya airport. "While the plane was manoeuvring on the tarmac, just after landing, the tip of its right wing brushed a building," Ouosso said.

"Several dozen people were on board the plane," but nobody was hurt, he added.

"Air France officials reassured me that technically the plane could fly without any problem. But by precaution and as a security measure, we grounded it. The plane must return to France without any passengers," the minister said.

Some of those who had been due to fly to Paris on the Airbus on Thursday took another flight via Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, while others will wait for an airliner due on Friday, Ouosso said.

An Air France spokesman in Paris played down the incident.

"It was a winglet that simply scraped a building while taxiing towards the parking bay in Brazzaville," the spokesman said. The winglet is a small vertical section at the tip of the wing.

The head of security at Maya-Maya airport, Captain Albert Roy Mossingonda, said that the accident scraped the plane when the wing hit a "hangar at the airport."

The wing "has a scratch. That's all you can see with the naked eye. For the rest, the Congo does not have the appropriate material to test and discover deeper damage," Mossingonda said.

Air France is one of the big Western companies flying to the Republic of Congo, with four weekly flights including three direct ones between Paris and Brazzaville.

On June 1, an Air France Airbus A330 flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, at the cost of all 228 lives on board. The cause of that accident was still not known Thursday, but at the beginning of July, the technical investigation team ruled out an explosion or a change of flight path.

On June 30, another Airbus, an A310 owned by the Yemenia airline crashed in the Indian Ocean off the Comoro Islands, with 153 passengers and crew. The only survivor was a 12-year-old girl.

Source: AFP

[Going Boeing]

PARIS, July 30, 2009 (AFP) - The Franco-Dutch airline Air France-KLM, Europe's biggest airline, reported on Thursday a net loss of 426 million euros (600 million dollars) in the first quarter of its 2009-2010 fiscal year.

The results contrasted with net earnings of 149 million euros in the corresponding April-June period the previous year, reflecting a global battering of the aviation sector in the eye of the financial crisis.

"Global economic activity has stabilised at unprecedented low levels, leading to a sharp decline in volumes and unit revenues," the airline said in a statement, adding that "the airline sector has been particularly affected."

The group said sales had fallen 20.5 percent to 5.17 billion euros and that passenger traffic had dipped by 5.8 percent and cargo traffic by 22.7 percent.

Air France KLM in the last fiscal year announced its first losses since the 2003 merger of Air France and KLM and said it would cut 2,700 jobs.

The group said on Thursday there would likely be "a further deterioration in the second quarter, albeit at a slower pace than in the first" for passenger traffic and "a progressive stabilisation in the second half" for cargo traffic.

Source : AFP
Company : Air France

[TWT]

It dropped off whose radar ? If only it did we'd know where it was now.

[Capn Bloggs]

Going Boeing, what do your last two posts have to do with AF447? :confused:

[Going Boeing]

Good point Bloggs, I was just showing how Air France is going through a really bad time right now.

[Going Boeing]

PARIS, July 31, 2009 (AFP) - Airbus urged airlines Friday to replace air speed probes on its A330 and A340 jets with models made by US firm Goodrich, after earlier versions were linked to the loss of an Air France flight.

Investigators believe false data from speed monitors could have contributed to the loss of flight AF447, which crashed into the Atlantic on June 1 killing all 228 on board, and airlines have already begun replacing the devices.

But this week an Airbus jet equipped with new generation pitot probes made by European electronics firm Thales experienced a similar malfunction, causing pilots' unions to demand versions built by its US rival Goodrich.

The planes' manufacturer has now joined their call.

"We have sent a letter to all our operators to recommend that they replace Thales pitots with Goodrich pitots on their fleets of A330 and A340," an Airbus spokeswoman told AFP, describing this as a "precautionary measure".

The airlines should change at least two out of the three speed probes on each plane to a Goodrich model, she added.

This new advice will affect around 200 planes from a total fleet of around a thousand A330 and A240 longhaul jets in service with various airlines around the world, the rest already being equipped with American probes.

"We asked our customers to keep us up to date with their experience of the performance of the pitot probes," the spokeswoman said, explaining why the firm's recommendations had been updated so quickly.

France's air safety agency, the BEA, has confirmed that the older version of the Thales speed monitors gave false airspeed data to the cockpit of flight
AF447 from Rio to Paris before it plunged into the ocean.

It is not yet clear whether this was a cause or a contributing factor to the crash, which has yet to be explained, and an undersea hunt is underway in the hope of salvaging the A330 jet's black box flight data recorders.

Pilots and lawyers acting for victims' families were quick to point out that false data from pitots had been a factor in a number of recent incidents, and in June Airbus recommended that they be replaced with newer models.

On July 13, however, an Airbus 320 flying from Rome to Paris and equipped with the newer version of the probe once again suffered a malfunction. Pilots coped with the problem, and the flight landed safely.

On Wednesday, the SNPL pilots' union, which represents most Air France pilots, demanded that Thales' probes -- old or new -- be replaced by Goodrich models, which they said had never been the subject of any complaints.

Air France said the malfunction of the probes on the Rome to Paris flight "lasted only a few seconds" and did not jeopardise passenger safety.

Source : AFP
Company : Airbus, an EADS N.V. company (Paris: EAD.PA)

[Going Boeing]

PARIS, Aug 20, 2009 (AFP) - French search teams have failed to locate the black boxes of Air France flight that crashed in the Atlantic en route from Rio to Paris in June, the French air accident bureau said Thursday.

Search teams have now wrapped up a second operation to locate the flight recorders of the Airbus A330, which crashed off the Brazilian coast on June 1 killing 228 people, and will now try to find a new way to continue looking.

The first search phase ended on July 10, when the batteries powering the black box's locator signals were thought to have run out. Underwater vessels launched a second search at the end of July, sweeping the site with sonar.

"The search having failed to locate the wreck of the aircraft, the BEA will gather an international team of investigators and experts in the coming weeks to exploit the data gathered with a view to launching a third search phase, and to determine its modalities and means," the BEA agency said.

The Airbus 330 crashed in a storm on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1 with the loss of all 228 people on board, the worst disaster in Air France's 75-year history, and one that has yet to be explained.

French investigators have warned the task of finding the flight recorders was formidable after debris was found scattered across the remote area some 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) off Brazil's coast.

The black boxes -- which are actually clad in orange metal casing to protect them and make them visible -- could be lying on the ocean floor as deep as 3,500 metres under water, in rugged terrain.

The recorders are designed to emit a signal for at least 30 days after a crash. One of the devices records flight data and the other captures the voices of the crew and other cockpit sounds.

Airbus chief executive Thomas Enders said in an interview last month the plane manufacturer was willing to spend up to 20 million euros in the search.

Source : AFP

[Going Boeing]

Air France pilots' report blames speed probes for crash

PARIS, Oct 4, 2009 (AFP) - An Air France pilots' union will present a report to investigators this week blaming defective air speed probes for the crash of Air France Flight 447 over the Atlantic, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The pilots' report contradicts the findings of the French agency leading the investigation, the BEA, which has said that the speed monitors were a factor, but not the leading cause of the crash that left 228 people dead on June 1.

The union points the guilty finger to the plane's manufacturer Airbus, Air France, civil aviation authorities and the European Aviation Safety Agency among others for under-estimating the problems with the sensors.

The report argues that all of them knew of problems with the pitot tubes over the past 14 years and that, had they moved to correct them, the crash "would have probably been avoided", the Journal du Dimanche reported.

Air France Flight 447 was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris during stormy weather when it crashed into a remote area of the Atlantic, about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) off Brazil's coast.

Just before dropping off radar screens it had emitted a series of automatic warning signals indicating systems failures.

The Airbus A330's black box flight recorders have not been found, but French investigators said in a report that the faulty speed sensors were not the only explanation for the accident.

"Such an event cannot be reduced to a single cause," said Gerard Arnoux, president of the Spaf pilots' union.

"But there is an unchallengeable truth that we must insist on: without the breakdown of the pitot tubes, the accident wouldn't have happened," Arnoux told the newspaper.

The crash was the worst in Air France's 75-year history.

Both the European air safety agency and Airbus advised airlines after the disaster to replace the type of pitot tubes used on the doomed jet with a more reliable model made by a US firm.

© 2009 AFP
Source : afp.com

And the response from BEA!

Air France crash: investigators slap down pilots

PARIS, Oct 5, 2009 (AFP) - The French air accident investigation agency on Monday slapped down claims by Air France pilots that defective air speed probes caused the crash of a jet over the Atlantic that killed 228 people.

"The investigation is progressing, but it is a particularly difficult one and it is too early to be able to describe the circumstances of the accident or, still less, attempt to explain them," the BEA said in a statement.

The agency issued the statement in response to a report in a French Sunday newspaper that the Spaf pilots' union plans to present its own report on the disaster this week.

The pilots' report contradicts the findings of the BEA, which has said the speed monitors were a factor, but not the leading cause of the June 1 crash of the Rio-Paris flight, the Journal du Dimanche reported.

The union points the finger at the plane's manufacturer Airbus, Air France, civil aviation authorities and the European Aviation Safety Agency, among others for under-estimating the problems with the sensors.

Its report argues that all of them knew of problems with the pitot tubes over the past 14 years and that, had they moved to correct them, the crash would have probably been avoided, the newspaper said.

Air France also reacted to the newspaper report, saying "assumptions have been made on the causes of the AF 447 flight accident, expressed by the head of a minority pilots' union and a retired pilot from another airline."

The airline pointed out that, alongside the BEA probe, another inquiry is being carried out by a French examining magistrate "in order to identify potential legal responsibilities."

Air France Flight 447 was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris during stormy weather when it crashed into a remote area of the Atlantic, about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) off Brazil's coast.

Just before dropping off radar screens it had emitted a series of automatic warning signals indicating systems failures.

The Airbus A330's black box flight recorders have not been found, but French investigators said in a report that the faulty speed sensors were not the only explanation for the accident.

Both the European air safety agency and Airbus advised airlines after the crash -- the worst in Air France's 75-year history -- to replace the French pitot tubes used on the doomed jet with a more reliable US model.

The BEA said Monday it was planning to publish a further interim report before the end of the year. But the agency has previously said it might be more than a year before it publishes its final report.

© 2009 AFP
Source : afp.com

[Shlonghaul]

There was an interesting story on the ABCs Foreign Correspondent show this evening regarding the Air France A330 crash. The ABC website says it will be repeated this Saturday at 1pm on ABC 1 but the TV guide does not reflect this. However it can be viewed on the Foreign Correspondent website.

[Dick N. Cider]

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200910/r456774_2234604.jpg

More planes and more people are flying internationally than ever before so it’s perhaps not surprising that those aboard Air France flight 447 from Brazil to France hailed from more than 30 nations. From Brazil to France and beyond families - some armed with lawyers - are crying out for an explanation. What happened?

Investigators will draw conclusions from the meagre evidence that’s emerged but it can’t ever be more that informed speculation. The real answers are locked in the Airbus A330’s black box flight recorder at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean.

Why, in a satellite saturated, digitally streamed world, do airlines and aviation regulators rely on devices hatched in the middle of last century that can disappear into the deep or be damaged and destroyed.

“It’s absurd that air safety depends on black boxes which sometimes cannot be recovered or if they are recovered then the data cannot be properly transcribed because the boxes are damaged beyond analysis.” JAMES HEALY-PRATT AVIATION LAWYER

The ABC’s Investigative Unit reporter Andrew Fowler joins Foreign Correspondent to examine the flaws in AF447 challenge the aircraft manufacturer Airbus Industrie and to hear the many stories of anguish and loss from the international community of people grieving the loss of loved ones and yearning for information.

“Some families lost 4 relatives. Some lost their parents so now it’s grandparents or cousins who must look after them. That’s so many families who were broken that day.” CHRISTOPHE GUILLOT-NOEL (who lost a brother)

Fowler explores the evidence that’s emerged from coronial examinations in Brazil, the smattering of data from the ill-fated flight and whether or not Air France, Airbus and aviation regulators acted quickly and judiciously to replace air-speed equipment on the plane that was known to be systemically unreliable.

With more of us flying there are some important lessons to emerge from the AF447 catastrophe but without the flight recorders, huge chunks of the puzzle are missing.

Full story and video (approx 25 min) at: France - AF 447 - Foreign Correspondent - ABC (http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2009/s2725746.htm)

[Going Boeing]

PARIS - Search teams have retrieved one of two black box flight recorders of an Air France plane which crashed into the Atlantic in 2009 while flying from Rio to Paris, killing 228 people, French investigators said.

The device was the crucial memory unit from a flight data recorder and was recovered at 1000 GMT Sunday, France's Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) said in a statement.

It was "in good physical condition" after having been moved by a Remora 6000 ROV (robot submarine) on board the Ile de Sein ship.

The find could be a breakthrough in the investigation into the disaster, as the box could hold crucial data that would enable BEA investigators to determine the cause of the crash.

"Our experts will tell us if there's hope of reading the data," BEA director Jean-Paul Troadec told AFP.

"If the data can be used it will allow the enquiry to make headway because the FDR (flight data recorder) records the altitude, speed, and the various positions of the rudder," Troadec added.

The device was expected to arrive at BEA offices within eight to 10 days, to allow for the search of the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CFR), so both can be taken back to France.

"If we can read the first data, that would be a great step forward, but without the second black box essential data will be missing: the way the pilots reacted, the reasons they took one decision or another during the emergency," said Troadec.

A spokesman for relatives of the crash victims said they were heartened by the news.

"It's very, very encouraging for all the families of the victims, even if we have to remain prudent while we wait to see to what extent the recorder can be used," Jean-Baptiste Audousset, head of the AF447 Assocation, told AFP.

Transport Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said the find was a "key step" in the investigation.

"It will also allow the aviation industry to draw lessons from the disaster to permanently improve airline security," she added.

But families of Brazilian victims of the doomed flight said that a "neutral" country should analyze the black box.

"It means a lot because all the controversy about who is responsible for the tragedy, the uncertainty about what happened, can be cleared up," Nelson Marinho, head of a Brazilian association of victims' families, told AFP.

Investigators announced Wednesday that search teams had retrieved part of a black box flight recorder from the Airbus A330 -- but not the part containing the key data.

BEA said the chassis that held one of the recorders had been found a day after a salvage ship began working to retrieve bodies and recently discovered wreckage using the Remora submarines.

The module had broken off from the chassis, presumably at the moment the plane crashed into the water.

The Airbus A330 plunged into the Atlantic en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009.

Investigators announced they had found the main wreckage in early April on the fourth and final attempt.

The official cause of the disaster remains uncertain, but the crash has been partly blamed on malfunctioning speed sensors used by Airbus.

Air France has been accused of not having responded quickly enough to reports that they might be faulty.

Investigators and Airbus remained cautious, stressing that without the black boxes the riddle of the plane's last moments might never be solved.

While, an Airbus spokesman said they had no comment to make at this stage, Airbus-KLM chief executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon welcomed the development.

"This new stage in the inquiry constitutes a great advance because it could provide supplementary information on the causes of this accident, which to this day is unexplained," he said.

Alan Bouillard, the BEA official in charge of the probe, had stressed the extent of the challenge facing the team.

"We will be working at a depth of 4,000 metres (13,000 feet) which complicates the recovery task enormously," he said.

Air France and Airbus -- which are being probed for alleged manslaughter in connection with the crash, the deadliest in the carrier's history -- are paying the estimated $12.7 million (nine million euro) cost of the search.

by Delphine Touitou (c) 2011 AFP

[Icarus2001]

Second ORANGE box now recovered...

Investigators recover second Air France black box - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/03/3206715.htm)

Air France and Airbus have betweeen them spent an awful lot of money retrieving the FDR and CVR nearly TWO years after the crash.

Strange that one party will end up being caned in court depending which way the class action decides to go.

There will be some interesting legal lessons here for aircraft operators who take notice.

[mmciau]

This thread should be closed. Full and current discussions re AF447 being located and items retrieved are on


http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/449639-af-447-search-resume-part2.html



Mike

[Sarcs]

The final report into AF447 is due to be released tonight! I know this subject is being discussed in Tech Log but as it is a particularly relevant accident to anyone in the aviation industry.....Ben's blog is following developments/goss here:

AF447 crash blamed on pilots and pitots in court report | Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2012/07/05/af447-crash-blamed-on-pilots-and-pitots-in-court-report/)

....and here

AF447 report may cause more Boeing v Airbus friction | Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2012/07/04/af447-report-will-it-cause-an-airbus-v-boeing-fan-boy-brawl-or-something-sensible/)

[4dogs]

Well, it is out there. The Final Report and associated documents (40Mb) raise some very interesting points for us to consider.

A lot of what occurred was foreshadowed in the Senate Inquiry into Pilot Training and Airline Safety. The local reaction from the Department of Infrastructure and Transport and associated agencies CASA and the ATSB, happily adopted by the Minister, was to kiss it all off as irrelevant and never likely to happen here.

AF447 was a "black swan" - nobody expected the crew to fail to respond adequately to the pitot icing problem. But in my experience, every single training failure identified in the BEA report happens here and there are a significant number of pilots drilling around in automatic aeroplanes whose basic skills are either inadequately developed or have atrophied through lack of use. So the seeds are sown...

The burning question is this: How will the DIT agencies respond to the report?

Will they ignore it completely? Or will they acknowledge its existence but kiss it off again on the basis that they have it all under control?

On the other hand, how will the bean-counting charlatans and snake-oil salesmen running our airlines deal with in the context of their risk management rules and automation policies? Will the T&C folks be allowed to respond if it costs money? Will the third party training providers just bury their heads further in the sand and grind out the same crappy type ratings?

As David Learmount from Flightglobal said - its a wake-up call - let's see who is listening.

Stay Alive,

[TheWholeEnchilada]

AF 447 Final Report (http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601.en/pdf/f-cp090601.en.pdf).

[The Kelpie]

I thought the Senate Committee resolved to reform to discuss the Air France incident if it was felt appropriate to do so?

More to Follow

The Kelpie

[Sarcs]

I thought the Senate Committee resolved to reform to discuss the Air France incident if it was felt appropriate to do so?



Well they may do Kelpie, but it'll just be another 'talkfest' where eventually Albo will poo bah everything found and tell everyone that the solution is in the White (elephant) Paper.....just like the 22 recommendations in the Senate Inquiry!:ugh:

Ben's last line in today's response to the AF 447 final report makes the most sense...
AF447 shouldn’t be a debate about how airliners are designed so much as one about how they are operated by appropriately trained professionals in an effective regulatory environment.
....but is anyone in the relevant departments/agencies taking notice?:=

AF447 final report could cause critical safety reforms | Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2012/07/06/af447-final-report-could-cause-critical-safety-reforms/)

[Sunfish]

Airbus will react to this report by adding yet another layer of software controls.

Could I ask the experts:

- is it possible in a large jet that is cable controlled (ie not fly by wire) aircraft to actually feel what is happening to the aircraft? "Is there feedback???"

- Is it possible to lose complete situational awareness in a properly trimmed cable controlled aircraft that does not have negative stability characteristics?

I also observe there is no feedback between the sidesticks. One can be full nose up, the other pilot can be pushing full nose down and neither pilot will know what the other is doing. This can't happen with mechanically linked yokes can it?

[ejectx3]

1) yes
2) it's possible but much less likely (Turkish)
3) only if one control column is completely frozen (jammed) you can apply considerable force and break the link between the two , otherwise no.

[Jetsbest]

"I also observe there is no feedback between the sidesticks." is not quite correct. (Also, it does not appear to have been a factor in AF447? Each pilot in the control seats 'had a turn' using a 'handing over' procedure of sorts but, ultimately, it seems that neither pilot diagnosed the real & ongoing problem after the initial surprise and the captain did not recognise the symptoms once he'd reached the flight deck.)

While it's true that movement in one sidestick does not cause movement in the other, if both pilots apply movements at the same time an unmissable alert of "DUAL INPUT" will be generated (voice and flashing lights).

"DUAL INPUT" is a big NO!NO! in Airbus thinking and the alert is designed to notify the pilots that both pilots are manipulating the aircraft; a most undesirable situation! One pilot, nominally the captain, would be expected to "take over" and resolve any ambiguity about who is flying as the other pilot should assume 'support' functions like calling altitude, pitch attitude, speed & trends, rate of descent etc.

I trust that clears up a couple of points for you. :ok:

[Capn Bloggs]

I also observe there is no feedback between the sidesticks. One can be full nose up, the other pilot can be pushing full nose down and neither pilot will know what the other is doing. This can't happen with mechanically linked yokes can it?
777 or 787 pilots care to comment? Both are full fly by wire but both have control columns that, I assume, are interlinked.

[Capt_SNAFU]

The weakness in the Bus is that you have to rely on what you see on the PFD (no bad thing as this what the aircraft is actually doing) as opposed to having some tacit indicators as well. The Stall recall is "nose down pitch control apply" if you are not in control how do you know if the other person is actually doing it? Apparent in a cross linked system but not so apparent in the Bus. You can look across but in a dark cockpit with the pucker factor through the roof it would be quite difficult. Tried it in the sim and you can do it but was not my first thought with all the other %^&* going off in my pea brain.

Dual input is bad yes but one doing the wrong input without the knowledge of the other is also bad and a weakness in the design.

I wonder how the do it in a dual seat F-16? Are the controls linked in any way? Be interesting to know.

[psycho joe]

- is it possible in a large jet that is cable controlled (ie not fly by wire) aircraft to actually feel what is happening to the aircraft? "Is there feedback???"

Yes, but that "feel" is entirely artificial. It's supplied by a computer and designed to fool the brain into thinking that you are getting real feedback. My guess is that it's very unlikely that anyone here would have stalled a jet outside of a simulator no one can tell you what, if any feedback is felt through the controls of a conventional wide body jet airliner.


There are three little words that prevent dual input confusion:

"I HAVE CONTROL"

If the crew had done nothing other than sit on their hands and selected flap 1 (slats) at 20,000 they would probably still have survived. The fact that they didn't follow the stall proc or acknowledge the stall warn speaks volumes about the sit awareness at the time. As are the actions of the crew member who was pulling back stick the whole time.

Its easy to sweep this under the rug by blaming the technology, but really the lessons to be learnt here are all about human psychology.

[andrewr]

I think a people underestimate the confusion that the stall warning would have caused in this episode. It did not sound for much of the time because the parameters were outside the limits.

As a result they had a situation where forward stick gave them a stall warning, and back stick made it stop.

Power + attitude = performance didn't work either, because that assumes that the aircraft is not already stalled.

[maggot]

I think a people underestimate the confusion that the stall warning would have caused in this episode. It did not sound for much of the time because the parameters were outside the limits.

As a result they had a situation where forward stick gave them a stall warning, and back stick made it stop.


final nail in the coffin :( I agree, the stall warning logic really, really let the guys down.

[Mud Skipper]

final nail in the coffin

No, the final nail was neither pilot on the flight deck had the experience to first avoid the weather, from which all other links in the chain where attached, and secondly, when confronted with false indications neither where able to recognize the false indication. I have flown airbus and have had false speed indications due to icing on two occasions, this was not an unheralded even.
Even before that, why did the Captain leave the flightdeck when approaching the weather.
Forget pointing the finger at Airbus, it's the accountants and Flights Ops/Training who put the crew in the aircraft without the skill to handle an unusual situation.

[Jetsbest]

Psycho,
The Airbus "Stall" procedure 'recall checklist' was implemented after this event and was perhaps the first indication that the investigators were suspicious of crew actions during what was beginning to look like a well-established stall after the initial upset.

Andrewr,
Power + Attitude = Performance (always!).
In this case the following seems true:
Idle power + >10deg nose up (by holding full backstick) = Stall & huge sink rate into the water.
Your point about conflicting warnings is noted.

Skipper,
Some wx is unavoidable but it isn't fatal either. The captain may have been on his rest break before the wx even showed up on the radar? Pitot tubes shouldn't ice up with the results they did during this event BUT, even then, the remainder of the narrative shows an depressing lack of basic skills from the crew (either through atrophy or never-learned)

Let's all hope that we, and 'the system' will learn something from the findings.

[psycho joe]

The Airbus "Stall" procedure 'recall checklist' was implemented after this event and was perhaps the first indication that the investigators were suspicious of crew actions during what was beginning to look like a well-established stall after the initial upset.

Actually, that's a very good point and one that I had forgotten. :O

[404 Titan]

andrewr

The loss of the three ADR’s didn’t cause the aircraft to stall, the pilots did. I’ve flown the A330 for 12 years now and this type of scenario has been looked at in recurrent training every couple of years or so. Power + Attitude = Performance is drilled into us and always works. It isn’t very difficult in cruise to note on a regular basis, i.e. every hour N1 + 2.5 deg attitude = S&L @ M.81. In the AF accident the aircrafts false stall and over speed warnings were a distraction but the pilots incorrect response to the emergency is what caused the accident. Once the aircraft was in a deep stall caused by the incorrect response, a successful recovery was very unlikely. Having replicated this same scenario in the simulator full forward stick + full forward trim seems to work but with a height loss of 20-30K ft. If you fly any electric jet, next time you are in the sim, see what happens when you are up near max alt and all the ADR’s are turned off. I can assure you false warnings aren’t only an Airbus phenomenon. What appears to be the case here is lack of training and regulators around the world need to fix what has become a very serious safety issue. Airlines may parrot on that safety is their number one priority but I can assure you for the bean counters that run the airlines these days profits come first.

[Mud Skipper]

Angry Rat, that's my bread and butter, 3/4 pilot crew across the ITZ and I have had dodgy ASI on an A330 a few times.
In a bizarre twist thanks to Jetstar, fortunately my airline is rather stagnant with promotion so we generally have a few of the crew with well over 10K hours, probably find the crew average is well over 10K and quite varied, not the same hours 10K times since initial pilot training.

JetsbestSome wx is unavoidable but it isn't fatal either,
no kidding:hmm:, fact is they did not interpolate the weather correctly and it would have been in range before the Captain left the flight deck.
BTW was he a management pilots????? just looking at his hours verses age, numbers don't add up to me.

Bottom line is; the pilots crashed the aircraft as they didn't have the skills and experience. That this happened in Air France was I'd have thought just dumb mother luck as it appears there are much riskier even less experienced operators in the market. Operators driven by accountants to spend the least on training and experienced crew as possible, setting the lowest possible benchmarks. We have governments which are spineless enough to let them into decimate our markets with unrealistically low airfares.

[andrewr]

Power + Attitude = Performance (always!).
In this case the following seems true:
Idle power + >10deg nose up (by holding full backstick) = Stall & huge sink rate into the water.

Actually, it was:
TOGA power + >10deg nose up = huge sink rate into the water

If you are stalled, Power + Attitude = Performance no longer holds

404 Titan: I don't fly jets and so won't comment on the pilot's actions before the loss of control. I basically agree with what you say about training and cost cutting.

My main interest is in what happens AFTER the first error is made, and the potential for confusion from the information the pilots received after the loss of control. I don't believe in safety based on never making errors - wherever possible errors should be recoverable.

Reading the reports, I can see why the pilots were confused. I suspect many pilots would have had the same result in the same situation (after the initial error), without the benefit of hindsight. Failing to understand which instruments can be trusted and which are giving incorrect information is a recurring factor in aircraft accidents.

[gobbledock]

Mudskipper,
No, the final nail was neither pilot on the flight deck had the experience to first avoid the weather, from which all other links in the chain where attached, and secondly, when confronted with false indications neither where able to recognize the false indication. I have flown airbus and have had false speed indications due to icing on two occasions, this was not an unheralded even. Even before that, why did the Captain leave the flightdeck when approaching the weather. Forget pointing the finger at Airbus, it's the accountants and Flights Ops/Training who put the crew in the aircraft without the skill to handle an unusual situation.
Spot on. Everybody knows that the crew were the last line of defence, and nobody is denying their were some errors made that just should not have occurred. But the crew were not the only layer of defence. The old favorite reared it's head again - flight deck pilot gradients, training, rostering. All these items played a part in this, so a measure of culpability should be aimed at Air France itself. Every time an inefficiently trained pilot sits up front of a technically advanced piece of kit you have an instantly elevated level of risk. When will airline executives realise this? Train train and train!!

[maggot]

Angry Rat, that's my bread and butter, 3/4 pilot crew across the ITZ and I have had dodgy ASI on an A330 a few times.
In a bizarre twist thanks to Jetstar, fortunately my airline is rather stagnant with promotion so we generally have a few of the crew with well over 10K hours, probably find the crew average is well over 10K and quite varied, not the same hours 10K times since initial pilot training.

Jetsbest
Quote:
Some wx is unavoidable but it isn't fatal either
,
no kidding, fact is they did not interpolate the weather correctly and it would have been in range before the Captain left the flight deck.
BTW was he a management pilots????? just looking at his hours verses age, numbers don't add up to me.

Bottom line is; the pilots crashed the aircraft as they didn't have the skills and experience. That this happened in Air France was I'd have thought just dumb mother luck as it appears there are much riskier even less experienced operators in the market. Operators driven by accountants to spend the least on training and experienced crew as possible, setting the lowest possible benchmarks. We have governments which are spineless enough to let them into decimate our markets with unrealistically low airfares.


gees, no doubt it was the pilots that screwed this pooch. This does not mean other causal factors (system, pitots, etc) don't also take some blame and get looked at. ie. the right at the end the crew tried forward stick (yes, should have been earlier/or not ever be needed but,) - this triggered a stall warning so this corrective action was stopped by the crew. I'd call that a factor.
Can't say I've had a skipper roster himself on for going through wx/itcz/bay of bengal in monsoon in the last 15 years :confused: more likely see 'em get outta there ;)

[404 Titan]

andrewr
I don't fly jets and so won't comment on the pilot's actions before the loss of control.
The point I and others are trying to make is it is these very actions the pilots did before the loss of control that has led to the loss of control in the first place and the accident. Properly trained these pilots should have never flown into the weather in the first place. The fact that they did they shouldn’t have had a problem recognising a triple ADR failure and therefore the required response which is “Power + Attitude = Performance”. With this appropriate response a stall would never have occurred in the first place. The fact that it did stall and an inappropriate technique was used to try and recover from the stall only made the situation worse and the aircraft ended up in a deep stall and most likely unrecoverable from this point on.

My main interest is in what happens AFTER the first error is made.
The aircraft stalled.
Reading the reports, I can see why the pilots were confused. I suspect many pilots would have had the same result in the same situation (after the initial error), without the benefit of hindsight.
As I and others have said, properly trained it shouldn't have been an issue.

[aussie027]

I thought I read somewhere that AoA is always displayed on the PFD??

So long as AoA info is correct surely when a stall warning sounds a look at that alone will tell the story of what is happening to the wing, regardless of any airspeed indications(if possibly incorrect) or even none at all.
Regardless of flight path or nose attitude it all comes back to AoA of the wing.
A reduction in that ,if too high an angle and suitable power setting would have exited the stalled condition, regardless of anything else.
If you are holding back stick, have an AoA greater than the stall AoA, with high power setting and getting a sustained 10,000fpm plus descent rate then you are obviously not inside the normal flight envelope.
According to the report-
Until impact there was no valid angle of attack of less than 35 degrees.

That is approx twice the normal stall AOA for most aerofoils IIRC.

Regardless of everything, it is done and cannot be undone.

Hopefully pilots everywhere will learn something that may stop them making the same mistakes in similar circumstances.

Maybe, just maybe regulators and airlines will finally get their heads out of the sand ( to put it politely) and move back to giving pilots more training time etc to prevent the loss of important basic flying skills and to stop this constantly growing, ridiculous over dependence and trust in automation and whatever the colouful gee whiz screens are showing you, all to save a few almighty dollars in training dept expenses.
I wont hold my breath though.

What they need to Remember is, "If you think training is expensive, try ignorance".

I am sure the cost of the airframe alone, let alone the hundreds of millions of dollars in legal battles, compensation etc that result from an accident such as this would have funded some extra training department costs for a decade or more to come.

[404 Titan]

aussie027

There is no AoA indicator to the pilot. We do have a “Flight Path Vector” but this is only available if the pilot changes a selector on the “Flight Control Unit”. The difference between the FPV and the aircrafts attitude approximately equals AoA.

[aussie027]

Thanks Titan.. Yes sounds similar to a military HUD display which shows your FPV or Velocity Vector and your nose attitude.

I do remember though that some modern displays in diff model aircraft both big and small do show AoA directly.
The inputs are there from the sensors so given its enormous importance to all facets of aircraft operation it should be directly displayed, not just fed into the Air Data Computers.

[Jetsbest]

To add to what Titan said, the current A330 'Unreliable Speed' checklist actions may ultimately lead the crew to 'isolate' all the Air Data/Inertial Ref Units (ADIRUs), and that course of action will result in the AoA being displayed on the primary flight instruments. (it will remove all info normally derived from the ADIRUs) It's known as the BUSS (Back-Up Speed Scale) system, and speed is replaced by AoA, while the altitude displayed is GPS-derived.

The desired AoA range is simply a green band on the speed tape and the last checklist item says, simply, "FLY THE GREEN". It's intuitive enough to those who've seen it but a training package in its interpretation is essential.

Interestingly, despite the AoA info being available at all times in the 'background', it seems possible that BUSS is another hasty display/software 'patch' arising from the apparent direction of the AF447 investigation at the time. :hmm:

I agree with you though; AoA should be there all the time! :ok:

[Oakape]

I'm not convinced that having an AoA indicator would have made any difference in this particular case.

All the flight instruments except the ASI's were functioning perfectly. Even the ASI's came back, but they had the pitch too high & the airspeed too slow by that stage to accept that the airspeed they were seeing was correct & that the ASI's were once again functioning correctly.

If they couldn't get their heads around what they were seeing on the flight instruments they had, I think that the chances are very high that they either wouldn't have seen, or wouldn't have correctly interpreted, an AoA indicator either.

[grip pipe]

Fascinating, gruesome too but a fascinating report. Could some one please explain to me how you can go from a steady state of power and attitude plus altitude, to a fully developed stall and loss of control and only gain about 2000 ft at M082 before the onset of stall symptoms. I can only think of one thing that would get you in that predicament - ICE.

Airframe icing systems were only activated about a min before the loss of control and they had been in moist (still warm relatively and the reason they had not been able to get up past F350) gloop for some time and starting to go around some undesirable stuff that gave them a mild upset, just enough to stall the aeroplane. Full power application at that altitude ain't going to get you much of a response.

[HF3000]

andrewr

Actually, it was:
TOGA power + >10deg nose up = huge sink rate into the water

If you are stalled, Power + Attitude = Performance no longer holds

Power + Attitude = Performance dude...

There is NO phase of flight that calls for >10deg nose up at FL350 regardless of power setting. The very fact that this pilot raised the nose above 10deg at that altitude (and kept it there) demonstrates that either:
(1) he wasn't looking at his attitude (FAIL) or
(2) he had no idea that Power + Attitude = Performance (FAIL).

And a big airline FAIL for putting him there without proper training.

[404 Titan]

grip pipe

In case you are unaware all probes are heated automatically after first engine start and at all times in flight. It has been acknowledged though that the pitot tubes installed on the AF A330 were made by Thales and had an AD advising airlines to replace them with upgraded ones fromThales or BF Goodrich because they were susceptible to icing.

Regarding the aircraft stalling, while the icing up of the pitots resulted in the failure of the three ADR’s, I don’t believe and the BEA report doesn't mention airframe icing playing a significant part in the demise of this aircraft. The aircraft stalled because the pilot flying pulled back on the stick at high altitude resulting in the aircraft climbing above Rec Max and decelerating to a too low a speed.

[ejectx3]

Yea but he still had toga power and ten degrees nose up at low altitudes. If power + attitude = performance is supposed to solve all then that combo should have worked at the low altitudes, but didn't due to deep stall . Than HAS to be fixed first .

[404 Titan]

ejectx3

As HF3000 said: Power + Attitude = Performance (Always)

It may not equal the performance you were expecting though once stalled i.e. uncontrolled flight, as demonstrated in the BEA report where:

TOGA + ≥10° pitch = Very large sink rate.

Once stalled, (not a deep stall) stall recovery requires:

TOGA or Reduced thrust if pitch authority compromised by TOGA + about -2 to -3° pitch = ↑ IAS.

Once stall is broken:

TOGA + about +5 to +10° pitch (dependant on Alt & weight) = ↑IAS & ↑ALT

[ejectx3]

My point exactly

[404 Titan]

ejectx3

No you have missed the point. There is two types of flight, controlled and uncontrolled. You should always know which one you are in. In the AF447 crash the crew clearly didn’t. If they did they wouldn’t have stalled the aircraft.

[Capn Bloggs]

ejectx has not missed the point. Power plus Attitude does not work when stalled, especially with an AoA of 40°. +2° to -3° would not have saved them. Full forward stick, full nose down trim (stuck at 13° NU) and perhaps a boot of rudder to drop the nose may have saved them.

The idea of setting 10° and full power probably sounded good to those poor souls in the front of that "unstallable" aeroplane, their hands tied behind their back by everybody who was not in that cockpit.

[Sarcs]

ejectx has not missed the point. Power plus Attitude does not work when stalled, especially with an AoA of 40°. +2° to -3° would not have saved them. Full forward stick, full nose down trim (stuck at 13° NU) and perhaps a boot of rudder to drop the nose may have saved them.



..and that was where the psychological barrier came in, it would have to be an extremely ballsy PIC to pitch forward enough to recover from such a deep stall!

[ejectx3]

Thank you capt blogs with 17 years of jet flying I do indeed understand power + attitude and when it does and doesn't apply.

[404 Titan]

Capn Bloggs & ejectx3

I think you both need to re-read what I wrote, in particular:

Once stalled, (not a deep stall) stall recovery requires:

TOGA or Reduced thrust if pitch authority compromised by TOGA + about -2 to -3° pitch = ↑ IAS.

You and ejectx3 have completely missed the point I and others having been trying to make. At the onset of the ADR failures if the pilots had simply maintained their current attitude & power they would be alive today. Power + Attitude = Performance would have saved them but having botched that very basic part of airmanship, they then botched the stall recovery, and yes airbus’s can stall in alternate and direct flight control laws and like most aircraft have a standard stall recovery but no they continued to pull back on the stick, WTFF we will never know and ended up in a deep stall. From this point it was all over rover.

[Capn Bloggs]

AF447 was not in a deep stall. A deep stall is a characteristic of certain T tail designs which cannot be recovered from. It was sitting there, fat dumb and happy, with full back trim and not much counter elevator, waiting for someone to do something.

Actually, 404 titan, your stall recovery needs work: you should keep putting the nose down until you become unstalled, at least in the latest iteration of how to do it from Airbus (http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/10483604/2002517561/name/Updated%20Stall%20Procedure.pdf). If you're at high altitude and well-stalled, that may be well down. It is highly likely that -2° to -3° isn't going to cut it, particularly if the underslung power is high.

By discussing the recovery from the stall, I have not "completely missed the point". Anybody can see that if the PF had simply held cruise pitch and reasonable power when the AP disconnected he wouldn't have pitched up. The fact that he didn't and got into a stall is the issue.

I put the word unstallable in quotes for a reason. :cool:

they then botched the stall recovery
Come on! Have you read the report and what they were facing? Audio warnings coming and going, Flight Director bars going on and off/ commanding nose up and this little gem "Specifically, the approach to stall on a classic aeroplane is always associated with a more or less pronounced nose-up input. This is not the case on the A330 in alternate law. The specific consequence is that in this control law the aeroplane, placed in a configuration where the thrust is not sufficient to maintain speed on the flight path, would end up by stalling without any inputs on the sidestick."

Airmanship? There's no such thing. Training and experience equips pilots with the tools they need to cope with these situations. These guys were lacking in either or both, a situation that hopefully will now be addressed.

[ejectx3]

All I'm saying is power + attitude will give a certain performance if you are unnstalled. If you are stalled it will not. First you must recover from the stall , then apply the above . So power + attitude will not always equal performance . A quite obvious and simple statement I thought.

[john_tullamarine]

A deep stall is a characteristic of certain T tail designs which cannot be recovered from

You have the story with the commonly held misconception regarding T-tails. While the phenomenon has had more publicity in respect of some T-tail configuration aircraft, that is not the concern. Rather, the problem is that the aircraft (T-tail or whatever) gets into an angle of attack situation where the pitching moment characteristic (graph) changes and forward stick doesn't cause a nose down result. It may be necessary to adopt Type-specific inputs to break the stable situation. Indeed, it may not be possible to effect a satisfactory result with, inevitably, unsatisfactory subsequent results ...

I think that most of us would consider AF447's to have been in a fairly stable stalled situation (and, if forward stick were not able to force a nose down pitching motion .. a deep stall scenario) .. the aeroplane was quite happy to continue sitting just where it was, thank you very much.

Just a dreadfully tragic pity that none of the crew appeared to recognise the situation and, on a basis that "if one keeps doing what one was doing then one is likely to get the same result", .. try something different.

I suspect that the commander, some time after returning to the cockpit, probably realised what was what .. but had insufficient time left to him to do anything about it before being overtaken by events outside his control ..

you should keep putting the nose down until you become unstalled

Following on from the previous comment .. caveat - at excessive angle of attack the pitching moment characteristic can change undesirably and to the point where forward stick doesn't work as one might desire. If one finds oneself in the relevant angle of attack range things can get a little difficult.



Worth a read of some of the posts by Gums in the Tech Log threads where he describes this phenomenon in the early F16s. See, for instance, this post (http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/449639-af-447-search-resume-part2-39.html#post6432295).

Reading Phil Oestricher's comments, one divines an uncanny similarity to AF447's situation, albeit that the F16 was heading down at around twice the ROD .. with the pilot having a nice option to deploy the anti-spin chute to force an alteration to the pitching moment characteristic.

A post (http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/449639-af-447-search-resume-part2-39.html#post6432358) by Machinbird, shortly after, adds further description.


Although I can't recall to attribute the reference, somewhere along the marathon threads in Tech Log a poster cited the following report (http://home.comcast.net/~shademaker/pdf/Ostowari&Naik_PostStall44XX.pdf) which gives a bunch of information on post stall behaviour of interest to another Industry.

[404 Titan]

Capn Bloggs

I have actually read the report and I can understand the overwhelming situation the crew were in with conflicting stall warnings, intermitant positive speed trend arrows, master cautions etc but a properly trained and functioning crew should have been able to handle the abnormal situation. I have deliberately used the term “Deep Stall” to emphasise the difficulty in recovering from a stall in a jet that would’ve had 5T of fuel in the stab tank and a very aft CofG. Having looked at this very scenario in the sim twice now, I can assure you relaxing back pressure on the stick and maintaining about -2 to -3° (max about -5°) pitch will reduce the AoA sufficiently to unstall the wing if performed without delay. Leaving the recovery too long though required full forward stick and full forward trim resulting in a pitch attitude in excess of -20 to -30° and a height loss that if in real life would most likely result in the loss of the aircraft.

Regarding Airbus’s generic recovery which isn’t in the A330 QRH it states:


Stall Recovery When Aircraft is stalled

FIRST: AoA MUST BE REDUCED

Release back pressure on stick or column
Nose down pitch input may be needed


Note: Increasing thrust has an adverse effect on AoA reduction for Aircraft with engines below aircraft CG

SECOND: If speed needs to be recovered.

When stall indications cease, increase thrust with care due to possible pitch
up effect

A330 QRH procedure:

STALL RECOVERY
• Nose Down Pitch Control → Apply

Note: In case of lack of pitch down authority, reducing thrust may be necessary.

• Bank → Wings Level
When out of the stall (No longer stall indications):
• Thrust → Increase smoothly as needed

[Arnold E]

One thing that does seem to me to be a little odd about this and some other accidents caused by the same control inputs is this, when I first learned to fly in a Tommatohawk, I practiced stall recovery which was the very standard way, even with a "tee" tail, the other thing that seems odd to me is, if you had tried something for several minutes (not sure how long the accident sequence took, but some length of time) that didnt work, it would appear to me that trying something else would seem appropriate. The training of the PF would be an interesting thing to look at, did he, infact, do things like recover from a stall in the likes of a Tommatohawk during his training??

[Gnadenburg]

you should keep putting the nose down until you become unstalled

Following on from the previous comment .. caveat - at excessive angle of attack the pitching moment characteristic can change undesirably and to the point where forward stick doesn't work as one might desire. If one finds oneself in the relevant angle of attack range things can get a little difficult.


Granted, simulator fidelity is put into question by Airbus. I recently did a recurrent simulator session where there was an unreliable airspeed exercise. For training, the F/O cadet flew the exercise. In the time that I went to get the QRH from a side bin, the aircraft went from 10 degrees pitch to 35 degrees pitch and 80kts. Full back stick is my guess when he saw the aircraft accelerating through 400kts.

There was no nose authority and idle thrust was required at 35 degrees to bring the nose down. This worked fine. As the aircraft unstalled and pitch healthier, power was increased and standard recovery initiated. The last option being rolling the wings to 70 degrees with idle thrust. I did this training 15 years ago in Ansett and have not seen it since.

[grip pipe]

Yep bloggs aware of the principles of pitot tube heat. So back to the original question, we all can see from the report that improper recognition of stall led to control inputs that ensured the aircraft remained stalled and then began to autorotate. Thus I return to the original question not discussed in the report, how come you can go from M.082 to stall speed and not notice? the sensor and ADR computer readouts and EFIS display conditions, noted and notwithstanding? There were no significant total deviations in altitude even at high pitch (about 2000 ft) max, at norm cz the aircraft would bunt and give you quite an altitude gain, pretty hard to induce a high speed stall in a climb, so speed is the key and how come they got so slow?

[john_tullamarine]

the aircraft went from 10 degrees pitch to 35 degrees pitch and 80kts

Doesn't anyone get trained to look at the ball these days ? What would prompt any airline pilot to allow the ball to get to 35 degrees ?

There was no nose authority and idle thrust was required at 35 degrees to bring the nose down

In addition to the generally understood tale about low slung engines with the thrust line providing a nose up pitching moment, there is another force of note at play in this situation.

A very powerful destabilising force at low speed, high nose attitude, and high thrust/power is associated with the airflow turning into the engine nacelle (or the propeller in a turboprop installation). This results in a strong vertical force which is trying to pitch the aircraft nose up (especially in piston to turboprop conversions where the prop is located well out ahead of the CG for static mass balance considerations).

Hence two problems conspiring to need a reduction in thrust to reduce the destabilising pitching moment and allow the pilot to get the nose down.

[grip pipe]

Perhaps I should recast the proposition?

I find the report notably lacking in discussion on the issue of probe failure(s) and the ADR failures nor is there any real review or discussion concerning stall speeds at that configuration and oat and pressure. The FD was also doing some weird stuff and so were the crew trying to follow it. What do we know about the lift characteristics of the A330 wing with ice or in precipitation or how ice accretes on the airframe? If you can ice up a Mirage in all the wrong places in TS tops then you can ice up an A330.

Or is this another case of 'sudden upset' syndrome identified by Boeing and evidenced from a number of 737 accidents, where unusual attitude indications are met by disproportionate responses and hence loss of control.

Sadly it goes to show the wisdom of that often forgotten saying from wise old aviators about mother nature getting you by the scruff of the neck on a dark night so you had better know your sh1t.

[Gnadenburg]

the aircraft went from 10 degrees pitch to 35 degrees pitch and 80kts

Doesn't anyone get trained to look at the ball these days ? What would prompt any airline pilot to allow the ball to get to 35 degrees ?

I don't know. Personally, I think the amount of continuation and recurrent training required for cadet airline pilots, is significantly greater then what airlines are willing to invest. And from what I've read about the MPL, it doesn't address this inherent problem either. Which is basically, no experience.

Some of it could be generational. There's no interest in aviation with many. How could somebody who flies Airbus come to a simulator session where there is an unreliable airspeed component, and pretty much do what has been the hot topic for some time? That is, AF pancaking into the sea in an unreliable airspeed scenario.

[27/09]

Gnadenburg
Personally, I think the amount of continuation and recurrent training required for cadet airline pilots, is significantly greater then what airlines are willing to invest. And from what I've read about the MPL, it doesn't address this inherent problem either. Which is basically, no experience.

I wonder sometimes that MS Flight Sim is one of our biggest enemies. Every Tom Dick and Harry has had it on their computer and within a few hours is able to do all sorts of "wonderful" things from the comfort of their nice stable armchair in the warm lounge at home, safely out of harms way of any CB's etc.

This flying lark no longer holds any mystery, hell any old fool can do it, just look at those that are so "proficient" on MS Flight Sim. There's no need for experience on the flight deck any more and a MPL is really plenty of preparation for the big bad world of airline flying. The CEO's 12 year old has proved this as he/she has got this flying game sorted just through the use of Flight Sim.

[Lookleft]

Had discussion with a cadet about his response to an UA situation when we were sitting at 35000'. The answer "TOGA 15degrees" sums it all up. We are not training pilots but cockpit monitors. It's the way the airlines like it as they can justify the reduction in pay. The tombstone imperative is still the only way safety is improved despite all the SMS buzzwords.

[Sarcs]

Ben makes some rather astute observations of the final report, see here:

AF447 what-was-really-going-on in the cockpit? | Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2012/07/11/af447-what-was-really-going-on-in-the-cockpit/)


The detailed discussion of the two pilots confused state, and their missed opportunities to respond, is full of such gotchas. One of them is that if it had been unanimously recognised that the airliner was stalled and the nose high attitude had to be brought to nose down, they would for a critical period, have needed to take the counter intuitive action of reducing thrust, because at that point, the centre of gravity of the jet was such that there was a natural pitch up effect under full throttle, and training to escape from a low altitude stall warning involved full throttle and a nose high attitude, which would have compounded, indeed did compound, the desperate situation AF447 had been placed in.


Question: So have the "Gotchas" been addressed since or are they still there but Airline flight ops departments are encompassing them in their SOPs and Training? Because if what Lookleft makes comment on is right it hasn't been filtered down to the newbies yet!