AF 447 report out

[testpanel]

To a layman, it seems possible that the co-pilot seeing the altitude dropping rapidly and not sure which other instruments to trust, concluded that the plane was in a nose dive. The crew of 1979's TWA 841 (the nose dive over Michigan) knew immediately that they needed to pull back. I'm not saying that these examples are too similar, but such a mistake is something I could understand to be a result of two or so minutes of profound confusion.

30 years later!!

Things have changed, to the good (technology) and the bad (basic flighing skills/schools etc etc)

[CaptainProp]

AB skates. Had the airplane had conventional control columns the captain would have seen what his unskilled comrades were up to (no pun intended).

So the Mighty Captain would have realized the problem and known how to deal with it? Just mislead by that side stick and those damn First Officers hu?

Get real and stop playing this Captain vs First Officer game. They were a crew and unfortunately they seem to have not realized what the problem was and that the aircraft was in fact stalled.

Pitch and thrust. It's all in the QRH.

[ECAM_Actions]

To a layman, it seems possible that the co-pilot seeing the altitude dropping rapidly and not sure which other instruments to trust, concluded that the plane was in a nose dive. The crew of 1979's TWA 841 (the nose dive over Michigan) knew immediately that they needed to pull back. I'm not saying that these examples are too similar, but such a mistake is something I could understand to be a result of two or so minutes of profound confusion.

AF447 pitch didn't drop below the horizon the entire time. In fact, for most of the fall, the nose was pegged somewhere above +14 degrees of pitch.

As a layman I wonder what hints the center stick was giving Captain Gibson in 1979 compared to those offered by the side stick in 2009.

In 1979, you'd have control forces you could feel. In 2009, the side-stick removes all tactile feedback.

Another point worth mentioning is that during the hard pitch-up by the pilots of AF447, the stab trim wound all the way back to +13 degrees.

Interesting that many are not discussing this point.

Any A380 pilots want to comment on the display of pitch trim there? Interesting to know if they did it differently.

[Clandestino]

Folks, we have ninth thread on AF447 up and running in the Tech Log. Please continue discussion there.

Mods, please merge.

[deSitter]

This is not an "AB" problem as much as an indication that things have tipped beyond the point of safety specific to basic airmanship. At the end of the day these pilots simply didn't know how to fly...a scary reality.

I don't agree. Many pilots had complained about the unnatural aspect of the sidesticks and their feeling of disconnection from the airplane. This accident showed how the pilots are also disconnected from each other. That's a fundamental design flaw.

[mickjoebill]

AF447 pitch didn't drop below the horizon the entire time. In fact, for most of the fall, the nose was pegged somewhere above +14 degrees of pitch.

Would they have been able to recover had it been in daylight hours?
ie have the confidence to ignore the stall warning that occured when they lowered the nose?

[Armchairflyer]

Another point worth mentioning is that during the hard pitch-up by the pilots of AF447, the stab trim wound all the way back to +13 degrees. Due to the way the systems are designed, only by manual selection of the F/CTL page on the ECAM would reveal the true position of the trim.

Question from an occasional spamcan (and armchair)flyer: is it possible that with the trim all back (without the crew immediately aware of it), one would need to pitch down and/or roll the trim wheel forward for a very long time to get the plane unstalled. For such a long time that after half the time actually needed a confused pilot could get the impression that he must already be in the first quarter of an outside loop and therefore ceases his efforts?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Exactly fotoguzzi; the crew's reactions were those of laymen.

Rule 1 for a trained pilot is Fly the F#cking Aircraft, which they completely failed to do.

To quote from page 185 of the final report

"Current training practices do not fill the gap left by the non-existence of manual flying
at high altitude, or the lack of experience on conventional aeroplanes. Furthermore,
they limit the pilots’ abilities to acquire or maintain basic airmanship skills."

[Ashling]

For the sake of accuracy

Pilots are taught that you cannot stall a 330 in NORMAL LAW

Pilots are taught that you CAN STALL a 330 in ALTERNATE LAW

They were in alternate law once their pito tubes froze up.

[angelorange]

Training and experience count...........

Other A330 pilots encountered similar senarios without major incident because they flew attitude and power setting. How many times does a "STALL STALL" warning have to go off before someone reduces Angle of Attack? It seems the SO took the low level wind-shear response (TOGA plus full aft stick) and assumed the aircraft was in normal mode. Very poor CRM and the lack of captaincy are other factors. Yes the Airbus has "hiddens" such as non moving Thrust levers, non moving stab trim wheel, independent side sticks but at the end of the day when was the last time those in the flying seats had recovered from a real Stall in a real aircraft? 5000 h of automated Airbus flight and maybe 250h of real flying at the beginining of the SO' and FO's JAR Integrated course training......



Ten years before this accident, Airbus Chief Test Pilot Capt W Wainwright wrote an article on Stall recovery - it is doubtful many Airbus pilots have read it. Had the AF447 crew been taught and applied these techniques history would be different:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct...NBc9_0_SR-U9Sg


We know there were many factors aggravating the situation but responsibility lies with the pilots, the airline, the manufacturer, the training system and the regulators. How much will be judged to have the greater share will depend on honesty, openness and sadly politics. I hope we can learn from the mistakes made and ensure a safer flying future by improving pilot selection, training, and mentoring, developing CRM/SMS so it is of real value and not a box ticking , white-wash exercise. I hope AF447 will lead to a clarifying of systems, improvment to the automation/pilot interface, designing controls that keep all the flight crew in the loop.

Cost cutting shares some of the blame: Since the 1990s Long haul operators have moved from having Two experienced Crews (2 capts, 2 FOs) to a Cruise Pilots (SO's with no flying below 10 to 15 thousand feet).

This combined with what Airbus claims is just 3h hands on flying a year for most Long Haul Captains plus an EU system of zero to hero in 250h (with multiple guess aeronautical knowledge) before 1000s of hours watching automation on FBW jets must also account in part for the AF447 FO and SO interaction and actions.

Of course other maufacturers aircraft have stalled with sad loss of life. If it were not for the Airbus protection systems, the accident rates could well be higher. But, for some observers, AF447 is Airbus' Titanic moment. Even if not expressed directly by the Company, the "unsinkable" / "unstallable" claims made by some pilots have echoed around Simulator halls and online forums for years. It might be true 99% of the time until an iceberg/pitot ice event is poorly handled.

Traditionally, Pilots are entrusted with baby sitting the automation. By bombarding a pilot with claims throughout his training and career, that the automation is better/ more reliable/ more efficient than the pilot can lead to a mind set where the computer baby sits the pilot and a transfer of responsibility occurs.

"This machine will get me out of trouble if I just trust the alpha protection and do what I did in the SIM"


"OK, the automatics have given up and handed me manual control, don't panic!, what's the attitude and thrust setting, strange speed indications! , rate of roll/yaw pitch?, cross check with alternative EFIS and standby instruments, is that weather related turbulence or stall/mach buffet?, The stall warning is going off, fly pitch and power......."

[ECAM_Actions]

Question from an occasional spamcan (and armchair)flyer: is it possible that with the trim all back (without the crew immediately aware of it), one would need to pitch down and/or roll the trim wheel forward for a very long time to get the plane unstalled. For such a long time that after half the time actually needed a confused pilot could get the impression that he must already be in the first quarter of an outside loop and therefore ceases his efforts?

The trim would take some winding to move the stab, yes. It would definitely be necessary to unwind it to un-stall the aircraft, as +13 degrees of pitch trim is a very large amount, to the point that elevator effectiveness would be very questionable to even start pitching the nose over.

Again, a lot of what we are discussing comes back to basic airmanship. It would be clear from the ADI that the aircraft is stable in pitch and not looping. It would seem that they didn't doubt the validity of the ADIs at any time.

A question we will never get an answer to is why they ignored altitude data? It was the pitot probes that were blocked, not the static ports?

[VC10man]

I can't understand why the senior pilot was in bed after 2 hours of flight. Was he at work or not?

[His dudeness]

I can't understand why the senior pilot was in bed after 2 hours of flight. Was he at work or not?

You`re not a pilot, are you?

[jcjeant]

Angelorange

non moving stab trim wheel

False .. they are moving (and it's an index by side) but in silence ... (no clac clac )
Check here:
http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/39510...resume-26.html

[Ranger One]

Originally Posted by angelorange

Other A330 pilots encountered similar senarios without major incident because they flew attitude and power setting. How many times does a "STALL STALL" warning have to go off before someone reduces Angle of Attack?

Now I absolutely grant you that the crew had already f**ked up beyond all recognition by this point, but refer to RobertS975 - post #15.

Once they were deep into the incident the warning worked bass ackwards; they reduced AoA, speed increased beyond 60KIAS, the stall warning sounded, they pulled back again, speed reduced, and the stall warning stopped.

That is an aspect of this accident that *still* hasn't received enough attention for my satisfaction. It's a long way from being the most important factor, but it's there and it seems to me the last thing you need when in a high-stress situation trying to work out what the is going on. I still haven't had a cogent explanation of why that design decision was taken; the aircraft shouldn't be anywhere near 60KIAS in anything resembling normal operation, if it IS then it's in deep stall, so why not just hang the stall warning inhibit off the WoW logic, for instance?

[stepwilk]

Take a look at this hilarous assessment by a nonpilot "aviation expert":

Air France 447 Report: How the Plane Went Down - The Daily Beast

[ECAM_Actions]

But why did icing suddenly appear four or five years ago as a threat to flights through this and other storm-prone regions? Captain Jobard—along with others who have tried to explain this riddle—wondered whether global warming might be a factor. “It seems,” he told me, “that there is an increase in these kinds of storms.”

"Global warming" - yeah, sure...........

[The Ancient Geek]

Once they were deep into the incident the warning worked bass ackwards; they reduced AoA, speed increased beyond 60KIAS, the stall warning sounded, they pulled back again, speed reduced, and the stall warning stopped.

This is possibly far more significant than the reports suggest.
The stall warning was clearly misbehaving so they would have ignored it and concentrated on the unwinding altimeter and the overspeed warnings.
Looks like we are in a steep dive - pull up before the wings come off.

Yes, they made the wrong decisions but they were faced with multiple conflicting bogus sources of information.

It would be interesting to put a few dozen pilots into the simulator and present them with the same symptoms of bogosity overload. Would you have got it right ?.

There but for the grace ......

[ChrisVJ]

Sometimes us simple little spam can drivers have an advantage over you sophisticated heavy guys. I surely recognise your skills and knowledge but sometimes all that complication and the multi, multi event possibilities seem just to get in the way.

What frightens me is not losing my life in some sudden aviation event, for that I value the odds and how well you all do your jobs day to day, a remarkable achievement in itself, but sitting in the back next to my loved ones with the nose up and the wings sawing side to side for three minutes and wondering why the pilot doesn't push the nose down.

I have flown a lot since this crash but I don't have the comfort in doing it that I used to. Strangely it is worse on longer, 'heavy' flights too.

[ECAM_Actions]

Once they were deep into the incident the warning worked bass ackwards; they reduced AoA, speed increased beyond 60KIAS, the stall warning sounded, they pulled back again, speed reduced, and the stall warning stopped.

This is possibly far more significant than the reports suggest.

+1

The stall warning was clearly misbehaving so they would have ignored it and concentrated on the unwinding altimeter and the overspeed warnings.

I didn't know they were getting over-speed alerts as well?? Are you sure?