AF 447 Thread No. 5

[glad rag]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Optimistic
Any particular significance to AoA sensor #1 consistently reading low ?


At a guess 2" ice perhaps?:hmm:

[airtren]

Hello RetiredF4,

This can be a major catch !!! Your question is indeed very important!!!

I still don't have an answer to my question, which is somewhat along the lines of yours:

"Is the actuating of the control surfaces proportional to the duration of a control SS command", which could also be a contributor to the amplifying of control surface action, if the perception of the control surface action by the PF is delayed.


i had asked that question at least two times before, and your answer motivates me to try it a third time:

If the SS input to the flightcontrols, in this case to the elevators (and the THS???) is modulated according to speed, what speed source is used and is that a gradual change or a change of lets say 2 or three different datum values?


I think this question is very important, as we see a drastic drop of IAS after AP dropout while PF was (mis)handling the SS. If this new "false speed" changed the modulation of the SS input to the extreme low speed regime (wich at that time was not cosistant with the real speed), then the SS inputs of the PF would suddenly cause much greater flightcontrol deflections than moments before. It would explain part of the initial SS control problems and if THS travel is speed dependent as well we should look into THS travel to NU in relation to later (when speeds where valid again)THS travel ND also.

[takata]

There is a little something of Perpignan here.
It has to be add to the complexity of the situation - Beside the known disparities of indicated airspeed, did it trigger a silent rejection of the ADR 1 anemometric values ?
How confused was the system
You should know it but you seems to be the one confused, or trying to confuse on purpose. One alpha probe doesn't change a glitch until a second one is drifting, which is obviously not the case. In Perpignan, it takes two fully blocked.

Even for stall alarm, the higher value of three is triggering the alarm. An under-reading probe is a sign of something (ice, probe issue) but not something that could "confuse" the system (when was it confused, by doing what?).

[ChristiaanJ]

First, for what is worth: the French pronouns ("prenomes"), like the nouns they replace, have in French two genres: masculine, or feminine. "il' is the masculine form, so it would translate into the English "he" for a person, or "it" for an object or animal.

In this case, I have NO doubts, that the PNF's ""il vient ou pas" - "is he coming or not?" is "Lonewoolf_50's" interpretation, in terms of referring to the Captain.Sorry, airtren, but you obviously don't live in France.
You should have SOME doubts....
In French it's "un avion", so an aircraft is "il".
I've had regular problems explaining this to anglophone firends...
"Why do the French refer to a Concorde as "he" or "it", rather than "she" ?"

That said, you may have a valid point... "il vient ou pas" is more likely to refer to the captain than to the response of the aircraft. I would have expected "ça vient ou pas ?" in the latter case (still too colloquial to translate unequivoqually without the full context)

[A33Zab]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Optimistic
Any particular significance to AoA sensor #1 consistently reading low ?

There is a little something of Perpignan here.

It has to be add to the complexity of the situation - Beside the known disparities of indicated airspeed, did it trigger a silent rejection of the ADR 1 anemometric values ?

How confused was the system ?


In ALT/DIRECT no Hi AOA protection, most proberly PRIMs don't care about that......
For SW the highest value of the 3 AOA's is the trigger.

FWIW currently an AOA sensor replacement program is active.

[takata]

This can be a major catch !!! Your question is indeed very important!!!
I still don't have an answer to my question, which is somewhat along the lines of yours:
"Is the actuating of the control surfaces proportional to the duration of a control SS command", which could also be a contributor to the amplifying of control surface action, if the perception of the control surface action by the PF is delayed.
Why do you think that system would bother to isolate any compromised ADR channel - they are continuously monitored in real time - beside for avoiding that wrong imputs would be used by the system flight controls?
Alternate law 2 is just doing that; C* law is modified; imputs are treated differently with less gain (meaning that default values are used instead of real air data). There is no proportionality between surface deflection and stick imputs until direct law. Those imputs are translated into load-factor demand, and system will deliver them up to the limits (2.5g/-1 g in clean conf.).

[SaturnV]

Lonewolf, in the English version of the BEA note, the time it takes for the captain to return to the cockpit from his rest is less than a minute.

From 2 h 10 min 50, the PNF tried several times to call the Captain back.

At 2 h 11 min 42, the Captain came back into the cockpit

While we await the English version, the PNF presumably asking where is the captain is said at 2h 10 min 49.

2 h 10 min 49
PNF: (…) il est où euh ?
Uh, where is he?

The timing suggests three things:

1.) The PNF expected that the movements of the plane would have brought the captain back to the cockpit.

2.) The PNF had already called the captain but the BEA did not include that call in its sequence.

3.) The PNF thought he had called the captain, but had not.

We do not have a transcript of the phrasing used by the PNF to summon the captain back to the cockpit, but I don't think even resting pompiers would get to the pompe floor within a minute after the alarm sounds.

[takata]

2 h 10 min 49
PNF: (…) il est où euh ?
Uh, where is he?
The timing suggests three things:
1.) The PNF expected that the movements of the plane would have brought the captain back to the cockpit.
2.) The PNF had already called the captain but the BEA did not include that call in its sequence.
3.) The PNF thought he had called the captain, but had not.
Typical mistake.
1. the sentence is unfinished, "euh" at the end means that PFN missed the word and did not bother to complete it later.
2. "Where is it... uh..."
He is looking at something that disapeared or that he did not found. And it could be a part of the documentation if the captain left with it.
The clues:
a) he is calling the captain right after saying that..
b) when the captain came back, one of his first word is "here it is, use that".

[Mr Optimistic]

Thanks CJ. Do you remember a few weeks back when everyone just wanted the cvr as it would answer everything ! Can understand the editing, but it would help if BEA explained their policy to what they were showing and not showing. A simple <expletive> mark in the transcript would help show tension without loss of anyone's integrity.

Still don't know what the PNF and PF knew about their initial altitude excursion, think it is important as the failure of the Captain to be made aware of the climb is I think crucial to his failure to appreciate what the situation was. If they didn't know, then their failure to brief him wasn't a separate failure on their parts.

As for AoA sensor #1, well it could be a bit of ice counterbalancing I suppose but I rather expected to be told that it was likely due to an airflow issue owing to its location and the unusual wind vector.

[CONF iture]

takata and A33Aab
I don't really mind about the color of the REMUS that was used. But if an AoA sensor seemed to be blocked for a while, I do think it is worth a clear mention.
Where is that mention ?

One alpha probe doesn't change a glitch until a second one is drifting
If one alpha probe is blocked and the two remaining vary together, would it change a glitch in the ADR rejection process ?

[fyrefli]

2 h 10 min 49
PNF: (…) il est où euh ?
1. the sentence is unfinished, "euh" at the end means that PFN missed the word and did not bother to complete it later.
2. "Where is it... uh..."

Whilst I don't necessarily disagree with the thrust of the rest of your post, I actually parsed this as:

"il est où, hein?"

They would sound very similar.

(Caveat: I am not a native speaker, but have been listening to French from an early age, as my father taught it, and was once fluent in it myself.)

[spagiola]

2 h 11 min 06
PNF: (…) il vient ou pas

There's been some discussion as to whether "il" refers to the captain or the aircraft (Avion is masculine in French, so from a purely grammatical sense "il" could be l'avion.)

If you read the entire CVR transcript we have, there is no other reference to "il" referring to the aircraft. The three pilots usually say "je" ("I"), "tu" (second person singular "you"), or "on" (which here means "we", as in "on monte" -- "we're climbing"). That is, they always refer to either their own individual actions or to themselves collectively (which includes the aircraft, as they are in it). Nowhere else do they seem to refer to the aircraft as a distinct object. In my experience, this is common. You would say "il" refering to an airplane if you were outside it watching it; you would not usually say "il" if you were inside it.

"il vient" also would be a very unusual way to refer to an aircraft maneuver, unless one was at an airport waiting for the aircraft to arrive, for example. If it were "il monte" or "il descend" or "il se redresse" (he's recovering") or "il pique" (he's diving) it would make more sense, but I cannot think of any maneuver where a pilot would say "il vient".

So my conclusion is that "il" refers to the captain, and not the aircraft.

[SaturnV]

takata and fyrefli and spagiola, thanks.

Perhaps with luck, a native English speaker will help with the English version of the third interim report, perhaps someone like the NTSB or AAIB representative / liaison to the BEA.

[solaise]

I have now read many statements that the correct action should have been "pitch and power" at cruise level. If this is really true can any of the knowledgeable posters explain to me why autopilot disconnect was so urgent when speeds started to become strange. Could it not have continued on by simply keeping pitch and power with some noisy kind of alarm to the pilots.

I wondered more or less the same. Although I can perhaps understand the logic of the automation handing over with unreliable data and the desire not to complicate its logic still further, is it not possible to provide a simple emergency cruise "autopilot" that could be manually engaged in such circumstances that simply keeps the wings level and pitch at 5 degrees.

[Lonewolf_50]

Dozy, it read pilots to me. Perhaps me being far sighted and the PC I was using is to blame. If what you said was "apart from the pitots nothing was wrong" then my response to you was to something you didn't say.

Sorry about that. My, what a waste of bandwidth over that little error. :O

Apologies due to you and Old Carthusian for confusing the issue due to a slight reading problem. :O:=:oh::\:eek:

takata:

Sorry, we are not speaking the same language nor in the same terms.

When the Captain leaves the flight deck, there are two pilots, one in each seat.

WHO IS IN CHARGE?

You can't answer that with "they are both co-pilots." There are expected roles for two pilots in a multi pilot cockpit.

So, when the Captain left, WHO WAS IN CHARGE?

The new rule, which was the end of your post, seems to be

Whomever is now sitting the left seat is in charge until I (the Captain) get back and relieve him.

Correct?

EDIT: to all of you kind folks, thanks for explaining the nuances of French in the reference that I presumed referred to the Captain's return, once called by the PNF. No hablo Francais sehr gut. :\

From something gums had said about how the F-16 waffles and falls in a particular kind of stall, it appears that the A330 has a similar "soft" feel to the stall ... but then, it appears that the nose was being held up, which kept it in a stall. Perhaps the "feeling" wasn't all that pronounced, other than the roll excursions early on, and so what the PNF was seeing and experiencing wasn't as obvious to the folks in the cabin, which included the Captain.

[fyrefli]

When the Captain leaves the flight deck, there are two pilots, one in each seat.

WHO IS IN CHARGE?

According to the procedures in operation at the time, the Junior F/O, as PF, in the RH seat.

The new rule, which was the end of your post, seems to be

Whomever is now sitting the left seat is in charge until I get back and relieve him.

That's also my understanding.

[airtren]

Christiaanj,

I think your post's contribution to the cause of the French language awareness of the non-francophone audience is welcome.

The common good is more important than the individual's so a thorough and thoughtful reading of my post which would have helped, if you're interested in avoiding making invalid assumptions, and saving time and bandwidth, of a preamble and unnecessary explanation of "l'avion" genre to me, is of a lesser importance.

Hm.... maybe a while back, your anglophone friends were also picking on, and/or having fun, to the use of a "feminine" name, to call a masculine object, resulting in the "le Concorde".... ... makes me think of the beautiful "Caravelle"...

Of course, I appreciate your honest reinforcing of the "il vient pas" translation, and agree with "ca viens ou pas? ...." regarding which, I would have been in agreement with Takata's take.... which is still bemusing me.

Sorry, airtren, but you obviously don't live in France.
You should have SOME doubts....
In French it's "un avion", so an aircraft is "il".
I've had regular problems explaining this to anglophone firends...
"Why do the French refer to a Concorde as "he" or "it", rather than "she" ?"

That said, you may have a valid point... "il vient ou pas" is more likely to refer to the captain than to the response of the aircraft. I would have expected "ça vient ou pas ?" in the latter case (still too colloquial to translate unequivoqually without the full context)



Spagiola,

You pointed out some aspects that I have not thought about before, but now, when I think about them, switched to French language, make a lot of sense... thanks.

2 h 11 min 06
PNF: (…) il vient ou pas

There's been some discussion as to whether "il" refers to the captain or the aircraft (Avion is masculine in French, so from a purely grammatical sense "il" could be l'avion.)
...
So my conclusion is that "il" refers to the captain, and not the aircraft.

[Old Engineer]

Lonewolf 50

I would think PNF would have been PIC in the Captain's absence. He had by far the greater total hours and hours in type, of the two, IIRC. Although, he had just come off "vacation"-- here another need to examine the French wording... off several weeks vacation, or was it that his mandated turn-around rest had been a little short of the required hours? Did I read correctly that PNF had just completed a [short?] rest in the rest cabin; did the Captain ask if he had gotten enough rest?

Again, PNF was sitting in the LH seat; ie, that otherwise occupied by the Captain. Now given the logistics of moving around in the cockpit this may have been just convenience of the moment. On the other hand, the A/C seems designed to be flown in emergency more conveniently from the LH seat.

Well, regardless of what one thinks of that, there can be not doubt that if you want to have some idea of what the pilot actually flying is seeing on his screens, datawise, then the pilot flying has to be sitting in the LH seat. Of course, we would still not know if the pilot actually flying was actually looking at the particular screen for which we would know the data.

But it does suggest to me there should be a policy that the PIC sit in the LH seat, and that the normal procedure in emergency should be for the PIC to request that control be turned over to him. (I do recognize that there are conditions when not making a change could be better, but this does not seem to have been such here.)

I agree we need to know French and AF custom in this regard, and indeed AB' thoughts on which side is better for control in emergency-- given AB did not treat each side the same. It would certainly be helpful for tenancy of the LH seat to indicate the chain of command, in cases such as this.

One other thought... This minature SS seems in this situation only to have the virtue of saving weight. Wasn't this control orginally devised for situations having many g's, where a pilot could at most only move his fingers? Certainly at 2 g's a skier can support his whole body, and easily move his arms about. --OE

[wiggy]

But it does suggest to me there should be a policy that the PIC sit in the LH seat, and that the normal procedure in emergency should be for the PIC to request that control be turned over to him

On the other hand in the case of augmented ops with the captain on break that would mean in any emergency automatically turning over control to the co-pilot sitting in the his/her "non natural seat", the Left one....which might not be the best idea ( the aircraft should be designed to be flown with equal "ease" :ooh: from either seat, but a co-pilot's natural habitat is the Right Hand one)

[airtren]

Takata,

Thanks for this answer. It seems the answer to the question posted by RetiredF4.

But will use the opportunity to ask a question of mine. But before I do that, if my sense of the tone of your post is correct, please take it as a very simple, non loaded question.

The range of air speeds was from 275knots down to very low values, which is quite a wide range.

Is one default value correct for such a wide range?

Why do you think that system would bother to isolate any compromised ADR channel - they are continuously monitored in real time - beside for avoiding that wrong imputs would be used by the system flight controls?

Alternate law 2 is just doing that; C* law is modified; imputs are treated differently with less gain (meaning that default values are used instead of real air data).

If this part of your post is the answer to my question, then let me make sure!

My question was about "stick input duration", and there is no "duration" in your answer...

So, I will rephrase the question, just in case it was not clear, picking some numbers for the sake of clarity:

Is there a difference between the control surface deflection in response to a 1 second long stick input to a position 2/3 of stop, and the control surface deflection in response to one stick input that is 5 seconds long to the same position 2/3 of stop?


There is no proportionality between surface deflection and stick imputs until direct law. Those imputs are translated into load-factor demand, and system will deliver them up to the limits (2.5g/-1 g in clean conf.).

[Old Engineer]

Yes, that is a good point. Although it does appear that PNF was issuing instructions to PF which possibly were not being followed. But then, without the tone of the statements, what was being said exactly is a bit unclear, I'll grant. Then too, whether at the time of these comments the A/C had elevator authority to implement the ordered (if so) action is likewise unclear. --OE

[ChristiaanJ]

Although, he had just come off "vacation"-- here another need to examine the French wording... off several weeks vacation, or was it that his mandated turn-around rest had been a little short of the required hours?You're right, another language issue.... with the classic problem that similar English and French words do NOT necessarily mean the same...
The French word for holidays/vacation is "vacances".
"Vacation" in French refers to a "time on duty", so it's the opposite notion from the English.
Hope that helps.

[mm43]

Originally posted by OE ...
I would think PNF would have been PIC in the Captain's absence. He had by far the greater total hours and hours in type, of the two, IIRC. Although, he had just come off "vacation"-- here another need to examine the French wording... off several weeks vacation, or was it that his mandated turn-around rest had been a little short of the required hours? Did I read correctly that PNF had just completed a [short?] rest in the rest cabin; did the Captain ask if he had gotten enough rest?Interim Report No.1 refers to the crew as a "whole", and indicates that they flew out of Paris on the morning of 28 May 2009 (AF446?).

The passenger list provides the information that the Jnr F/O had his wife onboard. There is also a question mark regarding her possible presence on the FD.

There has been discussion a page or two back which suggested that the Capt actually appointed the PF (RHS) as his deputy before leaving the FD. Also, since the accident (takata reports) that AF policy has been changed and that the Snr F/O will sit in the LHS and assume command when the Capt is not on the FD. This action would tend to confirm that the Jnr F/O was both PF and PIC.

[Old Engineer]

Thanks for bringing me up to speed on the Captain's change-of-command instructions. I read his statement in the French, but this was one of those times when I relied on my own French, even though to me it was an ambiguous statement. My exact thought was, "Did he really say that, and what did he mean?" Well, I'm really short on French idiomatic usage and conversational French, and should have not skipped over some of the explanation from those trying to help. --OE

[gums]

- First of all, and to A33Z, what's the document you are using for elevator deflection per "g"? And for the c.g. versus elevator moment arm? etc.

About 95% of the military FBW jets have the all-moving HS, and no "elevator". This is extremely important once past the mach, if not essential ( ask Yeager about his X-1 missions). So your document must be pointed at subsonic designs and heavies. And by the way, several subsonic designs have the all-moving HS/elevator.

As far as aircraft movement about the c.g......... where's the center of aero forces, the mean aero chord (MAC)? There are very good reasons to have the elevator at certain distances from both the c,g, and the MAC. Too close and the plane is 'twitchy", and too far makes the beast sluggish, and so forth.

I also question a minimum of 1 deg of elevator per gee. That seems very sensitive, and unless the control surface movement is biased by dynamic pressure, you can get into trouble real fast. I would prefer a surface deflection related to maximum movement AND maximum gee AND dynamic pressure, as we had in the Viper ( probably Shuttle, but have to ask some friends).

- Secondly. I'll beat the dead horse once again. Why doesn't the system have a "standby gains" to be used by HAL when the pitot system fails or is deemed unreliable. Our primitive FBW system had such, and it worked in just the situation AF447 encountered, and a prominent caution light came on.

"Standby gains" prevent the potential problem another poster has questioned - "what does HAL use for control surface "laws" when airspeed is unreliable or missing? maybe A33Z can answer that?

- Finally, I disagree that the plane was unrecoverable without using a horrendous 30 degree nose down attitude, or more. The 'bus appears to have excellent, if not oustanding directional capabilities, whether in a rudder "law" or basically good aero design. Our little jet took rudder away from us once AoA was above 29 -30 degrees to help avoid a spin. Hence, our deep stall was relatively free of yaw and had little uncommanded roll excursions.

Our problem was the pitch moment with the full nose down stabilizer, yet nose up capability was still there. Sound familiar?

The swept wing beasts don't have the sharp stall break that straight wing planes have. The usual problem at extreme AoA is that drag exceeds available thrust if you maintain the "back" stick pressure Concorde, all the delta designs, Vulcan, Shuttle, and the beat goes on. On all of those, you could get flying again without lowering the nose to a horrendous nose down attitude, while using all available power. I speak from personal experience from my hours in the Deuce long ago.

It seems that AF447 came close to "breaking the stall", i.e. getting thrust greater than drag. Using the full movement of the THS could have been the key.

[PJ2]

HN39;
That's another intriguing thing. The ADR's calculate Mach and CAS quasi-simultaneously from the same pitot and static pressures. Why would there be a delay of two seconds between Mach and CAS?Yes, intriguing indeed. I doubt if it's "polling" in nature, as these values would be in continuous calculation, but "polling", (so to speak...it doesn't quite work that way, but close), does affect flight data due to recording rates-per-second. Between the two, I'm not sure what the ADR "saw". Is the two second apparent delay merely just that? ...the time it took for BITE processes to assess/decide and the first test was Mach No.?

We have only limited resources from which to build theories and create tentative conclusions; it has been my experience that one cannot rely upon the flight data, (meaning, one must take into account parameter recording rates), for these things because of polling rates, whereas, as you observe, Mach, CAS, etc are "quasi-simultaneously" calculated and (one assumes), sent to the "users", (the ADRs) for use.

Here, I'm not sure about the notion of "quasi-simultaneous" - are these calculations truly parallel and "held in memory" until all processes are finished and data can be sent onwards, or are they series and the data is sent as it becomes available, and if so, at what point in the calculation is a decision made, for example, if quasi-simultaneous calculations result in one Mach value of M0.26, does the process stop there and bifurcate into a "can the AFS remain engaged?" loop, or is it more recursive than this, "just to make sure" of data correctness and a decision to disengage is confirmed? From my reading of the AMM, it seems a lot simpler than this, and I wonder if the two-second "delay" is actually a delay or is it the nature of flight data itself?

[jcjeant]

Hi,

mm43
Interim Report No.1 refers to the crew as a "whole", and indicates that they flew out of Paris on the morning of 28 May 2009 (AF446?).
Thank you for this information :ok:
I miss it in my read of the report N°1
So this make more weird to me the question of the captain to the Jnr F/O if he had the good qualifications for take the duty .... as reported in the report N°3
So for the flight Paris - Rio ... the captain don't bothered of the qualifications .... :sad: or this Jnr F/O was never in charge .. for the Paris - Rio ?

[SaturnV]

The wife of the PF had gone with him to Brazil because the crew had a long layover in Brazil. As it was also Pentecost weekend, this meant a long holiday weekend. She taught physics in high school. Their two young sons remained in France.

The PF had the most flying hours of the three in the previous 30 days.

Hope that clarifies the circumstances of her trip, which I had mis-interpreted.

[bearfoil]

As a Frernchman, jc, consider: Mrs. PF may be seated on the FD, in attendance, with her husband as PF. Perhaps a Plum for PF? Captain's question about the licensure was to reassure Captian as to legality? The seating arrangements and Ile de Sein recovery were reported amid mystery as to who sat where, and why the #4 was retrieved.

But......what would be the relevance anyway, if all was 'kosheur'?

Simply this. Ready to be corrected, but I am in a large family with strong representation of Native French. It is considered extremely RUDE to correct someone in his work. It is inexcusable to correct him in front of a woman, especially his wife.

[hulotte]

to jcjeant [QUOTE] So for the flight Paris - Rio ... the captain don't bothered of the qualifications .... http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/puppy_dog_eyes.gif or this Jnr F/O was never in charge .. for the Paris - Rio ?

From interim report july 29

 Flying hours:
total: 2,936 on type: 807(9) in the previous six months: 368 hours, 16 landings, 18 take-offs in the previous three months: 191 hours, 7 landings, 8 take-offs in the previous thirty days: 61 hours, 1 landing, 2 take-offs
This pilot had performed five rotations in the South America sector since arriving in the A330/A340 division in 2008, including one to Rio de Janeiro. His oceanic route qualification was valid until 31 May 2010.

[airtren]

HN39;
....
Here, I'm not sure about the notion of "quasi-simultaneous" - are these calculations truly parallel....

I am not sure if it's helpful... In essence, the calculations are done very, very quickly, a lot quicker than the time relevant for moving a control surface between two distinct consecutive positions - 6 (microsec) to 9 (nanoseconds) order of magnitude. At that calculation speed rate, the calculations would be looking like being done in parallel, even if they were done serially.

[bearfoil]

To understand airtren, a simple question? How long after A/P loss is LAW change to ALTERNATE?

[A33Zab]

hi Gums,

Don't get me wrong, the 1°/g is not an absolute value.
It is used to explain the elevator deflection criteria.

The massive THS/Stab for heavy transporters are 'slow' screw driven, therefore the elevators takes the short term pitch orders while long term orders are for THS to neutralize elevator deflection.

The exact logic inside the PRIMs is for obvious reasons hidden from public eyes.

Since it is 'gee' driven it won't need a speed signal to operate, (speed used for rates and gains) but if it is missing the IR(accelerometers) it definitely revert to DIRECT.
Already in the first BEA report (http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601e1.en/pdf/f-cp090601e1.en.pdf) page 54/55 it was stated and explained why the system went in a latched ALTERNATE 2 law.

The figure and text is extracted from the FCTM.

http://i474.photobucket.com/albums/rr101/Zab999/ElevFCTM.jpg

[JD-EE]

jcjeant, the stall alarm was reliable as long as the PF recalled the overly complex set of rules for the stall alarm being suppressed.

this is the sort of logic I contemplate
If the plane is in the air (no weight on wheels or wheels retracted)
then if airspeed is valid and below threshold
then alarm: stall stall
else
then (airspeed invalid) if stall was on
then alarm: stall stall
else
then if ground speed has dropped gt 150 kts in the last minute
then alarm: stall stall
Numbers need to be teased out somewhere. Even logic as simple as this is better than what the have now, as I see it:
If the plane is in the air (no weight on wheels or wheels retracted)
if airspeed is valid and below threshold
then alarm: stall stall
else
then (airspeed invalid) if stall was on
then alarm: stall stall
(A perfect solution is hard to derive and requires AoA and other criteria. I'd also put some hysteresis on the warnings so that they're a little harder to trigger and a little harder to un-trigger.)

(Sorry about the formatting - it's best I can do with this interface in a reasonable amount of time.)

[A33Zab]

where have you been last years?

1 sec!

02:10:05 AP disengage.
02:10:06 ALTERNATE LAW (at the start of the 10s monitoring proces)
02:10:08 A/THR disengage.
02:10:16 ALTERNATE LAW LATCHED.

[A33Zab]

You forgot to program an END IF, EXIT IF and ERROR handler.........:8

Before 02:11:45 the CAS was not below 60Kts and SW operational.
They modified the system, AOA input to IR part of ADIRU and SW will now be NCD if CAS below 30Kts. (call it progressing technology)

I think they should prevent the A/C to become in such a upset situation.

[takata]

takata: Sorry, we are not speaking the same language nor in the same terms.
Sorry also. I have re-read what you wrote and picked "leg" as the entire flight (as I remembered you corrected me on this point). Hence, maybe I confused you with my answer, as you get it right concerning this part of the flight.

My emphasis was to point at AF system for long-haul crews (équipage renforcé) which:
- do not use "relief" pilot (limited duty).
- do not rank F/Os (senior/junior)
- let the captain to decide and annouce who will be the pilot in charge between the two F/Os while he is resting.

What changed in the system is:
- Before: Pilot in charge was PF during captain's rest. (AF447 case).
- Now: Pilot in charge is PNF, in left hand seat, during captain's rest.

[takata]

I actually parsed this as:
"il est où, hein?"
They would sound very similar.
In fact no... they don't sound very similar. It's due to their particular prosodie (tone). Both are interjectives which phonetically sounds quite differently (at least for French native speakers): "hein ?" and "euh..." are not usually confused in transcription.

- "euh..." is a sign of hesitancy, hence it is pronounced low, like a breath.
- "hein ?" is a sign of insistancy, hence it is pronounced high, short and distinctively.

Also, "hein ?" would call for an answer / acknowledgement :
- je suis d’accord qu’on est en manuel hein ?
- Surtout essaie de toucher le moins possible les commandes en en latéral hein ?
- Je suis en TOGA hein ?

Hence, "il est où euh..." should point at something ("where is [it]... ), not at someone (who else?). The PNF only called the captain after saying that. Before calling him, he perfectly knew where his captain was (resting).


"il vient" also would be a very unusual way to refer to an aircraft maneuver, unless one was at an airport waiting for the aircraft to arrive, for example. If it were "il monte" or "il descend" or "il se redresse" (he's recovering") or "il pique" (he's diving) it would make more sense, but I cannot think of any maneuver where a pilot would say "il vient".
So my conclusion is that "il" refers to the captain, and not the aircraft.

I will agree with your good point. Interpretation is based on context which is the primary clue. Notwithstanding, Such talks reading are revealing some ambiguousness not always easy to catch at first glance. Moreover, those dialogues are not complete and are lacking the necessary punctuation.

CVR transcipts lacks crucial referentials to be perfectly understood. If one factors the intrinsic ambiguousness of any langage while, in translation, further involontary ambiguousness could be added in the process, this may end quite far from the reality. Do not expect something clearer once released in English, rather the contrary!

[jcjeant]

Hi,

Come back from some pages .. (this thread run quick lol)
takata
Typical mistake.
1. the sentence is unfinished, "euh" at the end means that PFN missed the word and did not bother to complete it later.
2. "Where is it... uh..."
He is looking at something that disapeared or that he did not found. And it could be a part of the documentation if the captain left with it.
The clues:
a) he is calling the captain right after saying that..
b) when the captain came back, one of his first word is "here it is, use that".

Yes the captain tell "here it is,use that"

It answers who and what he was asked?
Mystery ..
Typical error you said ?
I rather think that we lose our time trying to put words into actions and timing
The CVR transcript in this Report No. 3 is very incomplete (it does not take a linguist to say such a thing)
No doubt the final report will be more complete
And last .. it will certainly be the complete version during the trial .. because judges and lawyers will not be satisfied by charades we read now

[Old Engineer]

Thank you for the useful information of your last post (00:24 Z on 2d). I'd say you have to be very well informed. I mean, it's more than just having a manual lying around. I have some questions-- you wrote:

"The massive THS/Stab for heavy transporters are 'slow' screw driven, therefore the elevators takes the short term pitch orders while long term orders are for THS to neutralize elevator deflection."

My question here is, when CG is full aft, and elevator authority thus at a designed minimum of 1 degree per 1 g, how fast does the "slow" screwjack move the plane of the HS, compared to how fast the movement of the SS moves the elevator through 1 degree?

It seems to me that in any case, the rate at which the screwjack catches up with the elevator is 2-1/2 times faster at full aft CG than it would be at full forward CG. This further seems to me that PF would have only 40% as much times to assess the results of his SS inputs, when CG is full aft, compared to his situation with CG full forward. Am I missing something there?

Beyond that, it is fairly obvious (well, I didn't see it until now, I admit) that 13 degrees NU of the HS jackscrew cannot be reeled off regardless of the speed of the jackscrew, until the A/C has reduced its forward velocity to the point where such angle NU of the HS will not tear the wings off (ie, g < 2.5) (or is there some law where <3.5 would apply?).

It further appears that at some lesser value of degrees NU of HS the A/C is not actually flying, but is so slow that it must stall out. It would seem this angle would be rather readily calcuable. Why did the control computers for trim not make this calculation? Would not air density per altitude probe been the only outside information needed for this? ... together with weight of A/C less fuel burn and fuel in HS, presumably available on board to the computers...)

I admit to asking the question without taking time to see if I am overlooking something obvious. But it would still be better for someone of your familiarity with the THS issue to give an authoritive answer than for I to muddy the waters here by claiming it has to be the way I am seeing it at the moment. Thanks.

Also, in going to 15 degrees NU of the A/C attitude, what is the effect of partial fuel in the hollow HS sloshing to the rear of the HS tank, on aft CG... and then on the above considerations?

[A33Zab]

I did post the image before, THS movement E4 thru E5 related to TOGA C4 thru C5

Now with this text from FCTM:

Flight Mode
In pitch, when an input is made on the sidestick, the flight control computers
interpret this input as a “g” demand/pitch rate. Consequently, elevator deflection
is not directly related to sidestick input. The aircraft responds to a sidestick order
with a pitch rate at low speed and a flight path rate or “g” at high speed. When no
input is made on the sidestick, the computers maintain a 1g flight path. Pitch
changes due to changes in speed, thrust and/or configuration, which in a
conventional aircraft would require the pilot to re-trim the aircraft, are
compensated for by the computers repositioning the THS. The pitch trim wheel
moves as the control law compensates for these changes. Sometimes, changes
of trim due to changes in thrust may be too large for the system to compensate,
and the aircraft may respond to them in pitch in the conventional sense and then
hold the new attitude at which it has stabilised after the trim change.

http://i474.photobucket.com/albums/rr101/Zab999/Remarkable1.jpg

[airtren]

Takata,

My reading of the BEA text was also that the PNF was referring to the "Captain" as the BEA document refers to the PNF calling the Captain in the couple of seconds following 2:10:47 - the "il est ou, euh" is at 2:10:49.

But if I let myself convinced by your post, and look at what could "il" be in "il est ou, euh?..." as in something that he does not find... and the Captain brings and hands back to him, then:

You've mentioned "documentation". But "documentation" in French is feminine, therefore it is replaced by the pronoun "elle", not "il", so it's not that.

2. a page? - French "la page" is feminine, prenoun should be "elle"...

so it's not that

3. instruction? - French "instruction" is feminine, therefore "elle"

so it's not that

What else then, as the "genre" seems to be a problem for those three....
:confused:

Typical mistake.
1. the sentence is unfinished, "euh" at the end means that PFN missed the word and did not bother to complete it later.
2. "Where is it... uh..."
He is looking at something that disapeared or that he did not found. And it could be a part of the documentation if the captain left with it.
The clues:
a) he is calling the captain right after saying that..
b) when the captain came back, one of his first word is "here it is, use that".

[jcjeant]

Hi,

What else then, as the "genre" seems to be a problem for those three....No problem ..
The French language is rich in synonymous :8
takata will answer to you by:
The instruction book (male)
The workbook contains the documentation (male)
etc. ..
If you really think that the question was related to documentation ... you are now satisfied because the gender issue is resolved :D

[JD-EE]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Blind Pew
The aircraft was equipped with substandard parts which were inadequately tested, when this was realised there should have been a mandatory replacement program within a definite time scale.
Down to manufacturers and the authorities.

Agreed, but all major manufacturers have been guilty of this.

To be fair there is no practical way to duplicate the conditions encountered for testing purposes other than millions of hours flying looking for those conditions and running tests in the few seconds the test plane is within those conditions. They're that exotic. There is also the problem that nobody could conceive of such conditions existing until very recent years.

Flying today is an order of magnitude or two safer than it was in the days of the "old farts" here. Dredge up statistics for yourself. You owe it to your reputation for honesty and fairness around here.

(Yes, I looked it up. B is slightly safer than A at this time for current models. All are so much better than the old C, D, B707 era, and other older planes it's silly to compare them on a linear graph.)

[promani]

SAturnv

"The wife of the PF had gone with him to Brazil because the crew had a long layover in Brazil. As it was also Pentecost weekend, this meant a long holiday weekend. She taught physics in high school. Their two young sons remained in France"

I know many families must have been destroyed by this accident, but after reading the above it just choked me up. To think that these two young boys would have been told that 'mummy and daddy' will be home in the morning. And when they woke up someone had to tell them that 'mummy and daddy' will not be coming home.........ever.

[Old Carthusian]

Lonewolf 50
The pitot tube issue despite being the trigger is actually irrelevant to what caused the accident and I think one has to be careful not to attribute a major design flaw to the pitot tubes. To say that there is something wrong with the aircraft is a value judgment implying a serious problem. Remember, according to BEA the pitot tube problem in this incident did clear itself up after a short period.
The actual issue, though is why the crew reacted to the situation they were in in the particular way they did. What caused them to ignore the procedure for UAS? This is the issue, it is nothing to do with the aircraft. Attempts to somehow blame the aircraft are erroneous. One has to look at training and responses to unusual situations. As many others have noted - on the information we have this was not initially a serious incident. We are in the realms of psychology and human reactions here, not physics or computer science.

[jcjeant]

Hi,

Flying today is an order of magnitude or two safer than it was in the days of the "old farts" here. Dredge up statistics for yourself. You owe it to your reputation for honesty and fairness around here.I think so too .. say otherwise would be in bad faith.
On the other hand we must also realize what the objective criteria that have achieved such results
There are many and not only the progress made to the aircraft or avionics.
The airports are now equipped for the most part help ensure a better security approach for landing
Weather forecasts and knowledge of the atmosphere at altitude also helped to improve safety.
In terms of plane .. the engine has made tremendous progress and thus the fatal engine failures are rare
The FBW has assisted flight and also allowed to consider the construction of aircraft with new materials and significant economic returns have been created.
And there are other aspects that certainly forget
Remains the Achilles heel ... pilots ...
Considerable progress is still to do on this side .. since .. statistics have now changed and the human factor (errors) took the lead in the reasons for accidents
Anyone know where is the problem ..
Now .. as has been done about any technical problems .. we must find solutions .. is certain that despite other progress .. figures and statistics will frozen in the state as today .. or worse .. deteriorate ...

The pitot tube issue despite being the trigger is actually irrelevant to what caused the accident and I think one has to be careful not to attribute a major design flaw to the pitot tubes. To say that there is something wrong with the aircraft is a value judgment implying a serious problem. Remember, according to BEA the pitot tube problem in this incident did clear itself up after a short period.I hope you will be in court of justice for explain the facts above ...
Thales and Airbus will have you a debt of gratitude if you been as persuasive in your message
I dunno if AF will be so happy ....

[Graybeard]

Old Carthusian:
The pitot tube issue despite being the trigger is actually irrelevant to what caused the accident and I think one has to be careful not to attribute a major design flaw to the pitot tubes. To say that there is something wrong with the aircraft is a value judgment implying a serious problem. Remember, according to BEA the pitot tube problem in this incident did clear itself up after a short period.In spite of meeting certification specifications, heating of pitot probes is hardly rocket science, and to have them ice up repeatedly in a $multi-million plane means the design or maintenance is inadequate. The Thales AA probes were condemned, as were the Thales AB probes. Even the Goodrich replacements on an A330 have suffered at least one icing event.

This points to either unfortunate placement of the probes, or insufficient heating from the airplane's power source. Something as minor as probe bonding to aircraft skin could adversely affect the heat transfer.

Yeh, I suppose you could argue if it hadn't been iced pitots, some other event would have eventually brought that (incompetent) crew to grief. I don't buy it.

[PJ2]

airtren;
I am not sure if it's helpful... In essence, the calculations are done very, very quickly, a lot quicker than the time relevant for moving a control surface between two distinct consecutive positions - 6 (microsec) to 9 (nanoseconds) order of magnitude. At that calculation speed rate, the calculations would be looking like being done in parallel, even if they were done serially.
Yes it is helpful, thank you, airtren. I didn't state it as such, but it was indeed the speed of processor operation that I was thinking about in terms of the "disconnection two seconds before the CAS dropped" - that the speed of processors enable downline processors (FCPC's to be exact), to "know and act", (ie., disconnect the AFS) long before the data recorders, sampling at various but obviously much slower rates, "knew" and recorded the event.

It is a point regarding the reading and interpretation of flight data that I have been wishing to make since the beginning - that when it comes down to microprocessor speeds we cannot say what is occurring "in-between" SSFDR data points and especially when we are examining parameters with different recording/sample rates such as 'g', which is typically eight to sixteen times-per-second, and CAS which is typically (depending upon dataframe programming), once per second and sidestick position which is typically four times per second - we cannot always interpolate data points in such events because there is often sufficient time between samples for a parameter to reverse itself or go to a limit then return, the actual recorded values being "none the wiser", so to speak.

In response to your question HN39, and I'm just exploring the idea I here that I began developing in my first response, (and it may be stretching a point, I don't know yet!), - that the drop in Mach, which shows up in the data as one second long and (apparently) "caught two seconds before the CAS" may be the result of the nature of flight data recordings rather than an actual two-second difference. There is a small dip in CAS at the same time the Mach goes to M0.26, but that may be looking for data that isn't there.

The question is really, Did the FCPC disengage the AFS two seconds before the CAS showed a drop, and if so, what engagement condition was no longer satisfied among those listed in the AMM, or is the above notion a plausible explanation?

[Old Carthusian]

Indeed it can be argued that the pitot tubes could be better designed and also that Air France should have taken quicker action to replace the Thales design with the Goodrich design.

That does not negate the need for the crew to respond appropriately to the incident. This crew didn't and how and why the crew responded to an incident which wasn't necessarily terminal is the key to the accident. It doesn't rest on incompetence but what caused them to disregard laid down procedures and adopt a totally different course of action. This question is not an aircraft issue but a human issue. After all pilot training for these big aircraft rests on dealing with unusual situations in the simulator. Maybe this situation isn't covered in which case there might be a training deficiency. Even if this is the case training should have been sufficient for the crew to successfully diagnose and avoid the stall and crash. I did mention in a previous post that there are occasions were people will do something they actually don't think they are doing in a stress situation and others have spoken of the instinctive reaction to pull back on the stick. This may have a bearing on what happened in the cockpit. Here is where training and standard procedures are vital. As to why this crew did not follow the latter - this is what I mean by the realms of psychology and human reaction. The transcript released by the BEA is instructive.

[PJ2]

A33Zab;

Toga & ths
I did post the image before, THS movement E4 thru E5 related to TOGA C4 thru C5

Now with this text from FCTM:

Flight Mode
In pitch, when an input is made on the sidestick, the flight control computers
interpret this input as a “g” demand/pitch rate. Consequently, elevator deflection
is not directly related to sidestick input. The aircraft responds to a sidestick order
with a pitch rate at low speed and a flight path rate or “g” at high speed. When no
input is made on the sidestick, the computers maintain a 1g flight path. Pitch
changes due to changes in speed, thrust and/or configuration, which in a
conventional aircraft would require the pilot to re-trim the aircraft, are
compensated for by the computers repositioning the THS. The pitch trim wheel
moves as the control law compensates for these changes. Sometimes, changes
of trim due to changes in thrust may be too large for the system to compensate,
and the aircraft may respond to them in pitch in the conventional sense and then
hold the new attitude at which it has stabilised after the trim change.
Just trying to understand...., - Are you saying through the quoted statements above that setting TOGA thrust is contributing to the change in THS setting towards the NU setting? Wouldn't the increased thrust vector drive the THS to the ND position to maintain 1g, and not the NU which would exceed 1g due to pitch-up? That's how I'd be trimming a conventional aircraft...increase in thrust = pitch up (through increased speed and thrust vector), requiring re-trimming ND (to maintain altitude in a conventional aircraft, and here, to maintain 1g).

[A33Zab]

Just trying to understand...., - Are you saying through the quoted statements above that setting TOGA thrust is contributing to the change in THS setting towards the NU setting? Wouldn't the increased thrust vector drive the THS to the ND position to maintain 1g, and not the NU which would exceed 1g due to pitch-up? That's how I'd be trimming a conventional aircraft...increase in thrust = pitch up (through increased speed and thrust vector), requiring re-trimming ND (to maintain altitude in a conventional aircraft, and here, to maintain 1g).


Youre right but only if they wanted to maintain 1g flight.
They wanted up, SS command >1g while A/C response was down <1g.

[pax2908]

From the FDR plots I see (I may be wrong) that the elevator+THS became further biased 'nose-up' once TOGA was applied ... and that change is not so obviously related to an increased nose-up stick position?

[Golf-Sierra]

You've mentioned "documentation". But "documentation" in French is feminine, therefore it is replaced by the pronoun "elle", not "il", so it's not that.

2. a page? - French "la page" is feminine, prenoun should be "elle"...

so it's not that

3. instruction? - French "instruction" is feminine, therefore "elle"

so it's not that

What else then, as the "genre" seems to be a problem for those three....
http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/confused.gif


The french for handbook (as in quick reference handbook) is manuel, which is masculine.

[SaturnV]

The assumption, working premise if you will, was/is that the bodies of the two first officers were retrieved with their seats. And that these were the bodies sent back to France for DNA identification. The successful results of the testing led the court to authorize recovery of the other bodies from the abyss.

The fourth seat in the cockpit was also retrieved at the time that seats 1 and 2 were recovered. There was wondering at the time on why the fourth seat and not the third seat was retrieved.

Three seats, two bodies. But the new information in interim report 3 raises the possibility, likely small, that the first two bodies recovered were those of the PNF who was belted in, and the wife of the PF who was sitting in the fourth seat, and also belted in. And that the body of the PF was not recovered (at that time) as he was not belted in. (The captain is now presumed to be standing or perhaps seated unbelted in the third seat.)

As the fourth seat was located directly behind the seat of the PF, this could explain why the PF was not belted in, as he could more easily turn to converse with his wife.

From a conversational context, when the PNF explains the smell of ozone, is he saying that to the PF or to the wife of the PF, who is a physics teacher?

[PJ2]

A33Zab;
Youre right but only if they wanted to maintain 1g flight.
They wanted up, SS command >1g while A/C response was down <1g.Yes, understand - so I would conclude that the rate of THS change towards NU was actually slower than if TOGA had not been selected. That does make sense, thank you A33Zab.

[curvedsky]

Four hours into a Rio-Paris flight, AF447 was cruising normally at FL350. The crew noted from their flight data that they were still too heavy to climb to the next appropriate higher cruise FL.

But moments later AF447 'zoomed' – for whatever reason – up to FL380.

So having unintentionally arrived at FL380 at a heavier than planned weight, what were the new 1g stall (low speed) and Mach buffet (high speed) IAS boundaries for AF447?

[Lonewolf_50]

@ A33Zab: Flight Mode
In pitch, when an input is made on the sidestick, the flight control computers interpret this input as a “g” demand/pitch rate. Consequently, elevator deflection is not directly related to sidestick input.
The aircraft responds to a sidestick order with a pitch rate at low speed and a flight path rate or “g” at high speed. When no input is made on the sidestick, the computers maintain a 1g flight path.
Pitch changes due to changes in speed, thrust and/or configuration, which in a conventional aircraft would require the pilot to re-trim the aircraft, are
compensated for by the computers repositioning the THS.
The pitch trim wheel moves as the control law compensates for these changes. Sometimes, changes of trim due to changes in thrust may be too large for the system to compensate, and the aircraft may respond to them in pitch in the conventional sense and then hold the new attitude at which it has stabilised after the trim change.
When I look at the typical pattern of flying, it would seem that most "hands on" flying by crews in the AB330 would be in the take off, departure, climb, and then terminal phases, to include landing. While the SS does not have artificial feedback per se, the SS (joystick) positions needed "to get the plane to do X" will over time become part of the pilot's tactile memory. (fingers, wrist, forearm, brain all having "remembered" this pattern).

I find it of interest that the "responds with 'g' " versus "responds with pitch" zones are so markedly different. If hand flying at altitude is not practiced, then the only muscle/touch/brain memory to rely on is the patterns from the low end and low speed flying regime.

This makes me wonder: was the aircraft responding as the pilot flying expected it to? If it wasn't (see some previous posters comments on the delicacy of hand flying at high altitudes) this would explain to me an early onset of pilot frustration and confusion. (Some people have used the term panic, which I see no evidence of. There is ample evidence of frustration, and of confusion).

The PNF is telling him to do this or that with the nose, he makes inputs, he acknowledges what he needs to do, but he can't get the aircraft to do it to his own satisfaction. (Nor the PNF's, nor later the Captain's).

I had previously suggested that Loss of Control is roughly defined as "your flight controls will not do as you command them to." AF447 is not just an upset scenario. From what CVR excerpts have shown so far, there seems to have been a mild case of loss of control (as defined above) even before the stall. LOC in this case meaning "he couldn't get it to do what he wanted it to do using his flight controls."

In sports terms -- you tend to play the way you practice.

Old Carthusian:
The pitot tube issue despite being the trigger is actually irrelevant to what caused the accident ... snip ... One has to look at training and responses to unusual situations. As many others have noted - on the information we have this was not initially a serious incident.
We are actually in rough agreement. I won't beat the dead horse about necessary and sufficient conditions, which pitot failure classifies as, but yes, as I've said on numerous occasions, malfunction not emergency by itself.

I understand your point, and I have been addressing and discussing training and systemic human factors issues for some weeks.
We are in the realms of psychology and human reactions here, not physics or computer science.
And program management. :p

But I will disagree somewhat with your summary here, or maybe just flesh it out a bit.



We are dealing specifically with
the man / machine interface (which means machine design is a player)
both training and proficiency (and currency/recency)
and
with the overall system's influences on behavior, both formal and informal. The aircraft manufacturer and company management are both part of "the overall system" in this regard. So too the regulatory realm, and airworthiness.
I'll take this criticism a step further: if you take a min/max approach to systems performance, you will frequently find decisions made that optimize an area of key interest (say, fuel consumption) which action sub optimizes another area. (My understanding on this is informed somewhat by retail, and by aircraft operations and maintenance).

I'll leave to the reader to puzzle out whose min/max priorities are a root cause here, in terms of how one runs an operation or an industry.

[takata]

Hi airtren,

You've mentioned "documentation". But "documentation" in French is feminine, therefore it is replaced by the pronoun "elle", not "il", so it's not that.

Don't be so short sighted. I mentioned that it may be a "part of the documentation" (generic class), because maybe you didn't noticed, but there is no mention of any procedure applied by the pilots and we know that there was no ECAM procedure until later. This could also explain why the captain was called back when the PNF was looking for "it".

The gender of the word (for "it") is certainly not ruling out such hypothesis; in fact, there is plenty of words that could fit: "classeur", "manuel".... he could meant also "ce putain de truc/machin/bordel..."

[airtren]

SaturnV,

The BEA report is mentioning that the composition of the pilot team was conforming the operational procedures - page 80. That does not say weather there was or not an additional person in the cockpit, or weather the statement is based on the CVR, or pilot bodies found and retrieved.

But don't you think that the voice of an additional person in the cockpit would be heard? particularly if the Ozone comments were directed to her?

It would be a very significant stretch - which seems 100% impossible to me - to assume that BEA has suppressed that from the transcript of the CVR.

The assumption....was/is that the bodies of the two first officers were retrieved with their seats....

The fourth seat in the cockpit was also retrieved...

Three seats, two bodies. But the new information in interim report 3 raises the possibility, likely small, that the first two bodies recovered were those of the PNF who was belted in, and the wife of the PF who was sitting in the fourth seat, and also belted in. And that the body of the PF was not recovered (at that time) as he was not belted in. (The captain is now presumed to be standing or perhaps seated unbelted in the third seat.)

As the fourth seat was located directly behind the seat of the PF, this could explain why the PF was not belted in, as he could more easily turn to converse with his wife.

From a conversational context, when the PNF explains the smell of ozone, is he saying that to the PF or to the wife of the PF, who is a physics teacher?

[Lonewolf_50]

Saturn/airtren:

If I may appeal to Occam's Razor, given that it is around two in the morning, (three Rio time?) isn't she more likely to have been in her seat, in the cabin, asleep? She has two boys waiting for her in Paris.

[Smilin_Ed]

When entering turbulence, the classic procedure is to maintain pitch and power and let the aircraft just float with the updrafts and downdrafts, accepting minor departures from the assigned altitude (up to several hundred feet) and intervening with the controls only occasionally. Assuming that you were trimmed properly when entering the turbulence, you don't touch the trim. Assuming that the power was properly set upon entering the turbulence, you don't touch the power.

Gums:
It seems that AF447 came close to "breaking the stall", i.e. getting thrust greater than drag. Using the full movement of the THS could have been the key.

It was very unhelpful of the autotrim to run the THS all the way to 13, notwithstanding that the PF, inexplicably pulled back on the stick.

[airtren]

Hello PJ2

I think I've posted this earlier, but somehow it got deleted - my mistake - when I corrected some spelling errors.

The "Chapter 1.16 Essais et recherches", at page 42, of the BEA report is providing information that seems to be relevant to your thoughts.

Additionally, "section 1.11.3" is mentioning that it is possible to mine further data from the on board computers that were retrieved, in regards to the sequence of speed calculations and rejection, around 2:10:xx as they have non-volatile storage that may still hold readable data. This is work and effort that is planned, so additional information will be available in a next report.

airtren

airtren;

Yes it is helpful, thank you, airtren. I didn't state it as such, but it was indeed the speed of processor operation that I was thinking about in terms of the "disconnection two seconds before the CAS dropped" - that the speed of processors enable downline processors (FCPC's to be exact), to "know and act", (ie., disconnect the AFS) long before the data recorders, sampling at various but obviously much slower rates, "knew" and recorded the event.

....

[Lonewolf_50]

Ed, wouldn't you want the aircraft to respond to your control inputs if you were flying it? If the pilot's stick inputs were to not be responded to or obeyed, don't you think there would be a greater cause for concern?

FBW or not, if I pull back on the stick, I sincerely hope the aircraft responds with an appropriate elevator command to do what I asked it to do.

(Granted, in normal mode, it seems that sometimes the aircraft doesn't do this ... different topic.)

[GarageYears]

But don't you think that the voice of an additional person in the cockpit would be heard? particularly if the Ozone comments were directed to her?

It would be a very significant stretch - which seems 100% impossible to me - to assume that BEA has suppressed that from the transcript of the CVR.

Agree :ok:

The idea that the PF's wife was in the cockpit seems to have become a pseudo-fact with no basis as far as I can see? Sure it was possible but I cannot imagine it would not have been identified as a factor by the BEA in the information to date, or noted in the CVR. I assume the recovery of the cockpit seats was/is normal (in the context of such an accident at least...), but there has been no hint there was anyone other than crew in the cockpit as far as I can see.

[SaturnV]

airtren, if she was present and did speak (two BIG assumptions) her voice would be on the CVR. However, the CVR conversation presented in Interim Report 3 is not a full transcript, as extraneous conversation has been omitted. I think anything she said would be considered extraneous, and omitted.

The legal term in English for leaving out what she might have said if she were present and speaking is "redacted".

The leading clues to her possible presence are, 1.) the PF had not fastened his seat belt, which seems inscrutable behavior as he is flying the plane in turbulence, and, 2.) the retrieval of the fourth seat. If I recall correctly, it took about three hours for the submersible to descend to the wreckage, and a comparable time to ascend, and it would be unlikely that the fourth seat would be a priority item for retrieval given the effort and time it took to retrieve any item. Back when, I had thought perhaps they wanted to check whether the captain had sat in the 4th seat.

I think it is unlikely she was present, but given the clues above, I don't think it can be completely excluded given the partial information released so far. There are still whole gaps in the transcript, such as at what time did they attempt to contact DAKAR?
__________
GY, they did not recover the third seat.

[bearfoil]

I think it is important to continue discussing possibilities. BEA is the inscrutable one, and there are too many "reasons" for and against what is and is not disclosed, that an otherwise dismissive attitude is unwise? From a human factors standpoint, it is most important to entertain a four person cockpit. It would explain to this honorary Frenchman why some cockpit behaviour was lacking, and other types present. Improper seating has killed before.

[DozyWannabe]

(Granted, in normal mode, it seems that sometimes the aircraft doesn't do this ... different topic.)

Different topic? Maybe - but I think it's important to make clear that the only time it won't do it is if you've permanently disabled autothrust (as in held A/T disengage down for more than 15 seconds) earlier in the flight and the elevator deflection you are commanding would stall the jet.

It was very unhelpful of the autotrim to run the THS all the way to 13, notwithstanding that the PF, inexplicably pulled back on the stick.

That's one way of looking at it, but the other way of looking at it is that the ability to command trim with the sidestick was predicated by the designers on the (reasonable) assumption that the pilot would know what he or she was commanding. Another of the assumptions I frequently see made on here that irks me is the idea that the flight control logic was entirely predicated on the idea that pilots always need to be protected from themselves, which is categorically not - and never was - the case, unhelpful remarks made by one person early in the A320's career notwithstanding.

I've wondered aloud quite a few times if the perception of the Airbus FBW system among some pilots would have been different if Gordon Corps had lived longer. He was the yin to Ziegler's yang.

[SaturnV]

bear, I think her presence, IF she was present, is totally immaterial and irrelevant after 0208.
________________________________
Am I correct in assuming as there is no mention of the PNF leaving his seat, that the captain is able to open the cockpit door by himself?

[STICK N RUDDER]

others have spoken of the instinctive reaction to pull back on the stick. This may have a bearing on what happened in the cockpit. Here is where training and standard procedures are vital. As to why this crew did not follow the latter - this is what I mean by the realms of psychology and human reaction. The transcript released by the BEA is instructive.


If you go back to CVR there is something related to basic flight training how do we understand what flight controls do,how the wing works stall/spin awareness, AoA .

PF said he is not getting the speed with TOGA thrust and here it is teaching POWER for SPEED idea...

Later when he was told about Altitude he said he had FULL SS back. To him the PITCH controls Altitude

Another point, if you go back to CVR when the aircraft rolled to the right he said he had SS to the left. Again he did t get the result he wanted and there is a reason for that too.

Another one somebody said there was confusion on the flight deck .CPT said you are descending he was looking at the Altimeter where else but PF did t see it he was looking at PITCH ATTITUDE i would say thinking my SS is back nose high pitch i must be climbing. This matches 30 -40 deg AoA you can even tell by pitch attitude and high RoD. Where the airlane points and where the airplane is going there is your AoA.

At the end like many who give to their instincts and have wrong idea how thing works in flying end up like in this case again FULL STICK BACK PARTIAL OR FULL POWER.

You can have all protections you want like AB but the best one is if you have it in your head..It is basic training how it is done today pay and we ll make you a pilot in 6 months..Just check out some FTOs see their program and this kid i d say been trough one of them..

[hetfield]

@stick n rudder

Very well said.

This accident may be a result of the AB "just push the button" philosophie.

The so called "crash proofed" aircrafts (Airbus) payed the tribute...

[Shadoko]

... if she was present and did speak (two BIG assumptions) her voice would be on the CVR. However, the CVR conversation presented in Interim Report 3 is not a full transcript, as extraneous conversation has been omitted. I think anything she said would be considered extraneous, and omitted.
.../...
If something was said and omitted as "extraneous", it have to appear as "(...)" which is "Word or group of words unrelated to flight management":

http://i44.servimg.com/u/f44/14/14/01/64/lagand10.jpg

BUT: the caption of CVR transcript is "Les extraits de la transcription CVR...". So BEA clearly wrote there that the transcript is not comprehensive.

EDIT: "without" before "unrelated" deleted (miswording).

[CONF iture]

Different topic? Maybe - but I think it's important to make clear that the only time it won't do it is if you've permanently disabled autothrust (as in held A/T disengage down for more than 15 seconds) earlier in the flight and the elevator deflection you are commanding would stall the jet.
Where did you read so ?
Please, again, do not talk with such certitude when you don't know the system.

[DozyWannabe]

OK, CONF, I'm happy to be proved wrong - enlighten me - when else will the Airbus FBW system limit a *pitch up* command from the sidestick *other than beyond alpha max* in *Normal Law*?

(Bear in mind I'm referring to some dusty old notes I made in my Software Engineering class back in 1997)

[BOAC]

Surely the THS MUST respond to SS elevator demand? There can be no other function for it. The problem is that no-one KNEW that it had. This is either a basic lack of knowledge of the a/c or a total blank-out of understanding in a crisis, and I do not know which.

Way back (after PGF) I suggested that surely there must be a THS angle, (AB, or Boeing - viz AMS) beyond which one should not normally stray, and that a mandatory 'Over-ride' function should be required before the THS is permitted to move past this limit, which has the effect of alerting the crew to what is happening and yet giving them the option of doing it if they feel it necessary.

Strong nose-up THS forces have caused or threatened too many accidents.

[takata]

If I may appeal to Occam's Razor, given that it is around two in the morning, (three Rio time?) isn't she more likely to have been in her seat, in the cabin, asleep? She has two boys waiting for her in Paris.
Crash time was 23h14 Rio, 04h14 Paris and 02h14UTC.
For a French crew (concerning fatigue), the primary reference time should still be Paris, even if they stayed few days in Brazil.
I agree with you that it is highly improbable that Pilot's wife was in the cockpit rather than resting/sleeping in the cabin. Recovering cockpit seats seems a basic investigation work. The fact that the third seat was not supposed recovered doesn't tell anything about its state nor that the fourth was occupied. The fact that pilot's seats were recovered doesn't tell anything about their occupants bodies, certainly not that they were recovered seated and used for subsequent DNA tests, and so on...
That's tabloid speculation.

[PJ2]

Additionally, "section 1.11.3" is mentioning that it is possible to mine further data from the on board computers that were retrieved, in regards to the sequence of speed calculations and rejection, around 2:10:xx as they have non-volatile storage that may still hold readable data. This is work and effort that is planned, so additional information will be available in a next report. Yes, I thought I read that, so thank you for confirming it - my French is limited but I've been able to glean some information from the report.

I recall that the NTSB used this technique on the Cali AA B757 crash - they were able to read the processors from the CDUs, Control Display Units for the aircraft's FMC system to determine the last entries made, confirming why the turn was made towards the mountains during the descent.

This may help in determining the answer to HN39s original question about the two second delay between the AFS disengagement, and the loss of airspeed presentations on the left PFD and the ISIS.

[takata]

Hi PJ2,
This may help in determining the answer to HN39s original question about the two second delay between the AFS disengagement, and the loss of airspeed presentations on the left PFD and the ISIS.
I'm not sure at all that the speed curve called "Vitesse conventionnelle" is refering to ADR1 (left PFD). Vc should be the system airspeed consolidated from 3 ADRs outputs and ISIS source is also different from ADR3.

BEA is mentionning that they will reconstruct ADR2 outputs from system logic. that FMGC 1&2, FCDC 1&2 and ISIS non volatile memories would be recovered and analysed in priority. It is still work in progress.

[grity]

again s 114.

in the time between 2:12 and 2:13 the pitch in the report is between 8deg and -8deg so if you try to fly pitch and power this time was not so bad looking, but it helps nothing he was not flying in this time, he was stalling pitch and power....

if I look at the acceleration longitudenale of this time periode and later than it is very interesting that there is all the time a acceleration longitudenal between -0,05 and -0,15, IMO this mean that you all the time has the feeling that the acceleration press you back in the seat as if the speed is ingreasing

there are two possibilitis to have the feeling of such an acceleration longituenale, you can speed up to the front or you can sit with an backangle, the feeling is the same , this effekt is called one of the somaticgravic illusions (MIMPE and MICROBURST pointed out this earlier) and every flight simulator use this effekt for the simulation of longitudenal acceleratin.....[/FONT]
UC Berkeley Vision Science || Bank's Lab (http://bankslab.berkeley.edu/projects/projectlinks/somatogravic.html)

2 h 11 min 41PF:I have the impression (that we have) the speed
2 h 12 min 07 PF: I have the impression that we have a very high speed,

so the feeling of the PF seems to be all the time he was speeding up.... and has to pull...........

and I am wondering why the acceleration is so constantly with this great changes in pitch? is the pictured pitch with -8deg plausible at 2:12:00 and 2:12:50 ???

[bearfoil]

If, BOAC, PNF had arisen and opened the cockpit door for Captain duBois, that explains the possibility you broach re: #1 seat recovered sans Pilot.
It also would explain the seat's emptiness at discovery. Did PNF re-belt? We think Captain did not, so.....

[thermalsniffer]

Sorry for the long post, but here is the prior work on the transcript with the BEA NOTE and ACARS

2 h 10 min 05
Cavalry charge (Alarme de déconnexion du pilote automatique)
Cavalry charge (Autopilot disconnect alarm)
ACARS
2:10:10 WRN/WN0906010210 221002006AUTO FLT AP OFF
2:10:16 WRN/WN0906010210 226201006AUTO FLT REAC W/S DET FAULT
2:10:23 WRN/WN0906010210 279100506F/CTL ALTN LAW
2:10:29 WRN/WN0906010210 228300206FLAG ON CAPT PFD SPD LIMIT
2:10:34 0210/+2.98-30.59
2:10:41 WRN/WN0906010210 228301206FLAG ON F/O PFD SPD LIMIT
2:10:47 WRN/WN0906010210 223002506AUTO FLT A/THR OFF
2:10:54 WRN/WN0906010210 344300506NAV TCAS FAULT
2:11:00 WRN/WN0906010210 228300106FLAG ON CAPT PFD FD
2:11:15 WRN/WN0906010210 228301106FLAG ON F/O PFD FD
2:11:21 WRN/WN0906010210 272302006F/CTL RUD TRV LIM FAULT
2:11:27 WRN/WN0906010210 279045506MAINTENANCE STATUS EFCS 2 2:11:42 WRN/WN0906010210 279045006MAINTENANCE STATUS EFCS 1 2:11:49 FLR/FR0906010210 34111506EFCS2 1,EFCS1,AFS,,,,,PROBE-PITOT 1X2 / 2X3 / 1X3 (9DA),HARD
2:11:55 FLR/FR0906010210 27933406EFCS1 X2,EFCS2X,,,,,,FCPC2 (2CE2) /WRG:ADIRU1 BUS ADR1-2 TO FCPC2,HARD

BEA NOTE: From 2 h 10 min 05, the autopilot then auto-thrust disengaged and the PF said "I have the controls". The airplane began to roll to the right and the PF made a left nose-up input. The stall warning sounded twice in a row. The recorded parameters show a sharp fall from about 275 kt to 60 kt in the speed displayed on the left primary flight display (PFD), then a few moments later in the speed displayed on the integrated standby instrument system (ISIS).

2 h 10 min 06
PF: J’ai les commandes
I have control

2 h 10 min 09
PF: Ignition start
Ignition start

02 h 10 min 10.4 :
VS : « Stall, stall » (sans cricket)
VS: "Stall, stall" (without cricket)

2 h 10 min 11
PNF: Qu’est ce que c’est que ça ?
What's that ?

2 h 10 min 13
VS : « Stall, S »
VS: "Stall, S"

2 h 10 min 14
PF: On n’a pas une bonne… On n’a pas une bonne annonce de…
We don't have a good... we don't have a good indication of ...


2 h 10 min 16
BEA NOTE: At 2 h 10 min 16, the PNF said "so, we’ve lost the speeds" then "alternate law […]".The airplane’s pitch attitude increased progressively beyond 10 degrees and the plane started to climb. The PF made nose-down control inputs and alternately left and right roll inputs. The vertical speed, which had reached 7,000 ft/min, dropped to 700 ft/min and the roll varied between 12 degrees right and 10 degrees left. The speed displayed on the left side increased sharply to 215 kt (Mach 0.68). The airplane was then at an altitude of about 37,500 ft and the recorded angle of attack was around 4 degrees.

2 h 10 min 17
PNF: On a perdu les les les vitesses alors… engine thrust A T H R engine lever thrust
We've lost the the the speeds so ... engine thrust A T H R (off) engine lever thrust

2 h 10 min 18
PF: … de vitesse
... of speed

2 h 10 min 22
PNF: Alternate law protections
Alternate law protections

2 h 10 min 24
PNF: Attends on est en train de perdre…
Wait we're losing...

2 h 10 min 25
PNF: Wing anti-ice
Wing anti-ice

2 h 10 min 27 to 2 h 10 min 31
PNF: Fais attention à ta vitesse Fais attention à ta vitesse
Watch your speed Watch your speed

PF: Okay, okay okay je redescends
ok ok ok I'm going back down

PNF: Tu stabilises
stabilize (“stay there”)

PF: Ouais
Yeah

PNF: Tu redescends
You're going back down

2 h 10 min 33
PNF: Selon les trois tu montes donc tu redescends
According to the three you're going up, so you go back down (meaning the three vertical speed indicators... )

2 h 10 min 35
PF: D’accord
Agreed

2 h 10 min 36
PNF: T’es à ... Redescends
You're at ... go back down !

PF: C’est parti on (re)descend
On our way we're going (back) down

2 h 10 min 39 to 2 h 10 min 46
PNF: Je te mets en en A T T
I'm putting you in in A T T

2 h 10 min 42
PF: On est en ouais on est en climb
We're in yeah we're in climb

2 h 10 min 49
PNF: (…) il est où euh ?
Uh, where is he?

2 h 10 min 50
BEA NOTE: From 2 h 10 min 50, the PNF tried several times to call the Captain back.

2 h 10 min 51
VS : « Stall, stall » + cricket en continu
Stall alarm starts [continues until 2 h 11 min 45]

BEA NOTE: At 2 h 10 min 51, the stall warning was triggered again. The thrust levers were positioned in the TO/GA detent and the PF maintained nose-up inputs. The recorded angle of attack, of around 6 degrees at the triggering of the stall warning, continued to increase. The trimmable horizontal stabilizer (THS) passed from 3 to 13 degrees nose-up in about 1 minute and remained in the latter position until the end of the flight. Around fifteen seconds later, the speed displayed on the ISIS increased sharply towards 185 kt;it was then consistent with the other recorded speed. The PF continued to make nose-up inputs. The airplane’s altitude reached its maximum of about 38,000 ft, its pitch attitude and angle of attack being 16 degrees.

2 h 10 min 56
PF: (TOGA)
(TOGA)

2 h 11
PNF: Surtout essaie de toucher le moins possible les commandes en en latéral hein
Above all, try to touch the controls as little as possible in in lateral, hey ?!

ACARS
2:12:10 WRN/WN0906010211 341200106FLAG ON CAPT PFD FPV
2:12:16 WRN/WN0906010211 341201106FLAG ON F/O PFD FPV
Initial event messages in que, delayed transmission.

2 h 11 min 03
PF: Je suis en TOGA hein ?
I'm in TOGA, no ?

2 h 11 min 06
PNF: (…) il vient ou pas
Is he coming or not ?

2 h 11 min 21
PF: On a pourtant les moteurs qu’est-ce qui se passe (…) ?
We've got the engines yet (nothing is happening...),. what's going on (...)?

2 h 11 min 32
PF: (…) je n’ai plus le contrôle de l’avion là J’ai plus du tout le contrôle de l’avion
I no longer have control of the plane; I no longer have any control at all of the plane

2 h 11 min 38
PNF: Commande à gauche
Controls to the left

2 h 11 min 40
BEA NOTE: At around 2 h 11 min 40 , the Captain re-entered the cockpit. During the following seconds, all of the recorded speeds became invalid and the stall warning stopped. The altitude was then about 35,000 ft, the angle of attack exceeded 40 degrees and the vertical speed was about -10,000 ft/min. The airplane’s pitch attitude did not exceed 15 degrees and the engines’ N1’s were close to 100%. The airplane was subject to roll oscillations that sometimes reached 40 degrees. The PF made an input on the sidestick to the left and nose-up stops, which lasted about 30 seconds.

2 h 11 min 41
PF: J’ai l’impression (qu’on a de) la vitesse
I have the impression (that we have) some speed

2 h 11 min 43
[Bruit d’ouverture de la porte du cockpit]
[Sound of the cockpit door opening]

CAP: Eh qu’est-ce que vous (faites) ?
Hey what are you doing?

PNF: Qu’est-ce qui se passe ? Je ne sais pas je sais pas ce qui se passe
What's happening? I don't know I don't know what's happening

2 h 11 min 45
Fin de l’alarme « Stall, stall » + cricket
Stall alarm stops

2 h 11 min 52
CAP: Alors tiens prends prends ça
So here take take that

2 h 11 min 53
VS : « Stall, stall » + cricket incomplet
VS: "Stall, stall" + cricket, incomplete

2 h 11 min 55
VS : « Stall, stall » + cricket incomplet
VS: "Stall, stall" + cricket, incomplete

2 h 11 min 58
PF: J’ai un problème c’est que j’ai plus de vario là
I have a problem it's that I no longer have vertical speed
CAP: D’accord
OK

PF: J’ai plus aucune indication
I no longer have any indication

2 h 12 min 02
BEA NOTE: At 2 h 12 min 02, the PF said "I don’t have any more indications", and the PNF said "we have no valid indications". At that moment, the thrust levers were in the IDLE detent and the engines’ N1’s were at 55%. Around fifteen seconds later, the PF made pitch-down inputs. In the following moments, the angle of attack decreased, the speeds became valid again and the stall warning sounded again.

2 h 12 min 04 to 2 h 12 min 07
PF: J’ai l’impression qu’on a une vitesse de fou non qu’est-ce que vous en pensez ?
I have the impression that we have some crazy speed, don’t we ?.. what do you think ?

2 h 12 min 07
PNF: Non surtout ne ne (les) sors pas
No, in any case, don't don't extend them

VS : « Stall, stall »

2 h 12 min 10
VS : « Stall, stall » + cricket incomplet

2 h 12 min 13
PNF: Qu’est-ce que tu en penses qu’est-ce que tu en penses, qu’est-ce qu’il faut faire ?
What do you think ?what do you think ? what do we have to do?

2 h 12 min 15 to 2 h 12 min 19
CAP: Là je sais pas là ça descend
I don't know we're going down

2 h 12 min 17
VS : « Priority right »

2 h 12 min 19 to 2 h 12 min 45
PF: Là c’est bon là on serait revenu les ailes à plat, non il veut (pas)
there ! that's good ! we'd be back to wings level, no he (doesn't) wan't to

CAP: Les ailes à plat ... l’horizon l’horizon de secours
Wings level ... the horizon the backup horizon

PNF: L’horizon
The horizon

2 h 12 min 26
PNF: La vitesse ?
The speed?

2 h 12 min 27
PNF: Tu montes ...
You're going up ...

VS : « Stall, stall »

PNF: Tu descends descends descends descends
go down go down go down go down

2 h 12 min 30
PF: Je suis en train de descendre là ?
Am I going down?

PNF: Descend !
Go down

2 h 12 min 32
CAP: Non tu montes là
No you're going up, now

2 h 12 min 33
PF: Là je monte okay alors on descend
There I'm going up ok so let's go down

2 h 12 min 34
VS : « Stall, stall » + cricket incomplet

2 h 12 min 39
PF: Okay on est en TOGA
ok, we're in TOGA

2 h 12 min 40
VS : « Stall, stall » + cricket en continu
Stall alarm starts [continues until 2 h 12 min 46]

2 h 12 min 42
PF: En alti on a quoi là ?
In alti[tude] we're at what, here?

2 h 12 min 44
CAP: (…) C’est pas possible
It's not possible

2 h 12 min 45
PF: En alti on a quoi ?
In alti[tude] we're at what ?

ACARS
2:12:51 WRN/WN0906010212 341040006NAV ADR DISAGREE
Assumes 6 second transmission time, no other message in que.

[*** during the following 19 seconds of speech, the stall alarm stops for 3 seconds, and then restarts for another 8 seconds. The transcript does not indicate the exact times for the pilots' speech, or where these stops and starts occur in relation to the speech: ***]

2 h 12 min 46
Fin de l’alarme « Stall, stall » + cricket
Stall alarm stops

2 h 12 min 49
VS : « Stall, stall » + cricket en continu
Stall alarm starts

2 h 12 min 57
Fin de l’alarme « Stall, stall » + cricket
Stall alarm stops

[*** now here's the pilots' speech for that time interval: ***]

2 h 12 min 45 to 2 h 13 min 04
PNF: Comment ça en altitude ?
What do you mean in altitude?

PF: Ouais ouais ouais j’descends là non ?
yeah yeah yeah i'm going down now, no?

PNF: Là tu descends oui
You're going down now, yes

CAP: Hé tu ... tu es en… Mets mets les ailes horizontales
hey you ... you're in ... put put the wings level

PNF: Mets les ailes horizontales
Put the wings level

C’est ce que je cherche à faire
That's what I'm trying to do

CAP: Mets les ailes horizontales
Put the wings level

2 h 12 min 59
PF: Je suis à fond à… avec du gauchissement
I'm at the limit of the stick... to the left

CAP: Le palonnier
Rudder pedals

2 h 13 min 02
ACARS
2:13:08 FLR/FR0906010211 34220006ISIS 1,,,,,,,ISIS(22FN-10FC) SPEED OR MACH FUNCTION,HARD
2:13:14 FLR/FR0906010211 34123406IR2 1,EFCS1X,IR1,IR3,,,,ADIRU2 (1FP2),HARD
Assumes 6 second transmission with no other messages in que

2 h 13 min 23 :
VS : « Dual input »

2 h 13 min 25
PF: Qu’est-ce qu’y… comment ça se fait qu’on continue à descendre à fond là?
What is... how come we're continuing to descend so fast?

2 h 13 min 28
PNF: Essaye de trouver ce que tu peux faire avec tes commandes là-haut Les primaires et cetera
Try to see what you can do with your controls up there. The primaries etc

2 h 13 min 32
PF: au niveau cent
At level 100

BEA NOTE: At 2 h 13 min 32, the PF said "we’re going to arrive at level one hundred". About fifteen seconds later, simultaneous inputs by both pilots on the sidesticks were recorded and the PF said "go ahead you have the controls".

2 h 13 min 36
PF: Neuf mille pieds
9000 feet

2 h 13 min 38
CAP: Doucement avec le palonnier là
Easy with the rudder

2 h 13 min 39
PNF: Remonte remonte remonte remonte
Climb climb climb climb (literally, "remonte" is "climb back up")

[*** another sequence where the transcript does not splice the VS and the pilots' speech together: ***]

2 h 13 min 41 :
VS : « Dual input »

ACARS
2:13:45 WRN/WN0906010213 279002506F/CTL PRIM 1 FAULT
2:13:51 WRN/WN0906010213 279004006F/CTL SEC 1 FAULT
Assumes 6 second transmission, no other messages in que
Also 2:13:16 ~ 2:13:41 Possible "Loss of Signal" with satellite

2 h 13 min 43 :
VS : « Dual input »

2 h 13 min 45 :
VS : « Dual input »

2 h 13 min 47 :
VS : « Dual input »

2 h 13 min 40
PF: Mais je suis à fond à cabrer depuis tout à l’heure
But I've been pulling to the back stop for a good while

CAP: Non non non ne remonte pas
No no no don't climb back up

PNF: Alors descend
Go down, then

2 h 13 min 45
PNF: Alors donne-moi les commandes à moi les commandes
So give the me controls. I have control

PF: Vas-y tu as les commandes on est en TOGA toujours hein
Go on, you have control. We're still in TOGA, right ?

2 h 13 min 55
VS : « Stall, stall » + cricket en continu
Stall alarm starts

2 h 14 min 03
Fin de l’alarme « Stall, stall » + cricket
Stall alarm stops

2 h 14 min 05
CAP: Attention tu cabres là
Watch it, you're pitching up

PNF: Je cabre ?
I'm pitching up?

PF: Ben il faudrait on est à quatre mille pieds
Well, we should, we're at 4000 feet

2 h 14 min 08
ACARS
2:14:14 WRN/WN0906010214 341036006MAINTENANCE STATUS ADR 2
2:14:20 FLR/FR0906010213 22833406AFS 1 FMGEC1(1CA1),INTERMITTENT
2:14:26 WRN/WN0906010214 213100206ADVISORY CABIN VERTICAL SPEED
Assumes 6 second transmission, no other messages in que
2 h 14 min 17
VS : « Sink rate »
VS : « Pull up » (3x)

2 h 14 min 18
CAP: Allez tire
Go on, pull

PF: Allez on tire on tire on tire on tire
Go on, we're pulling we're pulling we're pulling we're pulling !

2 h 14 min 21 to end
VS : « Pull up » (4x)

2 h 14 min 26 to end
CAP: (Dix) degrés d’assiette
(Ten) degrees of trim

2 h 14 min 28.4
[Fin des enregistrements]
[End of data]
BEA NOTE: The recordings stopped at 2 h 14 min 28. The last recorded values were a vertical speed of -10,912 ft/min, a ground speed of 107 kt, pitch attitude of 16.2 degrees nose-up, roll angle of 5.3 degrees left and a magnetic heading of 270 degrees.

[takata]

If, BOAC, PNF had arisen and opened the cockpit door for Captain duBois, that explains the possibility you broach re: #1 seat recovered sans Pilot.
It also would explain the seat's emptiness at discovery. Did PNF re-belt? We think Captain did not, so.....
What would explain what is based on few facts:
1.12.4.2.1 3 Les sièges du cockpit
Sur le siège situé en place gauche, les ceintures ventrales étaient attachées, la ceinture de l’entrejambe et les harnais d’épaules ne l’étaient pas.
Sur le siège situé en place droite aucune ceinture n’était attachée.
At impact, PF wasn't belted, PNF was.

Vers 2 h 11 min 42, le commandant de bord rentre dans le poste de pilotage, très peu de temps avant que l’alarme de décrochage s’arrête.
CVR: 2 h 11 min 43: Bruit d’ouverture de la porte du cockpit
No pilot is reported to have opened the cockpit door - sound of door's opening is recorded: captain is back while pilots are doing their task. Nor anywhere is it reported that the captain was ever seated.

[bearfoil]

Hi takata. good morning.

I have been reading at least six people whose posts I admire greatly. They are not convinced of the seating, so I am definitely not persuaded!

Look, the last thing I do in crash drill is unbelt, a sign to me that we are arrivee. A buckled belt is proof of belt connection, a lack thereof could be anything. If I am going to drown, (I care not what the instruments say, I can swim!), the belts come off, so the cockpit is not well known.

The conversation is.

At 2;11:40, the PF input NOSE UP, and Left ROLL to the stops.

Sound familiar? A similar input at A/P loss is recorded, n'est-ce pas?

So PF has input these two recorded parameters. He is constantly yammering about his controls, and comments several times to indicate his PITCH command is wack.

There was something "wrong" with this Aircraft...........


takata:

I admit, regretfully, that I oversold the VS damage. If it has soured anyone on even casually addressing airframe damage, I am profoundly sorry.......

[SaturnV]

takata, I agree with your summary.

But the summary presumes that the captain is able to re-enter the cockpit by himself. If he cannot, would you not think that the BEA would note that the PNF had to leave his seat to open the door for him at a most critical time in the flight?

[bearfoil]

SATURNV

Mega respects, kind Sir. The BEA have presumed nothing. Neither has their report. I will offer, having been involved in these teams, (NOT BEA), that parsed and spooned rhetoric can be completely innocent, and taken in very dark ways.

In damage control, we say "FIRST RULE, do not CREATE MORE".

[takata]

Hi SaturnV
But the summary presumes that the captain is able to re-enter the cockpit by himself.
Why would one think that he wasn't able to enter? Why would one think that there is a discussion about CVRs "sounds" -including the fact that the door was left open at one point, then closed when the captain left for resting - and nothing about captain's knocking at the door at 2:13:42.7, then someone standing for opening to him?

@Bearfoil,
There is absolutely no discussion about who was seated where: neither who was doing what; facts: PF (PIC) was seated in the right hand seat; PNF was seated in the left hand seat. Who discussed those facts in your fertile imagination? We had previous discussion about whilch of the two pilots was PF or PNF, until the report. Now it is closed.

[dufc]

SaturnV wrote "But the summary presumes that the captain is able to re-enter the cockpit by himself. If he cannot, would you not think that the BEA would note that the PNF had to leave his seat to open the door for him at a most critical time in the flight? "

With the importance of the words and actions of PF & PNF it seems inconceivable that the BEA would not note PNF arising from his seat and allowing the Captain to enter the flight deck.

Any such action would impact upon the focus PNF would have (I assume it would be he) on the developing situation.

Unless there was a third party on the flight deck able to do open the door or the Captain had a way to enter that did not require the intervention of PF/PNF?

Someone occupying seat four on the flightdeck?

The BEA should have addressed this issue in the report - stating just who was on the flight deck - for the avoidance of doubt and speculation. Their raising of seat four from the crash site has indicated some issue that needed to be investigated.

It would not be out of place for them to address this matter now.

[bearfoil]

There are other definitions for seat that you may be missing. Other than geographical.

[SaturnV]

takata, if they left the cockpit door unlocked while the captain took his rest, I believe that would be a security violation.

I assume Air France policy and procedures require the cockpit door to be locked, and that once locked, the door can only be unlocked from the inside. If that is true, and only the PF and PNF are in the cockpit, then the PNF would need to leave his seat to unlock the door and let the captain return, and the PNF would then again take his seat, fasten his belt, and see what had happened in the __ seconds it took him to let the captain in.

[bearfoil]

takata,

Have you trained UAS in the sim? The one where conditions are unbelievably bad, and three separate pilots are trying to fly the a/c?

And if you fail, a bullet to the brain?

Each seat has its own "gestalt". Authority can occupy any, but only one at a time.

NEVER, EVER, TWO. It is not a goddam democracy.

[promani]

BEA reports are similar to reading newspaper reports. You are told only what the editor wants you to know, and not what you want to know. Maybe more will be revealed through the media in due course.
I said a long time ago that there may be a possibility of an FA/CSM being on the flight deck. But I have no proof of this. Only dear BEA knows for sure.

[xcitation]

@SaturnV


1.) the PF had not fastened his seat belt, which seems inscrutable behavior as he is flying the plane in turbulence,


Whilst I totally agree that it is very odd, one has to be careful when making inferences about PF behaviour based on circumstantial evidence. It is possible that the belt was released after impact.

[A33Zab]

If that is true, and only the PF and PNF are in the cockpit, then the PNF would need to leave his seat to unlock the door and let the captain return


This is a non issue, Cockpit door can be unlocked from the pedestal.

[GarageYears]

Thank you A33Zab! :ok:

I was scratching around for that info.... I have it somewhere, but couldn't remember if it was the pedestal or overhead.

Can we stop with this door opening stuff now?

[airtren]

This is a non issue, Cockpit door can be unlocked from the pedestal.

I could not remember if it were Air France that had Combination Locks at the cockpit doors.... I am quite sure American or United, or both have that...

[airtren]

Hello Takata,

To your own advantage: getting yourself side tracked, by focusing on “how I have read your post, mind or imagination”, instead of “how you wrote your own posts”, is not going to resolve the lapse in consistency of using your own criteria, which I’ve got myself side tracked to point out.

The Saviola, ChristianaaJ and others’ posts regarding “il viens”, being about the Captain and not an “object – the a/c”, had clues about the use of “il”, that apply to this case too.

Some say that “you have to have it inside, or hear it in your ears”, the way French, and colloquial French differentiate between referring to persons and objects by using a “demonstrative pronoun” instead of “personal pronoun” when referring to objects:

It's “c’est ou ca?” or “’c’est ou cela?” instead of “il est ou”....

So, I am pretty sure, “il est ou, euh” is referring to the Captain, as the PNF uttered that while getting to the "buzzer button"...…

Finally, I should follow “jcjeant” and others’ suggestion, that we’ve spent already too much time on this …..


Hi airtren,

Don't be so short sighted. I mentioned that it may be a "part of the documentation" (generic class), because maybe you didn't noticed, but there is no mention of any procedure applied by the pilots and we know that there was no ECAM procedure until later. This could also explain why the captain was called back when the PNF was looking for "it".

The gender of the word (for "it") is certainly not ruling out such hypothesis; in fact, there is plenty of words that could fit: "classeur", "manuel".... he could meant also "ce putain de truc/machin/bordel..."

[airtren]

Grity,

Besides its technical merrit, and technical track it can open, your observation seem to reinforce the simple observation made by some postes regarding the importance of the PF beeing buckled down. The lack of it has created room for move in the seat, and false impressions, as he was being bounced by turbulence, or self induced pitch and roll oscillations.


again s 114.

in the time between 2:12 and 2:13 the pitch in the report is between 8deg and -8deg so if you try to fly pitch and power this time was not so bad looking, but it helps nothing he was not flying in this time, he was stalling pitch and power....

if I look at the acceleration longitudenale of this time periode and later than it is very interesting that there is all the time a acceleration longitudenal between -0,05 and -0,15, IMO this mean that you all the time has the feeling that the acceleration press you back in the seat as if the speed is ingreasing

there are two possibilitis to have the feeling of such an acceleration longituenale, you can speed up to the front or you can sit with an backangle, the feeling is the same , this effekt is called one of the somaticgravic illusions (MIMPE and MICROBURST pointed out this earlier) and every flight simulator use this effekt for the simulation of longitudenal acceleratin.....
UC Berkeley Vision Science || Bank's Lab (http://bankslab.berkeley.edu/projects/projectlinks/somatogravic.html)

2 h 11 min 41PF:I have the impression (that we have) the speed
2 h 12 min 07 PF: I have the impression that we have a very high speed,

so the feeling of the PF seems to be all the time he was speeding up.... and has to pull...........

and I am wondering why the acceleration is so constantly with this great changes in pitch? is the pictured pitch with -8deg plausible at 2:12:00 and 2:12:50 ???

[xcitation]

airtren

PF was found unbuckled. This does not mean he was flying unbuckled or buckled, only after impact he was found unbuckled.
I find it very unlikely that PF would not be strapped in whilst entering turbulence, at the onset of AP disconnnect, approaching impact. Surely the capt or FO would say something? I don't think that FDR capture a seat pressure sensor and belt activity.

[HundredPercentPlease]

Why did he pitch up like a madman? This, to me, is the critical error.

In Normal law, overspeed is shown by a red and black ladder. It is not that uncommon to suddenly arrive in an overspeed at high altitude (sudden wind shift etc) and you may have to disconnect and pull up to get the speed off.

█
█
█
█
█
█


The low speed area on the tape is denoted by an amber line and an amber ladder and then a solid amber bar. So no confusion there...

BUT


A/P off.
Alternate law.
IAS incorrectly displayed as very low.


What do you get on the speed tape in alternate law at very low speed? A red and black ladder filling your speed tape?

And what do you do when you suddenly see your speed consumed by red and black? Pull up pronto until you get your speed below the bottom of the red and black ladder.

Could it have happened this way?

[takata]

takata, if they left the cockpit door unlocked while the captain took his rest, I believe that would be a security violation.
Read me again. I have just said the opposite.
Cockpit's door was recorded "locked" when captain left for resting.
Nonetheless, it seems that is was not the case previously, before captain rest. Hence, yes, it is reported by the BEA that they could not determine if the door was locked before this point.

What I meant is that they are supposed to make a serious investigation about everything and, the report is about their findings up to this point.
- If they found that there was any kind of trouble with cockpit's door opening when captain came back to the flight deck... be sure that it would be noticed and mentioned !
- If they could determine that someone else was on the flight deck during the accident... be sure that it would be reported also !

Consequently, why making up stuff that doesn't exist anywhere in reports and discuss those meanigless issues as if they were real?
Captain entered the cockpit and nobody has had to stand up for opening to him. Why would they? Is it clear enough?

[vbp.net]

According to this paper, one recommendation about the STALL/AOA logic to be reviewed by AB as requested by the BEA was deleted 48h before publication of this report #3. The paper cites "several sources" and goes as far as pretending some members of BEA staff would consider resignation.

Vol Paris-Rio : le rapport d'enquête a été caviardé (http://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/services/transport-logistique/20110802trib000640317/vol-paris-rio-le-rapport-d-enquete-a-ete-caviarde.html)

[vbp.net]

Here is a quick (Google) translation of the paper :

According to our information, a recommendation on the stall warning of the Airbus planned in the near-final report of the BEA, 48 hours before publication, did not show up in the official version. Air France brought this to the European Aviation Safety.

The controversy over the crash of the AF 447 Paris-Rio is not going to go out. The shadows hangs on the third progress report of the Investigation & Analysis Bureau (BEA) released on Friday that pointed to the responsibility of the pilot of the Airbus A330-200.

According to several sources, a recommendation on stall warning device, which was part of the near-final version of the report 48 hours before its official publication, has not been published. Envisaged under the precautionary principle, this recommendation was to immediately begin a process of analysis and reassessment of the logic of operation of such alarms.

When asked by The Tribune, the BEA said "they did not comment on the steps that led to a recommendation or not." Inside BEA, some did not appreciate and even threaten to resign.

According to our sources, Air France has sent a letter to the EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) requesting that the matter be reviewed quickly. When questioned, Air France has confirmed that they took the EASA on August 1 about the failures of the stall warning.

For pilots and Air France, these problems have played a major role, since "the multiple activations and stops unwanted and misleading, contrary to the state of the aircraft, have greatly contributed to the difficulty for the crew to analyze the situation, "stated the airline in a statement released Friday in response to the report of the BEA.

Between 2:11 minutes and 45 seconds, the night of the accident on 1 June 2009, and the crash time, the alarm has reactivated a dozen times with durations ranging from 2 to 8 seconds. The longuest reactivation of the alarm took place when the crew tried to restore the plane to a normal attitude. As a matter of fact, the alarm can stop when the aircraft is stalled and recur if recovery of a valid speed. Experts speak of a "case of reverse operation of the alarm."

Indeed, it stops when the speed is less than 60 knots, because it was considered that there was no reason why the aircraft can be found at this speed. But every time the pilot gave the order to lower the nose (the correct order) and sped it on over 60 knots (rearing, its speed had slowed considerably), the alarm went on, making him believe that his action was wrong.

Therefore they had no comprehension to the actual situation of the aircraft. This explains why the actions of the pilots of flight Rio-Paris appeared incomprehensible according to their colleagues.

[vbp.net]

Vol Paris-Rio : le rapport d'enquête a été caviardé (http://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/services/transport-logistique/20110802trib000640317/vol-paris-rio-le-rapport-d-enquete-a-ete-caviarde.html)

[DozyWannabe]

Between 2:11 minutes and 45 seconds, the night of the accident on 1 June 2009, and the crash time, the alarm has reactivated a dozen times with durations ranging from 2 to 8 seconds.

Rubbish - poorly researched article.

The stall warning sounded continuously from the apogee of the climb (at which point the aircraft approached and entered stall) for 57 seconds, after which point the aircraft was already unrecoverable. Intermittent warnings were triggered by the AoA being in the stall warning range (thanks mm43), and the only time the stall warning did not sound when it should have was past the point of no return.

It would appear that one thing that has not changed since 1988 is the predeliction on the part of certain parties to attempt to use the press to muddy the waters when the finger appears to be pointed in their direction.

[xcitation]

You might have this already 100%.
According to manual see red and black then [stick back] "reflex action".

Quote from airbus manual, my bold for emphasis.


HIGH SPEED PROTECTION
When flying beyond maximum design speeds VD/MD (which are greater that
VMO/MMO), there is an increased potential for aircraft control difficulties and
structural concerns, due to high air loads. Therefore, the margin between
VMO/MMO and VD/MD must be such that any possible overshoot of the normal
flight envelope should not cause any major difficulty.
High speed protection adds a positive nose-up G demand to a sidestick order, in
order to protect the aircraft, in the event of a dive or vertical upset. As a result,
this enables a reduction in the margin betwen VMO/MMO and VD/MD.
Therefore, in a dive situation:
. If there is no sidestick input on the sidestick, the aircraft will slightly overshoot
VMO/MMO and fly back towards the envelope.
. If the sidestick is maintained full forward, the aircraft will significantly overshoot
VMO/MMO without reaching VD/MD. At approximately VMO + 16 / MMO +
0.04, the pitch nose-down authority smoothly reduces to zero (which does not
mean that the aircraft stabilizes at that speed).
The PF, therefore, has full authority to perform a high speed/steep dive escape
maneuver, when required, via a reflex action on the sidestick. In addition, the
bank angle limit is reduced from 67 to 40 degrees, which minimizes the risk of a
spiral dive.
Note:
1. An OVERSPEED warning is provided.
2. At high altitude, this may result in activation of the angle of attack
protection.

[airtren]

Xcitation,

I was very surprised myself to read the BEA report's section on cockpit PF and PNF seats - section 1.12.4.2.1.3. I was also dissappointed, as it has made no special reference to the pilots, just the seats. One can only infer the pilots state based on the generic comment in Section 1.13. which has only one sentence on the new found bodies referring to the previous analysis.

That being said, I've thought about the problem of him flying unbuckled, and the rest of what you've mentioned.

With the risk of repeating of what was already said, that means that either the impact, the shock unbuckled him, or him being alive and unbuckle himself. If it were the latter, then the Section 1.13 would not apply, which invalidates the latter. If it were the first, the BEA investigation would have found some evidence, but that is not mentioned at all.

This leaves us open to speculation.....

airtren

Edit: added
A word for word translation of the BEA Report text I have referred:
1.13 Renseignemants medicaux et pathologiques

L'examen des corps remontes lors de la phase 5 confirme les observations consignees dans le rapport d'etape nr 2.

1.13 Medical and Pathologique Information

The examination of the human remains recovered during Phase #5 /conforms with/confirms/ the observations mentioned in the Phase #2 Report.

1.12.4.2.1.3 Les sieges du cockpit

Sur le siege situe en place gauche, les centuires ventrals etaient attachees, le centure de 'l'entrejambe et les harnais d'epaules ne l'etaient pas.

Sur le siege situe en palce droite aucune ceninture n'etait attachee.


1.12.4.2.1.3 The cockpit seats

On the left side seat, the ventral belt was attached, the between the legs and the shoulder harnass were not.

On the right side seat none of the belts were attached.


airtren

PF was found unbuckled. This does not mean he was flying unbuckled or buckled, only after impact he was unbuckled.
I find it very unlikely that PF would not be strapped in whilst entering turbulence, at the onset of AP disconnnect, approaching impact. Surely the capt or FO would say something? I don't think that FDR capture a seat pressure sensor and belt activity.

[takata]

This leaves us open to speculation.....
Reference:
PF was found unbuckled. This does not mean he was flying unbuckled or buckled, only after impact he was unbuckled.

Not wanting to sound rude, but guys, please, stop making up stuff.
Can't you make the difference between pilots bodies and seats?
Facts:
Both pilot seats were recovered and analysed. (structural analysis).
it was found that at impact:
- both were occupied;
- one was belted (PNF, LHS) -> at impact!
- one was not belted (PF, RHS) -> at impact!
This is the only clue they have. They can't deduce anything about when the pilot umbelted before impact, or if he ever was belted during the flight.

Who ever told you anything about pilot's bodies state and details, beside tabloids? We don't even know officially, beside captain's body, if they were actually recovered.

[airtren]

Thank you for posting.

If you have posted a link to the article, I've missed it.

If you didn't post a link, please post a link, by editing your post.

Here is a quick (Google) translation of the paper :

According to our information, a recommendation on the stall warning of the Airbus planned in the near-final report of the BEA, 48 hours before publication, did not show up in the official version. Air France brought this to the European Aviation Safety...

[JD-EE]

(You guys are outrunning my reading time.)

bearfoil, there is no electronics failure that will fill an aircraft cockpit with ozone. Ozone production requires voltages that are not present. When they stink electronics failures are very distinctly not ozone smells. Phenolic (not used anymore) has a distinctive smell when it burns. Various wire insulation materials have their own distinctive smells. Burned transformer varnish and insulation has yet another smell. Burned carbon composition resistor (not used anymore) is yet another smell. Burned metal film resistors have too little smell to worry about. Burned epoxy fiberglass circuit boards are burned epoxy smell. (Don't ask. It was after three months of 60-70 hour work weeks.) The blue smoke from integrated circuits has little or no smell because it's generally magical and in small quantities. (No, you cannot stuff that blue smoke back inside, either.) When an electrolytic capacitor overheats and dies the odor is "impressive"; but, it is not ozone. A modern cockpit has few if any motors present spinning at high currents and high voltages.

In fact, modern cockpits are not Hollywood props that burn up dramatically with all manner of fireworks and squibs going off. (When your home computer fries it's smoke not ozone you smell.)

And, yes, in more than 60 years playing with electronics and electricity I've smelled all those smells above, some under rather dramatic conditions. (Wet slug tantalum capacitors don't stink much at all. They just embed themselves in ceilings. They're not used anymore.)

Your fancy is getting too many flights of late. Maybe you should have it take a vacation. It's not in the competition for frequent traveler miles. I know people who could run rings around your imagination.

[Old Carthusian]

Lonewolf 50
I believe we differ on how much one can attribute machine involvement in this accident. I would say that once the initial pitot freezing has occurred it is all down to human factors. The machine operatives (pilots) are not reacting in an appropriate way to the situation. It is not that the machine is malfunctioning but that the people are not evaluating and acting in a way that will solve the issue. All machines have their differences and it is wise to know these. The aircraft I fly are all different and there is no one rule fits all. One has to be aware of this.
This accident is more of a training and culture issue. It is also a psychological issue (I have some thoughts on this but am not going to speculate until I see the final report. I simply do not have the information to back up my suspicions). I will say this - the answer lies in how people react to situations not in how the aircraft is designed or how the man/machine interface operates.

[takata]

Hi HundredPercentPlease,
What do you get on the speed tape in alternate law at very low speed? A red and black ladder filling your speed tape?
You might have this already 100%.
According to manual see red and black then [stick back] "reflex action".
Quote from airbus manual, my bold for emphasis.

Or more likely 100% wrong...
See BEA reports #1 & #2 (below p.47)
Representation is not exact of the flight parameters but it is how the red/black tapes should look from the beginning of speed issues:

Nominal PFD:

http://takata1940.free.fr/pfd0.jpg

PFD in alternate 2 law (no red/black stuff displayed due to SPD LIM flag on both PFD):

http://takata1940.free.fr/pfd1.jpg

[Machinbird]

From Thermalsniffer's integrated transcript, Note, and ACARS in post #1323
2 h 11 min 58
PF: J’ai un problème c’est que j’ai plus de vario là
I have a problem it's that I no longer have vertical speed
CAP: D’accord
OK

PF: J’ai plus aucune indication
I no longer have any indicationApologies if I have missed an explanation earlier, but why would PF think he had lost the vertical speed? That indication essentially relies on static pressure readings which should not have been impaired. I'm wondering if the high AOA is causing more indications to be disabled than we suspected.:confused:

[Machinbird]

Dozy
(at which point the aircraft approached and entered stall) for 57 seconds, after which point the aircraft was already unrecoverable. I've been on the road a bit, but is this a personal conclusion, or a BEA statement?
To my mind, the aircraft was only unrecoverable when they ran out of altitude with which to recover. I haven't seen anything authoritative on the subject that says it was absolutely unrecoverable once deeply stalled.

[DozyWannabe]

Machinbird,

It's a personal conclusion, but I think it's logical.

I've munged some of the FDR traces into a graphic here (apologies for the poor resolution, but I only had the PDF to work with) :

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i331/turricaned/fdr-munge-2.png

As the stall warning clicks off at around 2:11:47, the THS moves towards its limit of travel and the ground speed falls below 200kts. The THS took approx. 1 minute to move to the limit of nose-up travel from neutral. At this point the PF has been holding full back stick for approx. 5 seconds and will continue to do so for a further 25 seconds or so. To get the nose down and return the THS to neutral is going to take some time, and they're falling at speeds of up to 10,000ft/min.

[wallybird7]

It is always crystal clear who's number 1, 2 and 3. Depending on position:
Captain #1, Relief Captain #2, or Co-pilot 1 or 2. All based on seniority.

Where they sit is immaterial.

At least in the U.S.

[takata]

Hi thermalsniffer,
After a quick reading of the listing, I've got few observations:
2 h 10 min 33
PNF: Selon les trois tu montes donc tu redescends
According to the three you're going up, so you go back down (meaning the three vertical speed indicators... )
Is the vertical speed indicator the only clue? Could be the three AH also, hence better calling them "indicators"

2 h 10 min 49
PNF: (…) il est où euh ?
Uh, where is he?
See previous posts about that. Where is who? The Captain? Why would the PNF not know where he is resting?
French "il" is for both animate/inanimate = he/it ; "euh" is hesistancy, a missing word.
So it means: "where is [...]" -> unfinished (something and clearly not someone).

"ACARS
2:12:10 WRN/WN0906010211 341200106FLAG ON CAPT PFD FPV
2:12:16 WRN/WN0906010211 341201106FLAG ON F/O PFD FPV
Initial event messages in que, delayed transmission.
There is only a very short period of time possible for those ACARS triggering (six seconds).
It is discussed in the report: between 2 h 11 min 48 and 2 h 11 min 54.

2 h 12 min 59
PF: Je suis à fond à… avec du gauchissement
I'm at the limit of the stick... to the left
NO!!
"gauchissement" is a technical aeronautical word which has nothing to do with with the left hand. It's all about [edit: roll] control.
Hence "Gauchissement" => [edit: roll] moment ; it only means that the pilot is applying full stick imput (without direction precised)...

[DozyWannabe]

@takata - IIRC the translations themselves come from Lemurian - I believe thermalsniffer merely added the requisite parts from the BEA press release in June.

[takata]

Hi Dozy,
@takata - IIRC the translations themselves come from Lemurian - I believe thermalsniffer merely added the requisite parts from the BEA press release in June.
What I can tell you, and I'll bet my life on that, is that this "gauchissement" error doesn't come from Lemurian!!
So, no proof reading here and I didn't myself read everything listed.

[DozyWannabe]

@takata

2 h 12 min 59
PF: Je suis à fond à… avec du gauchissement
I'm at the limit ... to the left

2 h 12 min 59
PF: Je suis à fond à… avec du gauchissement
I'm at the limit of the stick... to the left


(the icons next to the poster's name will link to the original post)

I also know Lemurian, and I don't think he'd make that kind of mistake. I think what the translation means is "I'm at the limit of the stick - adding left rudder".

[deSitter]

At the risk of making myself appear more foolish than I already have, I feel compelled to offer an observation;

Some time back, in one of these threads, someone posted a link to some utubes of some Airbus simulator training in progress. At the time, probably because I've had very little experience in the pointy end during flight, I was struck by the "automaton" nature of the behaviours I saw. I thought it truly looked as though pilots had become mere accessories to the computers, with little room for thought and/or any sense of actually "piloting" their machines.

It looked to me, as I watched the gents twiddling knobs and going through checklists and pecking away at keys, that these sorts of pilots had been programmed to deal with their jobs as a computer tech might with his network administration tasks.

It struck me that these were not at all like the pilots of old who could fly any big old bird with several broken bits and malfunctioning whatnots, because they knew the basics of keeping their machine in it's element.

"Two kinds of pilot" I thought. "Old" and "New". "Old" could fly almost anything with wings, but not a newer, glass and computer machine. "New" could fly the computer generation "smart" birds, but probably not an old DC3.

I'm still mulling over those distinctions, but it has occurred to me more recently that this particular airplane needed both kinds of pilot, and the two "New" types that were in the seats just had none of the abilities of that "Old" type. I simply cannot fathom any of the type "Old" failing to recognize a stall. ... at any point during a 35000ft descent.

This is exactly right, confirming what I suspected all along, and it is appalling in a way no other crash has ever been - a perfectly recoverable situation, an airplane without any problems flying, 80% thrust and 3 deg nose up, and wait for the sun.. they crashed this airplane because they were not even pilots, they were confused computer administrators, something I have seen in real time, without the human cargo to disperse among the fishes.

I will never, in my life, set foot on another 'Bus. I can't trust it to be actually piloted.

[bearfoil]

It was not the Bus. Not in any sinister way it wasn't. Nor was it the Pilots.
The more discussion that arrives, the less pat is the answer. I am unable to let the Right turn alone. "I am at the limit of the STICK, LEFT!" "I'LL put in Rudder." Yaw was a problem, each time to the right. It won, so the Pilots were unable to mitigate the Yaw right. All the ROLL input is not PI.

This thread is out of control, nearly as far as the a/c it addresses. The Pilots are crap! The Bus is a Coffin!

Each time there is new data, gestating theories latch it like dogs on meat.
The territory of wild questions and dumb theories used to be mine.

You're scaring me. :p

[deSitter]

Yes, it was the Bus, because Bussism assumes that the pilot is a mere operator, and not someone in his natural element at angels 35.

[bearfoil]

Bussism, yes. But we knew that. If an a/c needs a driver, so be it. It is what it is, and the a/c is not dishonest. No one is. The danger lies in not understanding what is. If I get a speeding ticket, I can't kick my car.

[deSitter]

I saw on some show about aviation disasters, a German pilot talking about the sidestick, and how there was absolutely no feedback from the airplane and its controls; that inhuman attention to the minutiae of data that is constantly streaming from the instruments was persistently required, and that the distracting voice of some perhaps very attractive stew was enough to momentarily lose situational awareness, whereas having the yoke in one's hand, with its pull and push, was sufficient to restore engagement of the bigger head. That told me everything I needed to know about Bussism.

[xcitation]

Is it just my perception or is it that both FO's talk in vague terms. Lots of ambiguous references to up/down and to indicators. At one point is there confusion in what they are conversing about? I am not a native french speaker however at best the terminology sounds imprecise. Perhaps AF pilots have a verbal short hand? Did the pilots suddenly down shift from precise technical language only at the onset of problems?
Clearly there was adreniline with workload off the scale. However there appears to be much confusion in communications between pilots which is not normally present in incidents. Is this an area that needs adressing in training/line culture?

[takata]

I also know Lemurian, and I don't think he'd make that kind of mistake. I think what the translation means is "I'm at the limit of the stick - adding left rudder".
[edit: sorry] Dozy!
Gauchir is a verb meaning "twisting", there is no notion of direction, you can "gauchir" to the right or to the left! Gauchissement is the noun of the action of twisting, in aeronautical, it is [edit: roll moment] ... in whatever direction!

When he says, "avec du gauchissement", he just says that he is using [edit: roll] imputs, where do you read that he applies "left" [edit: roll]?

Please, find the meaning of that:
"Le gauchissement est l'action de gauchir c'est-à-dire tordre, vriller."

[xcitation]

Bussism, yes. But we knew that. If an a/c needs a driver, so be it. It is what it is, and the a/c is not dishonest. No one is. The danger lies in not understanding what is. If I get a speeding ticket, I can't kick my car.

Even if the speedometer broke and you were driving in the dark without lights?

[DozyWannabe]

@takata, calm down... I gave you a link to spagiola's post, and to Lemurian's follow-up. Lemurian added the words "of the stick" but did not alter "to the left". Don't shoot the messenger!

[takata]

@takata, calm down... I gave you a link to spagiola's post, and to Lemurian's follow-up. Lemurian added the words "of the stick" but did not alter "to the left". Don't shoot the messenger!
I did read those posts too, including Lemurian's, two days ago, and did not catch the mistake until last repost of the list. The reason is that we all know that he certainly applied left [edit: imputs]... but it is not what he precisely said.

[JD-EE]

DozyWannabee, commenting to BOAC (http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/456874-af-447-thread-no-5-a-61.html#post6611459) you mention Birgenair. I think Takata rather noticed something I didn't chiefly because I have to guess what the graph titles are. What happened at 02:11:45? It looks like the nose dove down sharply if that is what "assiette (D- A cabrer)[DA]" means on the title for the dark green trace near the middle on page 114 of the French version of the recent report.

If that really is "nose plate" or the pitch angle of the nose of the aircraft that explains the sharp nose up stick input at that point. Before that moment stick inputs appear to have been rather mild.

It appears the plane, based on its aerodynamics not automatic anything, did exactly the right thing, get the nose down to pick up airspeed for stall recovery. Unfortunately I suspect transport pilots have a rather visceral fear of a 12 degree nose down pitch. Hence we see the nose up inputs. And of course the PF would see the aircraft's attitude making no sense given his nose up inputs.

It makes just a whole lot of good sense. And points up the utterly unprepared/untrained state of the pilots (plural intentional) on AF447.

I think takata should stand up and take a bow on this observation.

[spagiola]

When I did my quick translation, I had quite frankly no idea what "gauchissement" meant; I don't recall having ever in my life heard this term.

Having now checked a dictionary (http://www.larousse.com/en/dictionnaires/francais/gauchissement/36292), I see that one of the definitions given is "Manœuvre des ailerons placés au bord de fuite d'une aile d'avion"; that is "maneuvering the ailerons". Which does not make things much clearer.

[takata]

Having now checked a dictionary (http://www.larousse.com/en/dictionnaires/francais/gauchissement/36292), I see that one of the definitions given is "Manœuvre des ailerons placés au bord de fuite d'une aile d'avion"; that is "maneuvering the ailerons". Which does not make things much clearer.
Yes, I'm always doing the lapsus yaw/roulis, while roulis is of course roll!
hence, this doesn't bring any single precision about PF imputs. Aircraft is rolling and PF don't say in what direction his imputs are applied... he his just countering the roll.

[dcasali]

I'm puzzled by the initial stall warning which occurred only 5 seconds after the AP disconnect. It seems spurious, and the pilots clearly notice it and then seem to attribute it to the 'loss of speeds'. Which perhaps created a mindset in which the significant stall warnings at the apogee (?) 40 seconds later were seemingly disregarded. Did the PF make SS inputs sufficient to cause the initial warning? Or what?

2 h 10 min 05
Cavalry charge (Alarme de déconnexion du pilote automatique)
Cavalry charge (Autopilot disconnect alarm)

2 h 10 min 06
PF: J’ai les commandes
I have control

2 h 10 min 09
PF: Ignition start
Ignition start

02 h 10 min 10.4 :
VS : « Stall, stall » (sans cricket)
VS: "Stall, stall" (without cricket)

2 h 10 min 11
PNF: Qu’est ce que c’est que ça ?
What's that ?

2 h 10 min 13
VS : « Stall, S »
VS: "Stall, S"

2 h 10 min 14
PF: On n’a pas une bonne… On n’a pas une bonne annonce de…
We don't have a good... we don't have a good indication of ...

[JD-EE]

airtren, if the captain had removed a potentially critical bit of documentation from the cockpit to study it in the back that's rather reprehensible on his part. The fact that there is no spare that can be taken back and studied is verging on criminal.

If this is the case it may have amounted to a "single point of failure" in a multiple redundant aircraft existing in the cockpit.

[takata]

airtren, if the captain had removed a potentially critical bit of documentation from the cockpit to study it in the back that's rather reprehensible on his part. The fact that there is no spare that can be taken back and studied is verging on criminal.
After thinking about it, this seems quite improbable that an experienced captain would really do that.

[airtren]

DozyWanabee,

Your post makes a very strong statement.

Rubbish - poorly researched article.


And it steers up the questions:

Did you do your research? Did you read the 3rd BEA Interim Report, paragraph 6 from the top of page 78, and paragraph 1 from the top of page 79, and did you understand them?

Did you read the many posts on this Forum, regarding the Stall Warning bogus behavior? Did you understand them, if you read them ?

It's clear, from the BEA Report, and it's clear from many posts on this Forum, that all the Stall Warnings that occurred [B]During the entire "Fall, and attempt to recover from Stall", after 2:12:45, when the plane was on its way down, from 35000 ft (FL350), with the two pilots and Captain in the cockpit, were giving the wrong information!!!

From 35000ft and bellow, all the Stall Warnings have started as a result of Nose Down actions, and have ended as a result of Nose UP action, and thus each of them has mislead the pilots into believing that their corrective actions of ND were wrong, while NU actions were right, creating the deadly confusion that lasted to the end, and inhibiting the very corrective actions that were necessary, and encouraging the very wrong actions that were inducing them further back into the stall !!!.

8 of these bogus Stall Warnings were between 35000ft and 6000ft, which is recoverable height.

4 of these bogus Stall Warning were between 35000ft, and 30000ft, which what would one want more, in terms of recovery?

Based on the correct analysis of the BEA Report, I am completely surprised to not see an explicit recommendation in the Recommendation Section. The planned Human Interface research of the next phase, will probably address that.

So, therefore, the La Tribune Article, and Le Figaro Article are making a lot of sense.


The stall warning sounded continuously from the apogee of the climb (at which point the aircraft approached and entered stall) for 57 seconds, after which point the aircraft was already unrecoverable.
Unrecoverable at 35000ft? What's the base of your claim?

An Airbus 310, approaching Orly, Paris, in 1994 has recovered at 800ft, from a stall at 4100 ft (yes 30900 ft lower!!!), and from a pitch of 60 degrees, and only 30knots airspeed. Report & CVR transcript, CVR voice, video clips are available on the net.


It would appear that one thing that has not changed since 1988 is the predeliction on the part of certain parties to attempt to use the press to muddy the waters when the finger appears to be pointed in their direction.In this case, it is exactly the opposite, the press is helping the truth.
Air France has a good share.
But the "a/c category" has a number of its own, besides the pitot tubes:

a. the Stall Warning,
b. the unannounced trimming of the THS (Machinebird post #57, etc...)
c. the lack of AOA indication (BEA report),
d. the lack of sharing stick position information between PF and PNF (recent posts),

and possibly others.

Machinbird,

It's a personal conclusion, but I think it's logical.

I've munged some of the FDR traces into a graphic here

Your graphs show clearly the 8 Stall Warnings, that between 35000 ft and 6000 ft, which is the recoverable window, have created confusion in the pilots and Captain minds.

Four (4) of these Wrong Stall Warnings were between 35000 ft and 30000ft - plenty of height to recover.

Do I need to explain more, why that is?


As the stall warning clicks off at around 2:11:47, the THS moves towards its limit of travel and the ground speed falls below 200kts. The THS took approx. 1 minute to move to the limit of nose-up travel from neutral. At this point the PF has been holding full back stick for approx. 5 seconds and will continue to do so for a further 25 seconds or so. To get the nose down and return the THS to neutral is going to take some time, and they're falling at speeds of up to 10,000ft/min.The A310 that I've mentioned had at stall, the THS full NU, and Elevators full ND. Pilots understood early, and worked very hard, ND, to recover. Plane landed, within 30 minutes or so, at Orly, with no injury, or damage

All AF 447 needed, was to turn ND,and keep it that way - pitch was a lot less than the 60 degrees of the A310 - and continue to fall Nose Down with the 10000 ft/min speed, which would have accelerated soon to the appropriate speed to recover.

Please note that there is at least one post on this thread, that shows that Stall Recovery is possible also from a theoretical perspective.

[airtren]

JD_EE,

At first, I thought you were teasing me, but after checking up and down, I do appreciate your wise question! :)

airtren, if the captain had removed a potentially critical bit of documentation from the cockpit to study it in the back that's rather reprehensible on his part. The fact that there is no spare that can be taken back and studied is verging on criminal.

If this is the case it may have amounted to a "single point of failure" in a multiple redundant aircraft existing in the cockpit.

[airtren]

Yes, I'm always doing the lapsus yaw/roulis, while roulis is of course roll!
hence, this doesn't bring any single precision about PF imputs. Aircraft is rolling and PF don't say in what direction his imputs are applied... he his just countering the roll.

The rudder/palonier is mentioned by the Captain, and the FDR has registered some Rudder moves, at around that time, with the Captain mentioning "easy with the Rudder/Doucement avec le palonier la" after about 30-40 secs later.

[airtren]

Takata,

That's funny. Based on your posts I’ve read on this Forum, I can say this post brings a welcome change: you're acknowledging your occasional rudeness for the first time... :D:)
Not wanting to sound rude, but guys, please, stop making up stuff.

But if I take your post seriously then, regarding my post, which I can speak about, I think either it was not written clear enough for your reading, or you didn’t read it carefully.

The post has one paragraph with accurate references to the BEA report, with the rest being some thoughts, exploration of various tracks, with NO claim of being BEA information, and an acknowledgement of being speculative,.

That’s not “making stuff up”. It’s called discussing, and expressing some thoughts, and the exploring of various logical tracks, which is what a large part of the posts on this Forum is about.

That being said, let's looks at your (claimed) facts. I marked in RED, the text, for which I would be curious to see your supporting information.

1. Please point to the BEA report text mentioning that "at impact both Left and Right cockpit seats were occupied".
2. Please point to the BEA report text mentioning that all the belts and harness were attached?

Correct or accurate information is: partially belted, that is, only one out of two belts were attached, and the harness was NOT attached. See translation of BEA text bellow.

2. Who ever told you anything about pilot's bodies state and details, besides tabloids.

What tabloids are you referring to? Are you equating the entire press, radio, and TV with tabloids?

Do you include in the tabloid category all the official press information regarding Phase 5, either from the Ministry of Transportation & Ecology, or other organizations involved. Do you include interviews of officials, like Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, and Thierry Mariani, etc….?

PS. A word for word translation of the BEA Report text I have referred:
1.13 Renseignemants medicaux et pathologiques

L'examen des corps remontes lors de la phase 5 confirme les observations consignees dans le rapport d'etape nr 2.

1.13 Medical and Pathologique Information

The examination of the human remains recovered during Phase #5 /conforms with/confirms/ the observations mentioned in the Phase #2 Report.

1.12.4.2.1.3 Les sieges du cockpit

Sur le siege situe en place gauche, les centuires ventrals etaient attachees, le centure de 'l'entrejambe et les harnais d'epaules ne l'etaient pas.

Sur le siege situe en palce droite aucune ceninture n'etait attachee.


1.12.4.2.1.3 The cockpit seats

On the left side seat, the ventral belt was attached, the between the legs and the shoulder harnass were not.

On the right side seat none of the belts were attached.




Can't you make the difference between pilots bodies and seats?
Facts:
Both pilot seats were recovered and analysed. (structural analysis).
it was found that at impact:
- both were occupied;
- one was belted (PNF, LHS) -> at impact!
- one was not belted (PF, RHS) -> at impact!
This is the only clue they have. They can't deduce anything about when the pilot umbelted before impact, or if he ever was belted during the flight.

Who ever told you anything about pilot's bodies state and details, beside tabloids? We don't even know officially, beside captain's body, if they were actually recovered.

[vbp.net]

Hello airtren,

I did post a link but it took some time for moderator review and, since the translation I gave in a separate post contained no link, this one was available at once.

Sorry for the confusion. Next time I'll embed both in the same post !

The link is available at #1343

[mm43]

The graphic below shows the the Roll Angle, Rudder Angle and Magnetic Heading throughout the LOC incident. The vertical redline at 02:12:59 indicates the situation recently discussed where the PF indicated he would use rudder to correct the right roll/bank.

http://oi54.tinypic.com/14bqdky.jpg

As can be seen from examining all the traces, the aircraft had a marked tendency to roll to the right and this could be stabilized with the use of about 3° to 5° of left rudder. The PF only worked this out in the last minute.

Why was there a propensity for this righthand roll? I have previously posted that I believe that it was due to the nature of the descent, i.e high AoA, high vertical speed possibly causing an associated corriollis effect. A lower air pressure on the righthand side of the vertical stabilizer may have been aiding the roll to the right. The THS/elevator position assisted in coordinating the eventual turn when the roll angle became excessive.

If the aircraft hadn't become relatively stabilized in the 15° NU attitude with the THS and the elevator positioned as we know, the chances of entering a spiral dive would have been high.

NOTE: Magnetic variation at 3°N 30°W was 18°W, giving a heading at impact of 270°M - 18°W = 252°T.

EDIT :: The aircraft was noted as yawing to the right (tail to the left) in Interim Report No.1, and it is possible that the vortex being created during the descent was causing this yaw. That being the case, the right wing was flying slower than the left, and hence the tendency for the righthand roll.

[vbp.net]

airtren, I'm 100% with you on that one.

First, sorry: I answered your question about the link to the newspaper but, it again contained a link so it is again waiting for the moderator's review. You will get it some time soon, but in the mean time you found it yourself on internet. Could be called "learning from mistakes..."

We know that nowadays pilots are less likely able to handle a stall at high speed/altitude. They were obviously confused about what was happening (taking the noise of high flow of air against the frame with tremendous speed and the like). And in the mean time, whenever they do the right thing, the stall warning which was silent while they were falling down like a stone came back in as a sort of "don't you do that"! Isn't that adding more confusion to people trained to trust what the system says ?

In short, it seems we should expect pilots who normally fly a machine that thinks for them to the extend that it won't allow them to do stupid things, all of a sudden, to understand that they should override a system indication (stall !), understand why it is wrong and do the exact opposite. All that in a little less than 4 minutes.

I don't pretend this is the cause of the disaster but still I don't agree that it should not be addressed in the future if we want this mistake not to happen again.

Besides, not all newspapers and journalists are complet idiots, I think.

[vbp.net]

@ dozzy

quote :

2 h 12 min 59
PF: Je suis à fond à… avec du gauchissement

To me, "avec du gauchissement" in the context means he is acting so hard on the SS that he is bending it. Of course, he is not. But it is to indicate that he could not do more.

[thermalsniffer]

Sorry to all, I should have been a little more clear on where the information came from.

I was just trying to piece together the late NAV ADR DISAGREE and the PRIM AND SEC1 FAULTS (which I could not get out of my head and still bother me for some reason) with the CVR transcript and the Note.

Also, it seemed to me there were some critical statements in the Note that are not in the CVR transcript.

One example is the PNF confirmation that "we have no valid indications" which is not in the CVR, but is in the Note.

[curvedsky]

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c372/fmhshoes/Screenshot2011-08-03at100751.png

Buffet boundaries


Four hours into a Rio-Paris flight, AF447 was cruising normally at FL350. The crew noted from their flight data that they were still too heavy to climb to the next appropriate higher cruise FL.

But moments later AF447 'zoomed' – for whatever reason – up to FL380.

Having unintentionally arrived at FL380 at a heavier than planned weight, what were the new 1g stall (low speed) and Mach buffet (high speed) IAS boundaries for AF447? ..... 20 knots?


.......

[takata]

Hi vbp.net,
2 h 12 min 59
PF: Je suis à fond à… avec du gauchissement
To me, "avec du gauchissement" in the context means he is acting so hard on the SS that he is bending it. Of course, he is not. But it is to indicate that he could not do more.
A new interpretation is always welcome to the CVR mess! :O
But, maybe we should all listen to Mr. hulotte who is a former Airbus Industrie SFI which have trained tons of pilots during a full decade:

When a french pilot says GAUCHISSEMENT he speaks about ROLL
That's common sense
Posted here today: http://www.pprune.org/6615823-post2492.html

Here, again, the sentence is incomplete and not very meaningful. Its sense may only be infered from the two bits as there is hopefully only two axis on the sidestick [edit: but there is also the rudder!]:
- "I'm at the limit of ...[the stick] (1) ... adding some roll".(2)
(a1) may only refer to pitch axis (full aft / full forward)
(a2) + roll ... (left or right)

OR [edit: but there is another one! -- Thank you mm43 for the details above]

- "I'm at the limit of... [the rudder](1) ... adding some roll".(2)
(b1) could also refer to rudder (full left / full right)
(b2) + roll ... (left or right)

[DozyWannabe]

Did you read the many posts on this Forum, regarding the Stall Warning bogus behavior? Did you understand them, if you read them ?

*All* of them are from people who either do not understand the Airbus FBW concept, have never flown a FBW Airbus and/or have a long-standing axe to grind with Airbus.

It's clear, from the BEA Report, and it's clear from many posts on this Forum, that all the Stall Warnings that occurred During the entire "Fall, and attempt to recover from Stall", after 2:12:45, when the plane was on its way down, from 35000 ft (FL350), with the two pilots and Captain in the cockpit, were giving the wrong information!!!

Not so - as I said on the other thread, there's only 1 positive correlation between nose-down input and the stall warning coming back on:

[EDIT : However it *could* appear that they match up if you flick between pages 110 and 111 in the PDF. This is because the graphics are not scaled identically in the X axis - see my corrected graphic below (note that the blocks of 15 seconds now match up). ]

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i331/turricaned/fdr-munge.png

The first 4 short returns of the Stall Warning (effectively a group of two) occur at approx 2:11:45 when the PF has the stick full-back, possibly as a result of the uncontrolled nose-down attitude that appears to be displayed in the "Assiette" trace.

The next stall warning occurs at 2:12:25, when the PF already has his stick back again after a brief nose-down input which does not trigger the stall warning, immediately followed by one (the only one in what you term the "recoverable" window) which does seem to correlate with a nose-down input, but notice that it comes on again 3 further times when the stick is either neutral or pulled nose-up.

It comes on again at 2:13:55, when the PNF has taken over control and already had the nose down input held for 15 seconds (but note the hesitancy - a positive nose-down gradually becomes relaxed before the stall warning comes back on, and if you correlate that with the CVR, that is about when the Captain says "You're pitching up", and the (former) PF questions whether nose-down is the right input to be making). At this point, both pilots begin to pull, and if their fate wasn't sealed before, it sure is now.


8 of these bogus Stall Warnings were between 35000ft and 6000ft, which is recoverable height.

I respectfully disagree. I also respectfully disagree that the warnings were "bogus" - they were very real! It was the dropouts (caused by the sensor becoming unable to provide readable data) that were the problem.

So, therefore, the La Tribune Article, and Le Figaro Article are making a lot of sense.

Because business tabloids and shock rags are generally well-known for the quality of their aviation coverage. Next time there's a crash in the US, perhaps we should use the Wall Street Journal and National Inquirer as our primary sources?

An Airbus 310, approaching Orly, Paris, in 1994 has recovered at 800ft, from a stall at 4100 ft (yes 30900 ft lower!!!), and from a pitch of 60 degrees, and only 30knots airspeed. Report & CVR transcript, CVR voice, video clips are available on the net.

I read that report a *long* time ago. There are several major differences that you need to take into account.


This incident happened in broad daylight, meaning that the crew had a valid external reference, not the case with AF447
While the THS did reach full deflection in the early phase of the accident (and again, briefly after the initial recovery), the AoA protection reduced the THS angle to -8.8 degrees, which assisted the recovery - again not the case with AF447
The airspeed indications were always valid
While not co-ordinating his actions with the Captain (who was PF), the PNF nevertheless did perform several actions to assist recovery (including noticing the THS angle and reducing accordingly)


a. the Stall Warning,
b. the unannounced trimming of the THS (Machinebird post #57, etc...)
c. the lack of AOA indication (BEA report),
d. the lack of sharing stick position information between PF and PNF (recent posts)

Stall warning - I disagree.

THS - poor training. The mechanics of autotrim *must* be taught as part of the conversion course, and if it has not been then that's a major oversight. Pilots are supposed to know how their aircraft works!

No other airliner of this type has an AoA indicator fitted as standard, you can't blame Airbus for that.

Don't get me started on the "back-driven sidesticks" argument again, I beg you. Suffice to say there are valid design reasons for not doing it and leave it at that.

Your graphs show clearly the 8 Stall Warnings, that between 35000 ft and 6000 ft, which is the recoverable window, have created confusion in the pilots and Captain minds.

Four (4) of these Wrong Stall Warnings were between 35000 ft and 30000ft - plenty of height to recover.

Look again - the PF has the stick full-back during those initial 4 Stall Warning blips.

[BOAC]

We are now tending to go round in circles.

AoA gauge - red herring - even if fitted and crews trained to use it, by the time anyone on 447 got to look at it it would have been severely 'off scale' at 60 degrees and providing little useful information.

All this about stall recovery is partly irrelevant. In my opinion the a/c could have been recovered. I proposed a 'gut feeling' that 15-20,000 ft would have been the lowest practical unstall height to avoid a crash. This would have meant 1 1/2 - 2 minutes to recognise they were stalled. I also suggested that a pitch change to around 30-40 degrees below the horizon was needed to unstall the wings. As someone pointed out, unless you are an aerobat or military fast-jet trained, that would NOT be in the pilots' syllabi, and would depend on the recognition that they were stalled - which was missing. If nose-high, lots or power, high sink rate and lack of correct aileron response did not suggest a stall then there was little hope.

As for the 'discussion' about the significance of 'heading changes', some folk need to look up 'auto-rotation' and the 'effect of a stall'. These are totally irrelevant too.

Apart from technical issues for AB, AF need to sort out how a relief crew is structured, to ensure their pilots can fly aeroplanes and not just computers and make sure that their pilots (in particular F/Os) are given assertiveness training (and probably a few hundred other things too.

[DozyWannabe]

I proposed a 'gut feeling' that 15-20,000 ft would have been the lowest practical unstall height to avoid a crash.

Agreed.

This would have meant 1 1/2 - 2 minutes to recognise they were stalled. I also suggested that a pitch change to around 30-40 degrees below the horizon was needed to unstall the wings.

Also agreed. If the "Assiette" trace is reliable, the lowest the nose-down pitch ever got was approx -10 degrees (2:11:55, 32,000ft), but due to a combination of the aggressive up-elevator input and the THS position, this was immediately reversed and nose-down was never successfully maintained for more than around 14 seconds.

This does raise the question of what would have happened if the PF had simply let go of the stick at this point and used rudder to control roll as and where necessary?

I'm reminded of the infamous Aeroflot A310 crash where the relief captain's teenage son was at the controls, unwittingly engaged CWS and banked into a stall. All he (and the crew) had to do to resolve the situation until very late in the sequence was to let go of the controls, and the bank angle protections would have righted the aircraft. Unfortunately the crew had not been fully trained in either aspect of the A310's features in that regard.

I saw on some show about aviation disasters, a German pilot talking about the sidestick, and how there was absolutely no feedback from the airplane and its controls; that inhuman attention to the minutiae of data that is constantly streaming from the instruments was persistently required ... That told me everything I needed to know about Bussism.

Was it Survival In The Sky (aka Black Box in the UK), and was the pilot's name Heino Caesar, perchance? In which case you'd have got a less-biased answer asking Reagan what he thought of Lenin.

If what he said was true then you'd have seen a whole plethora of FBW Airbus crashes by now, and the type would have a significantly worse safety record than others, instead of the near-parity that is actually the case.

[Shadoko]

Think correct translation in English of aeronautic use of "gauchissement" is "wing warping". Perhaps the FP was an amateur of old times aeroplanes. Do he means by this word he was using rudder and the plane had some glide ?

Not sure others in the cockpit could understand this word, except if they have spoken of old times aviation before.

See: Dictionnaire Collaboratif Français - Anglais (http://dictionnaire.reverso.net/CollabDict.aspx?lang=fr&dirid=101&srcLang=1036&targLang=1033&searchIn=all&word=gauchissement)
And: Wing warping - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_warping)

[ChristiaanJ]

Is it just my perception or is it that both FO's talk in vague terms. Lots of ambiguous references to up/down and to indicators. At one point is there confusion in what they are conversing about? I am not a native french speaker however at best the terminology sounds imprecise. Perhaps AF pilots have a verbal short hand? Did the pilots suddenly down shift from precise technical language only at the onset of problems?You are right: spoken, colloguial French tends to be "sloppier" than the equivalent English.
Maybe just a red herring, but don't forget that the French also gesticulate (hands, general body language) a lot more - indeed a video would have been useful.

Another issue, as we see in recent posts, is that French has a plethora of different technical terms, which often (but not always...) mean exactly he same thing.
"Gauchissement" and "roulis" both refer to roll, either left of right (and NOT to "left rudder", a mistake that's already crept into several posts).
Same for "tangage" and "assiette" which both refer to pitch.

I should know.... I spent about half my life in France, and most of that in the aviation industry.... I still remember being baffled, when I first arrived here, by the confusing use of so many near-synonyms in documentation and reports.

Think correct translation in English of aeronautic use of "gauchissement" is "wing warping".Sorry... but you're wrong, unless you're talking about the "Wright Flyer" and aircraft from that age..
It may well be the logical original 'source' of the term in French aeronautical terminology, but today it just refers to "roll" or "roll angle".

Please mis-trust so-called "technical dictionaries" like the plague.....
I still remember having to switch abrupty from French "Concorde" terminology to "helicopter" terminology (change of occupation, another story...). The "dictionaries" and "vocabularies" were less than useless. Asking a collegue was the usual solution....

CJ

[bearfoil]

mm43 After your vertical red line, the roll position and heading direction show close relationship. (Actually, throughout, the relationship is clear.) So we see clearly an Heading change(s), relative to Roll. This is not indicative of Pilot overcontrol, imho, it shows rather an unstable a/c in the Lateral axis, as well as the Longitudinal. For the record, My reasoning is that to effect a change of direction of several degrees takes time, indicating rather a chronic condition than an acute one.

I have a 'gut-feeling' as well. I am confident in the Pilots, and the a/c. Those traces tell much, they tell the truth, and they have no axe to grind.
I do not mind in the least being upbraided, ignored, or marginalized. I do not have the credentials to dismiss anything, even myself.

I think it arrogant when sweeping statements are made by pros. I have an excuse.

My first reaction was to assume Pilot induced ROLL.

It is not, imo. The a/p had a similar pattern, at the end of its authority.

More than anything said of the excellent commentary, It is regrettable that esteemed posters would simply dismiss an artifact as irrelevant, or unimportant. Especially w/o supplying a reason, with explanation.

At first blush, the stick stirring and ROLL problems might seem to condemn the PF.

At every turn, to me, there is a simple explanation. It may have bearing it may not. I carry it with me as I read, and I think people are wandering too far into a blanket condemnation of the Pilot Crew. Also of the a/c.

Both sides are carrying and wearing their bias openly, and it seems objectively to me to be foolish.

[A33Zab]

I know it has been posted several times before......

Stall Recovery FCTM.
ISSUE DATE: 15 JUN 10


STALL RECOGNITION
The flight crew must apply the stall recovery procedure as soon as they
recognize any of the following stall indications:

‐ Aural stall warning
The aural stall warning is designed to sound when AOA exceeds a given
threshold, which depends on the aircraft configuration and Mach number.
This warning provides sufficient margin to alert the flight crew in advance
of the actual stall even with contaminated wings.

‐ Stall buffet
Buffet is recognized by airframe vibrations that are caused by the non-stationary
airflow separation from the wing surface when approaching AOAstall.
When the Mach number increases, both the AOAstall and CL MAX will decrease.
The aural stall warning is set close to AOA at which the buffet starts.
For some Mach numbers the buffet may appear just before the aural stall warning.

STALL RECOVERY

‐ The immediate key action is to reduce AOA:
The reduction of AOA will enable the wing to regain lift.
This must be achieved by applying a nose down pitch order on the sidestick.
This pilot action ensures an immediate aircraft response and reduction of the AOA.
In case of lack of pitch down authority, it may be necessary to reduce thrust.
Simultaneously, the flight crew must ensure that the wings are level in
order to reduce the lift necessary for the flight, and as a consequence, the required AOA.
As a general rule, minimizing the loss of altitude is secondary to the
reduction of the AOA as the first priority is to regain lift.
As AOA reduces below the AOAstall, lift and drag will return to their normal values.

‐ The secondary action is to increase energy:
When stall indications have stopped, the flight crew should increase thrust
smoothly as needed and must ensure that the speed brakes are retracted.
Immediate maximum thrust application upon stall recognition is not appropriate.
Due to the engine spool up time, the aircraft speed increase that results
from thrust increase, is slow and does not enable to reduce the AOA instantaneously.
Furthermore, for under wing mounted engines, the thrust increase
generates a pitch up that may prevent the required reduction of AOA.

When stall indications have stopped, and when the aircraft has recovered sufficient energy,
the flight crew can smoothly recover the initial flight path.

STALL WARNING AT LIFT-OFF

If the aural stall warning sounds at liftoff, the flight crew must fly the
appropriate thrust and pitch for takeoff in order to attempt to stop the
aural stall warning and ensure a safe flight path.
The flight crew applies TOGA thrust in order to get the maximum available thrust.
Simultaneously, the pilot flying must target a pitch angle of 15 ° and keep
the wings level in order to ensure safe climb.
Then, when a safe flight path and speed are achieved, if the aural stall
warning is still activated the flight crew must consider that it is a spurious warning.

[bearfoil]

mm43

I have noted before the "zipper" (railroad tracks) artifact on the traces.
First I saw it in THS position, then I noticed it appearing on other telltales.

I first thought it pointed to THS vibration. When I noticed it elsewhere, I changed my mind. I also considered it may be simply a poor representation of the data, and that in poor resolution.

Could it, since it represents to me a vibration, be a representation of a graphical evidence of BUFFET? I respect always your patience and objectivity. I also do not mind criticism, as you may know.

It is honest and has no agenda behind it.

edit: The Rudder deflection mates well with the ROLL, indicating "Co-ordinated" controls?

[DozyWannabe]

bearfoil:

If you are talking about the THS jamming or breaking in the nose-up lock position, think carefully before going round the houses again - look at this (again please excuse the low resolution, I only have the PDF to work with):

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i331/turricaned/fdr-elev-ths.png

Yellow : Elevator movement commanded
Green : THS begins following movement (autotrim)

Unfortunately the inputs are never held long or forcefully enough for the THS to make significant movements (remember it took over a minute of nose-up to go from cruise settings to full-aft), and the nose-down elevators last for 10-15 seconds at most - crucially they are immediately followed by a return to nose-up.

[Lonewolf_50]

Dozy:
The stall warning sounded continuously from the apogee of the climb (at which point the aircraft approached and entered stall) for 57 seconds, after which point the aircraft was already unrecoverable.
At all, or by this particular crew? I find your confidence in your conclusion misplaced.

At about 10,000 fps, you'd have them at about 25,000 feet after 57 seconds from apogee. That's between two and two and a half minutes to get unstalled, get flying speed, and pull up at something less than 2.5 G.
(BOAC's point on "who would drop the nose 30 degrees" is a good one).
It is recoverable, but maybe not a lead pipe cinch, and it takes deciding that "we are stalled, let's unstall!" as the mind set. That seemed particularly absent in this crew if their verbal cues tell us the story.
It's a personal conclusion, but I think it's logical.
Your personal conclusion is not supported by how aircraft work.

What is tragic, in this case, is that the crew remained "behind" the aircraft, and thus it crashed. (Whether or not the stall warning is why, or other reasons are why, or more in combination, is an unknown).

I am grateful for mm43 puttin his finger on something that has been bugging me for a while, in terms of "what would the recovery look like if a healthy nose down input was made?" There was some angular momentum to the right as it descended, that would sustain until corrected, which brings us to his point:

If the aircraft hadn't become relatively stabilized in the 15° NU attitude with the THS and the elevator positioned as we know, the chances of entering a spiral dive would have been high.

Particularly given the trouble the PF had flying wings level.

Old Carthusian: This accident is more of a training and culture issue. It is also a psychological issue (I have some thoughts on this but am not going to speculate until I see the final report. I simply do not have the information to back up my suspicions). I will say this - the answer lies in how people react to situations not in how the aircraft is designed or how the man/machine interface operates.
From one pilot to another, referring to the bit I Italicized-- they are inter-related. As variables, they act upon one another. (Won't wander off into how dynamic feedback loops reinforce one another, that analogy is perhaps too far afield).

As noted before, we are in agreement on most of the human factors, specifically in re training.

As to necessary and sufficient issues:
If no pitot icing, no wreck. That should not be glossed over.
If stall warning doesn't cut out or clip at 60 knots (sensed) would that be a critical difference?
Maybe and maybe not.
The apparent non-recognition of stalled condition is a serious issue, which takes us back to training and recency of experience, and even possible mis diagnosis of their situation.

From what we know about the verbal interchanges (we can't see what anyone nodded at or pointed to with those artful Gallic hands :cool: ) there is some reason to believe that due to UAS influencing, hence lost confidence in air mass gauges, and something else (task saturation from trying to simply maintain straight and level?), the audio alerts, be they bogus or valid, became background noise within at least two brain housing groups ... and perhaps the Captain's as well. There's where we seem to agree on the psychology and task threshold piece.

[bearfoil]

Dozy

Many thanks, I am well past 'broken'. Thank you for not making a big deal. I say what I think, and since I have no conclusions, I am quickly able to change course, this is after all, a "knife-fight"!

Please notice on your depiction that the THS trace has 'serrata', to me indicating a command, but one insufficient to cause actual deflection.
They exhibit a consistent rate and amplitude, thus probably just an electronic telltale. Notice also the appearance of these saw tooths on either "side" of the normed line. This would say to me the "direction" of the command signal?

Lonewolf. "The problem PF had with ROLL". I know what you mean, but it carries an inference that he was not up to it. Can we agree that the ROLL, like the Pitch, was difficult for other than possible Pilot issues with aviating?

Can they have been convinced (for the most part) throughout the Descent, that they were wicked oversped, and not STALLED?

I think it is clear that is the case. "He's pulling UP". "I hope so, we're at 4000 feet!"

[DozyWannabe]

At all, or by this particular crew? I find your confidence in your conclusion misplaced.

In this particular *situation*. I've always tried to give the crew and the aircraft a fair deal for as long as I've been involved in this discussion.

In this I agree with both BOAC and yourself - that had the situation been correctly recognised then recovery would be technically possible, but it would have required the training that it appears the pilots at the controls did not possess, or a *eureka* moment followed by instinctive flying.


Old Carthusian:
From one pilot to another, referring to the bit I Italicized-- they are inter-related. As variables, they act upon one another. (Won't wander off into how dynamic feedback loops reinforce one another, that analogy is perhaps too far afield).

As noted before, we are in agreement on most of the human factors, specifically in re training.

As to necessary and sufficient issues:
If no pitot icing, no wreck. That should not be glossed over.
If stall warning doesn't cut out or clip at 60 knots (sensed) would that be a critical difference?
Maybe and maybe not.
The apparent non-recognition of stalled condition is a serious issue, which takes us back to training and recency of experience, and even possible mis diagnosis of their situation.


You'll get no argument from me there.

the audio alerts, be they bogus or valid, became background noise within at least two brain housing groups ... and perhaps the Captain's as well. There's where we seem to agree on the psychology and task threshold piece.

The captain's arrival at that particular point in time seems to be a blessing and a curse in equal measure. It was the Captain that correctly diagnosed the stall condition (possibly in response to the PF's assertion that he had kept the flight controls at the back stops for some time) and had this realisation happened earlier, recovery might have been possible. However it looks to me as though the arrival of the captain distracted the PNF to some extent, when the PNF seemed well on his way to working out the problem, having noticed the PF's tendency to pitch up and attempted to verbally correct him multple times.

If this was the case, then similar things have happened in the past (e.g Kegworth, where the Captain's attempt to revisit the engine indications was interrupted by the radio - and the Mont St. Odile A320 accident, where the PF began to realise something was up with the altitude and vertical speed, but was interrupted by the PNF pointing out that they were off course laterally). Ultimately this comes down to CRM, and using it effectively.

@bear - The "serrata" you describe happen at the start of every THS movement on the graph, even when a large input is made and a smooth progression follows. The THS is behaving as it should, following the long-term trends of the elevator inputs. The reason you're seeing the "serrata" under AP control is because of the constant elevator and THS corrections that occur under autoflight. I'd be prepared to wager that close in, those traces don't look anything like as regular as they appear, and their apparent regularity is due to the limitations of the resolution and rounding maths in the rendering engine of the software used to draw the charts (which looks a lot like Microsoft Excel).

[BOAC]

Has the English version been released yet and if so anyone a link?

[fyrefli]

If it follows their standard nomenclature, it will appear at:

http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601e3.en/pdf/f-cp090601e3.en.pdf

It is not there yet.

[ChristiaanJ]

Has the English version been released yet and if so anyone a link?I just looked on the BEA site (Aug 3, 17h30 local), and there was no trace yet of the little UK flag that indicates the presence of a translation.

[dufc]

Was told this morning that "It should be on the web tomorrow."

We shall see....

[badgerh]

No English translation yet but there is a press release commenting on the report of the removal of the recommendation about the stall warning.

It is in the usual place on BEA site and says that this issue will be adressed by the specialist team(s) set up to look at human factors and man machine interface. They also point out that the warning was continuous for 54 seconds and they will investigate why no appropriate actions seem to have been taken in that time.

No surprises there.

[RatherBeFlying]

AF447 has contributed substantial hindsight on this situation.

Three pilots over three minutes could not identify the stall problem; they thought they had another problem, likely overspeed, and were trying to solve that one.

It seems the VSI indication was dismissed.

But they did identify decreasing altitude at 9000 and 8000 and became rightly concerned. At that time the fifth digit had dropped from view. Perhaps that got their attention.

How is it that the altimeter display did not get their attention earlier?

As has been mentioned, on a round altimeter the winding hands would be quite obvious.

But an abnormal descent rate on a flat panel display does not grab the pilots' attention as well as a round altimeter.

Should we be coloring the altitude display red or orange for abnormal descent rates?

[promani]

For those people who want to know if the BEA has published the English version of the report, you can check the same way as I do. Access the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses website, select News or Ongoing Investigations for Rio - Paris 2009, and all will be revealed. Even a caveman can do it.

[BOAC]

It seems the VSI indication was dismissed. - I wonder actually if the VS was 'high' enough to be either off scale or 'lurking' at the bottom and so not 'seen', since it is 'never there'?

Even a caveman can do it and some cavemen can actually post links, allegedly.http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Lonewolf_50]

RBF:
Should we be coloring the altitude display red or orange for abnormal descent rates?
Given that other gauges use the green amber red, why not?

Another way to think through this is to use three different colors, so that those three are not cognatively mixed with the colors on the speed display ...

But of all the suggestions I've seen in this discussion, this one leaps out to me as "Why Didn't I Think of That?" in spades. *tips cap*

[RatherBeFlying]

I wonder actually if the VS was 'high' enough to be either off scale or 'lurking' at the bottom and so not 'seen', since it is 'never there'?

On further reflection, perhaps a full scale flat panel VSI indication should be red and blinking to get the crew's attention.

[wozzo]

When the English Version is available, it will be announced and linked here:
BEA: Ongoing Investigations: Flight AF 447 on 1st June 2009 (http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight.af.447/flight.af.447.php)

[bearfoil]

RBF

Are we absolutely certain they did not see it? If pre-occupied with an 'overspeed', they would be cognizant of VSI, but, like Altitude, they didn't remark on it till it went "critical"? Overspeed recovery involves an "abrupt" mitigation of descent, unlike any STALL recovery? Also, the VSI was fluctuating, so why trust it implicitly? I think they were flying in a 'blend' of IMC and "seat of pants". Unfortunately, they were relying perhaps a little on the way they "Felt"? So, again, OS wants instant 'g', to the "limit" (and it is available, with protections?). No pressure to endure a ND of 30+ degrees and taptoes to wait for wings 'reload'?

[speedbirdconcorde]

@RatherBeFlying

Yes, great ideas. The one thing about a display is that its not static..meaning, when things start to really go awry, designers should use the display to focus the pilots attention - perhaps remove extraneous detail - as opposed to overloading the crew in situations when you dont want them to be overloaded with information.

When your dropping at -10k fpm its quite easy to calculate when you will instantly go to 0 fpm if the conditions remain unchanged ! If a crew is unaware ( I am assuming ) that they are falling at such a rate, then there is a weakness with the interface. In conditions that fall outside of expected behaviour, clarity of information to the crew is paramount.

Even after two years, the posts here show a diverse range of opinion. I am sure the pilots wanted to get home as much as anyone else on the flight, but they, and everyone else on board had their final flight. The technology is there. The man/machine interface still needs to be addressed.

[bearfoil]

speedbirdconcorde..... same question?

[RatherBeFlying]

Are we absolutely certain they did not see it? If pre-occupied with an 'overspeed', they would be cognizant of it, but, like Altitude, they didn't remark on it till it went "critical"?

One would like to think a crew would begin to get concerned when they had lost as little as a 1000' below cleared level -- Attitude Instrument Flying and all that...

Agreed the instrument scan seems to have gone out the window.

Since no mention of altitude was made until 9000' the simplest explanation is that altitude was not in anybody's scan. Otherwise it would most likely have been mentioned by one of the crew much earlier.

[speedbirdconcorde]

Bear...we shall probably never know. One can assume this or that but its really irrelevant if the pilots are not alive to confirm. The only thing I believe we really know at the moment is that confusion reigned in the cockpit.

People lost their lives, so all we have left is the data...from that, we have to ensure that the probable cause of this accident should not result in the same ending ever again...

cheers

[GarageYears]

The purpose of the Stall Warning is to warn of an approaching stall condition and in this accident it is clear that the fact the aircraft WAS STALLED wasn't identified, at least explicitly.

It has been noted that at one point the Stall Warning was sounding continuously for some 54 seconds, with apparently no attention - not one of the crew ever uttered the word "stall", at least in any of the released CVR content. It remains to be seen in the future whether the full CVR transcript will indicate otherwise (assuming it makes the light of day at some point downstream).

However my question (or perhaps statement) is why is there no "YOU ARE STALLED - DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!" warning? Something that cannot be ignored.

Certainly, overspeed, for example, is upsetting and may lead to bits of the airplane falling off, so being concerned about that is reasonable, but in the order of things being stalled certainly trumps an overspeed condition.

Unless I am having a seriously bad day, all the necessary conditions for the computing system of the aircraft to be aware that things were seriously pear-shaped were still available - and I think it takes just two:

- AoA seriously negative
- Altitude (or vertical speed) winding off the scale

Can there ever be a legitimate combination of such an AoA and vertical speed that is NOT a stalled aircraft? If not then how about flashing a warning on the center glass reading: "AIRCRAFT STALLED! AIRCRAFT STALLED! REDUCE AoA!"?

There are far better qualified folk on this board to define better conditions (factoring more parameters I'd bet) for such a warning, but what is wrong with doing this?

Given the horizontal speed can be suspect whether or not this need be factored into such a critical warning I will leave as an exercise for the reader, but it seems to me this incident and the Buffalo crash seem to warrant a stage 2 warning beyond approach to stall, that instantly and unequivocally let's the crew know what is happening and has the key resolution (AoA reduction) as the key tag-line?

Make the cockpit displays FLASH the message in RED TEXT on a white background every 5 seconds, whatever, but make it clear and unambiguous.

[airtren]

*All* of them are from people who either do not understand the Airbus FBW concept, have never flown a FBW Airbus and/or have a long-standing axe to grind with Airbus.


As a reminder, these posts were aligned with the BEA analysis, and likely the recommendation that has been delayed now. Would you put BEA experts in any of those 3 categories?

Let me tackle it one by one:

1. "Understand the Airbus FBW concept"

What does the Stall Warning have to do with FBW?

It is an Emergency Error Message to the pilot, about the state of the plane, that can be fatal. The "media" for transmitting commands from the pilot to the controls can be anything as long as it does the job of carrying the commands. It can be wire (FBW), WI-FI (wireless), optical fiber, cable, compressed gas/air, hydraulic, etc....

Furthermore, regarding its importance, and place within the system, the Message can be generalized. It is not different than ANY Emergency Error Message about a possible fatal situation or condition, relative to the functioning of a box, coming from the box to the operator of that box, with the purpose to trigger an action of the operator of removing the condition, or cause of the situation.

2. "Have never flown an Airbus".

Doesn't Air France action/opinion on the Stall Warning also represent Airbus pilots position and interpretation?

A pilot trained to fly Airbus is also trained to follow certain procedures to bypass the a/c weaknesses.

Good training is a MUST, no doubt. But good training, and peer pressure in the pilot community coming with the good training, while has positive effect, it also, creates a paradoxical situation, in that it is a brain-washing mechanism, that contributes to hiding or minimizing weaknesses, or problems with the a/c.

3. "axe to grind with Airbus."

This is one of the most detrimental criteria, and has become typical.

It makes it very easy to arbitrarily label, categorize and dismiss. It makes it easy to muddy/fog the path to the truth.

[PEI_3721]

GarageYears, et al,
As much as new designs might enhance the salience of a warning, if the crew’s mental model has rejected the warning as being false, inappropriate, or unwarranted in the situation as perceived, then enhancement is of little point.
Remember ‘shut up gringo’ ?
Some other aircraft have, and for good reason, a stick shaker and stick pusher.
Now an electronic version of that sounds very simple, particularly if it repositions trim. However, remember that a ‘rush’ makes for poor law – similarly quick system changes and redesign might have pitfalls elsewhere.
Thus, let the designers think through their system; they probably evaluated such an option in the initial design - certification case to show why it is not required.
Finally all parties must ensure that any change fixes the problem, but do we actually know what the problem is, except perhaps human limitations in perception and understanding.

[henra]

8 of these bogus Stall Warnings were between 35000ft and 6000ft, which is recoverable height.

4 of these bogus Stall Warning were between 35000ft, and 30000ft, which what would one want more, in terms of recovery?



Hmm, I somehow understand your frustration about this unfortunate systems behaviour, but by all means the Stall warnings were not bogus when they sounded. Even at that time the A/C was still deeply in a stall. Remember this was at Alpha > 30°.
If you want to call something bogus it is the fact that they stopped above a certain AoA.

In this whole event I do not see a single bogus stall warning.
Even not the first ones. Looking at the FDR traces it is clear that at 1,6g the Stall AoA would surely be momentarily exceeded. That should happen somewhere above 1,4g at that speed / altitude.

Still I'm sure the logic for the stall warning will be an item which will be reviewed by Airbus and rightfully so.

[airtren]

Not so - as I said on the other thread, there's only 1 positive correlation between nose-down input and the stall warning coming back on:

The first 4 short returns of the Stall Warning (effectively a group of two) occur at approx 2:11:45 when the PF has the stick full-back.

The next stall warning occurs at 2:12:25, when the PF already has his stick back again after a brief nose-down input which does not trigger the stall warning, immediately followed by one (the only one in what you term the "recoverable" window) which does seem to correlate with a nose-down input, but notice that it comes on again 3 further times when the stick is either neutral or pulled nose-up. ....

It comes on again at 2:13:55, when the PNF has taken over control and already had the nose down input held for 15 seconds (but note the hesitancy - a positive nose-down gradually becomes relaxed before the stall warning comes back on….


We’re both facing possibly the same problem with the charts – alignment, and resolution - which BEA experts and those having the source or better resolutions of the charts don’t.

Your chart that I can see on my screen reading your post, shows that the SW graph is misaligned with the PF stick action graph, being too much to the left, and thus the SW spikes are to much to the left relative to the PF stick graph.

As mentioned, there are 8 SWs in the ‘a/c recoverable window”, which from left to right, are in 2 groups of 4. There is a remaining 2 SWs to the right, between 6000ft and 0ft altitude. These 2 make it total of 10.

While I can give up on the first 2 SWs (the first pair at the left) of the first group of 4 SWs – which I didn’t dismiss initially, because of the PF stick unsatisfactory graph resolution. but I agree, it does not show unambiguously enough longer duration stick movement at this time.

I will stick with the 2 which were left of the first group of 4 (at the left), as there is PF clear corresponding stick motion – less NU first, followed by ND.

The second group of 4 SWs (at the right), is clearly in the ND/NU heavy stick action region. Don’t dismiss a ND action because there is no perfect vertical match – as the SW does not follow the ND action instantaneously.

After more thinking, it is clear to me that the last 2 SWs (out of 10) that show on the graph to the very right, between 6000 ft and 0 ft, which I didn’t include in my previous post, are to be considered as well in this discussion.

They in fact, fall in the same category with the others, as the ability to recover or not recover does not change the character and source of the problem.


and the only time the stall warning did not sound when it should have was past the point of no return.

It is wrong to say that the failure of the SW to relay the correct information to the pilots does not matter because it was too late for them to recover anyway.

It does not matter if the SW gave the wrong indication once, or 10 times.

It is sufficient to do it once, as it can happen again, and again, in similar situations, if a fix is not developed. The recovery or not recovery from stall is not removing the possible similar behavior on other planes in similar situations.

I respectfully disagree. I also respectfully disagree that the warnings were "bogus" - they were very real! It was the dropouts (caused by the sensor becoming unable to provide readable data) that were the problem.

It is bogus not because it was a Stall Warning out of silence during a Stall.


It is bogus, because it was a Stall Warning giving the wrong indication relative to the PF actions, and relative to the state of the “a/c” relative to Stall.

The message from the PF/NPF/CDB perspective was signaling a transition from NON STALL to STALL, when in fact the transition was from STALL to NON STALL.

You are missing the point, if you think, that the exact internal cause, or the mechanism of triggering the message matters. It does not matter, relative to the needs of the pilots, and state of the “a/c”.

In the same time, you’re making my point – if the internal mechanism was creating the condition in which the STALL Warning went silent, that mechanism need be fixed, in that it need to be depending on more parameters, such that there is a parallelism, that removes the risk that the NCD of one parameter results in NO MESSAGE.


Because business tabloids and shock rags are generally well-known for the quality of their aviation coverage. Next time there's a crash in the US, perhaps we should use the Wall Street Journal and National Inquirer as our primary sources?


Which one would correspond to WSJ, and which NI? Media makes money from disseminating information, and scandals make money….But there is a gauge that each of us has, and in this case it is not the trash, that you could throw a Blanket Dismissal at.

This crash has been under investigation for more than 2 years now, and many following it had the ability to have a good enough understanding without being influenced by one press article, or another.

What’s the today’s press and TV news in France? More of course... as there is more reaction by the parties involved....


I read that report a *long* time ago. There are several major differences that you need to take into account.

It’s a STALL recovery, in quite drastic height, attitude, and speed conditions first.

One major difference had to do with the pilots basic training, that shaped their flying instinct, and reflex.


Stall Warning - disagree
is an additional aspect of the Stall Warning, which you may understand or may not, in terms of system error message, relative to system state.

It’s ONE ERROR for three different possible states of the system:


State 1. transition from NON-STALL to STALL
State 2. steady STALL
State 3. transition from STALL to NON-STALL


As long as there is no clear separation between 3 distinct messages, the operator need to understand certain parameters and apply the algorithm to differentiate. In a stressful life and death situation, that's too much.

It is a lot easier to let the computers do the differentiation and showing the right message.


THS - poor training. The mechanics of autotrim *must* be taught as part of the conversion course, and if it has not been then that's a major oversight. Pilots are supposed to know how their aircraft works!


Understanding how THS work is important, very important. But the “information about the THS wheel position change” is not about how it works. It’s about saving the time needed to watch it and memorize its positions to check it. When time is crucial for life or death decisions and actions, any time interval and ant sensory and brain computer and memory cycles that can be spared, are an addition to what can be used to save the situation. No other airliner of this type has an AoA indicator fitted as standard, you can't blame Airbus for that.
So what if other planes don’t have it. Is the validation of other planes needed for Airbus?
Don't get me started on the "back-driven sidesticks" argument again, I beg you. Suffice to say there are valid design reasons for not doing it and leave it at that.

There is one very simple, but also major reason to have it: Operating it in relative secrecy, when the results cannot be easily perceived by the entire team in the cockpit contributes to the type of AF 447 accident.

As we speak about this, I still have an unanswered question relative to the Airbus 330 stick functioning:

Is the control surface deflection proportional with the duration of a stick action in a certain position – if it is longer action in a certain position, is the deflection different than shorter action in that position?
....
As all of the above are part of the "a/c to pilot information interface", the current technology level makes a screen large enough to see from all seats, with a clear 3D image animation of the plane with its AoA and roll position space, and position of control surfaces long over due.

[wozzo]

Press release on 3rd August 2011 (http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight.af.447/pressrelease03august2011.en.php)

It's an interesting read, full text:

Since this morning the integrity of the BEA's investigation has been called into question following reactions to the publication of articles mentioning a modification made to the Confidential Draft Report, which had been sent to the advisers appointed by the operator, the manufacturer and the SNPL as well as to the investigation authorities participating in the investigation.

This working document contained a draft recommendation relating to the functioning of the stall warning. This draft was withdrawn because it appeared to BEA investigators that the recommendation was premature at this stage of the investigation. In fact, this subject will have to be explored more fully by the « Airplane Systems » group and completed by the work of the « Human Factors » working group, whose creation was announced during the press conference on 29 July.

This new working group, which will be made up of specialists in cognitive sciences, ergonomics and psychology will have to examine all aspects linked to man-machine interactions and to the pilots' actions in the last few minutes of the flight.

Only after all of this work has been completed and included in the Final Report will it be possible for a recommendation on the functioning of the stall warning to be made, based on reasoned scientific analysis, work in which EASA will participate.

The current controversy focuses on a recommendation that corresponds to the functioning of the stall warning in a situation where the airplane reached an extreme angle of attack that is never encountered in flight tests, or even considered.

Finally, it should be noted that the warning sounded uninterruptedly for 54 seconds after the beginning of the stall, without provoking any appropriate reaction from the crew. This fact must be analysed as a priority by the working group.

The report published on 29 July is an Interim Report. Its publication was necessary in order to issue several Safety Recommendations. The causes of the accident will be made known with the publication of the Final Report during the first half of 2012.

[xcitation]

Clearly not every circumstance can be trained, programmed and simulated.
Once we accept that fact then we see a need for augmenting the resources on the flight deck in an emergency situation.
One solution would be an irridium satellite phone uplink with AF operations center supplying flight data and errors. It should also connect a voice channel. It would automatically connect when system errors reach a critical threshold level or manually activated.
It is easy to envisage a pilot receiving a call "This is AF operations: AF447 your a/c has 3 failed pitots and UAS. You are approaching stall, recommend immediate pitch down, side stick forward over...".
Satellite phone costs are cheap and air time would only be used in an emergency. There is presumably already an AF technical operations center which could be set up with the required telemetry systems.
We already see ECAM telemetry. This needs to be taken to the next logical level.

[hetfield]

The causes of the accident will be made known with the publication of the Final Report during the first half of 2012.

Are they kidding....:ugh::confused:

[mm43]

STALL WARNING
Excerpt from BEA - 3 August 2011 ...

Finally, it should be noted that the warning sounded uninterruptedly for 54 seconds after the beginning of the stall, without provoking any appropriate reaction from the crew. That statement can not be misconstrued. The crew never acknowledged the Stall Warning. The exception could be that they reacted to it inappropriately once stalled.

[airtren]

...

I should know.... I spent about half my life in France, and most of that in the aviation industry.... I still remember being baffled, when I first arrived here, by the confusing use of so many near-synonyms in documentation and reports.

If one comes from a Nordic or Germanic country, it used to be quite a difference. Not that much anymore, at least with the latter....

A French intellectual may say that:

French have a somewhat different education, in that arts, prose and poetry have a more important role than in other educational systems

French have a Balzac, a Hugo, a Proust, to name a few, which are revered more by the regular people than in other cultures significant writers would be....

French are more artistically and romantically oriented relative to their practical orientation. That shows, that even the simplest technical writing can become a little piece of art prose, with turns and meanders, rather than a very practical, straight forward, concise, easy to read piece of information.

That's what a French intellectual may say...

[asc12]

...but it seems to me this incident and the Buffalo crash seem to warrant a stage 2 warning beyond approach to stall, that instantly and unequivocally let's the crew know what is happening and has the key resolution (AoA reduction) as the key tag-line?

GPWS works like this, I'd say. "Sink Rate! Sink Rate!" and then "Pull up! Pull up!"

You could have Betty give an explicit suggestion (like "Pull up!") for a developed stall: "Nose down!" or something. Of course I agree that pilots should be able to recognize the development of a stall, but it's been shown that pilots can fly perfectly good airplanes in to the ground without recognizing they're about to do so-- which case presumably led to the development of GPWS to begin with.

I like this idea, although (humor follows) the confusion of messages close to the ground would be interesting: "Sink rate"... "Impending stall"... "Stall! Nose down!"... "Pull up!"

[Tjosan]

I like this idea, although (humor follows) the confusion of messages close to the ground would be interesting: "Sink rate"... "Impending stall"... "Stall! Nose down!"... "Pull up!" And the last fifty feet, too late too late.

[Lonewolf_50]

"stall warning"
In fact, this subject will have to be explored more fully by the « Airplane Systems » group and completed by the work of the « Human Factors » working group, whose creation was announced during the press conference on 29 July. This new working group, which will be made up of specialists in cognitive sciences, ergonomics and psychology will have to examine all aspects linked to man-machine interactions and to the pilots' actions in the last few minutes of the flight.

Only after all of this work has been completed and included in the Final Report will it be possible for a recommendation on the functioning of the stall warning to be made, based on reasoned scientific analysis, work in which EASA will participate.

Finally, it should be noted that the warning sounded uninterruptedly for 54 seconds after the beginning of the stall, without provoking any appropriate reaction from the crew. This fact must be analysed as a priority by the working group.
I decipher this as "Get off of our freakin' back, folks! We're tryin' to do a quality investigation here!" :=

I empathize.

[airtren]

STALL WARNING
That statement can not be misconstrued. The crew never acknowledged the Stall Warning. The exception could be that they reacted to it inappropriately once stalled.

The (...)c'est pas possible - "that's not possible" - of the Captain at 2:12:44

[mm43]

Originally posted by airtren ...

The (...) c'est pas possible - "that's not possible" - of the Captain at 2:12:44
Yes, he said that in the middle of a 5 sec SW burst. I estimate he had probably already heard at least 15 secs of SW from arriving on the FD, and in any case, was he actually referring to the SW or the V/S??

[grity]

is it possible that the rollinputs are induced from a "karman vortex-street" behind the fuselage of this widebody with his angular incident flow in case of higher AoAs ?


P.S.
what can be a reason for UAS until the ice dedectors has no ise detected........

[bearfoil]

Hi RBF, thanks.

Did you notice when PF mentioned "9000"? One second later he remarks:
"8000". That is 15,000 feet per minute! If he is accurate, (and most pilots are, at rating VSI with altitude) that is ~150 KNOTS vertical speed! Later, we hear "one would hope, as we are at 4000".

I am at a loss to understand their "nonchalance"?

speedbirdconcorde. Thanks for your reply Sir.

[RetiredF4]

DozyWannabe (http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/456874-af-447-thread-no-5-a-70.html#post6616778)

Yellow : Elevator movement commanded
Green : THS begins following movement (autotrim)
Unfortunately the inputs are never held long or forcefully enough for the THS to make significant movements (remember it took over a minute of nose-up to go from cruise settings to full-aft), and the nose-down elevators last for 10-15 seconds at most - crucially they are immediately followed by a return to nose-up




could you point me to the indication, that the THS is moving? THS is the blue straight line on the bottom?

But by chance, how should THS move when after 15 sec. of SS ND the elevator peaks max at -15°NU (the magenta line)? Would the THS start moving prior elevators move to the ND range? How long is SS ND and in what magnitude required to get the elevator in a ND position?

[ChristiaanJ]

If you want to call something bogus it is the fact that they stopped above a certain AoA.Let's not confuse the issue... they did not "stop above a certain AoA", but below a certain measured airspeed (< 60kts), because of the UAS.

What personally bothers me, is that the report does not stress sufficiently that the quoted "airspeeds" are those measured by the ADS and displayed in the cockpit and recorded on the FDR, and NOT the real airspeeds.

[RetiredF4]

A33Zab http://www.pprune.org/6616759-post1394.html
Stall Recovery
I know it has been posted several times before......

Stall Recovery FCTM.
ISSUE DATE: 15 JUN 10

It is the revised procedure (ISSUE DATE: 15 JUN 10). The old procedure was different with emphasize of gaining speed and maintaining altitude.
No sense to repaeat the new revised procedure again, everybody should know that one now, at least i hope so.

[DozyWannabe]

They in fact, fall in the same category with the others, as the ability to recover or not recover does not change the character and source of the problem.

I'm not saying that the behaviour isn't problematic, I'm saying that I don't think that the return of the stall warnings is unambiguously triggered by the nose-down inputs. The only source that suggests that there was internal disagreement at the BEA is that one "La Tribune" article, and as such until I see some corroboration I'm going to be sceptical.

And if you think I'm being stubborn about press accuracy, you wait until you've spent a little more time on this board!

It is wrong to say that the failure of the SW to relay the correct information to the pilots does not matter because it was too late for them to recover anyway.

Again, I didn't say that it doesn't matter (I'm an engineer, I like to find things to fix!), I said I'm not 100% convinced it played a causal factor in this accident

It is bogus, because it was a Stall Warning giving the wrong indication relative to the PF actions

Based on the evidence of a single press article that almost certainly comes from within Air France (which as an entity would benefit financially and in PR terms from Airbus having to shoulder a larger percentage of the responsibility), I'm not buying that until I see some better traces - right now it looks ambiguous to me.

and relative to the state of the “a/c” relative to Stall.

That's fair - however as I said before, this is the only airliner to my knowledge that has been that far outside the envelope for that long, falling from that high - so at present it's not clear whether there is a deficiency in the stall warning design specific to the A330 (and by extension the entire Airbus FBW range), or whether this is something that needs to be examined on an industry-wide scale.

The message from the PF/NPF/CDB perspective was signaling a transition from NON STALL to STALL, when in fact the transition was from STALL to NON STALL.

Well, not quite - it was still stalled. If the nose-down inputs had been maintained before passing, say, 15,000ft on the way down then it might have stood a chance of coming out of the stall, but that's not a given. Remember that a stall warning is designed to activate before reaching the stall itself, so once it had picked up speed and the wings were unstalled, the warning would continue for a few seconds until it was out of the stall warning regime. That's not bogus, it's just a factor of the design.

Hypothetically, if they had successfully unstalled the wings, started bringing it back under control, but the extra couple of seconds of stall warning meant the difference between successfully pulling out of the recovery dive and crashing - would you be arguing deficient design on the part of the aircraft? Do you think Air France would?

You are missing the point, if you think, that the exact internal cause, or the mechanism of triggering the message matters. It does not matter, relative to the needs of the pilots, and state of the “a/c”.

It matters if you want to think about how to fix it. The guys who designed these systems didn't just slap it all together - everything they did had to fit a very strict set of criteria. There was a reason the logic was designed as it was and as such, any change is going to have to be considered very carefully.

In the same time, you’re making my point – if the internal mechanism was creating the condition in which the STALL Warning went silent...

Well, this is the thing - we've had two explanations doing the rounds - one, that the stall warning is inhibited by a software setting and the other is that once the airspeed has fallen that low that the AoA vane no longer functions. No doubt we'll find out if one, the other, both or neither is true in the coming weeks and months.

Which one would correspond to WSJ, and which NI? Media makes money from disseminating information, and scandals make money….But there is a gauge that each of us has, and in this case it is not the trash, that you could throw a Blanket Dismissal at.

This crash has been under investigation for more than 2 years now, and many following it had the ability to have a good enough understanding without being influenced by one press article, or another.

I don't know if you've noticed yet, but there is a small cabal of pilots, reflected in a number on here who have a kneejerk hatred of anything Airbus. This is in part based on press assertions made since the late '80s that Airbus was a prime mover in "taking pilots out of the loop". Some believe this was a deliberate attempt to deskill the job of airline pilot and undermine their livelihood. This is complete nonsense of course, but the press fed that rumour mill and made it what it is today, which is kind of ironic when one considers the short shrift most pilots give the majority of mainstream media articles on aviation.

I'm not that bothered about people who take the time to understand the issues, but when the press get it wrong, or chase a certain angle to get a juicier story, it pollutes the general public's understanding of the issues at hand, which is why you've still got a lot of people today thinking that the infamous 1988 crash of the A320 was caused because "the computer thought it was landing and overrode the pilot", or that "Airbus makes planes that use computers, Boeing still use good old-fashioned cables and hydraulics in their new designs". This bothers me because regardless of whether related to aviation or not, I can't stand people who should know better spreading misinformation.

What’s the today’s press and TV news in France? More of course... as there is more reaction by the parties involved....

Interestingly at the moment it's Air France that's making all the noise - Airbus seems to be keeping their cards very close to the chest at the moment.

So what if other planes don’t have it. Is the validation of other planes needed for Airbus?

It's helpful to stop the "If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going" crowd from crowing.

But ultimately the subject of Stall Warning is a prickly one - as far back as 1972 you have crashes caused in part because the pilots thought they were getting a false stick pusher activation, dumping the stick push and in doing so sealing the aircraft's fate.

There is one very simple, but also major reason to have it: Operating it in relative secrecy, when the results cannot be easily perceived by the entire team in the cockpit contributes to the type of AF 447 accident.

And there are equally plenty of major reasons not to, not least of which being what would happen if a back-driven sidestick was wired up in reverse during a critical stage of flight (which has happened). Others include the assistance in enforcing SOPs, crew roles and CRM given by having one person with their hand on the stick at any one time, the extra systems complexity and weight that setting up back-drive entails (the 777's backdrive system by its very nature has more potential points of failure as a result).

It has become a matter of personal preference really.

As we speak about this, I still have an unanswered question relative to the Airbus 330 stick functioning:

Is the control surface deflection proportional with the duration of a stick action in a certain position – if it is longer action in a certain position, is the deflection different than shorter action in that position?

In Normal Law you are commanding *rate* of movement in the axis rather than deflection. The FCU will do whatever it deems necessary with flight controls and thrust to get you the rate you're commanding. As you progress down through the laws, channels move from rate to deflection. In that case, I don't think the amount of time you hold the stick in a given position changes the deflection, but obviously the longer you hold the stick in position, the more time that deflected surface has to act, same as any other aircraft.

[Lonewolf_50]

bear, FFS, the transcript isn't parsed to fractions of a second, and he may have noted 8 grand in passing or nine grand in passing and approaching ten grand ... your division presumes a precision in your chosen "data points" that isn't in keeping with the accuracy you wish to assign to your RoD estimate.

If you make the denominator 0.75 seconds or 1.25 seconds to accomodate time to speak and delay between reading and speaking, what numbers do you arrive at? Keep moving your decimal fractions about until you get the numbers you are looking for?

Come on, bear, you know better than that! :=

Given that the FDR apparently produced some data points and readings around 10,000-11,000 fpm down (closer to the latter), such data is quite enough vertical velocity (or the vector along the negative z axis ) to evoke a grimace on anyone's face who is familiar with flying. There is no need to employ hyperbole and inaccuracy in attempt to craft further drama. There is drama aplenty without resorting to such. :=

[JD-EE]

airtren, in precisely what way were the stall warnings when the AoA was absurdly high in any way improper? The cessation of the stall warnings was improper; but, the warnings themselves were very proper. Or am I missing something rather serious?

[bearfoil]

You misunderstand. Perhaps utterly. My point is that on this flight deck there is just such a disregard for accuracy as you proclaim. So when you are in agreement, but by misunderstanding, it becomes FFS?

Lonewolf it is you who know better. Why announce two impressions of rate, and let it slide as if it matters not? Why announce it so close to the previous one, and let it "slide"? I submit you have a hair trigger when you read my posts. Read it again? In the interests of friendship?

Because we are to assume that the low level and rate are terrifying, and yet remain seemingly unimportant to the crew? Folla?

[A33Zab]

Triggering a Stall Warning: "STALL STALL" is not the difficult part in the logic.

The challeging part is to trigger a stall warning when it is appropriate to do so
(for the flight condition & A/C Config.) and to prevent the spurious stall warnings.

It requires 25 pages of logic in the FWC ECAM system logic manual.

I'm not here to defend AIB, they can add another ECAM page logic if you like, but would that have made any difference after 54 sec of continuous warning?

This is how the game -to blame- is played.

[mm43]

CJ;What personally bothers me, is that the report does not stress sufficiently that the quoted "airspeeds" are those measured by the ADS and displayed in the cockpit and recorded on the FDR, and NOT the real airspeeds.
Exactly, ... and if they had done so they would have provided the reason why they are different.

[Lonewolf_50]

bear, as a friend: please go back to the alleged mathematical operation you presented to us, and your choice of numerator and denominator, and consider how you derived those data points. Compare that sourcing to the FDR which BEA roots its estimates and data from.

Then consider the the FDR analysis came up with a RoD between 10,000 and 11,000 FPM (I suspect it varied early on, and stabilized (per Grity and henra's posts a few threads ago) as the bird descended into denser air and friction came into play, and an approach to terminal velocity. I am within 10% in that error band. I suppose I could go and find the 10,098 or 10,988, or whichever figure is cited as ultimate RoD, and please my pedantic little old self. No drama. henra I thin it was pointed out that the RoD would vary based upon air density, a couple of threads ago.

To arbitrarily add a 40% bonus for dramatic effect on dubious arithmetic grounds doesn't help in understanding.

So, my tone might have been edgy, but I know you've been around long enough to know how number manipulation works. (Heh, you have even complained about such things in various threads ... ;) )

[HazelNuts39]

Let's put this into perspective. Certification requirements, airplane systems design and airline pilot's training primarily seek to avoid stalling the airplane. Limiting myself to system design, there are first of all the various high-AoA protections in normal law. In the fairly remote failure condition of alternate law the only protection left is stall warning. Its function is to warn the pilot that AoA is exceeding a threshold close to AoA-stall, but sufficiently below it to allow the pilot to avoid stalling. At high Mach it is set to stay below the onset of buffet, which provides additional margin to the stall, and its function is amplified by the occurrence of aerodynamic buffet. In the words of the regulation (which doesn't apply in abnormal systems configurations) stall warning must continue until the AoA is reduced below the threshold at which it is triggered. It would seem that in almost all cases the system will do just that. The only case where it will not function as intended is when the stall warning is ignored, and nose-up commands are maintained, causing the AoA to increase to values (>40 degrees) at which the sensed airspeed is so corrupted that the AoA signal itself is considered unreliable or invalid.

P.S.
what can be a reason for UAS until the ice dedectors has no ise detected...Ice detectors detect the formation of ice by freezing of liquid water, which in all probability was not present in the conditions of AF447. They work in cycles: unheated while collecting ice, heated to shed the ice. Ice particles do not adhere to non-heated surfaces, and are therefore not detected.

[JD-EE]

DozyWannabe - on page 114 look down to the 8th set of graphical elements, dark green titled "ASSIETTE (>D- A cabrer)[DA]". What is it?

When I try to translate it this seems to be an aircraft pitch trace. If so, at many times the PF had full nose up on the elevator the plane had a significant, 10 degrees or more, nose down attitude.

So I'd like to know what that line's title really means.

Please!

[A33Zab]

If you want to trace and compare, don't forget to take the accelleration into account.
The - accelleration normale* - is the feedback (besides elevator servo deflection) to the FBW pitch channel.

* well not completely sure, awaiting english version.

[DozyWannabe]

could you point me to the indication, that the THS is moving? THS is the blue straight line on the bottom?

You need to be zoomed right in, but you can see movement in the THS line after an elevator movement of any size. Unfortunately, due to the low resolution of the image in the PDF it only shows as a series of 1-pixel notches in the line, but there is definitely a correlation between elevator activity and those notches at that point. Earlier in the sequence , those notches appear just prior to movement of the THS in reaction to elevator movement. Even a small amont of elevator movement seems to trigger them, but the elevator commands need to be held for a significant amount of time before the THS will respond in anything other than increments which are barely perceptible at the resolution in which the graphs are presented.

But by chance, how should THS move when after 15 sec. of SS ND the elevator peaks max at -15°NU (the magenta line)? Would the THS start moving prior elevators move to the ND range? How long is SS ND and in what magnitude required to get the elevator in a ND position?

In all honesty I don't know, but if you look on page 111 of the French report, you can see the sidestick traces, directly below which is the elevator response, and directly below that is the THS, which gives a nice representation of how the autotrim works. Notably, the big THS movement happens during a time in which some quick "blips" of nose-down are made, but the overriding trend from the sidestick and elevators is for nose-up, and so the THS follows that.

What personally bothers me, is that the report does not stress sufficiently that the quoted "airspeeds" are those measured by the ADS and displayed in the cockpit and recorded on the FDR, and NOT the real airspeeds.

CJ;Exactly, ... and if they had done so they would have provided the reason why they are different.

Well, this is an *interim* report after all, and in the FDR traces, below the indicated airspeed (both "conventionelle" and "I.S.I.S"), they have included the ground speed trace, which gives a better picture of what the actual speed would have been.

@JD-EE - I'm pretty sure that "Assiette" can refer to pitch or trim, but in this case I think it means pitch. If it is a valid trace then yes, the nose fell down, but I suspect not in a controlled manner. In any case, the THS position, along with that of the elevators meant that as soon as the nose was down it would immediately come back up due to aerodynamic forces.

[mm43]

JD-EE;

ASSIETTE (>D- A cabrer)[DA] = Attitude trace, and you are right regarding the excursions into ND. Also check the Stall Warning trace below!

[bearfoil]

What is bear getting at? Merely this. The SW was alive for ~54 seconds, seemingly without effect re: crew actions. The loss of altitude was grave, the VSI reads were alarming, and yet there is a definite disregard for hard data to effect a recovery FROM STALL. The focus may not have been on STALL. Because we know what happened ( yet continue to gripe and argue about the hard data!), does NOT mean that is what the crew were addressing as their immediate challenge. The CAPTAIN is unsure about whether to PUSH or PULL!



Now all this is from a redacted and selective release of conversation absent tone, inflection, and strict sequence. The only explanation relative to 447's demise based on BEA has to do with how moronic and clumsy these gents acted. I do not for a second believe that to be the case. Instead, I choose the other option, one that makes more sense based on BEA and hopefully their honest representations of the Data, and not an attempt to slander the crew. A DIVE. TOO MUCH SPEED. A reliance on the g protections available in ALTERNATE LAW 2. The only thing they could not get is why she refused to climb when commanded, screw the STALL HORN.

rant, fading into........

@Lonewolf. Finally, It matters less than a gnat's whisker whether you 'get' or I 'get'. Our disagreement is nada. What matters is what THEY thought. I am not seeking drama, I am asking why would the crew speak twice of Altitude, than finally, "hoping a Pull Up, we are at 4000". ? I'm trying to wear their moccasins, in an effort to understand: Why the "Nonchalance"?

What matters is what they think of what THEY spoke! "@9000......@8000"

one second after the other. Does one of them not 'get' the VSI, and someone is trying to REMIND? At 8000, than 4000 feet?

To me, and it is a GUESS, it means they are worried about Overspeed, which means at any split second they can start a successful recovery, even at 4000 feet. No NEED to reload the wings, spend 10000 feet and then have to worry about tearing the wings OFF.

That is why, In my opinion, they were not speaking STALL!

As in: Captain : "N'est-ce pas possible!!" "****in A, we're STALLED"

[JD-EE]

Lone - "I empathize."

To say the least. Those guys are under incredible pressure. And based on what I see here with people apparently missing important clues they must be working VERY hard.

[GarageYears]

STALL WARNING
Quote:
Excerpt from BEA - 3 August 2011 ...

Finally, it should be noted that the warning sounded uninterruptedly for 54 seconds after the beginning of the stall, without provoking any appropriate reaction from the crew.
That statement can not be misconstrued. The crew never acknowledged the Stall Warning. The exception could be that they reacted to it inappropriately once stalled. PEI_3721:
As much as new designs might enhance the salience of a warning, if the crew’s mental model has rejected the warning as being false, inappropriate, or unwarranted in the situation as perceived, then enhancement is of little point.
Remember ‘shut up gringo’ ?
Some other aircraft have, and for good reason, a stick shaker and stick pusher.
Now an electronic version of that sounds very simple, particularly if it repositions trim. However, remember that a ‘rush’ makes for poor law – similarly quick system changes and redesign might have pitfalls elsewhere.
Thus, let the designers think through their system; they probably evaluated such an option in the initial design - certification case to show why it is not required.
Finally all parties must ensure that any change fixes the problem, but do we actually know what the problem is, except perhaps human limitations in perception and understanding.I am quite familiar with both stick-shaker and stick-pusher, however I suspect you are not really accepting that the system designers have generally NOT considered the region deep into a stall. Certification tests are carried out up to and approaching a stall, but never stalled. Trying that in a large transport category aircraft is not recommended or tested (except perhaps using computer modeling).

The stall warning systems currently on the aircraft are therefore designed as preventative devices - i.e. if you are hearing this, then things are starting to go wrong, so perform the appropriate actions.

Consider whether, in the normal course of aircraft operation, it seems likely that an aircraft would be *flying* with an IAS of 60knots and a stall-value AoA? Such a realm is easy for the armchair quarter-back to criticize... "why shut off the stall warning when the IAS drops below 60 knots" ---> because such a condition was/is inconceivable for 'normal aircraft operations'.

But my suggestion a page or so posts back now, was to introduce a new warning, not just an aural, but a bloody great block of text flashed across all glass displays in the cockpit every 5 seconds or so, suppressing all other warnings that may or may not be going off. "AIRCRAFT STALLED, AIRCRAFT STALLED, REDUCE AoA!"

As some other contributor noted, it's not very helpful hearing a "pull-up, pull-up" warning if you're fighting a stalled aircraft - if you're stalled with an AoA of 60+ degrees and vertical speed of -10kft/min then it would certainly not help much now would it?

In the Buffalo crash the pilot pulled through the stick-shaker, but in that case there were issues that were arguably deeply rooted at a skill level.

A simple question:

Would something per my suggestion - "AIRCRAFT STALLED, REDUCE AoA!" flashed in red text on the glass displays have alerted the AF447 crew that they were stalled? - triggered from AoA and V/S?

There are two possible answers - "NO" and "MAYBE" - if it is the latter then proceed with a human factors study, etc. I am not proposing a rushed introduction.

My personal opinion is we, as humans, are bombarded with technology today, but look at the trending.... we are moving away from email to Facebook, and T w i tter (with a limit of 140 characters per message), we TXT msg each other in short-hand code, our attention span is shrinking. When things go wrong we tunnel vision, shutting down our senses - therefore at moments of critical decision making we NEED the available technology to prioritize our input stream for us.

[henra]

Let's not confuse the issue... they did not "stop above a certain AoA", but below a certain measured airspeed (< 60kts), because of the UAS.



Agreed !
Was imprecise on my part.

Although the measured Airspeed was very likely a consequence of the AoA exceeding certain values leading to collapse of the flow around the pitot and not so much representing the real Airspeed.

[JD-EE]

Dozy "Well, this is the thing - we've had two explanations doing the rounds - one, that the stall warning is inhibited by a software setting and the other is that once the airspeed has fallen that low that the AoA vane no longer functions. No doubt we'll find out if one, the other, both or neither is true in the coming weeks and months."

Don't forget that with a very high AoA the airspeed indication is VERY spurious. You get some ram air into the drain and you get reduced air into the business orifice of the pitot. The AoA vane was probably working. And when the nose was 10 degrees down would have clarified the stall warning by showing the AoA was still way too high to fly.

(I suspect it would be wise to get that green line I've started harping about into your graph for thinking purposes. It may explain some of the cockpit psychology.)

[RetiredF4]

DozyWannabe
In Normal Law you are commanding *rate* of movement in the axis rather than deflection. The FCU will do whatever it deems necessary with flight controls and thrust to get you the rate you're commanding. As you progress down through the laws, channels move from rate to deflection. In that case, I don't think the amount of time you hold the stick in a given position changes the deflection, but obviously the longer you hold the stick in position, the more time that deflected surface has to act, same as any other aircraft.

Could you reflect on my post post1433.html (http://www.pprune.org/6617547-post1433.html), please?
After your above statement i´m the more interested.

DozyWannabe
Quote:
Yellow : Elevator movement commanded
Green : THS begins following movement (autotrim)
Unfortunately the inputs are never held long or forcefully enough for the THS to make significant movements (remember it took over a minute of nose-up to go from cruise settings to full-aft), and the nose-down elevators last for 10-15 seconds at most - crucially they are immediately followed by a return to nose-up

could you point me to the indication, that the THS is moving? THS is the blue straight line on the bottom?

But by chance, how should THS move when after 15 sec. of SS ND the elevator peaks max at -15°NU (the magenta line)? Would the THS start moving prior elevators move to the ND range? How long is SS ND and in what magnitude required to get the elevator in a ND position?

If i read your above statement from post1436.html (http://www.pprune.org/6617559-post1436.html) correctly, then elevator should be in "deflection channel" as you name it? Why does the elevator move only to 15°NU, even distinctive ND SS inputs where present (also not over prolonged time).

I hope, i didn´t get on your ignore list.

[bearfoil]

Hi Dozy. I think those Notches are what I took to be sawteeth, earlier.

"Serrata" if you will. I noticed two things. First I believe you are exactly right, each notch shows a 'command'. Also, they register as one second intervals on the timeline. What do you think?

[JD-EE]

Dozy "@JD-EE - I'm pretty sure that "Assiette" can refer to pitch or trim, but in this case I think it means pitch. If it is a valid trace then yes, the nose fell down, but I suspect not in a controlled manner. In any case, the THS position, along with that of the elevators meant that as soon as the nose was down it would immediately come back up due to aerodynamic forces."

Good, we're that far. Notice the correlation between the PF's nose up and the nose down the aircraft executed. What would that do to the PF's mind?

As a side not I vaguely remember some discussion back in 2009 about the aircraft's behavior if airspeed really does decrease well below stall. It might even have been in the context of place the plane in the air at zero airspeed. The conclusion was that the swept back wings would make the nose go down. The data presented from the FDR seems to indicate this is exactly what the plane did. ("Good plane", as she pats it on its metaphorical head.)

Could the pilot have had a problem admitting the plane was stalled even with the nose pitched down 10 degrees? It is very clear to me that the pilots were both pretty much mentally rejecting that #$)**#@_) stall warning. (Imagining irritated profanity in their thoughts.)

edit
(Is incidence emis par... the AoA? It looks like it. That would have been a GIANT clue.)

[JD-EE]

bearfoil, look at the graphs again. Is the real root cause the lack of a real AoA indication in the cockpit? That is rather hard for pilots to mentally reject. The AoA warning was easy for them to reject after training that it CAN happen spuriously. There is a hardware (design) error for you to consider.

[DozyWannabe]

Good, we're that far. Notice the correlation between the PF's nose up and the nose down the aircraft executed. What would that do to the PF's mind?

The PF's inputs towards full nose-up begin at 2:11:40 and he's back against the stops at 2:11:42. The nose-down pitch doesn't begin until 2:11:45 and reaches 10 degrees nose-down (the lowest point it will ever reach) at approx 2:11:55. I might be being daft, but I see no correlation.

On top of that, if I pulled hard back and the aircraft's response was to pitch down in short order, recall of my Air Cadet days would suggest I might be stalled.

Am I missing something?

[bearfoil]

Hi JD-EE, The real root cause of what? Look, I think it is fascinating, this discussion re: AoA, Culture, and snarky repartee, ad nauseum.

The fact remains, the stage was set at AutoPilot disconnect, it becomes ever more clear. If the pilots were right, they would have recovered, and if they had grokked STALL soon enough, they would have recovered. But they were wrong, and kept expecting NU to solve their overspeed problem. It is certain. (my opinion only)

Three qualified Pilots ignore STALL WARNINGS and input near constant NOSE UP. Not an Approach to STALL recovery, (This is Not Colgan for silly sakes), and their mistake is clear to the hangers on, after the fact, Regardless the conclusion!

The initial PF saw Nose Up, Roll Left. The last one, Also PF saw Nose Up, Roll Left. None of the Pilots, NONE, grokked STALL.

Are you Pilot? High altitude, cruising, 500knots TAS. AP quits, must hand fly. Too much hand, a climb, a big climb. After Topping out, immediately see huge loss of altitude, and noise like you would not believe. Having heard one "bogus" fart from 447, I have huge airstream din, huge and continuing LOA, and I say "I think we have crazy speed!" They've seen UAS, so he isn't saying "Duff speed" he is saying "Way Fast".

There is no other way to see this, except to claim the boys were idiots.
That is perhaps the looniest opinion in two years of being here. Because there are some armchair pilots here (guilty) and pilots being who they are, everybody has a handle on it. The case is all but closed.

Nonsense.

See #1448

Thanks for all your input, I've learned much from you fund of expertise, and your way of presenting it.

[takata]

Hi JD_EE,
we've had two explanations doing the rounds - one, that the stall warning is inhibited by a software setting and the other is that once the airspeed has fallen that low that the AoA vane no longer functions.

There is only one single and simple explanation:
If no alpha_probe real failure is declared and no particular phase inhibition is declared:
1) - Stall Warning alarm is working provided that at least one ADR_alpha_channel is valid. (e.g. turning OFF all ADRs imply that Stall Warning alarm is totally lost).
2) - ADR_alpha_channel is valid provided that its own ADR_airspeed_channel is > 60 kt.

Consequently, if all three ADR_airspeed_channels are < 60 kt => case 1) Stall Warning alarm is lost.

But, this may become circular:
If alpha increases and is reaching a very high level, pitot_probes starts to under-read airspeed (due to angle of airflow related to ram tube orientation). At one point, alpha can be so high that airspeed is falling under 60 kt, causing alpha_probes to display NCD (invalid) values, causing the complete loss of Stall Warning alarm.

Consequently, the measured airspeed could be < 60 kt while aircraft is actually flying at 100+ kt but at very high alpha. Hence, high alpha will cause invalid alpha and Stall warning alarm will drop off at much higher airspeed than designed.

[mm43]

@bearfoil;

You are dealing with a "cultural problem", and it is indicative of some attitudes that have developed over the last 40 years - or so.

This excerpt from an email, received from a French lady a few hours ago, may provide an insight into what I suspect you already know.Do you know much about french-style education post 1968? Taking of initiatives, thinking for oneself, individual responsibility, curiosity of all things, CHECKING facts - have been deliberately educated out, the automated response and the supposition are supreme, the group action favoured. A few years ago government announced its intention of trying to return to the responsible individual attitude; put back the "jagged edge" which is the glue safeguarding democratic society, but which the unthinking have difficulty encompassing. It will be hard with more than two generations brainwashed. And then there are the "grandes écoles".

My Lebanese (but passionately pro de Gaulle) companion used to say of the French: "all the gear and no action".Now, don't get me wrong! I'm not starting a "cultural" war.:ok:

[3holelover]

Bearfoil,
With respect, Are you Pilot? High altitude, cruising, 500knots TAS. AP quits, must hand fly. Too much hand, a climb, a big climb. After Topping out, immediately see huge loss of altitude, and noise like you would not believe. Having heard one "bogus" fart from 447, I have huge airstream din, huge and continuing LOA, and I say "I think we have crazy speed!" They've seen UAS, so he isn't saying "Duff speed" he is saying "Way Fast".The man with his hand on the stick [PF] should have realized early on that, if that were the case, the aircraft would respond MUCH differently to his inputs. I seriously doubt that many pilots I've ever known could mistake the one for the other [stall - overspeed] after even a moment at the stick, even while blind.

Also, there were not 3 pilots mistaking that for most of their fall... only the one. At best the PNF had a few moments to explore it himself, but not the Capt.

In an earlier post you alluded to people calling them morons... I haven't heard that from anyone yet, have you? I doubt even the most myopic among us would deny that at worst, they were at the mercy of their training, SOP's and a damned difficult situation.

[A33Zab]

English version (http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601e3.en/pdf/f-cp090601e3.en.pdf)

[HazelNuts39]

If alpha increases and is reaching a very high level, pitot_probes starts to under-read airspeed (due to angle of airflow related to ram tube orientation).Correct, but don't forget that static pressures are affected also, reading high. Pitot minus static can become negative in extreme cases, as mentioned in one of the BEA reports.

[boguing]

This will get deleted soon, I'm sure.

Bearfoil might be a Civil Engineer. They all fell asleep during Fluid Dynamics lectures on my degree course.

Not many months ago he was certain that the tail had fallen off. Mainly because it was made in Europe. We don't do glue as well as the Americans.

Put him on your ignore list. Worked for me.

The frustration rises when I see him quoted.

Hope this doesn't get me banned?

[xcitation]

Bear
IMHO they were convinced of overspeed. Nose up, give me all the stick back you got, why does she stop at pitch +16 deg, I want more. Deploy spoilers. Idle the engines. Crazy speed.

What made all three believe in overspeed. To the extent that they can ignore stall warnings, the UAS procedure, ignore the high pitch, low IAS, low ground speed, ambient noise changes. Was it the deceleration giving them the perception they were in a dive and PF thought the attitude indicators were wrongly showing +16.
Something made them all convinced of it. Did the PFD show the red black overspeed ladder?
Even a sceptic has to wonder if there was something else they saw that we do not.
I might believe one or maybe 2 had it totally and insanely wrong but not all 3 pilots.

[DozyWannabe]

If i read your above statement from post1436.html (http://www.pprune.org/6617559-post1436.html) correctly, then elevator should be in "deflection channel" as you name it? Why does the elevator move only to 15°NU, even distinctive ND SS inputs where present (also not over prolonged time).

I can't answer for sure, but I have a feeling that the trace in the FDR describes elevator position relative to THS position. I hope someone else will confirm/refute this, but if you compare the SS traces, the elevator traces and the THS traces it seems to make sense.

I hope, i didn´t get on your ignore list.

Franzl, I've never put a single person from a single forum of which I am a member on ignore list in my life! I'm quite capable of mentally filtering out waffle if I need to, and I've always operated under the assumption that even people who get on my nerves probably have something to teach me, so it would be ignorant of me to ignore them. :)

And even if I did - you're a long way from anywhere near the list that I'd contemplate putting on ignore!

[takata]

Hi HazelNuts39,
Correct, but don't forget that static pressures are affected also, reading high. Pitot minus static can become negative in extreme cases, as mentioned in one of the BEA reports.
Yes Sir! ... high alpha affects every probes, including, static and alpha probes!
Hence, airspeed is twice affected (did you try to derivate aircraft actual airspeed from ground speed and other parameters to see at which estimated (true) value airspeed was reading under 60 kt ?)
And V/S is also affected (obvious from graph)... and somewhat baro altitude...

This limitation of +60 KCAS for alpha validity would be due to good reasons, but I don't know which one... it seems to me easier to inhibit this alarm during specific phases when you don't need it (ground, rolling...) than doing it this way in relation with airspeed.

[Shadoko]

Think correct translation in English of aeronautic use of "gauchissement" is "wing warping".
Sorry... but you're wrong, unless you're talking about the "Wright Flyer" and aircraft from that age..
It may well be the logical original 'source' of the term in French aeronautical terminology, but today it just refers to "roll" or "roll angle".
Thank you for the correction. The word have been discussed without clear answer, so I tried with dictionaries : no knowledged people under hand ("lost" in the meddle part of France).
I understand you have a very fine knowledge of aeronautical wording, both French and English. If you do not mind, could you say what you think of AF447 conversations as they are transcribed (wording, technicity,...)? I am very surprised by them (but have no knowledge at this), even if there were an understandable "stress". When compared with those in the cockpit of the Airbus which landed on the Hudson (supposing the YouTube retranscription is valid: wwwDOTyoutubeDOTcom/watch?v=tE_5eiYn0D0). And if you don't want, for any reason, to write about that, I would understand. Thanks anyway.

[HazelNuts39]

What made all three believe in overspeed. The altitude tape scrolling down at an unusual rate, the 'vario' at the negative peg?

[takata]

Hi mm43,
This excerpt from an email, received from a French lady a few hours ago, may provide an insight into what I suspect you already know.
Your French lady's statement and her view on French "society" seems seriously connoted!
It should be taken it with a (big) grain of salt, excepted, maybe, the quote from her Lebanese (nonetheless pro-De-Gaulle) companion!
:}

[PEI_3721]

GarageYears, re #1451
“I suspect you are not really accepting that the system designers have generally NOT considered the region deep into a stall.”

Quite possibly; particularly in the manner in which it is being discussed in this thread.
Certification considers a locked-in deep stall from aircraft geometry aspects, as with a ‘T’ tail, but the A330 stall appears to be ‘locked-in’ due the control system, predominantly trim holding a pro-stall condition. Certification, be it right or wrong, considers that the control condition should not be considered, or if so it is recoverable by crew action

Certification flight tests will examine all aspects of an aircraft’s stalling characteristics, including searching for a ‘deep stall’ on geometrically susceptible aircraft. However, the tests may not evaluate an extreme mis-trimmed condition outside of the normal flight envelope.

Modern designs aircraft have moved toward ‘preventative’ systems. Some stick pushers which I have flown should not to be argued with - high forces, but as in your example, a fearful pilot can overcome such systems. Thus the digital trend is towards avoidance / limiting, but as is being discussed this may not cover all non-normal conditions.
The probability of protective systems failing together with stall AOAs and mis-handling the aircraft clearly exceeds the probabilistic certification assumptions. This is ‘black-swan’ territory where the industry depends, either consciously or not, on the human rescuing the situation.
We celebrate many notable successes. Unfortunately we have to suffer failures; this hurts our pride, beliefs, and our professional standards, and correctly we search for a solution, but as I questioned earlier, do we understand the problem – all aspects of the problem.

I agree that we are bombarded by technology, automation, etc, but adding more to ‘encase’ the pilot will only increase the complexity of an already over complex operational environment.
If technology is to help then it should be in a form as you suggest, releasing the pilot from the technological cage and encouraging cognitive excellence; but if this is achieved via technology, we still have to consider what happens when that technology is unavailable.
In such circumstances the human is still best placed to evaluate and judge the situation; but the human might benefit from some generic skills training to improve awareness, managing surprise, and knowledge recall; aspects of higher professional standards perhaps.

[SaturnV]

The English version seems, on first reading, to be fairly good English.

Having learned my lesson of extrapolating from a David Learmont post from the Paris Air Show, I'll not revisit the cockpit door.

I will note however that the location of the captain's seat and the co-pilot's seat look to be about 30-35 meters apart on the ocean floor. The fourth seat was found about 10 meters from the captain's seat.

With respect to the belts, the English version says this:

1.12.4.2.1 3 The cockpit seats
On the left side seat the lap belts were attached, the crotch belts and the shoulder harnesses were not.

On the right side seat no belt was attached.

A question is whether there is a missing phrase: i.e., "On the left side seat the lap belts were attached [to the occupant],.." or is the more accurate interpretation that the belts were no longer with the seat?

If the latter, that throws into question the assumption that the first two bodies recovered by the Ile de Sein were those of the PF and PNF in their seats.

Also,
The signal corresponding to the “fasten seat belts” information was not heard on the recording. The recording starts at 0009.
____________

The upper elements of the fuselage are generally larger. They often had significant lengthwise folding.

Both wing boxes had multiple ripped openings. The left wing suffered more damage than the right wing. The central wing box, despite its rigidity, was broken up. The right half of the lower surface of the trimmable horizontal stabiliser, made of composite carbon fibre, had broken off on impact.
.....
[a rear left fuselage panel containing eleven windows and around seven metres long was found approximately two kilometres south-west of the [main debris] area. Part of the lower surface of the trimmable horizontal stabiliser was also found slightly to the south-west of this area.] .....

The level of debris fragmentation and deformation indicated very high energy on contact with the surface of the water.

[Smilin_Ed]

Ed, wouldn't you want the aircraft to respond to your control inputs if you were flying it? If the pilot's stick inputs were to not be responded to or obeyed, don't you think there would be a greater cause for concern?
FBW or not, if I pull back on the stick, I sincerely hope the aircraft responds with an appropriate elevator command to do what I asked it to do.


Of course I want the aircraft to respond to control inputs but I wouldn't want it to change the trim. That is a very basic thing when flying in turbulence. In this case, it followed what was clearly an erroneous input by the PNF and trimmed them up into a stall, a no-no taught to every student pilot.

[gums]

Thank you, Wozzo, very interesting press release. Seems that some BEA investigators are concerned about some of the same things that several here are, as well. And it's not all strictly pilot error or strictly aircraft system design.

Thank you A33Z for the link to the English version of the report.

- The lack of discussion on the CVR concerning the stall warning puzzles me.

- An AoA indicator is "nice" to have, but we must examine the flight conditions it is intended to support. 'bird, Retired, Smilin' and Gums can testify that the AoA "bracket" in the HUD or the "indexer" lights were extremely valuable for approaches ( especially on the weaving deck of a large boat, heh heh). We didn't need to calculate airspeed to a knot, and we routinely landed at various weights depending upon our external loads. 'nuff said about that.

For a commercial airliner, we don't have the same requirement. Nevertheless, the AoA is very important for stall warning and recovery. The plane produces lift according to AoA and dynamic pressure!!! You can stall at many knots faster than the manual numbers for one gee.

So placing a new indicator in the displays is not a biggie for this ol' dinosaur. seems the 'bus has enough confusing displays as it is.

Use of AoA other than a display is another matter.

- Ask the above pilots if the AoA sensors ( vanes or cones) worked below 60 knots. Even if the AF447 suckers were bouncing around a bit due to an extreme AoA, I'll bet they showed a high AoA, and were not flipping back and forth from plus 30 deg to minus 30 degrees.

For the FBW system to ignore AoA below 60 knots does not seem right. Most military planes use the weight-on-wheels switch to display or even use AoA.

Further, how was the stall warning being sounded if the system had disregarded both speed and AoA?

No doubt training and manufacturer claims will come to the fore here. After all, we're "protected", right.

"We're going down, sir"

"O.K., command the plane to go up"

" I am doing that, sir, but she keeps on descending"

[mm43]

Originally posted by takata ...

Your French lady's statement and her view on French "society" seems seriously connoted!I would suspect she knows nothing of Rugby Union supporters from Toulouse!:}

[DozyWannabe]

Of course I want the aircraft to respond to control inputs but I wouldn't want it to change the trim. That is a very basic thing when flying in turbulence. In this case, it followed what was clearly an erroneous input by the PNF and trimmed them up into a stall, a no-no taught to every student pilot.

Hi Ed,

Is that because you can't see any instance when it would be useful or because it goes against the methods you were taught flying aircraft with more "conventional" controls?

IMO (for what that's worth) there's nothing wrong with the autotrim setup as long as the way it works is taught properly. If you look at the traces the trim moves minimally under automatic control. What caused it to deviate so strongly was a series of inputs that trended towards nose-up, the majority of which were around half the stick's rearward travel limit, that were sustained for the best part of 45 seconds. What caused it to continue the movement to the stops was a full nose-up deflection that lasted between a further 30-40 seconds - that's more than 1 minute and 20 seconds of nose-up input at a deflection that ranges from halfway to the stops - at cruise level!

The trim doesn't move in any noticeable way as long as the inputs are relevant to the flight regime. The PNF notices that the PF's lateral inputs seem to be extreme, and admonishes his counterpart. He then further upbraids the PF for commanding a climb when it is unnecessary. This is why the BEA recommend training for manual aircraft handling at altitude, because in this case the sidestick inputs are repeatedly way beyond what is reasonable at that altitude and airspeed.

Thank you, Wozzo, very interesting press release. Seems that some BEA investigators are concerned about some of the same things that several here are, as well. And it's not all strictly pilot error or strictly aircraft system design.

Well, the press release appears to be in response to the articles that appeared to have sources with in AF who are clearly not happy about the stall warning situation. Whether that relates to a well-researched hypothesis, or whether it is an attempt to muddy the waters in anticipation of the division of responsibility in the coming criminal and civil litigation it is impossible to say.

- An AoA indicator is "nice" to have

And it is indeed in the recommendations that have been agreed thus far.

seems the 'bus has enough confusing displays as it is.

Confusing how? I'd say they're pretty well laid out for mid-80s technology!

- Ask the above pilots if the AoA sensors ( vanes or cones) worked below 60 knots. Even if the AF447 suckers were bouncing around a bit due to an extreme AoA, I'll bet they showed a high AoA, and were not flipping back and forth from plus 30 deg to minus 30 degrees.

Well here's your traces (corrected values and raw) :

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i331/turricaned/fdr-aoa.png

Looks pretty spiky to me after 02:11:45...

"We're going down, sir"

"O.K., command the plane to go up"

" I am doing that, sir, but she keeps on descending"

With all due respect, they never said anything even close to that...

[Machinbird]

Well here's your traces (corrected values and raw) :Dozy, The spiky traces are merely an indication of how confused the computers were.
I can promise you that those AOA vanes were essentially pegged to the high AOA position after the stall, moving down slightly perhaps only when the crew tried some nose down stick.
If the traces show the vanes moving that much and that regularly, it has to be bogus.
Probably a good argument for routing the signal to an AOA indicator first, and then to the computers/ADRs as a derived signal. The computers/ADRs, it appears, cannot be trusted with the data in extreme conditions.

[jcjeant]

Hi,

A nice exercice is to experiment some reverse engineering ...
Just forget all you know about the FDR and the plane datas as released by BEA (this is the most difficult part of the execise)
Just study the CVR and from there .. try to imagine what make the plane ......

[gums]

You are correct, Dozy, the crew never said that. I was being sarcastic about the system design that "protects" hapless pilots from getting into trouble. Do we have "pinball wizards" or real pilots flying these things?

An "aggressive" design would have used whatever the hell was causing the stall warning to sound to move the nose of the jet down!!! It would have some limits regarding mach, but the main operational function at the time would be to break an impending stall. "We can worry about mach later", says HAL.

The AoA traces show a fairly smooth increase, then we have what looks like a lotta noise. Could be electrical noise, could be effects from being on the bottom of the ocean for two years, but I cannot fathom the vanes/cones moving that much due to basic engineering practices of mechanical dampening and the inertia of the probes themselves. In any case, the "system" can use many techniques to "smooth" the data that is provided the main FCS confuser. Talk with me about data reduction on a test system that had crappy electrical wiring, and took us weeks to figure out the problem.

I am still not convinced that the crew had clear warnings and indications of the situation. Given that the line pilot has not been presented the combination of events and such, I can understand a bit of confusion. But in the end, I see the claims about enhanced safety and "protections" and then I see a situation where all the engineering/laws/protections didn't help at all.

[Shadoko]

The AoA traces show a fairly smooth increase, then we have what looks like a lotta noise. Could be electrical noise, could be effects from being on the bottom of the ocean for two years, but I cannot fathom the vanes/cones moving that much due to basic engineering practices of mechanical dampening and the inertia of the probes themselves. In any case, the "system" can use many techniques to "smooth" the data that is provided the main FCS confuser. Talk with me about data reduction on a test system that had crappy electrical wiring, and took us weeks to figure out the problem.
Somebody has suggested the curbs were Excel made. We know from BEA that "void" AOA values are not "transmitted". So, in the BB memories, they are absent or replaced by a non numeric value. With Excel graphes, if you don't tick the option "ignore absent values", they are considered as zero. Perhaps it is simply that?

[takata]

Hi gums,
The AoA traces show a fairly smooth increase, then we have what looks like a lotta noise. Could be electrical noise, could be effects from being on the bottom of the ocean for two years, but I cannot fathom the vanes/cones moving that much...
It is due to the effect of projecting this graph at this resolution.
What one would see, at a better resolution, is a pike [max-zero] each time the value of one probe is invalid (NCD: no computed data). It looks so "noisy" because the value of each probe is not sampled at the same time.

e.g. if the sampling rate of the recorder is 1 per second:
0.33 s - alpha 1
0.66 s - alpha 2
0.99 s - alpha 3
1.33 s - alpha 1
1.66 s - alpha 2
1.99 s - alpha 3
etc.

With a lot of NCDs, it will become unreadable pretty fast.

[gums]

Thank you TK and Shad. Makes my day.

We must be careful looking at the recorded data unless we have put the test vehicle and recorders thru similar environments and exerted a lotta effort to ensure we have "good data" at the end. This incident did not lend itself to a disciplined engineering testing approach. It may well have been a "one of a kind" test point.

From my experience as a data reduction engineer, after I hung up my gee suit, the most noisy data from the sensors was pneumatic pressures. So I can see some spikes in the air data and such. Really great sensors and some clever filtering by the data reduction gnomes can help. But we still have to look at the raw data and make a value judgement.

[Machinbird]

It is due to the effect of projecting this graph at this resolution.
What one would see, at a better resolution, is a pike [max-zero] each time the value of one probe is invalid (NCD: no computed data). It looks so "noisy" because the value of each probe is not sampled at the same time.Takata.
If I understand you correctly, and read the trace correctly, when the system considers the value of the AOA to be invalid, it applies a zero value to the signal which is momentarily overridden by the periodic read of the probe, thus creating the spikes.
When the data is considered valid, the signal remains at its last value until the next read, thus only small steps, and no spikes.

[takata]

Hi Machinbird,
There is three curves (one per probe) represented at the same time, each with a small time offset. Hence, if three values are NCD, it will paint most of the background due to the three spikes. When there is only a single value, in other graphs, it doesn't produce the same effect as the spikes will be spaced.

[airtren]

I'm not saying that the behaviour isn't problematic, I'm saying that I don't think that the return of the stall warnings is unambiguously triggered by the nose-down inputs.

If they happen at the same time, it does not really matter what's the trigger, the negative effect of the discouraging Stall Warning is the same.


The only source that suggests that there was internal disagreement at the BEA is that one "La Tribune" article, and as such until I see some corroboration I'm going to be sceptical.

Well, if this morning’s news were not enough, ….


Based on the evidence of a single press article that almost certainly comes from within Air France (which as an entity would benefit financially and in PR terms from Airbus having to shoulder a larger percentage of the responsibility), I'm not buying that until I see some better traces - right now it looks ambiguous to me.

I don’t really care in whose court’s the problem. Now you have the BEA press release as well

I pointed you to the BEA Report paragraphs – perhaps I was a step ahead. The pointers in the English version are: page 76 paragraph 5, page 77, paragraph 8.


That's fair - however as I said before, this is the only airliner to my knowledge that has been that far outside the envelope for that long, falling from that high - so at present it's not clear whether there is a deficiency in the stall warning design specific to the A330 (and by extension the entire Airbus FBW range), or whether this is something that needs to be examined on an industry-wide scale.


LOC and LOC due to STALL is an industry wide problem. Taking the ambiguity out of the problems that the pilots need to deal with at a STALL is a gain, which one truly appreciates only if found in that pilot’s situation!

I hope that the English version of the report, my posts, and other posts on this Forum will help you understand.


The message from the PF/NPF/CDB perspective was signaling a transition from NON STALL to STALL, when in fact the transition was from STALL to NON STALL.


Well, not quite - it was still stalled. If the nose-down inputs had been maintained before passing, say, 15,000ft on the way down then it might have stood a chance of coming out of the stall, but that's not a given. Remember that a stall warning is designed to activate before reaching the stall itself, so once it had picked up speed and the wings were unstalled, the warning would continue for a few seconds until it was out of the stall warning regime. That's not bogus, it's just a factor of the design.


Don't forget the STOP/STARTs of the STALL WARNING during the STALL, so it didn’t work the way you mentioned above.



The AF 447 pushed the system to its limits, and two problems surfaced (bugs):

a) the STALL WARNING stopped during the STALL, with a bad consequence, and

b) the STALL WARNING started during the transition from STALL to NON-STALL, with a bad consequence



With the current design, a STALL WARNING that stops means that the Stall condition no longer exist.


In case a) the a/c was still in STALL, which was a problem.


With the current design, when a STALL WARNING starts, it means that the a/c enters a STALL condition.


In case b), the PF commands were ND, to take the a/c out from the STALL. The warning of entering STALL meant that his command was wrong, and so he pulled back.

Edit: Note: PF ND actions can be looked at as the combination of Thrust and Stick, as the Pitch graph, in the areas significant for the Stall Warning OFF/ON/OFF on the Stall Warning graph, follow the Thrust and Stick graphs.




Hypothetically, if they had successfully unstalled the wings, started bringing it back under control, but the extra couple of seconds of stall warning meant the difference between successfully pulling out of the recovery dive and crashing - would you be arguing deficient design on the part of the aircraft? Do you think Air France would?

Do you mean the case when the bogus mechanism delayed the recovery, to the point of the crash? As a frequent passenger, I would like to see the problem fixed asap, wouldn't you?




You are missing the point, if you think, that the exact internal cause, or the mechanism of triggering the message matters. It does not matter, relative to the needs of the pilots, and state of the “a/c”.


It matters if you want to think about how to fix it.





Of course. it matters in the design/engineering space, and manufacturing space, but I was not referring to those. I was referring to the cockpit/aircraft operation space.



In Normal Law you are commanding *rate* of movement in the axis rather than deflection.

Do you have, or can you point to a documentation on this?

[takata]

@Machinbird
- first is mach
- second is speed
- third is attitude
- fourth and fifth are alpha
NCD values are either 0 or Max. The offset is clearly visible in speed graph, and the alpha graph is unreadable when NCD.

http://takata1940.free.fr/curves.jpg

[Machinbird]

There is three curves (one per probe) represented at the same time, each with a small time offset. Hence, if three values are NCD, it will paint most of the background due to the three spikes. When there is only a single value, in other graphs, it doesn't produce the same effect as the spikes will be spaced. Takata,
Between the spikey areas of the AOA trace, there are brief interludes where there is a single smooth trace (apparently by all 3 probes). No spikes, and the AOA appears to briefly decrease slightly.

I'm interested in the usability of the AOA data in the system, and with weight off wheels it should be available full time. The 'system' appears to be applying a biasing signal to the data, bringing the signal to zero when the data is considered invalid, but leaving it at last value read when apparently valid. This has potential implications for future (and present) AOA installations on Airbus aircraft.

Essentially airspeed has been given authority to outvote AOA (which we already knew from the stall warning fiasco) but this is not a good situation for present and future AOA installations in Airbus aircraft. This I consider to be a fundamental engineering error, but one that can fixed, probably by better software.
I use the word error, because AOA and airspeed are both fundamental aircraft performance data, but independent of each other and derived independently. To then mix them together and prioritize them is simply bad logic.

[takata]

The 'system' appears to be applying a biasing signal to the data, bringing the signal to zero when the data is considered invalid, but leaving it at last value read when apparently valid. This has potential implications for future (and present) AOA installations on Airbus aircraft.
I don't understand what you meant by leaving it at last value read?
System doesn't use those "values" as depicted here, this is only a recorded sample of several sources used. Sensors are always sensing something, at any time, when they are not physically failed. Their own output rate is many times higher than that.
If, at one point, an output needs to be considered invalid below a certain level, there is obviously a potential logic about not using it. Now, there is certainly also some room to improve this logic as far as SW is concerned.

[takata]

I use the word error, because AOA and airspeed are both fundamental aircraft performance data, but independent of each other and derived independently.
Of course not. All air data sensors are influenced by a combination of airspeed and angle-of-attack, in addition to environemental factors which are not exactly the same at sea level or 41,000 ft.
During this stall sequence, what in fact outvoted the alpha probe was the very high alpha achieved ! Alphas outvoted themselves by making other probes displaying wrong values.
Certainly that this was never considered remotedly possible. But keep in mind that limits still apply for everything flying.
Say, maybe this aircraft is able to fly at Mach 1.2 without falling appart. Would you ask for its probes to be certified for not stopping an overspeed warning at such a speed, in the very remote case that someone would ever try it?

[BOAC]

Well, a quick look at the English version and it is really awful to read.

A couple of queries - the BEA constantly refer to 'co-pilot's stick' without saying which one. Why is it not 'Captain's Stick' etc? Without trawling through the traces it is difficult to decipher.

According to the CVR extract the spoilers were extended at one point and not 'noted' as being retracted. It is difficult to decipher the FDR trace on this. They appear to be extended for well over a minute which adds to the 'overspeed' mental scenario. Can anyone elaborate?

To anyone puzzled by the nose-up 'pull' at 4000', I ask what exactly would you suggest they did instead at 4000' with around 10,000 fpm down? I think we are down to pretty basic human instinct here.

[takata]

Hi BOAC,
Well, a quick look at the English version and it is really awful to read.
It still make me sick while reading it today.

A couple of queries - the BEA constantly refer to 'co-pilot's stick' without saying which one. Why is it not 'Captain's Stick' etc? Without trawling through the traces it is difficult to decipher.
I did not noticed that. If it's part of the CVR/FDR table, "co-pilot" would apply for RHS (PF); PNF imputs are correctly labelled "Captain". If part of the narrative, where? (usually they add the seat?)

According to the CVR extract the spoilers were extended at one point and not 'noted' as being retracted. It is difficult to decipher the FDR trace on this. They appear to be extended for well over a minute which adds to the 'overspeed' mental scenario. Can anyone elaborate?
It makes
0212:04 - 12:07 - PF said "I have the impression that we have some crazy speed, no? what do you think?", and he deploys spoilers. PNF correct him "No! above all don't deploy (them)"; they were retracted immediately (~5 seconds from graph). Captain added nothing.