Did you enjoy 60 Minutes last night?

[Jack Ranga]

A very tabloid story on the Air France A330 accident. It did however bring into the mainstream media a story that needs to be brought to the public's attention. How qualified is the crew of your aircraft? Personally I make an informed choice about who I and my family fly with, I'm lucky, I know a little about how airlines recruit and train their pilots. There are some airlines I would not step foot on.

How did any of those pilots get an airline gig when they could not recognise a stalled condition?

What is this company doing in their sim checks?

Is there such a thing as a stall stick position in an Airbus? It's all well and good for a computer to override a pilot's control input if it's 'outside the envelope' but this aircraft still ended up in a stalled condition. Where was the computer then?

I still for the life of me cannot understand why an aircraft manufacturer would have different indications concurrently through the control stick i.e. one pilot has full back stick and the other pilot cannot feel this through his stick...........

There are a huge amount of issues associated with this accident, the mind boggles at the implications.

[triathlon]

Didn't see it but good points raised. I agree, how does one not recognise a stalled condition as a pilot. That stuff is drilled at the GFPT level. Or how not even recognise the symptoms of an impending stall. Basics of operating an aircraft. Yeh the mind does boggle :sad:

[Trojan1981]

It seems absolutely baffling to any pilot looking at it after the event.

The 60 mins story was fine for Joe public.

A very experienced older pilot once put it very succinctly to me in conversation. He said it would not have happened in a Boeing, not because of the difference in cockpit philosophies or computer systems, but because a Boeing has a big control yoke that you can see being pushed forward or pulled back. The control inputs are clear to all in the cockpit.

[nitpicker330]

I think for once Karl and the 60 minutes team did and excellent job with the story and I've told him so.

Well done.

[Wally Mk2]

This accident like all accidents/incidents was a chain of events, ICE was the initial culprit leading to false indications then followed a chain of events that led to a disastrous result.
I believe even a seasoned pilot can make mistakes (as we have all too often seen on Air Crash shows, even a classic stall with a conventional control column) when under duress being presented with conflicting instrument readings.
The somewhat inexperienced pilots where presented with multiple aural & visual (inst readings) conflicting warnings all in the middle of the night & where taken by surprise, something that any pilot would initially be disorientated with.That's not an excuse I know but it's just one link in the chain of events, a major one that was most likely the catalyst for the end sad result.
Since then Airbus has learnt much & the results/changes are happening this very day in Sims.

Humans only ever learn from their mistakes, like the machines we are fallible & with automation dependance these days that's a dangerous combination in the above scenario as we are trained to believe our instruments.

There's been copious amounts of data presented on this accident for anyone's viewing above & beyond some TV report.



Wmk2

[my oleo is extended]

Nothing really new was exposed, but some old familiar causes came back to haunt industry - A simple fault/issue turned into a disaster.
Ice was the root cause, however I haven't heard any more about the pitot tube in question? I know Air France changed the pitots on their fleet, as well as other operators, but why did the pitots freeze when the heaters were switched on?
Pilot error was a contributing factor, as were crew flight deck gradient, Capt had around 11000 hours and F/O's with around 6000 and 3000 from memory.

Still unanswered is why El Capitaino put F/O 2 in charge? The weather was bad but why F/O 2 in the R/H was in control and why F/O 1 in the L/H wasn't.

Also the circadian rhythm chestnut, accident occurred around 0200, again back of clock flying and the ability for crew to operate at 100% clarity has always been a challenge. I can't recall if that was a significant or even minor finding?

Also this is not the first accident to occur where a stall stick shaker function could have been more of an accurate warning to the crew. Perhaps if the A330 had a stick shaker function the crew would have then known that the instruments were or had been giving spurious readings and they would have pushed the nose down and punched the throttles?

I agree the crew could have, should have saved this one, they were the last line of defence, the last chance, however they didn't. Once the Capt realised exactly what was going on it was too late to save the ship, from memory the penny dropped when they were at about 4000 feet. No chance.

Perhaps this yet another example of 'tombstone technology'?
R.I.P

[Capn Bloggs]

Since then Airbus has learnt much & the results/changes are happening this very day in Sims.
Extra training so pilots can cope with an overly complex system. Sounds fair. :cool: But has it modified the system eg made the Stall Warning stay on at all low airpseeds instead of cutting out below 60kts?? No wonder the magenta kids were confused.

[Wally Mk2]

To get a modern day airliner to go below 60 kts whilst airborne is or would be a very rare event. Prior to that speed there would be continuous warnings to the fact of low or reducing airspeed so having the stall continue blw such a low speed is at that point in time purely academic.
Training of more manual manipulation of the flight controls as well as recognition of upset flight characteristics is one way to keep the pilot in the loop if it ever occurred but remembering every day around the world aircraft perform thousands of normal flights in adverse conditions without incident so having regular exposure to such training (manual flight) isn't feasible in a now very cost aware industry.
You design/build a peace of machinery & train it's operators to handle every event that's likely to happen in the day to day operation of that equipment but you can't train them to be 100% ready all the time for every problem no matter how remote.
Man has been crashing heavier than air machines since the "Wrong Bro's" (it's their bloody fault for getting off their bikes in the first place!) but we simply do our best & that's all anyone can ask of a human.

Every accident in aviation paves the way for safer flying in the future, that's why we are where we are today.

Wmk2

[Andy_RR]

Not having seen the episode, but having read some stuff to date, I find it hard to believe that a) Airbus would let something out in the wild that was so sensitive to a foreseeable icing problem, and b) you could fully stall an aircraft wings level from the flight levels all the way to the ground, without any indication of a wing drop or roll instability. Are these things that stable?

[FGD135]

What gets me about this accident is the attitude of other pilots towards the Air France crew.

The general attitude is along the lines of:

They were hopeless pilots - couldn't even recognise a stall - but I'm not, so I'm safe and have nothing to worry about.

Yes, its very easy from the comfort of your lounge chair to criticise this crew and claim that things would have been different if you were in the cockpit that night.

This is an arrogant ignorance - a quality which makes these commentators just as dangerous as pilots as what they are alleging the Air France pilots to be.

What about British Airways pilots? How about United pilots? How about Qantas pilots?

There was over 20,000 hours of flying experience in that cockpit when the aircraft finally hit the ocean.

There are fatal flaws in the man/machine interface of today's highly automated aircraft, but they are well hidden. It takes a certain combination of circumstances to bring them out. And when it happens, we find ourselves scratching our heads at how apparently simple the accident was to avoid.

It's not so simple.

I believe that had the pilots been from Qantas, or any other airline, the result would probably have been the same.

Since then Airbus has learnt much & the results/changes are happening this very day in Sims.Care to be more specific? I'm not aware of any changes that have yet filtered through to flight training. There has been plenty of discussion, but I believe we are still largely in the head-scratching phase over this accident.


eg made the Stall Warning stay on at all low airpseeds instead of
cutting out below 60kts??

This is just one of the dozens (hundreds?) of little design "quirks" that can align with other little, seemingly harmless quirks to bring down a modern, well-maintained airliner - flown by highly trained and experienced western pilots.

It's not so simple. If it could happen to them, it could happen to you.

[TSIO540]

Our trainers have been pushing hard on unreliable airspeed training with a high altitude emphasis so I guess there have been some changes following Air France going into the drink..

[Wally Mk2]

"FGD" check yr "Bus" QRH (If yr bus endo's) the Stall Recovery proc wasn't even in there (QRH) pre France 447 crash. That amended proc as well as training for it in the Sim is the result, hence we are seeing the procedures being implemented today in the Sim. It's now the belief that thrust which was once thought to be all part of a stall recovery proc in the first instance shouldn't be the first reaction to a stall.
We had Airbus test pilots sit in with us at the Sim some time ago & they strenuously insisted that lowering the nose (reduce AoA) was priority No 1, (that's the first action as per QRH) forget the thrust at first that's the 3rd action down the list.




Wmk2

[Capn Bloggs]

Not good enough, Wally. The main reason we're in the cockpit is to handle the unexpected/abnormal. If the industry can't/won't train us to cope, then prangs like this will re-occur. Of course, having a machine that does things differently when it has spat the dummy is IMO one of the main causes here. Surely you are not justifying the 60kt feature? Also, nice touch, the full auto-trim back as it slowed down... While making it easy to fly normally, if oyu were putting in incorrect pitch inputs, why would you want the stab to exacerbate those inputs by trimming with you?

A big part of this was the "surprise" aspect. It's all well and good in the sim, even if you do don't exactly know what is going happen; you will probably cope as you are at a hightened state of alertness and already thinking out of the box. On the line is a different matter. Hours and hours of autopilot flying doesn't help the stick and rudder skills, which I'm convinced in turn help one correctly diagnose this sort of situation.

you could fully stall an aircraft wings level from the flight levels all the way to the ground, without any indication of a wing drop or roll instability. Are these things that stable?
AF 447 had roll oscillations up to 40° and did an almost 240° right turn whilst descending.

[Wally Mk2]

That's fine 'blogsy' I was just answering yr query re what's changed being more specific. I also mentioned the 'surprise' factor in an earlier post so nothing new there. The 60 kt thingy simple means one is a LONG way behind the 8ball by then.
Probably one of the most basic things missed here by the two hapless pilots was the fact that they thought they/he needed to climb (pull back on the stick & hold it there) to reduce the ever increasing airspeed (due ice). All pilots at that level ought to know that a large heavy airliner flying along at say 37000' doesn't have enuf energy by way of excess thrust to make it suddenly go a lot faster.

I didn't invent the Aeroplane & I didn't design the Airbus so I listen to the designers/makers as I am but just a very small part of the whole process.



Wmk2

[43Inches]

A very experienced older pilot once put it very succinctly to me in conversation. He said it would not have happened in a Boeing, not because of the difference in cockpit philosophies or computer systems, but because a Boeing has a big control yoke that you can see being pushed forward or pulled back. The control inputs are clear to all in the cockpit.

A number of Boeings have already been lost to the exact same scenario. Blocked pitot, slight climb leads to increasing airspeed, pull back harder to try to slow down and speed keeps increasing. Eventually you end up with an over-speed warning and stall warning at once, a couple of 727 were in deep stall before they had any idea of what they were doing. More recently there was a 757. In most of these cases the crew just had to apply a reasonable power and fly an attitude and it would have been ok, but they chose to chase the speed instead. Also get to know the performance of the aircraft, if it's doing something that's just not possible think twice about what is causing it, scan all the instruments and try to isolate what does not make sense.

[Jack Ranga]

It struck me that there was more to this situation than meets the eye.

Why did they fly through the guts of this storm? (Not a criticism, a question. Is it that difficult to thread your way through the ITCZ?) I have seen on radar diversions of more than 200 miles from track.

Capt, aged 58 but 'only' 11,000 hours? Is that a little unusual? What were his 11,000 hours on? He seemed just as confused as his low hour F/O & S/O?

There were about 20 holes in this block of cheese, many, many more than other accidents I've read about over the years.

I didn't start this thread to have a crack at pilots. And it has been discussed ad nauseum for a couple of years. For me, this goes back to when all 3 of these blokes first stepped foot in a lighty & the stall training they were given? I'd like a little focus on that. And you'll never convince me that the control stick setup in these things is a good thing in any shape.

[Di_Vosh]

Air Crash Investigation it wasn't, but for a 60 Minutes clip directed to an Australian audience it wasn't too bad.

As for the rest, all good comments guys, but there is a 55 page thread already running on this...

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/489790-af-447-report-out-55.html

DIVOSH!

[my oleo is extended]

FGD135, spot on. If you look at Pilots as a line of defence rather that the culprits, you soon see that several factors came into play. Just because the pilots were a link in the chain, and the last line of defence, it doesn't make them totally to blame. Those guys never boarded that flight hoping to die.

Jack, good point as well mate. Some valid unanswered questions still. I am not 100% on this theory but I heard somewhere that the wx radar was showing one large cell on their heading yet a larger line was tucked away behind the first cell? Also I hear that the cell line stretched around 300 nm and that some cells extended up into the troposphere so flying above was not an option? Maybe somebody else has more info on that.
Regardless, the poor Drivers got dudded with dodgy pitot tubes and an aircraft that didn't have a stick shaker type function, ridiculous.
I'm not taking away a measure of blame from them, but for media and others to blame them completely is absurd, but not unexpected as pilots will always be a convenient scapegoat for manufacturers and the Airlines.

Hopefully lessons have been learned, however I still hear airline management say Pilots are almost redundant and are not nearly as important as the aircraft itself. AF447 proved that is not the case.

[Jack Ranga]

Di_Vosh,

I know there are other threads running on this, I'd prefer if this remained separate & in the Australian forum. Reason? As Australia moves away from GA recruited pilots for their airline pilots what will be the implications?

Will your 200 hour scabstar cadet pilot do 1 or 2 lessons on stalling before jumping in the right seat? How does this pilot get trained on the A320? How many sessions of stalling does this pilot do in the A320 endo? How does any scabstar captain know what their trainee FO is doing with the controls?

[Fandangled]

As a whole I understand what happened on this unfortunate flight but if someone more familiar with the 'bus could help there is something I'm a little puzzled by.
I thought a part of the computerised fly by wire systems advantage was that it would not let a pilot get the aircraft into such an unsafe condition such as a stall while flying manually, which is why they don't have a stick shaker???

[FGD135]

Fandangled,

I have never flown an Airbus, but can answer your question. The various protections offered by the flight control system require the computers and sensors to all be working normally.

When the computers are working normally, the system will be in "normal law". It is in this mode that all the protections work.

In the case of this accident however, because of errors in the airspeed sensing, the flight control logic had dropped back to "alternate law". Stall protection is not available in alternate law.

[Oakape]

The computer protections were not available, as the aircraft have reverted, if I remember correctly, to 'direct law' when the computers lost the airspeed input. It basically said "I don't know what's going on - you have control"

If the pilot flying had just kept the thing straight & level it would have recovered after a short amout of time. A friend of mine had the same thing happen & that was the outcome.

It seems that, rather than just maintaining straight & level, the pilot flying decided that full backstick & full power was the thing to do. I imagine that he was taught that if you get into trouble, just pull full backstick & add full power & the computer will keep you out of trouble. There seems to have been no comprehension of high altitude flight & of the fact that you have minimal computer protection in direct law.

Seems to me that it was basically a training issue, much like the fellow in the A300 who used rudder to counter wing drops in turbulence & broke the tail off. Works in a 152 during approach to the stall training, but has no place in jet transport aircraft.

[Trent 972]

FGD135 saidThe various protections offered by the flight control system require the computers and sensors to all be working normally.
That statement is incorrect.
There are quite a few levels of sensor degradation that have none to minor to significant effects on flight control protections.
"Stall Protections" aside, a Stall Warning was sounding for most of the event, which seems to have not been given the attention that it should have been.

[Oakape]

When the aircraft got very slow, i.e. less than 40kts or 60 kts (if I remember rightly), the stall warnings ceased. Airbus has programed it to do that because at that speed you will be on the ground, according to them. (it seems that they never considered that an aircraft would get that slow in the air)

On the one or two occasions that the pilot flying relaxed the back pressure the airspeed increased (the pitot problem had rectified itself by then) & the stall warnings started again. This caused some confusion & lead the pilot flying to reintroduce full back stick.

[On eyre]

Would never have happened if one of the crew had checked groundspeed on his Garmin 495 or even his iPad or both to get an idea of the aircraft's approximate speed through the air and so disregard the incorrect IAS indication - but that is probably a bit simplistic but would certainly work in my world. In fact have done exactly that when ASI failed on takeoff a few years ago.
Lot to be said for GA.

[Di_Vosh]

Jack,

No problem :ok:

I posted that more in response to other people who were asking questions/making posts that have been well covered in the main thread.

DIVOSH!

[Fandangled]

Thank you FGD135, Oakape and Trent 972
Good old (underated as far as I can tell) attitude and power eh?

[my oleo is extended]

Hey DIVOSH, at the time of my posting this your post count was 737 :ok:

[nitpicker330]

1/ the A330 went into Alternate Law, hence it trimmed nose up trying to satisfy the Pilot nose up input. That didn't help recovery. Yes no Low speed protections available however a Stall warning given.

2/ the crew didn't need to check their i Pad or Garmin GPS!! They could look at the GS readout on their Nav display or indeed check the GPS Monitor page for all they needed regarding GS and GPS ALT.

All Inertial displays and Engine displays remained correct throughout.

A very scary episode.

[Capt Kremin]

A reasonable presentation from 60 minutes considering the target audience. One aspect I found worthy of comment.... The "experience commensurate with age" profile of the entire crew. 11000 hours for a 58 year old? I am on track for twice that and I have never clocked up much more than 700 hours in a single year.

Is that an Air France thing?

[Jack Ranga]

A question for any Captain that trains low time cadet type F/O's in Airbus. How do you know what the right seater is doing with the controls if you can't feel it or see it??

[Jack Ranga]

That was the first thing that struck me Cap Kremin, how old was he when he started training, what aircraft types?

[Tankengine]

My check pilot at Toulouse was extremely scathing about Air France ( before this accident):uhoh:
His words were : " they have crashed every version of Airbus we have sold them"
He referred to the fact that they have different procedures than Airbus standard and re write all the manuals.:ugh:

Interestingly I have a lot more hours than that Captain (more than double) with 9 years to get to his age.:rolleyes:

[Jack Ranga]

Another airline I won't step foot on.........

[nitpicker330]

Forget about training new FO's mate. As a Captain on the Bus I'm never 100% confident to let the FO land in marginal weather no matter who they are because I can never be sure what they are doing with the Sidestick. When I do sense a problem it's probably too late to fix it.

Never had this issue on the 777.

[Di_Vosh]

Hey DIVOSH, at the time of my posting this your post count was 737

AWESOME! :ok:

[Metro man]

Same scenario occurred on a flight involving a middle eastern airline which cannot be named. Their pilots dealt correctly with the problem, possibly using procedures developed as a result of the AF incident.

Aircraft diverted to Singapore and landed safely.

[nitpicker330]

It happened in my outfit to 2 A330's, a 777 and a 744 before the AF447 accident and our guys came through ok. Changed their undies but they survived..

[Jack Ranga]

Tks nitpicker, that's what I thought :cool:

[my oleo is extended]

Some very good posts gents and gentettes (??).
So in a couple of posts just mentioned, and assuming this issue is being repeated around the world regularly with multiple carriers, would I be wrong in saying that some of the hardware design on the Bus's are, to put it bluntly, ****? There seems to be an obvious pattern here, a condition that was latent, but is now well known and still rearing its head.
Obviously pilot skills along with good procedures, good training and good CRM provide layers of defences, which have likely been the saviour of other aircraft that have ended up in similar situations, but I can't help but think that when all the holes line up the design of this technologically advanced machine is dare I say, a killer?

[kabukiman]

Does anyone know where I'd be able to catch up on the episode in question?

I heard about it today. I was told the stall warning alarm sounded 58 times?

It's easy to say "how come they didn't recognise the stall blah blah" but I was also told one of the junior crew in a control seat had back pressure applied the whole time trying to clibm the aircraft without the knowledge of the other crew until it was too late?

I have heard many conflicting reports as to the cause of the crash so if most of you think 60 mins did a good job, I'd like to watch it very much.

[Jack Ranga]

I'm staggered that some engineer ******** found it impossible for a jet aircraft to do 60kts so cuts a stall warning warning? So when the thing accelerates past 60kts a stall warning re-activates when the aircraft is in the act of righting itself. How can you trust this POFS?

I'm staggered that some engineer ******** has seen fit to remove such a basic thing as being able to see and feel what the other pilot is doing.

I'm staggered that some ******** airline manager has seen fit to put a 200 hour pilot in the RHS when they know it is dangerous to do so and they know the LHS has no hope of being able to train the RHS. And that there is some ******** management pilot that supports it.

[Centaurus]

so having regular exposure to such training (manual flight) isn't feasible in a now very cost aware industry

"A very cost aware industry" is surely the main reason we have simulators in which to practice our flying skills rather than use real aeroplanes.

Regardless of the many jet transport accidents that were proved to have been caused by the pilot losing control (in other words poor flying ability) - it is probable that even today, 90 percent of simulator sessions still involve making full use of the available automatics.

If you want to crew aircraft with pilots equally at home at pressing buttons/monitoring automatics or hand flying in IMC in a seamless transition from automatics to raw data hand flying, then why not teach them how to do that task in the simulator? It is not an insurmountable problem - except to those pilots who are so addicted to automation, that they are privately apprehensive of their own lack of confidence in their ability to fly an aeroplane.

[nitpicker330]

If you have an i Pad download the 60 minutes Australia new app.

Then you can watch it.

Also download and read the BEA accident report.

Final report (http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight.af.447/rapport.final.en.php)

[my oleo is extended]

Nitpicker, Mac Job wrote a good piece on the Trident crash, very interesting 'tech crew gradient' issue on that ill fated flight.

[rioncentu]

So with these fly by wire jobbies, do you have to tell the aircraft which sidestick "has control". Can one over-ride the other or is it only one at a time?

[Shagpile]

May I ask do many airline crews still hand fly legs to maintain currency?

[Fantome]

Just in case anyone is confusing this BEA -

http://www.bea.aero/img/visuels_habillage/turboreacteurbleu.jpg (http://www.bea.aero/en/index.php)http://www.bea.aero/img/interface/header_logo_et_coord.gif


with the old British European Airways that operated that Trident
that crashed at Staines near London.

[waren9]

either side stick will work. inputs from both are added together although it will generate a "dual input" warning.

either side can lock out the other in case of side stick fault or incapacitation

shag

some engage the a/p after gear up, some wait a bit. its been a while since i last saw any hand flying above transition on the line.

[ChrisJ800]

What's needed is an Angle of Attack indicator and a section in the QRH on power settings needed at particular AoA to maintain cruise. You dont need fancy computers to fly! Power + Attitude = Performance is how we are taught. They mentioned the difficulty in seeing the PF side stick movements but dont think any mention was made that the THS was at or close to its backstop at stall and would have needed time to get back to a sensible position to enable a recovery and the aircraft was perhaps unrecoverable by stall stage. I think Airbus got off lightly on 60 Minutes at the expense of PF and 'Systemic' problems.

[waren9]

pitch and thrust are already in the qrh.

if you dont know whats normal in the cruise you shouldnt be in the seat.

aoa vanes ice up too. perpignan

[Wally Mk2]

'chris' that info already exists in the buses QRH Att/thrust settings under unreliable airspeed.
I'd say most modern day airliners would stay aloft in the crz maintaining an airspeed that's safe with around 2-3 deg's attitude & around 75-80% N1 'till the drivers can explore further.
It's amazing the amonut of time pilots spend at the steering wheel whilst in crz so there's plenty of time to see what's needed for level flight.

I believe that Airbus most likely looked at adding the non flying pilots stick to move duplicating the PF's movements but just at a guess there would be numerous issues associated with that concept such as the sticks aren't in the direct view of the pilots looking fwd or at the inst panel (not to mention they are black against a black background) unlike a conventional control column &
if any lose items where present in the area of the stick (sufficient surface area there for all sorts of crap!) it may inhibit or at least restrict the control sticks movement.
The concept to me is very good as it does provide for a uncluttered feel/look to the cockpit & allowing a tray table which is very handy for playing cards, computer games (outside of the big one yr currently playing) & stuffing yr face with goodies:ok:

Wmk2

[nitpicker330]

The 787 is bloody fantastic in this area.

Systems reconfigure the PFD to show AOA,GPS ALT, GS etc in this situation apparently.

Why we can't select AOA is beyond me.:=

[The Green Goblin]

Are you guys forgetting the B.U.S.S?

Fly the green, it's an AOA indicator!

As for hand flying, I hand fly where I can to transition, hand fly the approach from 3000 feet and do a manual thrust landing at least every roster change.

Most guys seem to do something similar unless it's a complex SID or approach in poor weather and you need increased SA by load shed.

[Wally Mk2]

'GG' I believe the B.U.S.S feature is optional on busses, ( I think std on the 'Dugong' though) would be great if they where std:ok:
Sounds like a brilliant piece of kit not using those pesty ADR's but IR's for AoA & GPS for Alt as well as stall warning protection, something you lose with all ADR's off.
I can just see it now, the two F/O's on that night had the presence of mind to turn all 3 ADR's off to display the B.U.S.S, I don't think so as total confusion was over taking them.

One could say has mankind made a rod for his own back when it comes to technology? Possibly but some said that monoplanes where just a fad not too long ago in the scheme of things as the wing would fall off:-)

I think hand flying today's modern transport Cat jet anymore than really necessary is pretty much frowned upon by most training dept's as it can increase the workload of the PNF considerably especially after T/off with multiple things going on anyway besides having to adjust speed selections, V/S, (if wanting a reduced V/S to be shown on the F/D's to lvl off) turns & diff Alt's not to mention flaps, lights, switches & checklists.
All too hard, I like simple at my age the days of poling around a plane are long gone for me:)

Wmk2

P.S ..Yr right there 'nitpicker' although Airbus only recommended that the BUSS not be used Abv F250 as I believe it's difficult to manage at higher Alt's although it is still available at all Alt's. I read Air France decided not to fit the BUSS to their fleet, somewhat academic now I guess.

[nitpicker330]

The BUSS is only to be used below FL 250....

[FGD135]

I'm staggered that some engineer ******** found it impossible for a jet
aircraft to do 60kts so cuts a stall warning warning?

Jack, the explanation behind the stall warning behaviour is NOT as you believe.

Rather, it is as follows:

Below 60 kts, the AOA vanes are considered unreliable. For the stall warning to sound, the AOA vanes must be indicating the stall angle AND the vane data must be valid (2 CONDITIONS that must be met).

So, in this case, as the airspeed dropped below 60 kts, the vanes were showing stall but the computers stopped considering the vanes valid - hence the stall warning ceased (one of the CONDITIONS was no longer met).

CONDITIONS- this is one of the big areas where man and machine don't get along.

The automation has got hundreds of conditions built in. E.g. for something to turn automatically turn on, the conditions must be satisfied. For something to automatically turn off, the conditions must be satisfied.

For something to continue happening as the humans expect, all the conditions must remain satisfied. For something to NOT happen at the wrong time, some of the conditions must remain unsatisfied. You get the idea.

Problem is, however, that the number and combination of conditions is too great for any normal human to master. So when something out of the ordinary happens in these highly automated aircraft, the humans will often be unable to appreciate what is happening, but more importantly, what will happen next.

[nitpicker330]

Yes, an FO related an incident over the South China sea that happened about 6 months ago. A/P dropped out, lost IAS etc.....they flew pitch and power and came out of it 1 minute later. Paperwork filed on landing and undies changed.:ok:

[Jack Ranga]

Thanks mate for the explanation. But as it comes 'out the other side' and the stall warning sounds again appears to be a huge human factor issue to me.

The aircraft gets below 60 kts, stall warning ceases, action is taken to rectify, as the airspeed increases above 60 kts stall warning sounds again? Doesn't make sense to me? If Airbus knows this is an issue and hasn't documented procedures because it doesn't see it as an issue?

[FGD135]

If Airbus knows this is an issue and hasn't documented procedures because it doesn't see it as an issue?
I would wager that they never anticipated such a scenario in the first place.

Another thing that was coming and going was the flight director bars. When they were showing, they were commanding a pitch-up. This indication may well have reinforced the belief in the PF that back stick was required.

Amazing stuff.

[Wally Mk2]

'FGD' I imagine that was exactly the problem for the hapless drivers, the F/D bars where telling them to go that way (up) due false info to the F/D's, this is where it's time NOT to believe yr instruments, that's at odds as to what we have been taught from day one. If only they had tried the FPV display as that's not effected by blocked Pitot tubes, only if the static ports where blocked.

Blocked static ports ruin everything in a plane, that's the nasty one!
The conditions need to be met as you mentioned (which is obviously correct as you said) is with everything in life from the fuel gauge in yr car to when the LE slats drop out on a Tiger Moth, certain conditions need to be met for it to happen.
The words 'only if'......

At the very least such discussions as this one prods the mind into thinking about 'what if':ok:

Wmk2

[Oakape]

The bottom line is that if the pilot flying had done nothing other than maintain attitude, we wouldn't be discussing this. Full backstick & full power was a totally inappropriate response.

The question needs to be asked - "can today's pilots fly, or can they only 'manage' the autoflight system?" Although some in the industry would say that that is all they need to be able to do, I personally don't agree with that.

[ChrisJ800]

I think BUSS is now standard on A380's but optional for other buses and wasn't on AF447.

[Capn Bloggs]

Full backstick & full power was a totally inappropriate response.
That was NOT the response that caused the climb and stall. Sure the aeroplane climbed under pilot command but that was surmised to be, in part, as a reponse to a possible overspeed (I wonder what the margin to Vmax was at the time?). The full backstick started after the descent had started.

http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601.en/pdf/annexe.03.en.pdf

People need to look at the big picture and not just sledge the drivers.

[Oakape]

The full backstick started after the descent had started.


After the descent had started = after the aircraft had stalled. Still a totally inappropriate response IMHO.

[nitpicker330]

Bloggs:- reading page 22 of the BEA report. As soon as the A/P disconnected the PF pulled back, it may not have been full back stick but it caused the stall none the less.

Final report (http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight.af.447/rapport.final.en.php)

[717tech]

Great timing... I went to watch the video but it appears to have been removed.

[The Green Goblin]

People argue how automation dependence is now causing accidents and what a problem it is.

Imagine all the smoking holes over certain parts of the world without it.

Imagine no TCAS, no GPWS! Imagine raw data approaches, mental arithmetic for descent profiles, holding pattern sector entries and speed control after 14 hours in ****ty weather. No thanks.

Automation may have killed a few people now, but I wonder how many people it has saved!

If I flew as a pax on certain airlines, I'd appreciate the autoflight systems on.

Thanks :)

[Capn Bloggs]

TCAS and GPWS, probably the big saviours of passengers in the recent decades, have nothing to do with automation dependency. Agree that VNAV has increased safety, but automation certainly hasn't prevented the opportunity for at least a bit of fair-weather hand-flying.

In any case, as Centaurus pointed out, simulators are ideal. We just need the extra time allocated! ;)

Bloggs:- reading page 22 of the BEA report. As soon as the A/P disconnected the PF pulled back, it may not have been full back stick but it caused the stall none the less.
No it didn't. Even after the PF had "flown" it up to 37k, it was still doing 233kt.

At 2 h 10 min 05, the autopilot then the auto-thrust disconnected and the PF said “I have the controls”. The aeroplane began to roll to the right and the PF made a nose-up and left input. The stall warning triggered briefly twice in a row.
Probably because the speeds had dropped from 275 to 60 "sharply" just before.

46 seconds later, the thing really stalled. Look at the pitch command trace: all he was doing until the thing was descending was waggling the stick around (with a slight nose-up bias). Then he pulled full back stick.

Implying he pulled full back stick, stalled it and held it til splashdown is simplistic and unfair.These guys got shafted as much by the aeroplane as by their own lack of skill.

[Critical Reynolds No]

I thought it was lazy.
Look familiar?
ZHduB-knlt0

[Wally Mk2]

Healthy debate is good as it can only improve ones mind.

But lets for a minute look at the events in a different light to provoke more discussion if only to stimulate more thought (without personal insult which is rife on Pprune). Now before all you hot heads out there get wound up this is NOT the only possible blame scenario but just another angle.

One could look at all this as the blame lies 100% with the pilots, more specifically the Commander.

We all know that man has invented the A330 as he has with all other flying machines so that being the case it's guaranteed that these machines will fail sometimes.
Ok we know the probes didn't handle the outside wx conditions on the night, fine we accept that (as it's now fact) as humans designed/made the bloody things in the first place & we pilots have been using them (or any invented stuff) knowing full well that like any other zillion parts on an Aeroplane that they/it could fail at any time (that's why we have redundancy although in this case 50 probes wouldn't have helped!)remembering we don't fly in nice sunny clear days all the time. So we train for such failures (unreliable airspeed) & we have text books via zillions of pages on the Net, on-board text, general knowledge of flight ( a stall is a stall whether it be in a Wright Flyer or an Airbus) & we have the basic instinct as humans to survive.
Engine failures, there's plenty of them that have happened over the years from day one & we have trained to deal with them & modern day planes will fly all day on 1 engine (twin) so the question is why do we have trouble swallowing the fact that the pilots on AF447 where not totally responsible for the crash?
If you have an engine failure in a twin for Eg & you crash, is it not the pilots fault that the plane crashed all things being equal (I'm talking about a basic eng failure where it's survivable)? Yes obviously as we knew damned well that engines can & do fail so we fly accordingly, again what's the diff with AF447? It had an engine failure so to speak by way of blocked sensors (Pitot's) & the aircraft was simply miss-handled & crashed (much like a miss-handled eng failure) where we know had the pilots done some very basic airman-ship stuff they may very well be all still alive today.
For crying out loud they had around 40000' to do it in (get it under control) 4 mins by all accounts, that's quite a long time to be totally out of it when the answer initially was so very simple.(yes I know hindsight is a wonderful thing)

Why do we do all the checks we do in any aeroplane? 'cause to make sure it's safe to fly (safe as possible) so why not continue those checks albeit via recall actions at any stage of the flight should there be a problem?
We where all taught to fly (pilots obviously) & that skill should cover ALL scenarios that are fixable or preventable from the time we start the donks 'till it's chocked. The complexity of the machines we fly increase as we go thru our flying careers & so does the knowledge we need to have to handle such events.

Unreliable Airspeed is nothing new, most have probably experienced it during their career I know I have it's no diff in some ways than as I have mentioned an engine failure 'cause it's mechanical & can fail so we deal with it as per our training.
To me the highest proportion of blame lies with the Commander but it goes further than that.

If you want to break down this accident blame game ('cause humans are good at this) then you could start with the Capt (as he's the ultimate responsibility on the day)then the F/O's ( if the Capt wasn't avail then the next highest F/O is in CMD) then the designers of both the Airbus itself (Boeings have plenty of crashes under their belts as well just to be balanced) & the Pitot probes as well as the Co's check & trainers inc the Owners/managers all the way down to the Wright Bro's for getting us all in this mess in the first place!:-)

It crashed, man made it (the machine) & made it crash & they will continue to do so 'till the end of time.


So who do we blame here? You chose as like the Airbus itself there's more than one way to skin this cat!:-)

Remember we are all pilots, engineers & aviation enthusiasts so we can all learn something everyday:ok:


Wmk2

[Trent 972]

While it is very easy and appropriate to apportion blame to the 2 guys in the seat, the real culprits are the people who allowed them to be in those seats.

[Wally Mk2]

That's true 'Trent' as mentioned in my above post & in some ways blame could be at them (the Capt in particular)but on the day we are ALL responsible for our own actions whether it be ordering a sandwich or flying a plane.

Although you could have the best well trained pilot in the seat & still lose the plane, remember humans fail we are fallible

Wmk2

[KRUSTY 34]

More than likely covered in the AF 447 thread, but what about the decision to delay the replacement of the suspect make of pitots? Bean counters?

They sure as sh!t replaced them as a priority after the event!

QF one back in '99 may have just avoided the 19th hole at Bangkok, if the use of reverse thrust hadn't been trained out of that crew. Bean counters?

They sure as sh!t reinitiated the use of reverse thrust as the rule rather than the exception after that event!

The point I'm making is that even though pilots are often, and in many cases turn out to be, the last line of defense, the initial hole in the cheese quite often belongs to decisions made at a much more "ground based" level.

[FGD135]

Bean counters?
Can't blame the bean counters, Krusty. They are just doing their job. It is up to the flight operations departments to say "no" to the bean counters.

I blame the airworthiness authorities for being so slow to recognise that there are fatal flaws with the man/machine interface in these highly automated aircraft. These problems were evident well before Air France 447, and are not confined to Airbus types.

I find it frightening just how overwhelmed a crew can become when faced with even minor problems in these aircraft. These are highly trained and experienced crews, but their effectiveness is reduced to the point where a couple of passengers at the controls would be just as effective.

The interface seems to be designed primarily around normal operations (where all systems and instrumentation are functioning properly). Given that these aircraft spend 99.95% of their time in such normal operations, this is understandable, but for abnormal situations such as those AF447 found itself in, the interface can then work against the pilot - as we have seen.

What seems to have been lacking in the certification process is some rigorous testing of the human factors when things go abnormal. At the moment, this testing is being done by real world pilots on real world flights, with passengers on board.

Every now and then, we get some of those test results back. AF447 for example.

[KRUSTY 34]

Point taken FGD135, and if you don't mind me saying, your post was well considered and informed.

I guess what I may have failed to articulate, was the deferral (by the various departments/authorities) to the Bean counters.

[airdualbleedfault]

Let's not bag Air France, after all only 10 hull losses in 38 years, including the only loss of a 340, obviously a pretty sound safety system in place there? Maybe they should go back to drinking wine with dinner.
Most of the airlines I have worked for required hand flying in the sim, in fact one required every second sim to be around 50% manual flying
Unreliable airspeed is a recall and none of the recall items are full back stick, if old mate had done absolutely nothing the aeroplane would pretty much have flown itself.

[Avgas172]

if old mate had done absolutely nothing the aeroplane would pretty much have flown itself.
Amen to that ..... aerodynamics 101, if in doubt let everything go and the aircraft will take care of itself .... worked for me in a PA38 with a worldly 22 hours, finding myself inverted and in a spin many, many moons ago.

[The Green Goblin]

I'd love to hear plankys sentiments regarding how a professional pilot stalled a sophisticated airliner that is supposed to be 'unstallable ' :ok:

His comments:


Again, as an ATPL with (potential) responsibility for the travelling public, I urge you to revisit some of the basics! I just hope you never have to try to remember how to recognise a stall or incipient spin or the relevant recovery in a hurry, it might end in

I'll settle when you tell me you won't take unsuspecting passengers or try to teach others to fly until you know your basics

Is actually relevant :cool: