AF447 wreckage found [Archive] - Page 2

fran35780

17th May 2011, 09:32

Triste Exemple de Désinformation :

Le Figaro - France : AF 447 : la piste d'une erreur de l'quipage Air France (http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2011/05/17/01016-20110517ARTFIG00426-af-447-la-piste-d-une-erreur-de-l-equipage-air-france.php)

AF 447 : la piste d'une erreur de l'équipage se confirme
Mots clés : af447, af 447, air france, RIO-paris
Par Fabrice Amedeo

INFO LE FIGARO - Airbus a envoyé mardi matin un télex d'information à l'ensemble des compagnies aériennes de la planète pour leur annoncer que l'analyse des boîtes noires confirmait la fiabilité de l'A330.

Les informations s'échappent au compte goutte du Bureau d'enquêtes et d'analyse (BEA) au Bourget. Dès hier soir, Le Figaro annonçait que les premiers éléments analysés sur les boîtes noires semblaient mettre Airbus hors de cause dans la tragédie qui a couté la vie à 228 personnes le 1er juin 2009. Mardi matin, le scénario semble se confirmer puisqu'Airbus vient d'envoyer un «Accident Information Telex» dont Le Figaro s'est procuré une copie, à l'ensemble de ses clients dans le monde. Le constructeur y indique par la voix de Yannick Malinge, le patron de la sécurité, «qu'à ce stade des analyses préliminaires du Data Flight Recorder (l'enregistreur des paramètres de vol, NDLR), Airbus n'a aucune recommandation immédiate à faire à ses opérateurs. Des mises à jour seront fournies dès que des éléments significatifs seront disponibles ou qu'Airbus sera autorisé à délivrer davantage d'informations en accord avec l'enquête».
Traduction : rien dans les premières analyses des boîtes noires ne donne de raison à Airbus d'alerter ses clients sur une quelconque faille technique de l'A330 ou sur un quelconque changement de procédure. «Airbus a dû être sollicité ce week-end par les enquêteurs du BEA sur certains paramètres de vols et détails techniques découverts dans le DFDR, explique au Figaro un expert en sécurité aérienne. Le haut management d'Airbus doit maintenant avoir une idée assez claire de ce qui s'est passé».
Mardi matin, le constructeur ne faisait aucun commentaire, tout comme Air France qui «attend des éléments fondés et fiables du BEA», selon son porte parole. «Nous devrions en savoir un peu plus dans la journée, explique au Figaro une source gouvernementale. Nous n'avons pas encore eu d'information sur les données du Cockpit Voice Recorder (le CVR qui enregistre les conversations dans le poste de pilotage). Elles devraient être capitales, notamment pour comprendre ce qu'a fait l'équipage».

En effet , DESINFORMATION , car , ce même jour 17 05 2011

PARIS (Reuters) 17 mai 2011 10h30

<<- Aucune conclusion ne peut être tirée à ce stade de l'enquête sur les causes de l'accident du vol AF447 Rio-Paris, qui a coûté la vie à 228 personnes au-dessus de l'Atlantique en juin 2009, déclare mardi le Bureau d'enquêtes et d'analyses (BEA).>>

costamaia

17th May 2011, 09:54

communiqué de presse 17 mai 2011 (http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight.af.447/pressrelease17may2011.fr.php)

English translation for the non-francophones:

"According to an article published in Le Figaro in the evening of May 16th, 2011, the “preliminary data extracted from the black boxes”, would clear Airbus from the accident of the A330, flight AF 447,that killed 216 passengers and 12 crew on June 1st, 2009.
Sacrifice to sensationalism, by publishing non-validated information, while data extraction from the recorders is just beginning, is an attempt to the respect towards the deceased passengers and crew and throws confusion among the victim’s families, already affected by the effects of the announcement.
The BEA reminds that, as the safety inquiry authority, it is the only one that may release any informations regarding advancements in the inquiry. Accordingly, any information released by any other source is null, if non validated by the BEA.
The collection of the complete set of voice and flight data, allows us the near certainty that all light will be shed on this accident.
The enquirers must now analyse and validate multiple informations. This is a long and painstaking work and the BEA has already announced that no interim report will be published before summer.
At this stage of the inquiry, no conclusion can be assumed."

Me Myself

17th May 2011, 11:31

How do you think Amadeo got this piece of info ? It was a done deal from the start that this informations would be leaked from the BEA.
Does anyone think Airbus would take the risk of sending a worldwide bulletin without some very hard substantiated facts.
The BEA can back pedal all it likes, this was intended Airbus only and it turns out they couldn't wait to clean their name.
Not intended cock up.......but cock up all the same.
All this is going to be very ugly.

JCviggen

17th May 2011, 12:06

How do you think Amadeo got this peace of infoThe question is, did he really? It's hardly confirmed, and his background suggests this gets taken with a couple of grains of salt at this point.

I don't think there is any genuine concern over the A330 anyway, statistically it's a very safe aircraft and there is no need for anyone to confirm its airworthiness at this point.

Heathrow Harry

17th May 2011, 12:51

people in Seattle are busting a gut to "prove" otherwise

Graybeard

17th May 2011, 13:14

Kids in cockpit.

One of the pilots had his family in J class.

Mexicana 940, 31 Mar 1986. Wiki has some info.

727 arrived MEX with dragging brake. Departing Capt boarded his family, headed for Disneyland.

This part I heard from people close to the event.
Rather than take a delay for brake or plane change the Capt, with a kid in his lap, used reversers to help the tug push the plane back from the gate.

MEX is at 7350 feet Elev. A full Mexicana 727 would typically rotate when abeam the red runway lights at the 12,000 foot mark of the 13,000 foot runway. Takeoff roll was on the order of 70 seconds. Initial climb was about 500 fpm until gear and TO flaps retracted.

NTSB reported that vaporizing/melting chemicals from the overheated tire combined with oxygen in the compressed air in the tire, and exploded.

Adding to the irony, it was reported that the Captain's wife, in a jumpseat, was a former Mexicana FA whose last prior flight was nearly destroyed by a bomb years before.

flyawaybird

17th May 2011, 13:37

KAG

While you are entitled to your own opinion(s), as the case may be, that was rude of you to refer to all ladies when you said, "this forum turns pilot to old/uneducated ladies"? Execuse me I was brought up by an uneducated maternal grandmother who was civilized, hard working and compassionate. All my early mannerism as a child, I learnt from this blessed lady. Please do have a little respect for ladies especially the most uneducated considering that they did not have a say or choice in education matters and were only considered as best in the kitchen. Ofcourse these days, things are different. Everyone has learnt learnt to fight for their equal rights though not back in the day.
A lot of them have brought up pretty much cilivilized and educated men through struggles.

Be a little sensitive.

Thank you. Good day!

AlphaZuluRomeo

17th May 2011, 13:58

@ costamaia
The BEA now has published its "official" english version.
Press release on 17 May 2011 (http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight.af.447/pressrelease17may2011.en.php)

You were pretty close :)

subsonicsubic

17th May 2011, 14:02

I wouldn't expect anything less. Imagine the interpretation of a French investigation team, regarding a French crewed aircraft, operated by a French carrier.

The aircrew are unable to defend themselves. The A330 is in line operation around the globe and cannot be faulted. Air France are THE national carrier and as a result, cannot be implicated.

I am aware I am stating the blatently obvious and this sentiment has been shared before...

The outcome has already been predetermined.

Its how the aviation community deal with the inevitable outcome that is of importance.

This is the essence of Pprune and similar forums.

Shorrick Mk2

17th May 2011, 14:26

Imagine the interpretation of a French investigation team

This was done in the presence of two German investigators from BFU, an American investigator from NTSB, two British investigators from AAIB and two Brazilian investigators from CENIPA, as well as an officer from the French judicial police and a court expert.

All these guys received French passports over the weekend?

SKS777FLYER

17th May 2011, 14:37

Locked Door :Don't forget there's a recall drill for unreliable airspeed, and it doesn't call for heroics from the pilots. If all else fails 90% N1 and 2.5 degrees nose up in the cruise will keep you safe in almost any heavy jet.

Basic stuff.

Yes, basic "stuff"........ provided there are presentations of attitude by flight instruments on that off chance of a pitch black night perhaps in cloud where a horizon is not remotely visible.... provided there is a stable platform to fly

So far we only have guesses and educated guesses to what those Air France aviators faced those fateful last minutes.

SKS777FLYER

17th May 2011, 14:47

Quote:
This was done in the presence of two German investigators from BFU, an American investigator from NTSB, two British investigators from AAIB and two Brazilian investigators from CENIPA, as well as an officer from the French judicial police and a court expert.

Shorrick MK2 asks: "All these guys received French passports over the weekend?"

Probably not, but since the recorders spent what, about two weeks enroute to France, the participating agencies had time to decide who would be present and make required travel arrangements.

DenisG

17th May 2011, 15:02

Just read the BEA statement from today. Simply from the tone and voice, e.g. "from another source is null and void", they seem to be under enormous pressure to gain time.

Based on the assumption that by today at last they went through some of the cockpit conversations, I believe they have a very clear picture of where to look next in combination with ACARS and data recorder.

With Airbus being allegedly quick to issue internal Accident Information Telex, I assume there must have been a very significant hint with regard to the combination of factors.

Lonewolf_50

17th May 2011, 15:41

The Tech Log thread on this topic cleared up something that may be useful for this discussion. (Post by Cythera (http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/449639-af-447-search-resume-part2-81.html#post6456200))

"Yannick Malinge, le patron de la sécurité," => Yannick Malinge, Director of Flight Safety

Apparently, the French term used in aviation for "safety" ("sécurité") is often mis-translated into English as "security" rather than "safety." This means that one of the press releases was referring to a safety issue, not a security issue.

Adding to the confusion is that the common translation from English into French for safety is sûreté (thanks to infrequentflyer for that) from which root I think comes "surety bond" in English financial parlance.

So there you have it. In all innocence, the Internet Tower of Babel generates tsunamis of Babble with a single sécurité pebble dropped into the pond.

dvclama

17th May 2011, 16:12

Ok Guys, I am going to tell you what is the tendance regarding this affair.
Few press leaks from BEA (french NTSB) seems to push away Airbus responsability, obviously so quick that we can see the big lie coming out just like we feared it before..
I guess the decision to set the pilot guilty is quite obviously logical, since the crash occured, long time before they finaly opened the orange boxes..
In one afternoon, they got everything they needed to comfort their political choice..
First because, the crew is dead, and cannot talk anymore
Second because it financialy suits to Aibus, Air France and Insurance companies
Third because BEA is paid and managed by ministery of transportations
so the boxes can say whatever they want finaly to serve the most involved.

sorry I am French, but canot stand that (world money law) hypocrisy.
Shame on them!

stadedelafougere

17th May 2011, 17:19

@dvclama
The fact that Airbus claims it has no responsibility in the crash does not mean that the aircraft had no problem before it crashed.
When an aircraft is designed, there are many mitigating systems that are aimed at helping the crew coping with systems failure, and there appear to have been some failures according to the number of ACARS messages sent.

Now, there has been more failures than the ACARS messages suggest, or their was a mismanagement of the failure messages by the crew.
Indeed, the crew has procedures to follow in case of abnormal situations; these procedures are certified by the authorities suggesting they meet the current safety standards.

The question we have to ask is why couldn't the crew recover from an apparent loss of control? Did they lose situational awareness? Will this lead to new design rules with regards to cockpit design? Could the crew cope with the workload they were faced with?

infrequentflyer789

17th May 2011, 17:33

@dvclama
The fact that Airbus claims it has no responsibility in the crash does not mean that the aircraft had no problem before it crashed.

Airbus has said nothing of the sort. A journalist with possibly his own axe to grind (and book to publicise) against AF has said it.

Airbus has sent out a communication stating that it has no recommendations to issue to operators at this time - that's all. There may be recommendations in future, and there have already been some regarding pitots. The aircraft is not in the clear.

DenisG

17th May 2011, 17:37

There appear to be quite a number of people very unpleasantly surprised by Airbus' quick statement.

French State Secretary Thierry Mariani was quoted by Le Nouvel Observateur this evening, calling Airbus' statement "premature not to say inappropriate".
(my translation, please correct if I am mistaken)

The big question remains, why the management team at Airbus would feel this to be the right step at this early stage, without having consulted the responsible partners and authorities.

Denis

Source:
Le secrétaire d'Etat aux Transports Thierry Mariani est allé jusqu'à juger "prématuré voire déplacé" de tirer des conclusions.
Le Nouvel Observateurhttp://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualite/societe/20110517.OBS3371/rio-paris-airbus-a-t-il-parle-trop-vite.html

Safety Concerns

17th May 2011, 17:40

Will this lead to new design rules with regards to cockpit design? Could the crew cope with the workload they were faced with?

what was wrong with just avoiding the storm like everyone else?

DenisG

17th May 2011, 17:48

Will this lead to new design rules with regards to cockpit design? Could the crew cope with the workload they were faced with?

what was wrong with just avoiding the storm like everyone else?

Come on guys, you are drawing conclusions and axioms four days after BEA started to unravel the data - just like in June 2009. And we know from the many and sad accidents in the past that there are going to be several factors leading to a chain of events.

grumpyoldgeek

17th May 2011, 17:56

Is the transcript of the CVR usually made public in French investigations of this sort?

DenisG

17th May 2011, 18:17

Is the transcript of the CVR usually made public in French investigations of this sort?

Important excerpts will be quoted as in the Toronto accident e.g.

wet vee two

17th May 2011, 18:19

Quick question or two:
Why has it taken so long to resume the search?
Why was it stopped in the first place?
Adam air apparently could not afford to do their search but AF, Airbus,EADS and the whole European Union?Come on.................

I smell rotten cheese.

shortfinals

18th May 2011, 07:07

Wet

The search stopped in the stormy season because it couldn't continue under those conditions.

Still smell cheese?

vee-tail-1

18th May 2011, 11:23

Flying in a storm in the ITCZ, at night, with dodgy speed sensors, and more particularly at a "Coffin Corner" flight level. Seems a pretty clear case of pilot error to me.

milsabords

18th May 2011, 11:48

Quite possibly Airbus may have received a number of questions from A330 operators, and decided, with BEA agreement, to broadcast a "nothing new so far" message, instead of answering each question.

Milt

18th May 2011, 11:55

vee-tail-1

Don't you mean "lack of pilot skill" rather than pilot error?
The automatics in the modern airliner are drastically reducing pilot skills as their hands-on times approach zero. Simulators help but there is no substitute for knowing how the real thing feels when the automatics quit especially near the edges of the handling/performance envelope.

Me Myself

18th May 2011, 12:07

And what the hell were they doing in that weather when everybody was keeping clear of it ?
Who cares how they handled it once in this nasty spot, I most probably would not have done any better.
What interests me is what happened before.......and why.

Safety Concerns

18th May 2011, 12:18

hear, hear:D:D:D:D:D

wiggy

18th May 2011, 12:38

Flying in a storm in the ITCZ, at night, with dodgy speed sensors, and more particularly at a "Coffin Corner" flight level.Seems a pretty clear case of pilot error to me.

Ah well, that's it decided, why bother with the investigation?

Do we as yet know there were in a "storm" (sic.)

Flying at night - hardly pilot error.

Dodgy speed sensors - hardly pilot error.

"Coffin Corner" - What's your definition? Less than 10/20/40 knots between Vs 1.3 and Mmo?

sec 3

18th May 2011, 12:57

vtail, are you a pilot? If you are you can't be a very good one!:} what i do know is that you are a PINHEAD!!

Lonewolf_50

18th May 2011, 13:19

v-tail

I recommend you go back to about June 1 2009, and the posts in the original thread, and the original search thread. Consider how many seasoned pilots who fly transocean routes at similar altitudes offered up some initial insights on what faces such a crew. See also the weather reconstruction info in those threads by a very thorough meteorologist.

Put another way, reductionist summation like yours masks something called "causal factors."

Happy reading.

IcePack

18th May 2011, 14:21

A lot of rubbish being talked on this thread.
Don't forget this an Airbus! If the Prims & Secs get the wrong information the flight controls will become un-useable due to their envelope protection functions. You have to get down to direct law to restore order, which will allow the pilot to set attitude & power. Lets stop saying pilot error till the facts are known.

Gretchenfrage

18th May 2011, 14:47

Damn right IcePack. And to achieve direct law you need to disconnect 2 Prims and one Sec, if I recall correct. This by means of a Bulletin published by AB. Furthermore this has to be done on the overhead panel.
Now just imagine you find yourself in a sudden upset in a complete unusual attitude with erroneous instrument indications. - Good luck in even finding that panel, notwithstanding being able to push the correct pushbuttons in due time...

It might be that the crew should/could have avoided such upset, but once in a such, the aircraft design sure as hell does not help a lot to get out of it.

BOAC

18th May 2011, 15:08

If the Prims & Secs get the wrong information the flight controls will become un-useable due to their envelope protection functions. You have to get down to direct law to restore order, which will allow the pilot to set attitude & power. to achieve direct law you need to disconnect 2 Prims and one Sec, if I recall correct. This by means of a Bulletin published by AB. Furthermore this has to be done on the overhead panel.
Now just imagine you find yourself in a sudden upset in a complete unusual attitude with erroneous instrument indications. - Good luck in even finding that panel, notwithstanding being able to push the correct pushbuttons in due time... - this is quite frightening! Are you guys seriously telling us that there is no quick, easy button press to allow back side-stick to raise the elevator and you have to go groping around on the overhead pushing buttons?

captplaystation

18th May 2011, 15:39

Someone with a non-aviation background recently asked me ,following a short discussion about this accident ,why I wasn't so keen to give up my 737 & fly instead the "wunderplane".
I used the analogy of losing control & skidding towards a huge drop in your car whilst simultaneously being faced with entering a code on your mobile phone to effect a recovery, in preference to merely grabbing the wheel &/or standing on the brakes.
I thought at the time I was perhaps being slightly facetious/tongue -in-cheek.

Maybe I wasn't ?:eek:

tubby linton

18th May 2011, 15:55

Alternate law has a low speed and a high speed stability (1.27.30 2/3)both of which can be overridden by a pilot.
At low speed a nose down demand referenced to IAS is introduced and the law changes to direct(stick to surface).High speed stability introduces a nose up demand but pitch protection is lost.
To answer BOACs question the answer is there is no button to force a law change.

exeng

18th May 2011, 16:03

[QUOTE][- this is quite frightening! Are you guys seriously telling us that there is no quick, easy button press to allow back side-stick to raise the elevator and you have to go groping around on the overhead pushing buttons? /QUOTE]

My short time on the A320 would seem to suggest this is the case. You would be trying to 'boot' your bus into the equivilant of windows 'safe mode' whilst in a jet upset with numerous hooters and wailers sounding, visual warnings trying to grab your attention and numerous checklists appearing on the ECAM (the bus equivilent of EICAS) only to be rplaced by further checklists.

Good init!

Hope you are well BOAC

Regards
Exeng

Lonewolf_50

18th May 2011, 16:05

tubby, in an attempt to understand what you posted:
At low speed a nose down demand referenced to IAS is introduced and the law changes to direct(stick to surface).
If you put enough force into your desired input (I want the nose down! or up!) with the side stick, using your hand, you will override computer selected/directed inputs ...
High speed stability introduces a nose up demand but pitch protection is lost.

or will you disconnect it? :confused:

As I understand your post, override various law levels is what you can do. Risk is that protections you are used to having will be lost in some law states.

This gives me a mental image of the pilot in a continuing contest with the robot over control surface positions ... until something happens and pilot restores normal law? :confused:

Do I read you correctly?

BOAC

18th May 2011, 16:06

Good init! - gulp! I think I need some time to think about that................:mad:

(You too, Sir).

Chronic Snoozer

18th May 2011, 16:17

Any t_wat can come on this website and speculate, especially before any of the authorities have had a chance to investigate, analyse and report their findings. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone could keep their powder dry until then.

Safety Concerns

18th May 2011, 16:27

A recap of the facts may be appropriate:

What we know,

There were powerful cumulonimbus clusters on the route of AF447. Some
of them could have been the centre of some notable turbulence.

Several airplanes that were flying before and after AF 447, at about the
same altitude, altered their routes in order to avoid cloud masses

Twenty-four automatic maintenance messages were received between
2 h 10 and 2 h 15 via the ACARS system. These messages show an
inconsistency in the measured speeds as well as the associated
consequences.

Twenty-one messages present on the CFR are caused or can be caused by
anemometric problems;

The probes that equipped F-GZCP met requirements that were stricter than
the certification standards

The operator’s and the manufacturer’s procedures mention actions to be
undertaken by the crew when they have doubts as to the accuracy of the
speed indications,

The oxygen masks had not been released; there had been no in-flight
depressurisation,

All of the life jackets that were found were still in their containers,

The airplane’s flaps were retracted at the time of the impact with the water

Three of the eleven cabin crew seats were found; they were not in use at the
time of the impact,

Examination of all of the debris confirmed that the airplane struck the surface
of the water pitch-up, with a slight bank and at a high vertical speed,

I fail to see any relevance to never ending inaccurate irrelevant discussions relating to fbw technology.

Important here is to to find out why AF447 chose not to alter their route.

Graybeard

18th May 2011, 16:35

When was the last time an airliner at cruise was brought down by a thunderstorm?

GB

JCviggen

18th May 2011, 17:27

Apparently a great opportunity was missed, if wet vee two had been tasked with the search operation it'd been found a long time ago!

The stormy season stopped long ago and is about to start again.

The search windows are always going to be limited in that area, and it takes a good deal of time to get everything planned and set up. If they did not want to find the wreck, it seems illogical to do 4 searches and employ the best in the business while you're at it.

Could not find it. Doesn't radio theory have something to do with signals,when multiplied by something and divided by something equals time/distance?

No idea what you're on about, but I think its safe to say that no it's not that simple.

Press release exonerating Airbus?

Hasn't happened (yet) the only thing Airbus has sent out is that the data from the recorders has been downloaded and is being worked on, and that at this point in time they do not have anything (yet) that needs to be addressed plane wise.

Do corporations have a history of telling the truth?

Sure, when it suits them.

logic suggests otherwise

I think your definition of logic may differ slightly from the norm...

Lonewolf_50

18th May 2011, 18:22

Clearly you are in the know so do enlighten us since you are up there with knowledge apart from radio theory clearly.
What is it about radio (radar?) theory that you think is germane in the search case? A lot of the search efforts were conducted using sonar.
I fail to see how a budget airline can postpone ops because they can't afford it, but governments on the other can't just fails me?

What is this referring to? You have me confused. Is this remark related to the search, the crash, or your distrust of governments? (Distrust of government is part of what founded the style of government in my country ... funny little irony there, I think. :cool:

My opinion as I am entitled to it aren't I?Good, now go chase parked cars so that others can have their say no matter how ridiculous in your opinion!
OK, you got that off your chest, but I am curious, given the cryptic style of what you wrote (I'd guess English not your first language, and you are giving it your best shot)

Is your concern:

How to search for a crashed airplane in the open ocean
Air France
Flying
French Government
Airbus
Something else?

Lonewolf_50

18th May 2011, 19:12

Still confused. Indonesian (and Singaporese and American) governments contributed considerable time and effort to that search. Black boxes were found, and much else. (EDIT: Ah, I see where there was a dispute over who pays for finding the black bos. Got it. Adam air eventually paid ...) (Wikipedia says Indonesian government spent something like 100,000 per day on the search for some time ... not sure how accurate that is).

What is your beef with Air France, AirBus, and French government regarding AF447?

Perhaps the Adam Air tragedy ought not to creep into this thread, it has two serious threads covering it on these forums.

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/258144-adam-air-lost-contact.html?highlight=Adam+Air+Flight+574

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/319588-adamair-737-accident-report-published.html?highlight=Adam+Air+Flight+574

JCviggen

18th May 2011, 19:18

Clearly you are in the know so do enlighten us since you are up there with knowledge apart from radio theory clearly.Hint whilst you are watching cows dump.....Something transmits until it disappears, apply basic maths and bingo...a rough estimate.I'm confused, I thought you were the expert there claiming that it would have been easy to find the plane by "radio" waves? Which basic maths would one apply to find from which location a plane sent something to a satellite? You can't triangulate it because there are no multiple satellites in play here. And even if you could, the accuracy would be not much better than what was already known as the maximum distance the plane could have strayed from LKP. The rough estimate was there all along without black magic.
There was no radio contact otherwise so I'm not sure where the easy part comes in.
It seems to me that you have formed your own conclusions and then shaped "theories" to fit it but without adhering to actual scientific principles.

cribbagepeg

18th May 2011, 20:05

If I recall correctly, when the search was abandoned, it was to take advantage of superior underwater technology that would become available. Commissioning same would not be instantaneous, and given that availability, it apparently seemed prudent to release some of the equipment being used to tasks and users who had been pre-empted for the search.

From the look of it, two things happened: First, additional analysis of sonar records (with more sophisticated signal processing), on land, revealed a very likely place to begin the new search, and secondly, the enhanced subs were able to complete their
mission efficiently.

But I guess that some didn't really read the whole record.

Phil Space

18th May 2011, 20:39

To get back to the basics the aircraft flew through a thunderstorm.
The captain was resting and the junior crew could not cope when things went wrong.

Hence the result.

What else needs to be said?

SaturnV

18th May 2011, 21:05

cribbagepeg, near the end of phase 3, some of the assets being used had to hurry off because there was an oil well in the Gulf of Mexico spewing great amounts of oil.

For phase 4, the current search, the BEA relied in large part on analysis by a company outside of Washington DC, named Metron. Woods Hole which did the actual search used three remote-controlled submersibles. In the BEA's view, Woods Hole was chosen because they are the best in the world at this sort of deep ocean reconnaissance.

http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.af.447/metron.search.analysis.pdf

For phase 3, the principal reliance was on the analyses of the so-called drift group.

http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight.af.447/phase3.search.zone.determination.working.group.report.pdf

Neither new sonar analysis or the availability of new submersible technology had anything to do with phase 4.

The_Steed

18th May 2011, 22:49

Conspiracy theories? Really? (I've got my tinfoil hat on so I'm OK)

Try to find a green matchstick in a 100m2 area of grass and see how long it takes you.

'nuff said.

B-757

19th May 2011, 07:26

YouTube - ‪AirTran Flight 426 - crushing hail, shattered windows, no instruments‬&rlm; (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxaK837lebk)

This might also explain the loss of airspeed-indications...

MagnusP

19th May 2011, 07:36

The conspiracy theorists may wish to ponder on why companies would announce the recovery of the FDR and CVR then lie about the contents, rather than just saying "We couldn't find them". :confused:

tubby linton

19th May 2011, 08:48

Lonewolf,you are overriding stabilities unlike the protections of normal law.A diagram of failures and how they affect the law you end up in appears in fcom 1.27.30 p1
They do not disconnect.Having looked at the diagram these stabilities are lost with the loss of multiple ADR

IFixPlanes

19th May 2011, 09:50

...The probes that equipped F-GZCP met requirements that were stricter than the certification standards ...
But not the pitot probes that Airbus recommend.

DenisG

19th May 2011, 12:09

News

AF447 successfully avoided the storm according to FDR, source close to the investigation tells AFP
Final report to be expected by the end of June 2011 according to French Transport State Secretary

Successful storm avoidance by AF447
According to a source close to the investigation, France2.fr reports that the pilots of AF447 have successfully avoided the storm in front of them. (originally reported by AFP and Europ 1)

Original from France2.fr
Parmi les dernières informations recueillies, on a appris mercredi que selon l'examen en cours des boîtes noires, les pilotes avaient évité les zones de turbulences, a déclaré jeudi à l'AFP une source proche du dossier. "L'équipage a réussi à contourner le nuage (de turbulences, ndlr) selon des éléments fournis par les boîtes noires", a déclaré à l'AFP une source proche du dossier sous le couvert de l'anonymat, confirmant une information d'Europe 1.

Source:
Rio-Paris: les causes du crash connues ”fin juin” - Accident - vol AF447 - Actualités internationales - FRANCE 2 : toute les informations internationales en direct - France 2 (http://info.france2.fr/monde/les-causes-du-crash-connues-fin-juin-68608983.html)

Roadmap to final accident report: End of June
French Transport State Secretary Thierry Mariani said this morning on France Info that the final results of AF447's accident will be known and published by the end of June.

Comment:
There were two storms in AF447's flight path (a small one at SALPU and a large front at ORARO) and we do not know which one this might have been as there has been a.o. speculation that the smaller storm in the South may have blocked the radar detection of the much larger storm front to the North.

DenisG

19th May 2011, 12:35

News

Air France to adapt FAR (Flight Assistance Re-Engineering) to a.o. improve flight monitoring on the ground

BusinessTravel.fr today reported that Pierre Henri Gourgeon, General Director Air France-KLM, announced that Air France will become the second airline in Europe to adopt the FAR program originally designed by KLM and Northwest. In consequence, Air France will reorganize its procedures and processes and will have a person on the ground responsible to monitor and follow all flights.

Source:
Sécurité Aérienne: Air France va adopter le modèle FAR de KLM (http://www.businesstravel.fr/201105198989/newsflashes/newsflash/securite-aerienne-air-france-va-adopter-le-modele-far-de-klm.html)

DenisG

19th May 2011, 13:11

Sorry, trying to upload the meteo analysis graphic from June 2009...

I don't find this 'managing attachments' box... Is it gone?

Jazz Hands

19th May 2011, 13:36

I can see how a budget airline can postpone SAR ops because they can't afford it, but governments on the other can't just fails me?

My understanding is that the searches were suspended because the underwater equipment - which is pretty specialised kit - was in demand by other users for other projects, and had been previously reserved.

subsonicsubic

19th May 2011, 15:01

When was the last time an airliner was brought down by thunderstorms in the cruise?

When would you fly an airliner into a thunderstorm?

Lonewolf_50

19th May 2011, 15:38

Thank you, tubby. :ok:

In re recent report and Tstorm avoidance.

Which one? :confused:

SKS777FLYER

19th May 2011, 16:15

Graybeard posts : When was the last time an airliner at cruise was brought down by a thunderstorm?

I don't remember exactly, but Tstorms have brought airliners down in the past, easy to google I suppose. In my heqad I most usually associate fatal aviation thunderstorm encounters by crews flying directly into them by flying into a radar shadow.
I inadvertently flew an F4 Phantom into a small thunderstorm decades ago near Iwakuni Japan. I don't believe Japan is known for powerful convective storms in the spring time, but that fairly small storm took 2 formation flying F4's (I was the wingman) and spit both of them out inverted and flying near opposite directions in maybe 10-15 seconds. It was the most violent and briefly out of controlflight I have ever experienced. The g-meter pegged at 6 g's and I think about minus 1.5 g's. Would not prefer to be in ANY airliner for that.

herbertff

19th May 2011, 19:24

I am no Pilot!
Concerning the AF 447 accident and any other airliner accident I have one deep sorrow:
If a technical malfunction or bad design raises any risk during the flight of an airliner, accident investigations will point to it.
If a pilot error leads to an accident the investigations will dedect it.
But what will happe if the risk of an accident just was raised because of some (implicit) strategic decission like: do not divert too erly! Go as straight as possible!

I think it will be very very difficult to find out, whether the choosen route was too risky or extremly risky.

I am not a frequent flyer but I am flying once a month because of my profession and I feel much more at ease in the plane than in the taxi going to the airport. And I am sure, that technically week parts and human bad habits of pilots, if such things exist, will be found out - sooner or later - . But I wonder if a bad trend in saving flight costs can be found out!

ST27

19th May 2011, 20:23

When was the last time an airliner at cruise was brought down by a thunderstorm?

2006 was the last one I remember. It was an TU-154M, on route to St. Petersburg, and cruising at 35,000 feet. The pilot diverted from his direct flight path by 20 miles to avoid a thundercell, but inadvertantly flew into a more violent storm, and the aircraft stalled and was lost. The nose rose to about 45 degrees, and IAS dropped to zero at the point of the stall.

Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 612 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulkovo_Aviation_Enterprise_Flight_612)

Radar attenuation was identified as a contributing cause.

Khashoggi

19th May 2011, 21:55

Pulkovo 612 tried to intentionally exceed their service ceiling to go over weather. Stall-spin to the ground.

ST27

19th May 2011, 22:05

I don't remember exactly, but Tstorms have brought airliners down in the past, easy to google I suppose. In my heqad I most usually associate fatal aviation thunderstorm encounters by crews flying directly into them by flying into a radar shadow.There is also the issue of the "contour hole", where very heavy precip in a cell can result in no radar return, giving the false impression of a hole in the storm. (I'm assuming by shadow you mean that an even worse storm is obscured by a more moderate storm in the direct path of the radar, and the crew don't realize they were in trouble until it's too late.)

Recall the Southern Airways DC-9, which was lost when flying in bad weather over Georgia, in 1977. The aircraft CVR recorded the captain as saying "Looks heavy - nothing's going through that", but only a few minutes later, they flew into the most intense part of the storm.

The only explanation the NTSB came up with was that since the aircraft was already flying through heavy precipitation, the captain misinterpreted a contour hole on their x-band radar as being an area free of precipitation, and headed for it. The captain's comment that things were "all clear left" seems to confirm that explanation. The aircraft altered course to the left at that point, right into the worst part of the storm.

ST27

19th May 2011, 22:44

Pulkovo 612 tried to intentionally exceed their service ceiling to go over weather. Stall-spin to the ground. Yes, that certainly was a major contributor, however, encountering the 16,000 fpm updraft in the thunderstorm is what got them in the end. They were flying too close to the edge, otherwise, they might have gotten away with it.

In any event, it was a loss in a severe thunderstorm, which is what the OP was asking for.

bubbers44

19th May 2011, 23:06

ST27, thanks, I was trying to look up that Southern DC9 crash and couldn't remember the year or airline. I was just east of Cancun one day in a B727 in the clouds deviating for wx, FO flying, I was flying to Honduras and left the frequency to make a PA. Two minutes later I to came back to flying duties and was surprised to see nothing on the radar and the FO was going back on course. About a minute later we had moderate to higher turbulence when he flew over the cell. He had turned the tilt control to level attitude so wasn't painting the cell any more. Now days you would think every pilot knows how to properly operate the onboard radar. Maybe I am wrong.

MPH

19th May 2011, 23:12

Eastern Airlines B727 NYC microburst. 1975
TWA 514 B727 turbulent weather (storm) 1974

RAD_ALT_ALIVE

20th May 2011, 00:06

Both of the crashes mentioned by MPH were approach crashes - not cruise.
Another thunderstorm-related cruise-phase (of sorts) accident was the Braniff BAC111 accident in Nebraska on August 6, 1966.
The captain had reverted to a widely used piston strategy, and chose to descend to a very low cruise alt (less than A100) in order to mitigate the effects of a severe squall line that was across his route.
A farmer was watching the lightning show, saw the jet fly overhead and into a roll cloud. He heard a loud bang, then saw the aircraft descend rapidly to the ground and explode. Turns out that the horizontal stab broke away from the aircraft due to overload.
There were a few jet crashes attributed to thunderstorm encounters in the 'early' years of their introduction - mainly in the critical take-off/landing phase. Another was a B707 that took off out of Miami and flew into a cell.
But not too many during cruise.

Graybeard

20th May 2011, 00:06

Thanks for all the inputs.

What radar did Pulkovo have in their TU-154?

Southern Airways DC-9 was flying the old x-band magnetron radar, and it sure could lead you into a storm, if attenuation was so great all the energy was absorbed.

The solid state radar since 1982 senses path attenuation, and has a circuit called Path Attenuation Compensation. It can show an alert for display in the direction where attenuation compensation has run out of capability. That's why the BBC/PBS program last year was completely off base. It guessed the pilots didn't see the storm behind the storm. BS.

Delta 191 into DFW 1982 was the old radar and not at cruise alt. Besides, there was no indication on the CVR that they had even looked at the radar.

ST27

20th May 2011, 00:57

Another was a B707 that took off out of Miami and flew into a cell.
Just to be picky, that was NW 705, a B-720, in 1963, in case anybody was looking for it.

TheShadow

20th May 2011, 03:29

The development of a Loss of Control scenario at night in weather with an autopilot disconnect and perplexing/conflicting instrument indications? .... how far is that from an incipient UNRECOVERABLE attitude? The answer is not very far at all. It's measurable in mere seconds, particularly if Mach Crit and/or stall speed intervene to further confuse the issue..... or if the pilot's reaction and initial control response is incorrect (as in: rolling the wrong way).

And that's where the power of surprise and the differing impressions/reactions and actions/disagreement of those seated at the controls comes into play. Once the nose drops, speed increases and the g comes on, the two junior pilots would be quite out of their element and the disorienting dynamics that ensued...totally beyond their experience..... particularly if yaw and or high AoA was to then induce some engine asymmetry to compound the problem. Attitude flying just isn't available "out the window" when in cloud at night, so it's the first priority to "go out the window" (i.e. priority one.... "fly the jet" is fatally disregarded because of the system alert distractions). INITIALLY, following autopilot disconnect, even though the pilot immediately implements manual side-stick control, the ATTITUDE CHANGE CAN BE QUITE INSIDIOUS as the pilots try to concentrate on making sense of the conflicting array of aural and visual alerts and aural alarms that they are suddenly presented with. Low perceptibility roll-rate thresholds are a major cause of loss of control at night.

We could extrapolate further here and comment upon some other imponderables (that are never covered in flight simulator sessions):

a. Cruising in Ci/CS cloud, as the airspeed probes became gradually clogged with ice crystals, overcoming the pitot-heating capability, would the system have opposed that apparent airspeed loss by auto-thrust increments - resulting in the aircraft flying faster than what was displayed? i.e. dangerously accelerating towards a coffin corner encounter with its control compromising compressibility effects?

b. Would the engines, operating at higher thrust at a high cruise altitude, become more vulnerable to compressor stalling (N over root t exceedance) during any yaw asymmetry or high AoA (i.e. whatever happened after autopilot kick-out).

c. Because the three probes were the BA variety and equally affected, there'd be no initial prospect of there being sufficient disagreement between systems to trigger any alert. So much for triple redundancy eh? However, ultimately the trending discrepancy between thrust and airspeed and trim would have triggered a tripping threshold and the autopilot would have clicked out (see d. below). That would possibly have been the FIRST indication to the pilots (otherwise concentrating upon the weather radar display) that they'd suddenly had some type of system malfunction. Just "what" wouldn't be clear and would never be sorted by them, as the situation rapidly deteriorated. At this point the ACARS would've robotically started spewing its ether data, but not in any coherent manner or useful order. There'd be no time for a distress call under this scenario....

d. At this juncture, insufficient attention to airspeed and attitude is a crucial factor in what happens next. The airspeed may have appeared "normal" (or slightly low) but may have actually been 30 or 40 knots faster. Why "slightly low" all of a sudden? At a certain point. when the pitot heat has been overwhelmed by ice crystal accumulation, the rate of clogging increases exponentially. It's the same physical process that allows large hailstones to form. As it falls, the hailstone increases its surface area which permits it to coalesce with even greater amounts of freezing water and thus exponentially increase its size and mass during descent. In other words, all of a sudden the pitot tubes become almost totally clogged and that's likely what took the FMGS parameters into imbalance or quite out of tolerance, precipitating the autopilot trip-out. What's the pilot likely to do at this point. noting the airspeed to be "low"? He increases power (engine compressor stall likelihood increases) and lowers the nose to pick up a safer speed. But if he's already close to Mach Crit, that might be all it takes to put him into that dreaded speed regime.

e. Dreaded? My only experience with it was during a descent from 43,000feet in a trainer. I thought that I'd half-roll and pull-through to get down quickly and back into some circuit practise. "Alt & Comp" flown dual had been quite boring, except for the max rate descent. However in a jet that pitched UP upon encountering compressibility (or Mach Crit), hitting that airframe pecadillo whilst inverted made for a quite eventful ride. Inverted, it kept pitching up (which was actually now DOWN into an inverted lower nose attitude) for the next 25,000 feet of height loss. Quite disconcerting when you're a bit bereft about what to do next and simultaneously encounter roll reversal. Luckily you run out of Mach eventually at the lower levels. But if the AF A330 had encountered Mach Crit, penetrating it deeply with a high power set, how would the pilots have coped with the ensuing pitch-up? (assuming that jet pitches up and not down). And what was the longitudinal pitch-trim state anyway - once the autopilot had disconnected?

f. How does the A330's system design compensate in longitudinal pitch trim in such a spurious airspeed circumstance? Whilst on autopilot, does the THS (hoz stabilizers) move and the elevators oppose and hold the (nose up or down?) resultant trim forces? Would the aircraft have been in trim when the autopilot self-disconnected? Or would it have been trimmed for a much slower speed and therefore pitched UP/down upon disconnect? I don't know, I'm just posing the question. In the unfathomable world of malfunctioning flight-control automation, nothing would surprise me. But I wouldn't be the first pilot to disconnect an autopilot and be stunned by what forces it had been holding due to an unalerted system trip (Varicam C/B).

g. So assuming the above scenario has more or less "nailed it" as far as pitot-related developments go, what may have happened next? As said (or inferred) at the outset (above) once you lose it in roll and bury the nose and start pulling g, you end up in a self-sustaining spiral that can be destructive. Clean jets accelerate so fast once the nose is below the horizon. However, given the concentration of the sea-floor debris and the damage analysis of the impact attitude, I'm persuaded that a pitch-up/stall/spin entry and high-rate descent would've been the AF447 follow-through to its high level LOC. As the nose pitched up, if one engine had stalled or flamed out (and especially if the other thrust lever was not immediately idled) a spin entry would've been de rigeur (as the French say). Recoverable? Not really. Think of the vertical spin axis and the resulting centrifugal forces in the cockpit. Even if they hadn't been totally disoriented, there'd have been precious little by way of experience or instrumentation upon which to determine, select and hold the control inputs required for possible recovery. Large B/A ratios in a multi-engine high aspect ratio spin require spin recovery control positions to be set and held for quite a period in order for the yaw/pitch/roll coupling to be effectively countered. We're talking in excess of a minute here. They'd not have been "a propos" that specialist technique.

The lesson for manufacturers and operators [and pilots in particular] is that once a system defect becomes apparent across a certain model (A340/A330 in this case), investigate and extrapolate it into worst-case scenarios and then take the pessimist's course of action. Take the ample precedents as a fortuitous "heads up" threat to safety and just fix it; don't sit on your hands and budget for future modification action or interim alert crews with underwhelming safety bulletins. The Silent Voices from the Tombs always mouth the same words: "Lip-service".

Would I blame the pilots or the weather? Not really, they were set up - as were all A340/A330 crews and pax. AF447 was just the unfortunate first crew to thread the needle.

Capn Bloggs

20th May 2011, 04:35

Very thought-provoking, Shadow. Thanks. :D

Khashoggi

20th May 2011, 06:43

Excellent analysis Shadow. Well done!

MountainBear

20th May 2011, 07:32

IFixPlanes

20th May 2011, 07:37

...
c. Because the three probes were the BA variety and equally affected, ...
Out of the Interim Report n°2 Page 68 (english Version):
... At the time of the accident, F-GZCP was equipped with C16195AA probes.

(highlighted by me)

221340

20th May 2011, 08:52

B-757 Thanks for the video of the Air Trans DC-9 thunderstorm incident. I agree, it might be relevant to to the Air France accident. I had to shake my head tho as I watched the video.

I was about 20 miles behind that aircraft flying the same route to ORD. The thunderstorms were very intense but scattered (about 10-15 miles apart). I commented at the time it looked like coins had been placed on our radar display. Almost perfectly round, and very sharply contoured returns.

We asked for a westerly diversion and Atlanta Center said they were unable due to traffic. After our third request and denial, we just told him we were doing it anyway. 'Approved'. Air Tran continued thru the thunderstorm area with the unfortunate results on your video.

It mentions there would be an investigation as to why he continued that direction. Do you know the outcome?
Thanks.

Gretchenfrage

20th May 2011, 08:55

Theshadow

It's a lot of words but if I read you correctly your thesis boils down to:
(1) Plane runs into problems gradually.
(2) Autopilot deals with problems gradually
(3) gradual problems accumulate until autopilot is overburdened and disconnects.

SURPRISE!

(4) befuddled pilots who didn't even know anything was wrong get disorientated, or confused, or lose spatial awareness, etc.
(5) Plane crashes.

With respect, that's not exactly a new thesis or a new problem. I don't know if it's true in this case; it wouldn't surprise me given the facts we know.

No, it's not new, agree. But it has not been tackeled, at least not effectively, only by lengthy and a$$ covering bulletins.

I have for a long time criticized the described chain of events. Once the autopilot can no longer cope with a situation, it simply throws the aircraft back at the pilot. Good thing for the company and manufacturor, because they can always detect pilot error as a cause for the accident.

This happens on B's and A's. What bothers me is that on the A's, even when throwing the problem at the pilot, the automatics still interfere with commands, through protections or limitations etc.
With the B's at least you can very rapidly oversteer with some force. That's what many have asked for an eternity now to be implemented in A's: A rapid automatics disconnect button.

To what extent this might have helped in the AF accident is doubtful. The main problem is that a manual recovery is poorly designed and even more poorly trained. The sims are simply not programmable for such manoevers.

I have witnesses sim sessions with windshears, upsets and RAs that uncover a frightening lack of flying skills in many pilots. Just take away the flight director and autopilot on a simple take-off, give an early level-off combined with a turn and observe .....

Having worked in three companies that all propagated manual flying skill sessions, the outcome was almost consistently very poor, but ..... They all reacted by simply abolishing these sessions.

Why?

B-757

20th May 2011, 12:02

221340, sorry I don't know anything about the investigation concerning the Airtran-flight..Haven't looked at the NTSB-site either...Anybody ???

ST27

20th May 2011, 13:12

Thanks for the video of the Air Trans DC-9 thunderstorm incident. ...
It mentions there would be an investigation as to why he continued that direction. Do you know the outcome?
There is a summary of the incident on the AOPA site that you might find informative:

AOPA Online: Too Close for Comfort (http://www.aopa.org/asf/asfarticles/2003/sp0306.html)

Not mentioned in the summary was that while the captain, Benton West, was set back to FO after the incident, he retired as a captain when he turned 60, about 4 years later. Shortly after retirement, he died in a traffic accident.

Turbine D

20th May 2011, 14:36

Relative to pitot tube icing and potential results, see Post #918, Pg.46, Post#1083 & 1084, Pg.55 both in the Tech Log, AF447 discussions.

Also refer to: EASA AD No.: 2010-0271 (22 December 2010) for modification of responses to erroneous air speeds.

As I interpret this AD, when at high altitude cruise in normal law, AP & AT on, the pitot tubes begin to ice leading to disagreement and the controls come out of normal law into Alt law causing the FD to disappear while disconnecting the AP & AT. But then, the icing becomes equalized in at least two pitots, indicating the return of FD and the ability to revert to AP & AT once again. If the AP & AD are immediately re-engaged, the air speed may be falsely high and a pitch up and N1 reduction may be called for by the AP & AT leaving the aircraft in an immediate and potentially stall condition, while leaving the flight crew in a situation where a stall warning and speed warning are received at the same time, confusion?

It is unclear how the AD came about, AF447 or prior upset events that were analyzed.

AKAAB

20th May 2011, 16:02

How do you say, "pitch plus power equals performance" in French?

AKAAB

20th May 2011, 16:11

a. Cruising in Ci/CS cloud, as the airspeed probes became gradually clogged with ice crystals, overcoming the pitot-heating capability, would the system have opposed that apparent airspeed loss by auto-thrust increments - resulting in the aircraft flying faster than what was displayed? i.e. dangerously accelerating towards a coffin corner encounter with its control compromising compressibility effects?

Unless there was a change in altitude wouldn't the blocked pitot tubes result in a fixed airspeed, not a gradual loss of airspeed? Once the pitot is blocked it is essentially holding air at a fixed pressure on that side of the system, leaving only the static source to create a change in the differential pressures used to determine airspeed.

Otherwise, great analysis of one possible scenario.

bearfoil

20th May 2011, 16:20

"...a. Cruising in Ci/CS cloud, as the airspeed probes became gradually clogged with ice crystals, overcoming the pitot-heating capability, would the system have opposed that apparent airspeed loss by auto-thrust increments - resulting in the aircraft flying faster than what was displayed? i.e. dangerously accelerating towards a coffin corner encounter with its control compromising compressibility effects?..."

He speaks of a trend of lower ias. (unidentified trend = danger). Gradual icing reporting lower (erroneous) speed, with autoflight increases (inappropriate) in Thrust. Once blocked, pitots can still report now a consistent airspeed. Yes?

A gradual accumulation of ice in each pitot is perhaps not uniform, so now discrepant and low airspeeds befuddle the AD's. Added thrust, too fast, the autopilot drops out, and..... back to the shadow.

Lonewolf_50

20th May 2011, 17:17

bear, the picture The Shadow paints is an approach to, or arrival at, the coffin corner, or at least one of the legs of the angle with CC at its peak, with the crew utterly unaware of their flight condition changing.

Question for 330 drivers: how noticeable is the change in engine noise/pitch when you move the throttles forward at altitude. Is it as noticeable in the cockpit as it is in the cabin?

I ask due to thinking through the scenario that The Shadow presented. If a change in airspeed input to the system was insidiously slow, so also would be the increases in throttle, would it not?

I have a picture in my mind of a frog being ever so slowly boiled ... :eek:

bearfoil

20th May 2011, 17:42

"...bear, the picture The Shadow paints is an approach to, or arrival at, the coffin corner, or at least one of the legs of the angle with CC at its peak, with the crew utterly unaware of their flight condition changing...."

something like: "... (unidentified trend = danger)."

I think there has been a lot of "either, or" here on thread, and myself included.

Coffin corner is not impossible, but unnecessary to explain what happened. The key is that we think the a/c lost control due to surprise, among other things. Something happened to down this a/c. "A perfectly good a/c".....

This accident could have occurred well shy of CC extremes, and I think probably did. It looks like next week there will be more information. I have put myself in the moccasins of the several principal players, and attempted to understand any possible bias. Although I think much is left to improve, it is understandable why each has a "dog in the hunt". I would be happy, no thrilled, to have been wrong in every way that may end up damaging the position of anyone, especially the families. Safety is what is left, and the Truth of the matter.

Jet Jockey A4

20th May 2011, 18:59

AKAAB...

"How do you say, "pitch plus power equals performance" in French?"

Pitch would translate into "assiette".

Power could translate into "puissance ou poussée".

I don't know if there is a direct translation or an equal French expression but here it goes...

Assiette plus puissance égale performance.

hetfield

20th May 2011, 19:06

Those who don't understand what "Pitch" and "power" means shouldn't fly a commercial plane.

Lonewolf_50

20th May 2011, 20:51

OK, bear, leave the coffins for the undertakers, and replace with the prospect of airspeed being (ubeknownst to crew) slowly edging up much higher than desired for flight in turbulent conditions ... the water in that pan is still plenty hot for the frog.

bearfoil

20th May 2011, 21:03

There's more, pard. Carrying the extra speed, what happens when the autoflight groks an actual velocity that is, well, excessive? BUT, if a/p is back in, the ias is low, so the nose drops, adding even more speed. Raise the nose and lose some power?? Wait, what if autoflight is gone for now, and the pilots suss extra speed? Raise the nose? And Stall? if power is left unaddressed, how quickly does even more speed build after the nose drops?? What if g prot and AOA prevent nose up?? Lower thrust and the nose drops, more speed? We don't know how long the a/p was reselected for, only that it dropped, again. If a/p is playing cutesy, and the pilots are unaware of low or high speed, they are not ahead of the a/c, even the a/c is not up with the a/c. The a/p (associated automatic) warning was INTERMITTENT. In/Out, In/Out ?

IcePack

20th May 2011, 22:05

Mmm! Auto pilot drops out. On an Airbus that only means that the guidance has dropped out. Autopilot is still in, bit like CWS on a Boe. You only get to No Autopilot in direct law. See my previous. Also the way the 330 flight control computers are configured is a little different to the smaller fbw.. Better IMHO
Again let's give the relatively experienced pilots on that day have the benefit of any doubt until the report is out.. Maybe then would be the time to analyse why things went so badly wrong.

MountainBear

21st May 2011, 08:04

Gretchenfarge

No, it's not new, agree. But it has not been tackeled, at least not effectively, only by lengthy and a$$ covering bulletins.A few of us had a discussion along similar lines in the Safety Forum about a year ago. However, those threads seemed to have disappeared into cyberspace due to inactivity.

The whole purpose of the FD, autopilot, etc is to releave the burden on the pilot by allowing the computer to do those tasks. You take the software away and the industry will quickly find itself back in the days of a four crew flight deck.

On the other hand, byzantine failures can never be entirely eliminated. Sooner or later a flight crew is going to be surprised. As you note, manual flying may or may not be of any help because by the time it gets kicked back to the pilot it may already be too late.

My own opinion is that what the industry needs is not a new set of facts but a new perspective. Sometimes, in rare instances, no one is to blame. Everybody did their jobs as well as could be expected and it really was just an accident. The insurance industry likes to call these "acts of God".

In other words, I don't think there is an effective way to address the problem. It just doesn't exist. Recognizing that might be cold comfort to the pilots and passengers whose bad luck it was to be on such an ill-fated flight, but at least it would cut down of the A$$ covering and lengthy bulletins.

Gretchenfrage

21st May 2011, 08:30

MountainBear

To a certain extent I agree. There is no way we can cover all situations, with software or 4 in the cockpit.
This should however not lead to (cheap) complacency, to cover the engineers or the companies not having to spend what is their most cherished good: money. This for improvement.

Now I do not ask for impossible improvement, you know, the kind of asymptotic research that brings infinitively small increase of safety. All I ask for is to implement in some models what others have done more intelligently or effectively.

It is not to pretend what might have saved AF447, but the discussion about Airbus autopilot-off authority is quite old. Just as the debate about the 777 speed brake function. Both designs are definitely weaker than the one of the competition. But no manufacturer wants to change anything. First due to cost, then due to eventual law suits. Safety comes third .......

The same applies to training. We all KNOW that it has become very theoretical, in sims and online. Hands on costs and is therefore reduced. Everybody would like more, but the beancounters stand in between and they are omnipotent today. Cost and time are again more importatn than safety.

More training and a better system design MIGHT have saved AF447 or not. That will be the question remaining unanswered, but it will constantly hang over the heads of those who might have helped to prevent it and didn't due to reasons mentioned above.

I for myself will not stop pointing at possible improvements, even if some lobbyists or freaks don't like it.

Capn Bloggs

21st May 2011, 09:04

I can't agree with any of that, Mountainbear.

manual flying may or may not be of any help because by the time it gets kicked back to the pilot it may already be too late.
Not good enough. This is not NASA testflying; this is mass transportation. It's supposed to be safe enough not to worry too much about things that go wrong that kill everybody because the pilots can't control the aeroplane. While some would argue that double-engine failures are a possibility, they have designed-in failure rates (well above the on-wing time, of course).

You cannot say the same about, for example, QF 72, where a defect caused the aeroplane to be uncontrollable. Why did that defect have that effect? Because somebody didn't build in a error checking circuit. That is not an accident. That's a stuffup and all efforts should be made to fix it, including pumping out bulletins.

You're basically making excuses for technology that has got ahead of itself.

If that requires lots of bulletins, then so be it until they fix it. To suggest that we just accept the crash "recognizing that might be cold comfort to the pilots and passengers whose bad luck it was to be on such an ill-fated flight, but at least it would cut down of the A$$ covering and lengthy bulletins", is, quite frankly, pretty poor.

mixture

21st May 2011, 12:59

Jet Jockey A4,

Power could translate into "puissance ou poussée".

I would say in relation to aircraft it's pretty unambiguously "poussée" for engine power / thrust.

A quick look in TLF (Trésor de la Langue Française) and Dictionnaire de l'Académie française will show a reference to an aéronautique/astronautique definition when looking in pousée that is not present under puissance.

Also, a good French <-> English reference for specialist terms can be found at FranceTerme here (http://franceterme.culture.fr/FranceTerme/recherche.html). Enter the French or English search term in the box, select the appropriate field (e.g. Aéronautique / Aérodynamique) and hit rechercher.

PinkHarrier

21st May 2011, 14:50

As an aside, I wondered how a modern airline pilot travelling as a passenger would fair in the "both actual pilots become incapacitated" scenario.

I have always assumed that in the past a Stratocruiser pilot could have safely landed a DC-7 or L1049. And vice versa.

Perhaps DC-8s, B707s and Comets too.

But does my assumption work for B747, B777, A330 etc?

bearfoil

21st May 2011, 15:04

I think your question is based on a popular cultural myth, but wouldn't the transition be getting easier? Hopefully, since only two pilots are required these days. "People, I don't wish to alarm you, but can anyone do Windows?"

ChristiaanJ

21st May 2011, 15:07

Power could translate into "puissance ou poussée".
A minor nitpick....
"puissance" = "power" and "poussée" = "thrust".
The press would probably use "power" in both cases, "thrust" being too technical for the general public.
In technical language, French and English make much the same distinctions between the two terms..

vee-tail-1

21st May 2011, 16:03

Shadow has summed up the most likely sequence of events IMO.
But long ago at the start of these debates I asked a question that has not yet been answered:

Do AF regularly flight plan Airbus ops at FLs where coffin corner conditions occur, and where safe flight with degraded automatics would be highly problematic?

If the answer is yes, then presumably other Airbus operators do the same.

That being the case I will no longer travel anywhere on an Airbus and will advise my friends and family to do the same.

bearfoil

21st May 2011, 16:56

vee-tail-1

Not so fast, Airbus is safe, as is flying. Coffin Corner was calced by Hazelnuts39 to be at 46,000 feet, or something, well above 447's flightpath.

ChristiaanJ

21st May 2011, 17:08

vee-tail-1,
Do a bit more research.....;
You'll find the average long-haul does fly quite close to "coffin corner". Nothing to do with AF or Airbus.

Yes, stop traveling on airplanes..... and in cars, too.

alainthailande

21st May 2011, 18:21

I haven't seen it mentioned here so far, so here it is: French media are reporting that the BEA will release the "raw data" (probably not that raw) from the data recorders (both of them?) by the end of next week. It is said that this upcoming release will not include a statement on the causes of the crash, because the investigation is far from being complete at this point in time.

According to the BEA, this is done to stop more so-called "leaks" from appearing in the press and propagating inaccurate or plain wrong information on the supposed causes of the crash.

I find it a bit difficult to understand how they plan to release data from the fight recorders without doing some interpretation and therefore providing hints at the most likely causes, but that's what's being said anyway.

Lemurian

21st May 2011, 18:23

Yes, stop traveling on airplanes..... and in cars, too.
Does that mean "On your bike, mate" ?:E

I.A.T.U. Butler

21st May 2011, 18:56

Air Trans Pilot Benton West was subsequently killed in a car crash "hauling corn"

Airtran Hero Killed In Crash — Civil Aviation Forum | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/896759/)

oldchina

21st May 2011, 20:21

It's not so difficult to understand. The BEA will say what happened. Not why it happened.

I'll go have another Singha.

Diamond Bob

21st May 2011, 23:25

Reuters reports that Friday is the day the BEA will release a 'sequence of events'. I wonder if they will release a CVR transcript?

Investigators to give details on 2009 Rio-Paris Air France crash | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/20/us-france-brazil-crash-idUSTRE74J60020110520)

jcjeant

21st May 2011, 23:37

Hi,

if they will release a CVR transcript?

Forget it !

vee-tail-1

22nd May 2011, 08:12

Christiaanj bearfoil
From your replies I see rampant complacency, and would suggest Airbus is only safe if restricted to day VMC. The Airbus design philosophy is flawed, and unsafe. Plus the new breed of 'pilots' / IT monitors inhabiting the flight deck are inexperienced in hand flying, which the design of the aircraft prevents them doing anyway. The ever growing list of incidents, and near misses would seem to confirm my pessimism.

Safety Concerns

22nd May 2011, 10:29

vee tee you are talking from the wrong end. Turn yourself upright and start again.

I remember a completely analogue Boeing losing air data and guess what it crashed.

I remember a 757 having a problem with only one speed source and not all 3.
Guess what...it crashed.

Aircraft are complex and inherently safe. When things go wrong however, regardless of manufacturer analogue/digital, all rules are null and void.

Now please come and join the real world.

JCviggen

22nd May 2011, 11:13

The Airbus design philosophy is flawed, and unsafeIt's pretty amazing then that dispite them being "unsafe" they have similar safety records to Boeing? Which are also pretty much computer controlled these days anyway. The A330 came along in '93 and hundreds of them are in the air as we speak... how many of them have dropped out of the sky since?

Statistics are not on your side. It's pretty obvious that you have a personal dislike of this particular brand of plane but that doesn't alter the cold hard facts so do yourself a favour and stop spouting nonsense.

172driver

22nd May 2011, 11:39

DER SPIEGEL (a usually reliable German weekly) reports here (http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,764083,00.html) (sorry, only in German) that the CVR reveals that Captn. Marc Dubois rushed to the cockpit and shouted commands to the two pilots flying, moments before it all went horribly wrong.

According to the Spiegel report, the pilots successfully tried to avoid the convenctive wx in front of them, but the pitot tubes iced over. Shortly after the ASIs failed (I quote Der Spiegel here), the a/c was pulled up steeply. If this maneuver was commanded by the pilots or the systems is - according to Der Spiegel - unclear at this stage.

scanhorse

22nd May 2011, 12:13

Here is a comment in english on DER SPIEGEL

Report: Pilot "not in cockpit" when Air France plane ran into trouble - Monsters and Critics (http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/americas/news/article_1640651.php/Report-Pilot-not-in-cockpit-when-Air-France-plane-ran-into-trouble)

Razoray

22nd May 2011, 13:23

The Airbus design philosophy is flawed, and unsafe. Plus the new breed of 'pilots' / IT monitors inhabiting the flight deck are inexperienced in hand flying, which the design of the aircraft prevents them doing anyway. The ever growing list of incidents, and near misses would seem to confirm my pessimism.

Your comments (rants) add nothing to this thread and only divert attention from whats important: finding out what brought down AF 447.

FYI, the A320 series of aircraft have one of the best safety records in the history of aviation, and they have been flying for over 20 yrs. So can it!

Finally, it is true that AB pilots do more system monitoring than hand flying, but that is the way of the world. I myself can control all of my business via my hand-held I phone. I don't remember anyone's phone number anymore, because I don't have to. Is it full proof? No, in a pinch I cant even remember my mothers phone number.....:rolleyes:

Level100

22nd May 2011, 18:19

Well.......
Just go to the webpage of BEA and you will see that they DO ALWAYS publish
the CVR transcript.

MFgeo

22nd May 2011, 18:29

AF 447 was not brought down by a design philosophy, it was brought down by a set of events which are not, as yet, known with sufficient completeness to draw ANY conclusions as to proximate cause, much less contributory causes. Furthermore, the only thing that preconceptions (positive or negative) regarding design philosophy can do at this stage of the investigation is to reduce the completeness of the analysis of the empirical evidence, to the overall detriment of the proper objective, which is improving aviation safety.

Something else important to keep in mind, before condemning the design philosophy whenever there is a severe incident or accident affecting an FBW aircraft, is a characteristic of abnormal incidents that occurs for ALL types of embedded computer systems. (Indeed, a characteristic that is well known in the embedded computer industry, and was widely discussed 40 years ago, but is largely taken for granted today.) Whenever an embedded system is widely deployed to control (or "automate") a formerly-manual process, the proportion of severe abnormal incidents goes up while the total number of abnormal incidents goes down. Note it is the PROPORTION that goes up -- the total number of abnormal incidents goes down, but the embedded system is so good at dealing with routine problems that the number of common incidents is reduced far more than the number of unusual/severe incidents.

In the case of sophisticated flight control systems (all of them, not just Airbus), the very presence of the system may increase the risk of extreme or severe events by doing such a good job of dealing with common events that the (collective) exposure of those aircraft to the possibility of the uncommon events goes up.

For an excellent discussion of the differing kinds of risks that affect complex systems, see
Epistemic and Aleatory Risk « Dark Matter (http://msquair.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/epistemic-and-aleatory-risk/)
That author has also written interesting material regarding AF 447 from a systems safety perspective, see
The Airbus A330 Aircraft & System Safety « Dark Matter (http://msquair.wordpress.com/2010/04/14/the-airbus-a330-aircraft-system-safety/)

vee-tail-1

22nd May 2011, 21:43

MFgeo :ok: Thanks, your links would seem to justfy my rant.

One Outsider

22nd May 2011, 22:38

MountainBear

22nd May 2011, 23:30

Which of your rants would that be? The one about flying at coffin corner, which it didn't and they don't?. Or the one about how the aircraft prevents pilots from hand flying, which it doesn't? Or how you now seek support in articles which are about none of what you ranted about? Did YOU bother to read any of those articles?

The Myth of the Perfect Automatic Man « Dark Matter (http://msquair.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/the-myth-of-the-perfect-man/)
Criticizes Airbus design philosophy calling it "unnatural".

AF 447 – What The Crew Did … Maybe « Dark Matter (http://msquair.wordpress.com/2010/02/07/af-447-what-the-crew-did-maybe/)
States that the airplane was in coffin corner.

I'm not defending either the facts or the viewpoints in those articles. But they say what they say. And a fair reading of what they do say does indeed support vee-tail-1 "ranting" or "trolling".

glad rag

22nd May 2011, 23:48

Did YOU bother to read any of those articles? No.

When a "article" such that has been forwarded appears that does not contain a nationalistic/jingoistic slant, then fine, until then.......

.....REALLY it's becoming TIRESOME....

One Outsider

23rd May 2011, 00:06

A casual comment in a single article about it being at coffin corner without offering any proof or anything resembling proof, amounts to nothing. It supports just as much.

I suggest a search for Hazelnuts and PJ's posts on the subject.

The other article linked to offers neither support or opposition. It is merely a subjective description without judgement.

The series of articles is a compilation of guesswork and assumptions mixed with a little fact.

So yes, I did read them all. .

jcjeant

23rd May 2011, 02:14

Well.......
Just go to the webpage of BEA and you will see that they DO ALWAYS publish
the CVR transcript. Indeed .. in their final report
For this Friday communication (that was the question) .... forget it

ChicoG

23rd May 2011, 09:01

I did read one of the links to whom some posters refer, and it clearly states:

For the moment we don’t have hard data such as a Flight Data Recorder (FDR) would provide, but we do know something of the psychology of human behaviour and perhaps that can shed some light on the possible actions of the crew.

Or alternatively, perhaps some :mad: can speculate wildly to increase the number of hits on his blog.

Give me strength.

:yuk:

Anton du Flasheart

23rd May 2011, 09:02

vee-tail-1

As an Boeing and Airbus driver I feel that your 'RANTS' are just that -RANTS. Fear comes from lack of understanding, or ignorance - I suggest that you go and learn a little more about what you are RANTING.
Just because an operator plans a flight too high for the conditions doesn't mean that you have to fly there - it would be negligent to do so and that is why there are huimans on a flight deck. In fact this frequently happens because most flight deck try to carry more fuel than accountants like resulting in heavier aeroplanes and lower 'coffin corner' - perhaps you would like to RANT about safety in fuel policy too.
Most Airbus operators encourage as much hand flying as Boeing operators and most pilots only fly because they love flying - not just monitor.
Monitoring the approach of coffin corner is exactly the same on an Airbus as a Boeing - responsibility for ensuring it's avoidance is the same flight deck responsibility ( and often predicted by the same manufacturer of FMS ) and skill. And...I'd certainly prefer to be in an Airbus if I had to cope with consequences - degraded law on not.

ChicoG

23rd May 2011, 09:06

From the two articles quoted earlier:

The BEA has said it will release details of the circumstances of the crash on May 27, but that the cause of the crash will take longer to elucidate.

-and

The BEA this week condemned conflicting media reports on the supposed cause of the crash.

The BEA's official explanation of the available data is expected to come in an interim report which it plans to publish in the summer. The agency says the black box data is intact and should allow investigators to shed light on the disaster.

zekeigo

23rd May 2011, 12:02

News is that the Captain rushed to the cockpit and shout instructions for the pilots and then the aircraft became uncontrollable, we know the rest of it.
When they are going to release the CVR contents?
We all need to know what really happened.

Hyperveloce

23rd May 2011, 12:14

Hi there,
The German newspaper Der Spiegel releases 2 news derived from the data recorders:
- the CVR would show that M. Dubois, the captain (the most experimented), was not in the cockpit when the serie of problems began, and rushed to the cockpit to try to shout his orders to the flying crew
- the AF 447 stalled at high altitude due to a sudden pitch up, but whether it is a crew manoeuver or a response of the autopilot (just before it disengaged, fueled with erroneous airspeeds) is not avalaible.
This pitch up seems similar to the Bigernair case. I don't get why the AP would react to an underestimated airspeed by increasing the pitch angle ? Wouldn't it be an AP reaction to an overestimated airspeed ?
Jeff

neville_nobody

23rd May 2011, 14:08

Air France 447 May Have Stalled on Sensor Failure - Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-23/air-france-flight-447-said-to-have-stalled-after-airspeed-sensor-failure.html)

Air France 447 May Have Stalled on Sensor Failure

Air France Flight 447’s flight recordings show the aircraft lost speed and stalled after its airspeed sensors failed while the two co-pilots were at the controls, two people with knowledge of the investigation said.

The chief pilot, Captain Marc Dubois, was not in the cockpit when the Airbus A330’s airspeed sensors malfunctioned, causing the autopilot to disengage over the Atlantic Ocean, said the people, who declined to be identified because the investigation is still confidential.

A low-speed stall occurs when an aircraft slows to the point where its wings suddenly lose lift, an incident pilots learn to overcome in basic training. Flight 447’s last automated transmissions logged faulty readings from airspeed sensors that caused the autopilot to shut down in bad weather, minutes before the accident in which all 228 passengers and crew perished.

“To get out of a stall, you stick the nose down and wait for gravity to speed up the aircraft,” said David Learmount, a former U.K. Royal Air Force pilot and safety editor at Flight International. Pulling out can be straightforward, “providing you realize you’re in one,” he said.
Making Progress

Air France spokesman Jean-Charles Trehan said the company had no comment on the investigation’s early findings. France’s BEA air-accident investigation bureau also declined to comment on the circumstances of the June 1, 2009, crash.

Investigators say they are making progress after maritime search and salvage experts retrieved the flight data and cockpit voice recorders this month from a depth of 3,900 meters (12,800 feet). Dubois was among the victims recovered from the sea surface in the weeks after the crash.

The failure of the Thales SA (HO) airspeeds sensors, or Pitot tubes, occurred while the plane was cruising at about 35,000 feet, four hours after take-off from Rio de Janeiro. At that stage in the Paris-bound flight, it is routine practice for the captain to take a rest break and leave the co-pilots at the controls, Air France has said.

Airbus declined to comment beyond a BEA-approved May 16 telex, in which the company told airlines that preliminary black-box analysis yielded no additional recommendations. Two months after the crash, Airbus advised A330 and A340 operators to replace the Thales sensors with a model from Goodrich Corp. (GR)

A stall is typically preceded by shaking and vibrating of the aircraft, and modern jets are equipped with a steering-stick shaker and audio warning to alert the pilot. Stall recovery requires pilots to coordinate the aircraft’s angle and power to the engines to avoid aggravating the situation.

According to a report by Der Spiegel Online, which could not be verified, the black boxes reveal that the Air France plane climbed sharply after the speed-sensor failure and Captain Dubois returned to the cockpit before the crash.

The BEA has said it plans to issue a preliminary factual statement May 27 on the findings of its initial black-box analysis, without identifying any of the accident’s causes. An interim report is due in mid-July.

To contact the reporters on this story: Laurence Frost in Paris at [email protected]; Andrea Rothman in Paris at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at [email protected]; Benedikt Kammel at [email protected]

SKS777FLYER

23rd May 2011, 14:24

Anton Du Flasheart: Monitoring the approach of coffin corner is exactly the same on an Airbus as a Boeing - responsibility for ensuring it's avoidance is the same flight deck responsibility ( and often predicted by the same manufacturer of FMS ) and skill. And...I'd certainly prefer to be in an Airbus if I had to cope with consequences - degraded law on not

When I watch the daily Lufthansa A340 lift off from DFW and stagger into the air for its journey to FRA as it looks to be passing maybe 2,000 AGL 15 miles north of DFW, I note that 777's/767's/757's are all accelerating at 10,000 feet or so in the same spot when loaded for their max range flights. Yes, would be grand (not) to have all that excess A340 thrust. At least tho, like a B727, the A340 is very fast hundreds of miles later at cruise alt.:p

vovachan

23rd May 2011, 15:15

Air France plane climbed sharply after the speed-sensor failure

So did Pulkovo 612 - climbing sharply before it plunged to the ground, at least that's what the recorded parameters said. I wonder if it was an updraft or some kind of barometric failure...
http://sokolov.org.ru/RA-85185.jpg

pontifex

23rd May 2011, 15:15

Oh Dear SKS777, I don't think you are a pilot. All the 777, 757 and 767s you are watching are actually overpowered in order to meet take off safety requirements. An aircraft must be able to continue its take off safely in the event of an engine failure after its go/no go speed (V1). So, if a twin loses a donk, it is on half power, with four engines it has only lost a quarter. It is no wonder, therefore, that the twins seem to leap off the ground like spring chickens! In the cruise, however, all that excess power is an embarrasment as the match between engines and airframe cannot be as precisely matched as with four engines. Have you ever seen a 747 or 707 (KC135) stagger off? No different to a 340 I assure you!

pool

23rd May 2011, 15:39

In the cruise, however, all that excess power is an embarrasment as the match between engines and airframe cannot be as precisely matched as with four engines.

can you pontificate then why the 340s, 380s and guzzle more fuel during cruise (payload vs. fuelburn) than 330s or 777s?? Silly statement.

As to the news releases:
It may well be that the pitots iced up, the flight computers sensed high speed and the autoflight system wanted to counteract and pitch up and reduce thrust, as it could not cope it disconnected the autopilot and "told" the pilots you have controls.

What I am curious now, is what was the input of the pilots and did the aircraft obey them, or did the duped protections still inhibit a eventual stick down input!

That will be the really interesting point.

Sky Wave

23rd May 2011, 16:21

What I am curious now, is what was the input of the pilots and did the aircraft obey them, or did the duped protections still inhibit a eventual stick down input!

Hmmm, I had a similar thought.

Although the protection is only active in Normal Law and can be overridden in Alternate Law (at least that's the case for 320 family)

Whilst I can't be bothered to trawl though the pages of nonsense on this forum I believe I read that the ACARS messages indicated that the aircraft did downgrade to Alternate Law?

bearfoil

23rd May 2011, 16:32

With the autoflight inop. and Protections not performing as advertised, the question is actually, "Did they manage to get the beast into Direct?"

bobcat4

23rd May 2011, 17:12

What I am curious now, is what was the input of the pilots and did the aircraft obey them, or did the duped protections still inhibit a eventual stick down input!

Flying at night, at cruise altitiude, over the ocean, no visual refs... In the middle of some nasty weather... Airspeed indicating overspeed. Who would pitch down an aircraft under these circumstances?

By the way... GPSes does not get clogged by ice. How much tail/head-wind would be required to stall/overspeed an aircraft if GPS speed was used as input to AP/AT? Of course, it would not be the one and only speed reference. Say, we use GPS speed as a "sanity check" to catch a clogging pitot? Is it even possible? Probably not...

Lonewolf_50

23rd May 2011, 17:52

What a horrible Catch-22.

The diagnosis appears to be, from the leak (I realize that isn't the whole picture) airspeed unreliable, pilots thus unaware of actual aircraft performance, and they must make a nose/pitch decision to control aircraft when X event happens. (Nose pitch up? Stall warning based on AoA? High speed warning from otto due to approaching? No, scratch that one, airspeed not reliable ... )

If you don't know your actual airspeed, you may change pitch in the wrong direction (see what the guy in Buffalo did a while back, wrong input to a stall scenario) as you either approach Mach limits, or you approach high speed stall. If you guess wrong in the corrective input, you make the situation worse. Hell of a coin to flip there, and not a lot of time to ponder.

Granted, maybe "pitch and power we had set a moment ago" is the proper response with a flurry of error reports and warning audio going off? But to get to that decision you have to figure out the first issue, that your airspeed (a triple redundant sytem and a primary performance indicator) has gone awry. How long does that take, what are the cues? Aside: Over at tech log sub forum, poster takata has some interesting info on airspeed sensing failures from Airbus, a few years old.

Is task/sensory overload an issue? Someone at Tech Log mentioned the plethora of warnings and ECAMS messages for the Qantas A380 turbine disk loss ... were the gents in AF 447 similarly assaulted by a lot of warnings at once?

To top it off, you have no AoA indicator in the cockpit (do I have that right, in the A330, no AoA gage to read?). AoA gage might help you direct the attitude to set acceptable performance, while you sort out what is wrong with your airspeed sensing system.

AoA is the basis for some of the protections built into the various laws for Airbus flight control system, but pilots don't have an AoA gage.

Would having an AoA gage have been helpful to this crew, I wonder? :confused:

Me Myself

23rd May 2011, 18:23

Forgive my asking but what on earth was the Captain doing in the bunk knowing from the start they were going to cross a nasty area ?

This is not going to fly in court. Multiple examples in the merchant navy starting with the Exon Valdez where the captain was sobering up in his cabin and some other ship in Greece concluded to carelessness.
I'll be damned if I am going to go to sleep knowing what lies ahead.

fireflybob

23rd May 2011, 18:30

Forgive my asking but what on earth was the Captain doing in the bunk knowing from the start they were going to cross a nasty area ?

How do you know he was "in the bunk" - he might have nipped back for a personal comfort break?

Were the two First Officers not fully qualified?

Lonewolf_50

23rd May 2011, 18:50

Forgive my asking but what on earth was the Captain doing in the bunk knowing from the start they were going to cross a nasty area?

Perhaps following Air France SOP? (caveat: that is a guess) This might come up in any civil trial if the families of the dead have to take their damages case to court.

Some long haul pilots have offered up in the Tech Log discussions that it is common practice, to ensure Catpain is fresh for approach and landing after a long haul flight, that he "rest" during parts of the cruise portion of flight.

How do you know he was "in the bunk" - he might have nipped back for a personal comfort break?

Were the two First Officers not fully qualified?

Good point.

This is not going to fly in court. Multiple examples in the merchant navy starting with the Exon Valdez where the captain was sobering up in his cabin and some other ship in Greece concluded to carelessness.

I don't see the situations as correlated. The minimum manning on merchant ships isn't quite as robust as three qualified pilots on a transatlantic flight.

I'll be damned if I am going to go to sleep knowing what lies ahead.
Therein lies the discretion of the captain on any flight, or ship. I suppose you can argue that time of year, ITCZ, and the weather forecast before the flight took off would necessitate the Captain providing the other two "if such and such conditions looms, call me to the flight deck immediately."

TopBunk

23rd May 2011, 19:22

OK, I am now retired, but I have to say that my choice of rest, as Captain, was influenced by the forecast weather.

Not because I doubted my colleagues abilities, but because I didn't sleep well in the bunks at the best of times, and turbulence didn't help me sleep.

I accept that for some, sleep comes easy - turbulent or smooth, but not for me. So for some Captains, they would always choose last break, to be best rested for the landing, whereas I would choose the rest break that gave me the best chance of some shut eye.

With that in mind, if I had been Captain on that AF flight and had had the choice of break to take, I would not have chosen to have the break on that section of the flight.

I have to add that I know nothing of the AF SOP's and infer no criticism of the Captain. The company procedures for transfers to fleets should be robust enough to ensure that people occupying the seats in the cruise (and at other times) should be adequately trained and qualified.

Me Myself

23rd May 2011, 19:42

Cuz.......that's where he was ! Fully qualified FO's yes, fully command trained......no ! Sorry mate, the weather was crap, forcasted as such and I sure as egg would have been in my seat. Plain common sense.
As to merchant navy, the man power is exactly the same as on an aircraft : one captain, one first mate and a second mate who gets the worst shift, middle of the nigh most of the time. Same down in the engine room.
It is just a matter of plain responsability and as far as I know, only one person holds it. If I'm going to kick the bucket.....I'd rather be in my seat !

Me Myself

23rd May 2011, 20:25

Which is exactly what another AF captain did some time after 447 caught in loss of speed. He saw it as the only escape and it worked. Would work today too !

Lonewolf_50

23rd May 2011, 20:31

MM: I won't digress into the differences between merchant marine master and captain of an airliner.

I do find your sentiments sensible, given that the Captain has ultimate authority.

With the forecast and known seasonable patterns, there is ample reason to establish a crew rhythm that accounts for the higher risk portions of the route having Captain on deck as making operational sense. One would hope that the AF SOP would address such planning concerns, given that this is a regular route.

@ studi: would you suggest that your admonition (about "know your 3° idle descent pitch") is a common "rule of thumb" in the Airbus pilot community?

Was it a well known "rule of thumb" before AF 447?

Ancient Mariner

23rd May 2011, 20:53

Me Myself:
As to merchant navy, the man power is exactly the same as on an aircraft : one captain, one first mate and a second mate who gets the worst shift, middle of the nigh most of the time. Same down in the engine room.

Apart from none of that being correct for major oceangoing vessels, ships stays at sea up to 30 days or more at the time. Not really a relevant comparison with aviation wich counts their airtime in hours.
Per

Me Myself

23rd May 2011, 20:57

Was not ! However, when you think about it, it does make an awfull lot of sense.......as should the fact that the skipper has to be up front when the weather or geographical situation commands. Or else, why would you need a captain ? Landing ? Give me a break ! Specially CDG ! Flat as the back of a hand in the middle of a wheat belt. This job is about judgement.
Managing the storms or anything tricky, that's where I want the captain to be !
Anyway, that's the kind of question families will ask and they will have cause in a civil trial. Explaining it's just the way it's done won't help one bit I'm afraid.

Apart from none of that being correct for major oceangoing vessels, ships stays at sea up to 30 days or more at the time. Not really a relevant comparison with aviation wich counts their airtime in hours.

Totally relevant ! Point is, if the storm hits, the captain is on the bridge. Plain common sense.

Lonewolf_50

23rd May 2011, 21:18

studi:

I don't fly Airbus, never did.

I spent two decades as a pilot, in the Navy. That ain't the same as flying people in big jets. That is why I asked what I did. I am trying to understand "conventional wisdom" among AB flyers. You may be in a position to enlighten me.

So, as I understand what you posted, you looked at "what happened to them" and thought through "how not to let this happen to me."

I was trying to put your (very well presented escape maneuver) comment in a frame of reference: before the accident, or after the accident

Down right idle turn may or may not mean something to you.

Cheers.

Eboy

23rd May 2011, 21:31

The pilots of an Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean two years ago apparently became distracted with faulty airspeed indicators and failed to properly deal with other vital systems, including adjusting engine thrust, according to people familiar with preliminary findings from the plane's recorders.

The final moments inside the cockpit of the twin-engine Airbus A330, these people said, indicates the pilots seemingly were confused by alarms they received from various automated flight-control systems as the plane bucked through some turbulence expected on the route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris but also faced unexpectedly heavy icing at 35,000 feet. Such icing is renowned for making airspeed-indicators and other external sensors unreliable.

Ultimately, the crew failed to follow standard procedures to maintain or increase thrust and keep the aircraft's nose level, while trouble-shooting and waiting for the airspeed sensors and related functions to return to normal, according to these people.

Preliminary Findings Suggest Pilot Error in Air France Crash - WSJ.com (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304066504576341631579541512.html?mod=WSJ_hp_ LEFTTopStories)

Lonewolf_50

23rd May 2011, 21:53

The pilots were never trained to handle precisely such an emergency at high altitude, according to safety experts and a previous report by France's Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses, which is heading up the investigation. All 228 people aboard died in the accident.
---
Though Friday's announcement won't provide final conclusions or specific causes, investigators believe Air France never trained its pilots to cope with such automation problems in conjunction with a high-altitude aerodynamic stall, an emergency when the wings lose lift and the plane quickly becomes uncontrollable.

From the article.

NeoFit

23rd May 2011, 22:36

Hello,

Is it really as this?

Before 447's wreckage
UAS memory items
2009,June : Pitch up and thrust

A320 Airbus FOT after 2010, May
New Airbus STALL RECOVERY procedure (http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/415373-new-airbus-stall-recovery-procedure.html)(PPRuNe link)
“NOSE DOWN PITCH CONTROL . . . . . . . APPLY
This will reduce angle of attac”

Regards

GeraldT

23rd May 2011, 22:37

Here is the full article in this week's Der Spiegel:

Air France Flight AF 447 Investigation: Recording Indicates Pilot Wasn't In Cockpit During Critical Phase - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International (http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,764227,00.html)

Count Niemantznarr

23rd May 2011, 22:42

vovachan

24th May 2011, 00:03

Just as Capt. Smith of the Titanic probably wished he was on the bridge instead of the no. 3 guy before they struck the iceberg....:uhoh:

bearfoil

24th May 2011, 02:07

I am surprised and disappointed at Andy Pasztor. Who owns the Wall Street Journal? Probably not a pilot......

There is a discrete life and death point in time when fooling with ECAMS, reading the book and trying to figure out what seems to be a high maintenance little filly, and stop the nonsense. My airplane, no it int, My airplane, no........

At this point, don't try to "protect your spars and garters, missy", be "still and be honest". "Sit on your hands". It is quite apparent through two years of discussion here, and I stand ready to be put in my place again, but when one is sliding into the weeds, There can be no GRAY, no "Transition". Does anyone else think "Protections" were meant FOR the airplane, FROM the Pilots??

The WSJ article trumpets, "Pilots at Fault", then reads, Pilots were confused when the autopilot dropped out. Could not deal with alarms, etc. Without the autopilot and airspeed reads, times up for dealing with a pampered tart; The only few things absolutely missing for continued flight were indeed missing.
No horizon, AoA, bank, and the engines were performing Normally. Let's see, who anywhere would want to be handed this "Problem".

The saver here is that it may be very difficult to sell PE, The ACARS alone tell the tale. Early on, Gourgeon spouted off about the pilots mishandling Radar, and that was before Vasquez. How will BEA play this?

Pilots at fault?? bs. A/C. This "setting the tone" is getting on my nerves.

"...Though Friday's announcement won't provide final conclusions or specific causes, investigators believe Air France never trained its pilots to cope with such automation problems in conjunction with a high-altitude aerodynamic stall, an emergency when the wings lose lift and the plane quickly becomes uncontrollable..."

Right, and that is because the AB doesn't need pilots trained in the Stall,
so Stalled Automatics needn't be trained in something that will not happen.

A half truth is a whole LIE.

Gretchenfrage

24th May 2011, 03:43

Isn't it pathetic!

With well placed leaks it is slowly but persistently suggested that there was nothing wrong with the aircraft and now pilot error creeps in.

I don't know what the supposed icing up of pitots and a myriad of ACARS telling everybody that almost all systems showed a failure have to do with a well functioning aircraft system, but my idea of such is definitely different.

Furthermore there is not even one question or mention at this moment about how much authority the system still allowed the pilots, but their error is already more or less established.

Try establishing a guilt in front of any jury with such pathetic mind setting through the press and you'd be shot down in beautiful flames instantly by any first season lawyer.
But the big shots can do what they want in the press.

On a technical note:

A design that protects me as long as everything works fine is luxury. The same system that leaves the building in steps when the s#!t starts hitting the fan is a shame. What are protections for anyway when they are disconnected once there is a problem? I always assumed they were installed to protect me and the passengers in emergency situations.
It turns out that they are here merely to protect the manufacturer and the airline, in the sense that they are designed to go offline when problems arise and leave the hopeless case to the drivers.

At the moment I am disgusted. Hopefully the REAL report will be a little more objective.

Ermo

24th May 2011, 06:15

News from Europe is that the captain was not on the flight deck. Dah! We figured that if he was on the normal break schedule for an international flight he had the middle break.

The new media is making a big deal about nothing!

beardy

24th May 2011, 06:50

Right, and that is because the AB doesn't need pilots trained in the Stall,
so Stalled Automatics needn't be trained in something that will not happen.

Wrong, training for stall recovery has always been in the Airbus training programme.

BOAC

24th May 2011, 07:49

A caveat - when you quote from the WSJ, remember you are quoting from the WSJ - its track record is not brilliant.

I'm not sure if this Der Spiegel text has appeared before as I tend to follow Tech Log more, but I found this of interest:

"Until now, it appeared that the crew of Flight AF 447 had steered the plane directly into a severe storm that eventually caused the speed sensors to ice over. But the flight path recorded by the black box reportedly shows that the crew had been trying to find the safest possible path through the storm front. They initially appear to have succeeded as the flight data doesn't contain any evidence of more severe turbulence."

SoaringTheSkies

24th May 2011, 07:50

how easily the professional pilot community will go along with pointing fingers at a fellow pilot who died in an accident.

To make this clear: I'm merely a recreational flyer, can't offer much more than an educated outside view.

However: an accident report will usually list causes and contributing factors for what happened and how the event developed.

We don't have the full data, what we have are the original messages from 2yrs ago and what we hear from the investigation now.

I dare draw one conclusion from what I know: the captain not being in the left seat is clearly not the cause for the accident. It may turn out to be a contributing factor if it can be shown that the two guys flying the aircraft at the time of the event were not capable to handle the situation, but then: who sais the captain would have been able to?

It's good news for anybody who wants to point away from themselves and it sounds scary enough to the public to be picked up by the media en masse, but it clearly is no explanation for the death of all those people.

All of you who wrote that they would have been in the cockpit with this weather forecast: good for you! It doesn't guarantee that you would have fared any better than the two chaps who were, in fact, in their seats.

This discussion is clouding the search for the real reason. The airplane didn't stall because there was no four-striped jacket in the cockpit, there was another root cause and that's what we need to know.

Let's stop talking about possible contributing factors and focus on cause.

Gary Brown

24th May 2011, 07:58

The Air Caraibes incidents also occurred at 35,000ft and had a better result

AF447 - the Air Caraibes story and more on pitot tubes - Unusual Attitude (http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/unusual-attitude/2009/06/af447---the-air-caraibes-story.html)

Did the AF crew have a chance to run through an unreliable speed indication checklist? The answer is yes. But they soon found that the checklists had contradictory advice, and that some stall warnings they were receiving were "inappropriate" - the PF chose to ignore them and rely on manually set pitch and thrust until they sorted the unreliable airspeed problems out. Here's the internal Air Caraibes incident report (in French, but with all checklist and warning stuff in English):

Air Caraibes Report PDF (http://www.eurocockpit.com/docs/ACA.pdf)

It makes for very interesting reading.

warmkiter

24th May 2011, 08:54

Hi

After reading the press and so many equally stupid comments here in this forum about the absence of the CPT in the cockpit during the accident, i try to share some information for those who have obviously zero experience in enlarged crew ops on longhaul flights.

1. There are 3 fully licensed pilots available. The most experienced in longhaul ops, on type or area qualification-wise is not necessary the CPT. I flew 10 years as FO and SFO on B744 before becoming CPT on MD11. During those last years on the B744 I was for sure many times the most experienced in that area on the type in that day. Now I am a CPT on a new type and glad to utilize the thousands of hours of experience of my copilots. I sleep very well during my break.
2. Depending on company and country regulations it is clearly outlined what minimum experience is required to occupy the LHS. The ability to use a WX radar and be able to circumnavigate a TS with a turn on the HDG bug is definitely included in these criterias.
3. The restperiods are distributed to maximize the crews performance during critical periods of flight. this obviously is not CRZ
4. In my company the PF chooses his rest first, the CPT takes the second take and the 3rd colleque what's left. If the CPT is PF the CM who is sitting in the front during landing takes the second choose. This all is done taking into regard how each individual has slept last night, did someone have a long proceeding or maybe a little child home. First break might sometimes be as good as the last. All the little details, when, where and how to change seats, or when the CPT has to be sitting in his chair, are a part of the operators manual which has been approved by the legislator to grant the AOC for the company.

5. This aircraft had a unexpected failure and encountered severe WX and multiple system failures. This is very high workload on the Airbus and if the absence of the CPT was a contributing factor will soon be found out.

cheers

lomapaseo

24th May 2011, 09:06

Let's stop talking about possible contributing factors and focus on cause.

:confused:

I don´t know how to do this without delving into contributing factors since there can't be a single cause.

Avoiding weather will not cure this problem since someone somewhere in the sky always fails at the avoiding part

In the end, corrective action redesigning speed probes will not make this go away (everything we design ultinately has a failure rate).

Redesigning the avionics means a few years and retraining all the pilots before it can be used.

I´m afraid that we`re going to have to make do with what we have for a bit longer and learn how to live with it.

SoaringTheSkies

24th May 2011, 09:21

I don´t know how to do this without delving into contributing factors since there can't be a single cause.

ok, I agree, but can we also agree that the question of where the CPT was while two fully qualified pilots were on the controls, flying the airplane, probably is not going to give us the accident cause? It's a great scare item for the press to talk about (since the public seems to assume a FO is an "apprentice pilot" that has to be told what to do by that all knowing captain).
It is, however, SOP for long hauls and usually, nothing happens during the captain's break and if something happens, in almost all cases, it's being professionally handled by the guys up at the helm. It's an entirely superficial discussion.

I´m afraid that we`re going to have to make do with what we have for a bit longer and learn how to live with it.

Yes, exactly, but as airmen, we should be able to weigh the facts we have. If I leave the controls in a single pilot operation, that's quite certainly a contributing factor for the events that will unfold, probably even the cause. If the captain leaves the controls and the cockpit is still staffed with two pilots who are licensed and capable to fly the airplane, it becomes a non issue. Not worthy of (press) coverage.

fireflybob

24th May 2011, 09:41

Yes, exactly, but as airmen, we should be able to weigh the facts we have. If I leave the controls in a single pilot operation, that's quite certainly a contributing factor for the events that will unfold, probably even the cause. If the captain leaves the controls and the cockpit is still staffed with two pilots who are licensed and capable to fly the airplane, it becomes a non issue. Not worthy of (press) coverage.

Firstly, no criticism intended for this crew and CPT as we don't know all the facts yet.

However, (and I am trying to choose my words carefully here!) I know that when I am the Captain compared to the FO it "feels" different. The ultimate responsibility for safe operation rests with me. The FO(s) may well be more qualified and experienced than I am, just because one is Commander that doesn't mean I have all (or any) of the "answers".

What I am trying to say is that, for me, as the designated commander I will fight tooth and nail to keep me, my a/c and my passengers from meeting disaster. Please don't understand me - I am not saying that any FO wouldn't attempt to do the same but I am saying that, in extremis, it might make a difference although I am not saying this was necessarily the case here.

captplaystation

24th May 2011, 10:12

AGBagb post # 423

I can understand French, for those that cannot I guess we can translate the situation they found themselves in as "a crock of sh1t"

Being faced with a shedload of failure messages seems to be de rigeur in most Airbus whoopsies (Qantas A380 had a fairly lengthy novel to be perused if I remember)
Strikes me that when Airbus envisaged (or did they even bother? ) these scenarios, insufficient emphasis was given to just how much information the human part of the jigsaw can process and react to in a given (very short & critical) time period.

fireflybob, # 427

I know just what you mean, I guess it is a bit different if your oppo is pretty much as experienced as you,undoubtedly in ops like this the authority/experience gradient is much less steep than we experience in a short haul loco, but. . . . not so much the feeling I believe I would do better, just that disquieting sensation of being merely a passenger if I am in my bunk & it is all going to a can of worms up front.

SoaringTheSkies

24th May 2011, 10:26

Firstly, no criticism intended for this crew and CPT as we don't know all the facts yet.

However, (and I am trying to choose my words carefully here!) I know that when I am the Captain compared to the FO it "feels" different. The ultimate responsibility for safe operation rests with me. The FO(s) may well be more qualified and experienced than I am, just because one is Commander that doesn't mean I have all (or any) of the "answers".

What I am trying to say is that, for me, as the designated commander I will fight tooth and nail to keep me, my a/c and my passengers from meeting disaster. Please don't understand me - I am not saying that any FO wouldn't attempt to do the same but I am saying that, in extremis, it might make a difference although I am not saying this was necessarily the case here.

If I've ever seen carefully chosen words, here they are ;-)

Thanks. And yes, you may be right, the additional burden of "I am in charge, it's me who is responsible for those 228 souls" may make you think about options even harder. I don't know, few have ever been in that situation and live to tell.

N-TV, a German News TV has a clip that obviously completely reverses the course of events: the captain storms into the cockpit when it was already too late, shouting orders at the pilots flying and then the speed sensors iced up. DOH! That's what the public gets (Hinweise zur Air-France-Unglücksursache: Pilot war offenbar nicht im Cockpit - n-tv.de (http://tinyurl.com/3zznou2))

We know that there's press people looking at this forum and if they do, they better get "the other side" which should be level headed, factual discussion. Whether or not the captain's presence in the cockpit would have made a difference is not determined, wether or not the proficiency level of the PF and PNF were directly contributing to the accident is not determined (at least not publicly known).

What we all know is: they were presented with a situation that they ultimately could not turn around and rescue.

That N-TV clip also interviews an unnamed expert who claims that there is no reason he can see to go into a sharp ascent in the situation and he attributes that to a loss of situational awareness / to confusion in the cockpit.
As we know from the Birgenair case, clogged up pitot and descending static pressure is a great setup for an AP to pitch up. Given the weather they were going through, a considerable drop of static pressure is not at all impossible.

There's a lot of utter bull**** being reported about this right now. I'm sure the aircraft manufacturer is rather happy to get off the hook.

5 APUs captain

24th May 2011, 10:47

2 warmkiter:
What about FOs with 2000 hrs total and 2 years on type experience???
That's why I never sleep outside of the cockpit...... :-(((

P.S.: A week after the crash I told to my colleges that probably CP was on rest and FOs just missed the penetration into CB..... looks like I was right :-((

Rockhound

24th May 2011, 16:01

On AF447:
The captain, age 58, had 11000 hrs TT, qualified on the A330/340 in 2007, and had 1700 hrs on type.
One FO was 37, had 6600 hrs TT, qualified on the 330/340 in 2002, and had 2600 hrs on type.
The other FO was 32, had 3000 hrs TT, qualified on the 330/340 in 2008, and had 800 hrs on type.

misd-agin

24th May 2011, 16:15

BOAC - exact same quote with a different emphasis -

"Until now, it appeared that the crew of Flight AF 447 had steered the plane directly into a severe storm that eventually caused the speed sensors to ice over. But the flight path recorded by the black box reportedly shows that the crew had been trying to find the safest possible path through the storm front. They initially appear to have succeeded as the flight data doesn't contain any evidence of more severe turbulence."

Every event is "initially" successful, until it isn't.

The linkage between the airspeed issue, weather, turbulence, pitot static icing, upset, etc, still isn't 100% based on the reports being leaked.

ChristiaanJ

24th May 2011, 16:16

@STS,
Re the German TV news item "Pilot was clearly not in the cockpit"...

This will be read by the public as "There obviously was no pilot in the cockpit".

The implied idea being: "Co-pilots ain't pilots, just minions.... when their chief and master leaves the cockpit even for a moment, the aircraft is just stumbling across the sky with only George in control, and two MS FS players looking on."

I think we can expect more of this rubbish in the coming days.....

Yankee Whisky

24th May 2011, 16:25

Just received.

Black Boxes Point to Pilot Error
]By ANDY PASZTOR And DANIEL MICHAELS

(WSJ) The pilots of an Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean two years ago apparently became distracted with faulty airspeed indicators and failed to properly deal with other vital systems, including adjusting engine thrust, according to people familiar with preliminary findings from the plane's recorders.

The final moments inside the cockpit of the twin-engine Airbus A330, these people said, indicate the pilots seemingly were confused by alarms they received from various automated flight-control systems as the plane passed through some turbulence typical on the route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. They also faced unexpectedly heavy icing at 35,000 feet. Such icing is renowned for making airspeed-indicators and other external sensors unreliable.

Ultimately, despite the fact that primary cockpit displays functioned normally, the crew failed to follow standard procedures to maintain or increase thrust and keep the aircraft's nose level, while trouble-shooting and waiting for the airspeed sensors and related functions to return to normal, according to these people.

Slated to be disclosed by investigators on Friday, the sequence of events captured on the recorders is expected to highlight that the jet slowed dangerously shortly after the autopilot disconnected. The pilots almost immediately faced the beginning of what became a series of automation failures or disconnects related to problems with the plane's airspeed sensors, these people said.

The crew methodically tried to respond to the warnings, according to people familiar with the probe, but apparently had difficulty sorting out the warning messages, chimes and other cues while also keeping close track of essential displays showing engine power and aircraft trajectory.

Spokesmen for Air France, a unit of Air France-KLM, and Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., have declined to comment on any details of the investigation. Airbus last week, however, issued a bulletin reassuring airlines that the preliminary readout of the recorders hasn't prompted any "immediate recommendation" regarding the safety of the global A330 fleet. French investigators, who gave the green light for that statement, also have said their preliminary findings don't highlight any major system failures or malfunctions that could have caused the fatal dive.

The Air France pilots were never trained to handle precisely such an emergency, according to safety experts and a previous report by France's Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses, which is heading up the investigation. All 228 people aboard Flight 447 died in the accident.

The senior captain, Marc Dubois, appears to have been on a routine rest break in the cabin when the fatal chain of events started, according to safety experts familiar with the details, but the cockpit-voice recorder suggests he may have rushed back to the cockpit to join the other two Flight 447 pilots.

Though Friday's announcement won't provide final conclusions or specific causes, investigators believe Air France didn't train its pilots to cope with such automation problems in conjunction with a high-altitude aerodynamic stall, an emergency when the wings lose lift and the plane quickly becomes uncontrollable. Since the crash, Airbus and a number carriers, including Air France, have emphasized such training.

According to a report issued by French investigators in November 2009, Airbus identified 32 instances involving similar model jetliners between 2003 and 2009 in which external speed probes, known as pitot tubes, suffered ice buildup at high altitude and caused "erroneous air speed indications." Over the years, the same models also suffered numerous failures of external temperature-sensors because of icing. Both issues were known to Air France.

Most of the incidents with speed sensors involved probes similar to those on the A330 that crashed. Many were on Air France planes, according to the BEA report.

Friday's update follows sniping between senior officials of Air France and Airbus, usually close corporate allies, who in this case have tried to shift the blame for the accident to each other.

Air France began addressing problems with its pitot tubes almost a year before the crash. Amid several incidents in which air crews lost speed indication at high altitude during 2008, Air France reported the icing problems to Airbus. The two companies discussed solutions and Airbus talked to its supplier.

In April 2009, roughly 45 days before the crash, Airbus proposed that Air France swap out its pitot tubes for a different model believed to be less prone to icing, according to the BEA report. Air France began the work on April 27, 2009, and it received the first batch of new pitot tubes six days before the crash. The plane that crashed hadn't yet received the new equipment.

According to the 2009 report published by investigators after the crash, experts examined 13 other incidents of airspeed-sensor malfunctions on Airbus widebody jets at cruise altitudes. During most of those global incidents-none of which resulted in a crash-both the autopilots and automated engine-thrust systems disconnected on their own, and it took many of the flight crews up to a minute to manually adjust engine thrust.

The earlier report found that pilots in nine of those 13 events received warnings of an impending stall. And in a finding that may have particular relevance to the upcoming update, accident investigators in 2009 also concluded that when airspeed-sensor malfunctions kick off automated thrust controls, "the absence of appropriate manual adjustments" to engines "can present a risk" of a mismatch between power settings and the jet's orientation in the air.

Investigators began focusing on pitot problems from the start, because Flight 447's automated maintenance system broadcast 21 separate messages related to such malfunctions during roughly the last four minutes of the fatal flight. But the final report, which may not be released until 2012, also is expected to delve deeper into how European air-safety regulators dealt with persistent reports of pitot-tube icing prior to the crash.

The previous interim report indicated that in late March 2009, less than three months before the crash, European aviation regulators decided that the string of pitot-icing problems on widebody Airbus models wasn't serious enough to require mandatory replacement of pitot tubes

Razoray

25th May 2011, 03:33

"I am in charge, it's me who is responsible for those 228 souls" may make you think about options even harder. I don't know, few have ever been in that situation and live to tell.

I agree that the press is running with this aspect of the crash to drum up sales/excitement. Having said that, the captains presence in the cockpit from the start may have helped "manage" the situation...lending a guiding hand and making sure SA was not lost, IMHO that would be his ultimate value...not physically flying, but commanding. Maybe in the future rest periods can be adjusted to compensate for weather situations etc....which can be critical aspects of flight as well as landing and takeoffs.

camel

25th May 2011, 04:18

So seems that the more experienced F/O ,most likely in the LHS ,was trying to fly the a/c but also having to help out the inexperienced F/O (800 on type)
with dozens of chimes /bells/ messages etc...and ended up distracted and eventually losing control.

as we all know rule 1 : fly the airplane.however these guys were dealt a bad set of cards..particularly the less experienced F/O..they just got overwhelmed with the situation...one which they were not trained to cope with.

Razoray

25th May 2011, 07:06

as we all know rule 1 : fly the airplane.however these guys were dealt a bad set of cards..particularly the less experienced F/O..they just got overwhelmed with the situation...one which they were not trained to cope with.

That seems to be the jist of what is coming out of this investigation. I would say a huge "wake-up call" for the industry...not just Air France and Airbus!
:uhoh:

ATC Watcher

25th May 2011, 07:52

The other FO was 32, had 3000 hrs TT, qualified on the 330/340 in 2008, and had 800 hrs on type.

On another Forum someone mentioned that this FO was in the LH seat and there was confusion who was PF. Rumors or fact ?
We will know more tomorow hopefully.
Incidentally this FO was not ATPL, only CPL .

fendant

25th May 2011, 08:01

First of all I am a frequent SLF, although my Cessna 172 experience is about 30 years back.
In my car I am regularly checking my speedo with the GPS build into my iphone. AFAIK I also have a GPS speed on my PFD. I this correct or are all speeds on the displays coming from the pitot tubes ?

wiggy

25th May 2011, 09:17

FWIW and from a Boeing POV - Indicated Airspeed (IAS) on the Primary Flight displays (T-panel in old money) is from the pitots..

GPS ground speed and/or Inertially derived ground speed is usually available to be displayed somewhere if you need it, but it's probably not going to be in your instrument scan and obviously doesn't match IAS 1:1 at altitude, though they can give indications of a trend.

ATC Watcher

25th May 2011, 10:06

GPS will give you Ground speed, not IAS , stall protections are IAS based, not GS. A sudden change in GS could be due to wind/ windshear for instance, not indicating some failure .

wiggy

25th May 2011, 11:58

A sudden change in GS could be due to wind/ windshear for instance, not indicating some failure .

Um, as an aside if you're talking about A330 size such as the AF aircraft hitting windshear then the G/S will tend to remain the same initially ( due to the "heavy's" momentum ) but there will be a sudden change in IAS.

bucket_and_spade

25th May 2011, 12:30

I'd be very surprised if the LHS pilot was PF - in our company (also flying A330s, amongst others), if two FOs are upfront, only the RHS pilot can be PF. The reasoning being that an FO in the LHS most likely has no experience of handling that aircraft type from the LHS. Makes sense.

I'd presume the PF role was being done by the RHS pilot.

camel

25th May 2011, 17:00

good point ....but can imagine a scenario where the least experienced pilot is in the rhs ..as pf ...but when the proverbial hits the fan ...then the more experienced f/o ,in the lhs , has to take over...hmmm well lets see on friday ...should be a little clearer..

misd-agin

25th May 2011, 17:34

Camel and Bucket -

Company's SOP is the Captain decides who the PIC is during his absence. If the experience level is similar it's often becomes the FO almost by default.

Had a flight to S. America where the reserve FO had low experience in the a/c and had never flown the a/c at max gross weight or been to S. America. Gave him the leg but the relief pilot was in charge during my absence.

Others have commented on how crew rest periods are done. At my company typically the PF picks first, then CA(if not PF), then the FO (if not PF), then the relief pilot. If the relief pilot is PF he gets to choose his break. All subject to change if difficult conditions are expected enroute, at which point my break will either be before, or after, the area of concern.

jcjeant

25th May 2011, 19:19

Hi,

hmmm well lets see on friday ...should be a little clearer..

I wonder if this will be verified the Friday 27 May .......

AF 447: What the BEA will not tell!
(Recovery: this note was posted on this blog June 11, 2009)
Those who pay attention to communications from BEA after an accident to know what method to use that body to convey its message.
BEA determines the direct cause of an accident and assigns it a number of contributing parameters. For example, in the report of the crash of the Fokker 28 of the company's Regional Pau January 25, 2007, the BEA said that the crash resulted from a loss of control during takeoff and that may have been contributed to the accident awareness limited risk associated with icing, a lack of awareness among the crew of procedures for checking the surface condition in icing conditions, the ordinary aspect of the flight etc.. In this example, the BEA has overshadowed the fatigue of the crew which was subjected to a short night and therefore insufficient rest.
This archaic method allows to rank the errors and thus give them a greater or lesser extent. In general, the BEA, the main cause is always the one who, chronologically, is the latest. It is the result of the crew. That is what the audience holds.
It is convenient to limit the mistakes in the cockpit. This avoids the question for example the operation of the company and the bodies responsible for control, recurrent defects of aircraft etc..
To explain the tragedy of Flight 447, the BEA will say that the main cause of the accident was the inability of drivers to maintain the A330 in its flight and that may have been contributed to the accident of defects Pitot probes and weather.
It is the sense of first communications from Airbus and EASA and probably "the option" chosen by the political power so that there is a minimum of collateral damage ...
Claim that an accident is the result of one cause is the misinformation. If the drivers make mistakes, no one can deny that they are not the only ones to commit.
Systemic analysis advocated by ICAO is the opposite: we must determine all the barriers that have failed in preventing the accident.

http://i.imgur.com/MHzju.jpg

This is the model of REASON. It requires investigators to incorporate the latent causes in the chain of events leading to the accident. That is really annoying when it comes to protecting a manufacturer, administration, industry etc..

The latent causes ..., BEA does not know!

Yet there are some in this drama ...

Deficiencies · a supplier Airbus (Pitot probes)

· Deficiencies of feedback (BEA, Airbus, DGCA, EASA, Air France ...)

· Lack of "airworthiness directive" concerning the change of the probes (EASA)

Function of Air France (flight plan, weather parameters)

• Choice of business objectives (Air France)

· Culture of Security (Air)

· Etc..

But that BEA will not tell!

Note added date: Friday, BEA will describe a "context" (read the note of May 21 on this) which increased the workload of pilots and led to a reduction in their ability to control the flight of the A330. These are the terms used by EASA and the others in the AD as of August 10, 2009 he was acting to remove the pitot probe Thales SA in an emergency. So, nothing new that they already knew at the time ...

jcjeant

25th May 2011, 23:46

Hi,

Does that date Air France had the contents of black boxes :ooh:
Premonition ? crystal ball ?

Le Figaro - France : Scurit arienne: Air France rappelle l'ordre ses pilotes (http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2009/10/24/01016-20091024ARTFIG00530-securite-aerienne-air-france-rappelle-a-l-ordre-ses-pilotes-.php)

Safety: Air France call to order its pilots
F.G. (lefigaro.fr)
24/10/2009 | Updated: 21:30 Comments (173)

At the heart of a controversy related to the crash of Flight 447, the management sent a letter to pilots that has increased tensions with the unions.

Drivers, beware of "over-confidence." The management of Air France regrets, in a letter this week to its drivers, incidents of disrespect of the proceedings, The Tribune revealed in its Saturday edition. The letter, entitled "quite controversial and false debates on flight safety," has aroused the ire of unions.

In this letter, acquired by the business daily, the director of flight operations, Pierre-Marie Gautron, and the director of security for Air France, Etienne Lichtenberger, "point to recent major incidents attributable to non-compliance procedures for flights some drivers. " It cites several recent examples of "deviations" that "have generated risk" as a takeoff continued despite a warning "Config" ["forbidden", ed] before takeoff. For management, "the mere application of procedures would have prevented these events."

"We thought we had control of these risk elementary (...) that the current situation would encourage everyone to be extra vigilant. It is clear that this is not the case, "say the authors of the letter by warning against" over-confidence "drivers. Moreover, speculation about the crash of the AF447 "throw into confusion the minds of some drivers by making them doubt the correctness of our doctrine, our procedures and those of the manufacturer," which should not be the case, said the management of Air France.

Threat of strike

For their part, unions complain that management does not jeopardize its procedures, while a house expertise has been accepted. "How can we launch an audit to change the rules of operation while ensuring that they are infallible?" Asks Erick Derivry, spokesman of the majority union SNPL.

The union representing Air France pilots (SPAF) and Alter, two organizations of minority drivers waved Tuesday threatened a strike if management of the airline persisted in not taking into account their proposals on flight safety . Following the crash of the Airbus A330 of Air France on 1 June between Paris and Rio, which killed 228 people, the SPAF and Alter asking a series of measures, including that of being associated with the study of Air Safety Reports (ASR), written reports by pilots due to incidents.

ecureilx

26th May 2011, 07:16

Those who insist GPS is the way to go have no clue as to what they are talking of .. or maybe they are shy to make money on their invention of how GPS will save the day ..

LEXAN

26th May 2011, 07:54

Quote "One FO was 37, had 6600 hrs TT, qualified on the 330/340 in 2002, and had 2600 hrs on type."

According to the BEA report, the number of flight hours on type was 4479 and not 2600. He was the most experienced of the crew on A330.

edmundronald

26th May 2011, 10:06

So, the pilots misread the weather radar, flew into bad weather, airspeed indicators failed, automation degraded to the point of unusability, plane got hard to fly, pilots could not handle the workload and the plane met the sea - that is the conjecture so far.

The only way this can and will get handled is by improving the automatic systems on board - at this stage pilots with rudimentary flying ability have become the industry standard - and retraining *all* of the existing pilots to better handle the workload of actually flying the planes is hopeless. The people who design the automation are the ones who really fly these complex and much exported aircraft.

Edmund

Centaurus

26th May 2011, 12:10

The reasoning being that an FO in the LHS most likely has no experience of handling that aircraft type from the LHS. Makes sense.

Surely each pilot in these airline transports should be capable and competent at monitoring the automatic pilot from either seat. And also that each pilot should be competent at hand flying from either seat. After all the seats are close together and the thrust levers are easy to reach from either position. And both pilots have identical flight instrument displays. Of course if all the crew do not have the basic hand flying competency then everyone is in serious trouble if hand flying is suddenly needed.

Busta Level

26th May 2011, 12:16

Centaurus,

it's got nothing to do with ability (or competency) and everything to do with regulation. It is the CAA (and it's overseas equivalents) that dictate who can operate from which seat. It is the same reason that Captains have to undergo a 'Right Hand Seat Check' once a year in the sim to enable them to operate as an FO if required.

As FO's don't undergo a 'Left Hand Seat Check' (at least until they get a command!) they are not 'qualified' in the regulatory sense to operate from that seat.

I can't think of any Long Haul First officer who would not be able to fly the aircraft just as competently from the LHS as from the right. It's simply that we are not *legally* allowed to.

HTH!

Capn Bloggs

26th May 2011, 12:36

it's got nothing to do with ability (or competency) and everything to do with regulation.
I think it has everything to do with competency. Why else would numerous regulators not permit captains to operate in the RHS without special training? I would suggest that an FO, trying to recover from a spin at night with a sidestick, would do a better job of it from his "normal" seat than the other. I certainly am less comfortable in the RHS.

aterpster

26th May 2011, 13:41

ecureilx:
Those who insist GPS is the way to go have no clue as to what they are talking of .. or maybe they are shy to make money on their invention of how GPS will save the day ..
Way to go? What or where?

Perhaps you could shed some logic on your negative, but quite vague statement.

Lonewolf_50

26th May 2011, 13:45

His comment seemed to refere to some suggestions, above, to use GPS to emulate or temporarliy sub for airspeed data.

noske

26th May 2011, 14:50

As I understand it, Backup Speed Scale (available for real since 2006 btw., standard on A380, as an option for A330/A340) uses GPS only for altitude, and AoA for speed.

Airbus backs up speed and altitude displays-28/03/2006-Toulouse-Flight International (http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2006/03/28/205645/airbus-backs-up-speed-and-altitude-displays.html)

CONF iture

26th May 2011, 16:37

But the Back Up Speed Scale is of no use above FL250 ...

vovachan

26th May 2011, 16:46

Why not do the obvious and put an AoA indicator on the dashboard?

fr8tmastr

26th May 2011, 17:20

ChristiaanJ

26th May 2011, 17:33

Why not do the obvious and put an AoA indicator on the dashboard?The answer seems to be simple.... Pilots are no longer trained to interpret AoA indications.
Concorde had an AoA indicator.
I take it from several posts here: so do Navy (carrier-based) aircraft.
I doubt the average A or B pilot would be able to get any usable info (SA or otherwise) from it.

CJ

MountainBear

26th May 2011, 17:52

So the answer to too much automation is more automation?

Yes, that's correct.

:ok:

ap08

26th May 2011, 17:55

The answer seems to be simple.... Pilots are no longer trained to interpret AoA indications.
You can't be serious. What is so difficult about interpreting an abnormally high angle of attack as a sign of an impending stall?

Lonewolf_50

26th May 2011, 18:22

The answer seems to be simple.... Pilots are no longer trained to interpret AoA indications.
Concorde had an AoA indicator.
I take it from several posts here: so do Navy (carrier-based) aircraft.
So too Navy training aircraft. (And IIRC, USAF T-38, but that may depeond on the mod)
I doubt the average A or B pilot would be able to get any usable info (SA or otherwise) from it.

ChristiaanJ, I respectfully disagree with you in general principle. AoA in certain flight conditions is a useful scan and cross check.

That said, as I mentioned a few posts back, choosing where on an instrument panel one places an AoA, and in what flight regimes you train and expect your pilots to use it, takes some thought with an eye toward the use of the aircraft in question.

Some pages back one of our contributors listed a whole bunch of commercial transport aircraft, one or two of which typically has an AoA gage.

Rather that asserting that "pilot won't get any usable info (SA or otherwise) from it," perhaps what's been done is a task analysis, and a scan analysis.

What I think happened was that a choice was made for the expected operating environment, and that choice was that AoA information is closely enough indicated indirectly via other information that it wasn't deemed of sufficient priority to add a display to limited real estate in the instrument panel. It appears that most air transport pilots get along fine without an AoA gage.

AoA is still measured and used by the robot ... it is useful information, isn't it, particularly on approach to a wet runway? (http://www.navyair.com/Angle%20of%20Attack%20Indicator.htm) :ok:

J-Class

26th May 2011, 18:39

[QUOTE]Given that AoA is still measured and used by the robot ... it is useful information, isn't it?[\QUOTE]

Surely AoA (and perhaps a GPS speed indication for good measure) would be very helpful in instances where airspeed indicators have gone doolally and the aircraft computers are assaulting with pilots with a bunch of not necessarily consistent error messages and alarms?

All modern aircraft rely on system redundancy, but can any system be deemed truly redundant if it relies on the same components on each of its legs? (I'm imagining that more than one pitot tube iced up). Given the problems of producing 'true' redundancy in a single measurement system, why not admit that visible workarounds should always be available to the pilot?

Croqueteer

26th May 2011, 20:16

:confused:Power (available) plus attitude (available) equals performance. Or is this too simplistic?

Lonewolf_50

26th May 2011, 20:24

Doesn't configuration factor in to that? :confused: (Is that implied in (available) in your equation?)

Yankee Whisky

26th May 2011, 21:00

Given that AoA is still measured and used by the robot ... it is useful information, isn't it?

Surely AoA (and perhaps a GPS speed indication for good measure) would be very helpful in instances where airspeed indicators have gone doolally and the aircraft computers are assaulting with pilots with a bunch of not necessarily consistent error messages and alarms?

All modern aircraft rely on system redundancy, but can any system be deemed truly redundant if it relies on the same components on each of its legs? (I'm imagining that more than one pitot tube iced up). Given the problems of producing 'true' redundancy in a single measurement system, why not admit that visible workarounds should always be available to the
pilot?

With respect to observations of the sort listed in quotes simillar to the above, I have the following comments;

1. In my flight training some 60 plus years ago, I was tought to use
"needle, ball airspeed" as the absolute minimum to get out of
a sticky situation. On todays panels, I notice more than one attitude,
direction and speed instrument all of which driven from different sources
i.e. main batteries , stand-by battery, electric gyro, air vaccuum, pitot
pressure etc.
There was recurrent training in the use of this. The "ball" function is
also still on panels, so is a magnetic compass etc..

2. I have not seen much, if any, mention of "pitot heat" ,but that should
be one of the first actions of any crew member seeing airspeed
deterioration etc. It would be odd if all sensors were not being heated
at the same time. I burned my fingers (once only !) when checking a
pitot tube for wasp intrusion (one may remember this is very common
at certain times of the year).

3. What I suspect is the the sophistication used in designing an all
electronic/electric airplane caused programmers to assume pilots
are "managers" instead of "stick and rudder" chaps who can fly an
airplane by hand and who would prefer to receive an airplane that can be readily flown by hand, even under some type of adverse conditions, such as
turbulance. Methinks, these compromises in the interst of payloads and speed have left pilots to accept situations where they have precious little leaway of reacting, but, statistically, taking a relatively small risk.After all
we can all use a paycheque from time to time, no?

4. Anyone who read stories (Thud Ridge etc) about fighter pilots, most recently in in Vietnam, hearing multiple warning sounds in their cockpits made the conscious decisions to switch the f'rs OFF! The overload being considered more dangerous than flying out of harm's way and retain situational awareness.

5. GPS was listed as unreliable because only groundspeed is shown. That
is so, but the modern GPS reading can be corrected by a pilot knowing
the windspeed on his flight level, which at around 40,000 feet is fairly
directionally constant. In cu-nim systems this may be of not much use
because of the cloud's influence on its surroundingding air.
In gliding, GPS can measure the wind because when a glider circles
to climb, the drift is measurable and the wind speed become known
giving a read-out of both GPS ground and air speeds.

6. Perhaps certain cultural behaviour with certain flightcrews could mean
that crew members could be/feel intimidated by captains and fail to
throw out the book and do what is needed in an extraordinary situation?
KLM/Tennerife comes to mind.

I cannot judge the reactions, or the lack thereof, displayed by the flight
deck occupants on flight AF447, but if too much confusing information lead them to make errors of oversight/ignorance, then the obvious answer is to simplify the management in these situations, rather than have the computer sensors throw multiple warnings in the air and on the panel ! Perhaps computer programmers should bear this in mind and start refining the systems they concocted. My two cents.......:)

Safety Concerns

26th May 2011, 21:30

As a result of the blocked static ports the basic flight instruments relayed false airspeed, altitude and vertical speed data. Because the failure was not in any of the instruments but rather in a common supporting system, thereby defeating redundancy, the altimeter also relayed the false altitude information to the Air Traffic Controller.

Although the pilots were quite cognizant of the possibility that all of the flight instruments were providing inaccurate data, the correlation between the altitude data given by ATC and that on the altimeter likely further compounded the confusion.

Also contributing to their difficulty were the numerous cockpit alarms that the computer system generated, which conflicted both with each other and with the instruments. This lack of situational awareness can be seen in the CVR transcript. The fact that the flight took place at night and over water thus not giving the pilots any visual references was also a major factor.

sound familiar? That was a Boeing 757.
Now get off the flawed airbus nonsense.

SaturnV

27th May 2011, 01:23

Safety concerns, false analog. Maintenance had taped over the static ports, and the 757 took off in that condition. Is Boeing to be faulted because its engineers failed to anticipate the possibility of incompetence and/or gross negligence, and thus did not design and install a static-ports-are-taped-over sensor.

Jet Jockey A4

27th May 2011, 01:38

SaturnV wrote...

"Safety concerns, false analog. Maintenance had taped over the static ports, and the 757 took off in that condition. Is Boeing to be faulted because its engineers failed to anticipate the possibility of incompetence and/or gross negligence, and thus did not design and install a static-ports-are-taped-over sensor."

If you are referring to the Birgenair Flight 301 that had taken off Puerto Plata's Gregorio Luperón International Airport in the Dominican Republic and crashed into the ocean, it was not as some say some "tape" that had covered the static port.

Investigators suspected that some kind of insect could have created a nest inside the pitot tube. The prime suspect is a species called the black and yellow mud dauber wasp, well-known by pilots flying in the Dominican Republic.

The aircraft had not flown in 25 days during which time the pitot tubes were not covered, giving the wasps an opportunity to build nests in the tubes.

Teddy Robinson

27th May 2011, 01:47

They would if they were trained to.

edmundronald

27th May 2011, 02:41

So the answer to too much automation is more automation?

If the idea is to make a plane that thousands of people on every continent can fly, regardless of whether they buy their licenses or earn them, then yes I guess the only way to fix a problem with the automation is to improve the automation. Because the alternative is to improve the pilot's ability to hand fly their way out of trouble, and the training system for *civilian* pilots just isn't set up to do that. While Airbus etc are set up to improve the automation.

And before you dismiss my provocative post - please reflect: Why is it relevant whether the two FO's on that plane were less experienced than the captain? Were those FO's really so bad that they can be improved on by any reasonably priced training or recruitment short of several thousand hours on type? Were they really any worse than an average third world captain?

Edmund

GlueBall

27th May 2011, 03:48

That reference was NOT to Birgenair, but to AeroPeru departing Lima in which case the pitot & static ports were taped when the airframe was washed.:ooh:

MountainBear

27th May 2011, 06:23

but if too much confusing information lead them to make errors of oversight/ignorance, then the obvious answer is to simplify the management in these situations, rather than have the computer sensors throw multiple warnings in the air and on the panel

This is a well understood problem. The answer, however, is not as simple as one might surmise. One major difficulty is that when the **** hits the fan the computer doesn't have any effective way to prioritize errors. One major reason why the pilot gets the situation dumped in his lap is based upon the expectation that, being the person on the spot, he can do what the computer cannot do: prioritize. The electronics which govern the flight systems is not a android or a cyborg; it can't think for itself. All it can do is what it was programmed to do. Well, by definition if the situation is thrown in the pilots lap it means the computer's programming capability has been exceeded. It's an oxymoron to insist that software be programmed for the unexpected.

In practical terms, "simplifying" things for the pilots means more complex software code, more automation, and more guesswork on the part of software engineers. The net result would be to 'simply' the pilot right out of the flight deck entirely.

JCviggen

27th May 2011, 06:39

The net result would be to 'simply' the pilot right out of the flight deck entirely.

I don't think that's going to happen any time soon, although a pilot may become less of a "pilot" nonetheless.

Automation is the way forward unfortunately, especially with safety in mind. Statistically the computers are making considerably less mistakes than the pilots who are human, which is to be expected. Obviously the incident rate will never drop to zero entirely, but I think it would be very difficult to defend the notion that planes would be inherently safer with less automation.

There is still room for improvement in automation for sure,and the unfortunate AF447 will eventually lead to improvements in future airplanes. Hopefully it has shown among other things that you still depend on humans with their common sense to sort things out when the machines throw in the towel. So it's in one's best interest to give them as clear a situation as possible, not throw a bazillion error messages onto their screen. And fill in the gaps in training for the situations that cannot possibly happen.

Going back 20+ years in technology is not the answer.

MountainBear

27th May 2011, 07:11

but I think it would be very difficult to defend the notion that planes would be inherently safer with less automation.

I don't think that's true. "Automation' is a nice word but behind every piece of machine and every bit of software code is a human being. The issue is often portrayed as "machine vs man" but it's best understood as "human vs human". Aviation engineers, software programmers, etc are as a class no less capable of error than pilots. I think the trend towards automation will continue not because it's safer but because it's cheaper.

People often conceive of risk as a glass from which one drinks until there is nothing left on the bottom but the dregs. That view is wrong. After a certain point risk in complex systems becomes a tug of war. A decrease in risk in one area leads to an increase in risk in another. Often this increase in risk in another area is unforeseen, until it bites you on the ass. The net effect is that "improvements" are more often than not simply rearranging the furniture. We might just be at that point in aviation today.

Obviously the incident rate will never drop to zero entirely

Exactly. Look at the bright side. If the flight deck becomes completely automated that's two less possible deaths avoided right off the bat.:cool:

XX621

27th May 2011, 08:05

I think the trend towards automation will continue not because it's safer but because it's cheaper.
.....
The net effect is that "improvements" are more often than not simply rearranging the furniture. We might just be at that point in aviation today.
...

.

Disagree.

The next generation of flight control systems may not just be rigidly programmed, but will contain increasing amounts of machine-learning / pattern-recognition systems - although this technology is very much in it's infancy. There is probably scope in applying such systems to failure workload analysis and prioritisation, providing flight-crews with real-time assistance. For example, providing flight-crews with a situtation analysis and possible root causes with an indication of the degree of recognition between the observed inputs and the trained pattern:

e.g
95% match, given current ADC inputs, of an airspeed probe failure.
62% {some other related pattern}

At the very least such indications would take the flight crew direct from a collection of "low-level" warnings to a small number of possible explanations.

As a software engineer myself, I am amazed we don't see more accidents directly related to FBW; given the inherent complexity in building safety-critical software. The fact we don't is a credit to the specialists involved in these highly complex projects.In terms of reliability and correctness of function the field is light years ahead of other applications of computer programming.

NASA - NASA Dryden Fact Sheet - Intelligent Flight Control System (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-076-DFRC.html)

Safety Concerns

27th May 2011, 08:17

the reference was to pilots losing control when surrounded by alarms and unreliable indications.

The fact is, analogue or digital, lose basic readings and most of us are in trouble regardless of the flight control system as highlighted by several analogue accidents.

arcniz

27th May 2011, 08:24

So the answer to too much automation is more automation?

"Better automation" is more to the point. Relative to the sophistication of airframes, turbines, and other aircraft electromechanical and aerodynamic systems, the Automation is roughly in the era of the DC-3: clunky and sparse in function and comfort, but moderately tough.

All modern aircraft rely on system redundancy, but can any system be deemed truly redundant if it relies on the same components on each of its legs?

This is really a core issue -- which applies to the entire present global aircraft fleet: reliance on a single method for airspeed sensing, no matter how tried and true, means that single-mode perturbances will be able to cause accidents leading to the loss of aircraft and all aboard.

At present there are at least a dozen methods known that could be used to provide precision airspeed indications (especially in specific situations, such as very high, very fast, very slow) to complement pitot speed data, and/or replace it during icing and similar fault events.

To not have such redundancy in measuring this absolutely critical flight parameter on large passenger aircraft, even with the inevitable increment of cost for the devices and associated logistics, is to disregard a range of undesirable possibilities that probably should not be dismissed as unimportant.

Safety Concerns

27th May 2011, 08:28

what rubbish. There are usually 3 completely independent systems and history of operating aircraft for over 100 years would indicate this may be the FIRST time ever ALL 3 pitot systems failed.

I am shocked at he complete lack of reality and perspective here. The A330 global fleet has performed superbly since introduction and has an enviable record. The answer in my opinion is very very simple. Don't go near storms.

HotDog

27th May 2011, 08:30

Automation is fine as long as the human operator is sufficiently trained in it's use and is capable of controlling it. This is not confined to Aviation alone. Robotic surgery on critical anatomical areas and procedures involving Prostectomy for example, have a much higher success rate than manual intervention. Sorry for the thread creep, but automation is here to stay.

BOAC

27th May 2011, 08:41

this may be the FIRST time ever ALL 3 pitot systems failed. - do we know that? I thought the computers simply rejected the readings due to 'disagreement' thus possibly cascading events on the crew?Don't go near storms. - shows how much you know about aviation. Have you heard of the ITCZ for example? It kind of 'gets in the way' of your advice. What is 'near' in your mind, by the way - up, down left, right, 10nm, 20nm, 50nm, 100nm? Clarification of your 'answer' eagerly awaited by interested aviation people.

Safety Concerns

27th May 2011, 08:51

hello again BOAC.

I said "may" be the first time regarding the probes. There is already enough weather information out there to "suggest" they shouldn't have been where there were. Just as in previous Air France incidents there are justifiable questions to be asked about events.

Canada A340, a B747 in the far east which killed a passenger in turbulence.

The BEA has decided to publish a note with information on the first facts established, based on analysis of the data from the flight recorders. This note will be put on line on Friday 27 May at the beginning of the afternoon and will be available in English, French, German and Portuguese. There will be no press briefing.

infrequentflyer789

27th May 2011, 08:58

the pitot & static ports were taped when the airframe was washed.:ooh:

Which is what was supposed to happen - the critical failure is that they didn't remove the tape afterwards

The Perpignan airbus crashed because they didn't tape stuff up (AoA sensors in that case) when the airframe was washed [although it shouldn't have been fatal if the flight tests had been done properly]

forget

27th May 2011, 09:01

Which is what was supposed to happen

Tape? Can you get 'tape' with 'REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT' streamers?

Gary Brown

27th May 2011, 10:31

Latest BEA factual report, of Frid May 27th (in English):

http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.af.447/point.enquete.af447.27mai2011.en.pdf

AGB

which - rather oddly - is markedly dissimilar to the official French-language version...

http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.af.447/point.enquete.af447.27mai2011.fr.pdf

AGB

WilyB

27th May 2011, 11:34

which - rather oddly - is markedly dissimilar to the official French-language version...

"As accurate as the translation may be, the original text in French should be
considered as the work of reference."

I just re-read them side to side and I failed to see any "marked dissimilarity". May be they updated the translation?

Fargoo

27th May 2011, 11:42

New findings

At this stage of the investigation, as an addition to the BEA interim reports of 2 July and 17 December 2009, the following new facts have been established:

ˆˆ The composition of the crew was in accordance with the operator’s procedures.

ˆˆ At the time of the event, the weight and balance of the airplane were within the operational
limits.

ˆˆ At the time of the event, the two co-pilots were seated in the cockpit and the Captain was
resting. The latter returned to the cockpit about 1 min 30 after the disengagement of the
autopilot.

ˆˆ There was an inconsistency between the speeds displayed on the left side and the integrated
standby instrument system (ISIS). This lasted for less than one minute.

ˆˆ After the autopilot disengagement:

„„the airplane climbed to 38,000 ft,

„„the stall warning was triggered and the airplane stalled,

„„the inputs made by the PF were mainly nose-up,

„„the descent lasted 3 min 30, during which the airplane remained stalled.

The angle of attack increased and remained above 35 degrees,

„„the engines were operating and always responded to crew commands.

ˆˆ The last recorded values were a pitch attitude of 16.2 degrees nose-up, a roll angle of 5.3 degrees left and a vertical speed of -10,912 ft/min.

:( There are some parts of the CVR on the report too.

edmundronald

27th May 2011, 11:59

the stall warning was triggered and the airplane stalled,
the inputs made by the PF were mainly nose-up,
the descent lasted 3 min 30, during which the airplane remained stalled.
The angle of attack increased and remained above 35 degrees,

I think that pulling up the nose of a stalling plane is not exactly what can take it out of a stall - but then I'm not a pilot. Maybe I am not the one who should be taking flying lessons? Maybe stall recovery should be taught at airline pilot school?

At this point I will continue to fly Airbus as an SLF, but I think I will not fly Air France ever again. There is no reason to have pilots in a plane if they don't get taught to hand-fly the aircraft. I think US airlines have really bad catering and unpleasant overage cabin staff, but they often have pilots who are ex-military or enthusiasts and who are natural pilots.

Edmund

Poit

27th May 2011, 12:07

jrsanch

27th May 2011, 12:24

The Airbus has built-in protections that will 'prevent' it from stalling when all systems and computers are working, giving the pilot the 'idea' that even pulling all the way on the stick is probably the best response to a situation where altitude/speed are compromised. We are taught to do this in a CFIT scenario.
In the scenario of AF447, they lost the protections due to the airspeed being unreliable, and as per the information we have, never recovered Normal Law, however, the airspeed indication apparently came back to normal, but the airplane was already in a stall condition. my thinking the pilot was pulling to recover thinking he had the protections, or this is the natural reaction to the automation in the Airbus.
Angle of Attack is mentioned repeatedly in the report, yet this information is not provided to the pilot!
Airbus, PLEASE GIVE US AN ANGLE OF ATACK INDICATOR AND STOP BLAMING PILOTS!

A6-UGH

27th May 2011, 12:27

I mean no disrespect to the pilots of AF447 but I really don't understand how experienced pilots with thousands of hours of flying can keep pulling on the stick from 38,000ft to 0ft without ever realizing that they killing themselves! Planes sometimes stall, it's a fact of life, so how come pilots do not receive the adequate training for such an emergency and are often taken by surprise by something as basic as a stall? Also, is there no training to rid the pilots of the pull on the stick "reflex"?

WhatsaLizad?

27th May 2011, 12:30

As I said elsewhere, I don't understand why the PF continued making nose-up inputs in a stall environment. A suicidal thing to do, and elementary for anyone who's flown an aircraft. The results are plain (and very sad) to see, but how on earth does a proffessional qualified pilot with hundreds of lives in his hands make such a mistake?

Perhaps I'm jumping the gun, perhaps there's more to it and someone might put me in my place, and I don't mean to be disrespectful to a person who's no longer with us, or his family. I'm just shocked by the reading.

Should airline pilots have a yearly 'refresher' in a light aircraft to remind them of the basic principles of flying?

Yes, you are "jumping the gun". My suggestion is that we wait for a clear report on exactly what the crew was given to react to the situation in terms of displays, indications and warnings. A well meaning bunch of engineers attempting to automate an airliner to the maximum extent possible in order to provide the lowest training costs can create a confusing disaster when problems occur, especially when different systems start conflicting. The QA A380 comes to mind.

I once experienced a subtle airspeed failure at night in a B767 on takeoff with a slew of warnings at rotation. Both of us simply fell back to power, pitch, and a quick look at the runway length remaining which was normal. It was very confusing and cannot imagine a low time crew processing the problem along with the seat-of-the-pants feel that comes from 6000 hours in type. What would be even more confusing would be yokes/sticks or throttles that didn't offer feedback as to what the other pilot/autopilot or autothrottles were attempting to accomplish.

Jet Jockey A4

27th May 2011, 12:30

First of all both links provide on here fail to open. Perhaps there is too much traffic on the server.

Now if I go by the excerpt of the report I see on the forum, Air France is in a lot of trouble. There are simply too many things going wrong at that airline lately.

Now I say if there was no actual problem with the aircraft except for a momentary discrepancy between the LH airspeed and the standby airspeed (what about the RH airspeed), I can’t believe the two pilots in control stalled this aircraft and flew it into the ocean from 38,000 feet in a stalled configuration when it seems everything was working properly including the engines which seemed to respond to pilot inputs.

Why was the autopilot “OFF” for 90 minutes?
Were they just hand flying it for fun?
Did they have a technical problem with the AP?
Why wasn’t the captain advised immediately about the AP problem if indeed there was a problem?
Regardless while in RVSM airspace without auto flight shouldn’t they have advised ATC of the problem and either climb above RVSM airspace (doubtful the A-330 can) or descent below which means they would have had to divert back most likely to the main land.

Too many things that just don’t add up to a proper operation of an aircraft and to think the pilot flying was pulling on the yoke instead of pushing, what the hell was he thinking. People couldn’t believe the two pilots stalled a Dash 8/400 in Buffalo a couple years ago but you could always point to a piss poor commuter airline with lack of training, low time pilots with bad pay and bad working conditions but here we are talking a major world known airline with supposedly good training and pilots with experience. They are extremely well paid with very good working conditions and yet they can’t even recognise a stall and fly it into the ocean?!
I just don’t get it!

I go to the simulator 3 times a year (because I’m qualified on 2 types) and I can assure you that not only does our company train us on stalls but it is mandated by TC to do so. These include stalls at low altitude while levelling off at MDA in a landing configuration, stalls on departure in takeoff configuration with an engine out and high altitude stalls. We also practice for unusual attitudes which will be extreme at times in conjunction with the lost of the PFD, HUD or both PFDs where one as to revert to the STBY attitude indicator. I don’t understand why this wouldn’t be part of any airline training.

I’ll repeat myself again and I say if in the final report it comes down to a pilot error in which the 2 pilots stalled the aircraft and flew into the ocean from 38,00 feet a major clean up at Air France is warranted.

In the mean time I’m glad to have reserved by airline ticket on Air Canada to Paris next month and not on Air France (too bad I could have deadheaded on the A-380).