This was in response to Evening Star's post



I agree entirely that this type of contributor would be a valuable asset, and indeed spells out why the qualifying ‘Professionals', should include people of a scientific and engineering background.

Guys

Do not mean to step on anyones toes here but instead of going on about mobile phones and such lets try and keep the tragedy in full focus shall we .

113 people are dead , thats someones mother , father child brother . . . .

someone said it was flying at 250 kmph . . . your average speed on final approach after full configuration is 140 knots + - 10

In the event of going around they would have applied TOGA power asked for Go around flaps which is 1 knotch up , retract the gear on +ve climb and away you go . . . . engine spool up depending upon type is anywhere between 8 - 10 secs .... and NO you WONT STALL

Thats why I was asking earlier if there was shear and or burst actuvity . . . . in that event even with TOGA power you just sink like rock !

I read somewhere the aircraft made a sharp turn . . . why was this ? apparantely wx was below minima in that case why didnt he divert in the first place ? which leads me to speculate that they had a fuel issue .

Any more info welcome .

airfranz

Ref fuel. Now I have seen another quote from Armenian CAA saying 10.2t fuel on departure. This is not a kind of round number so I think we can take this as a fact for a while.

The GulfAir 072 Accident Report
 

LINK
Page 56 - Spatial Disorientation Studies (Somatogravic Illusions)
.
Not sure that the lengthy Pprune thread on GF072 is still available on Pprune.

You might be interested in the notes of Russian Interfax News Agency telling the astonished reader, that bodies and part of the wreckage have been found 250-300 meters off the shore, not 4nm off the shore at the crash site.

http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/0/28.html?id_issue=11510864

The text (just in case the link deactivates):

About an hour earlier Interfax reports:

http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/0/28.html?id_issue=11510826

While I don't want to take any conclusions at this point, it is certainly interesting to note the distance, the wreckage is apparently spread over.

Simon

Dani

The photo to which you are referring is I think an AP image. The caption that accompanies it is:

"The tail fin of an Armenian passenger plane, which crashed off Russia's Black Sea coast, is seen in the harbor at Sochi Wednesday, May 3, 2006, after it was found at sea and brought ashore. The Airbus A-320, which belonged to the Armenian airline Armavia, carrying 113 people crashed in stormy weather early Wednesday off Russia's Black Sea coast as it was headed in for landing, killing everyone on board, emergency officials said. It was the worst air disaster in Armenia's recent history. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev).

It appears to me that it was not found amongst the houses. Note that the rudder is defintely attached.

Dr Dave

First of all I am grateful for the supportive reception given to comments by a non-aviator. I should stress, in considering what I write, that I am a hydrologist and normally meteorology is merely a means of producing rain for the rivers I study. However, the disciplines are linked, my first degree involved a dissertation on thunderstorms and I am an observer for the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation. Therefore, while it is not directly my discipline, I have a strong scientific interest/responsibility in at least recording anything in this field that I view as significant.

If I read the METAR correctly, the most interesting things that I note are the variability of the wind, the number of temporary changes over a short time and presence of cumulonimbus. This accords rather well with my observations during July 2004 and August 2005 in Rostov Region. In each case, there was evidence, or it was possible to infer, electrical activity in the vicinity but not close to my observations. The wind suddenly became sharply variable with, in two cases, a significant downward component.

Work in the USA on tornado formation shows a similar, but seemingly not identical, pattern. In particular, Lemon and Doswell III (1979) report "observations reveal the existence of a downdraft (originating at 7–10 km AGL) on the relative upwind side of the updraft". In Russia, Kochin (2001) ties downdraft activity to changes in electrical charge within the thundercloud (also interestingly, but in noting the METAR temperature seemingly not relevant in this case, commenting that this occurs in the 20C zone "where lightning strokes to aircraft are observed most frequently").

One additional observation from my time in Adler, and in particular one trip into the mountains, is how the mountains appear to have a strong localising effect on thunderstorm activity. It seems that a storm in one valley will remain isolated from neighbouring valleys. However, using the work by Lemon and Doswell III, there is strong reason to believe that the winds associated with a storm will not remain quite so isolated. I do wonder if the variable wind in the METAR might also include, or even mask, a similar downdraft component.

Once again, I stress that I am not qualified to make any specific suggestion as to what went wrong with Flight 967, and I note a number of alternative ideas are under discussion. All I can do is give what scientific facts that are available to me and appear useful in the hope that it contributes, in a positive manner, to the discussion.

As you will appreciate, I have spent a considerable time in Russia and find great sadness in this tragedy. Today was a day of mourning in Russia and Armenia.

where pilots face difficulties landing
 

NOVOSTI: World at a glance: where pilots face difficulties landing.

From the Novosti site link posted about the most difficult airports to land at;
Doesn't make their evaluation of 'difficult' airports that acurate in my mind.

PP

P Pete>
My guess is that the translator of the article had even less aviation knowledge than the author.

Words of wisdom

While there is no shortage of articles concerning the dangers of Somatogravic Illusions during a GA or take off, I sometimes wonder if crashes blamed on this phenomena are really due to lack of instrument cross-reference skills. High performance fighters being catapulted at night from aircraft carriers seldom crash after take off even though this illusion may be present. This suggests current basic instrument flying skills play a significant part in reducing the effect of the illusion

With 90 percent of flying in airliners being on automatic pilot it is well documented that pure flying skills requiring reversion to basic instrument flying are degraded. A GA around on a black wet night followed by a circling approach is a difficult manoeuvre at the best of times. Depite furious button pushing by the crew, it may be the automatics simply cannot keep up thereby forcing the pilot to revert to manual instrument flying skills for which he is not fully competent. It takes just a few seconds to get into an unusual attitude under these conditions and if the pilot is not competent at low altitude raw data UA recoveries then likely it is curtains for all aboard.

Centaurus,

Agree! That's why many 'bus companies expect their pilots to fly xx number of hand flown approaches per week/month and many also require the pilots to hand fly the approaches during their sim checks.

Basic IF skills are never a load to carry. Lose them at your peril.

Media quoting the chief of Armavia's A320 fleet: the 40-year-old pilot in question had 5,700 hours of pilot flight time, of which 1,200 were on Airbuses.

Centaurus...
"A GA around on a black wet night followed by a circling approach is a difficult manoeuvre at the best of times. Depite furious button pushing by the crew, it may be the automatics simply cannot keep up thereby forcing the pilot to revert to manual instrument flying skills for which he is not fully competent. It takes just a few seconds to get into an unusual attitude"
A Go-around on an A320 does not require furious button pushing.
The automatics keep up very well.
Of the five airliners in my logbook the A320 is the easiest to fly manually on instruments - especially on black wet nights.
It takes a sustained deliberate action to put an A320 into an unusual attitude - and even then it won't be very unusual.
Cheers
TP

Tyro Picard. Thanks for your info. I must admit I have never had the pleasure of flying an A320 but from all reports from colleagues who fly the type it is a delight to fly. Perhaps my wording of "unusual attitudes" was at fault. Except to make the point a significant uncorrected nose low attitude below the horizon is enough to cause a crash in IMC at low altitude in most jet airliners, including the foolproof A320 maybe? The A320 Gulf Air Bahrein crash comes to mind.

So it doesn't stall eh?

Well what happens if one of the crew on passing "F" speed at acceleration altitude selects "Flap zero" instead of "Flap one"? Easily done.

Centaurus,

First the cause is all still conjecture!

But they do crash and over the years a significant number of fast jets have been lost both at sea and overland in IMC. I agree that basic instrument skills are vital.

It doesn't matter how good your instrument cross check is, you will be effected by samatographic illusion if you accelerate without visual cues. As I am sure you know, the rate of perceived pitch up is directly proportional to the rate of acceleration.

Even looking at a modern generation Head Up Display, which gives far more useful flightpath information than the average PFD, it is easy to be seduced by the illusion. If you are doing 300kts, IMC in a turn and then plug the burners in, I know of few pilots that will keep the aircraft absolutely level. Most guys are initially seduced by the illusion and then make adjustments to recover level flight. The extent of the excursion depends on how rapidly you scan.

We all get distracted and a go-around is one of the highest workload events carried out by most airline crews. I have seen numerous errors during go-arounds both in the sim and on the line. These errors sometimes lead to a breakdown in cross-cockpit duties which lead to distraction and a reduced instrument scan rate. Old chestnuts like 'ANC' are all well and good but the fact is people still screw up even without seductive illusions.

In an ideal world, there would be no illusions and no one would get distracted leading to a mistake. Sadly, it aint an ideal world and the death of a few of my friends over the years illustrates the point!

Schnowzer

I believe that would lead to "alpha lock", when the aircraft is below a specific speed or when a specific AOA is exceeded, slats will not retract from 1 to 0. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Dreamland,

Alpha lock function is active if AoA >8.5° or speed is lower than 148 knots.

The alpha lock function is only active with the flap lever at position 1. i.e. if you select flap zero they will not move if AoA is too high. However, if the lever HAS BEEN moved to zero, and AoA subsequently becomes excessive - THE SLATS WILL NOT BE LOCKED - they will continue to retract to zero .......

Man Flex

There is a "gate" at positions 1 and 3 to prevent excessive selections. Seems to work - I've been on the Bus for nearly 6,000 hours and have never gone from 2 or 3 to zero in one move.

A4

Centaurus, you are correct; if you point an airliner at the ground it will hit it, especially if you start at a height of "around 920 ft" (Flight magazine reporting the Russian transport ministry). Mind you, I don't recall saying that the A320 is "foolproof" - any fool can crash an aircraft and several fools have proved it in A320's...
A4 ..
"The alpha lock function is only active with the flap lever at position 1".
Not quite.. that would mean that if you move the lever Alpha Lock does not apply! When the fool moves the lever, that's when we need alpha lock...
TP

OK Tyro...semantics. The point I was trying to get across is that once the slats are travelling (from 1 to 0), the Alpha lock function WILL NOT stop them if you pitch up sharply and exceed the AoA parameter. Once the flap lever is at 0 and you are below the trigger parameters, you will not get alpha lock back if you re-exceed those parameters.

A4 :ok:

Centaurus

Keep barking up that tree!

I've flown the aircraft involved in the crash and I don't believe it was originally kitted out with the Flight Director upgrade that has them automatically reinstated on go around.

Somato gravic illusion, PFD speed tape confusion, an inability to confidently reinstate automatics after taking them out to correct an 'ugly' approach and a nose low TOGA go around due poor IF skills- can be a problem combined and I suspect are, the very reason Airbus modified the FD's in the first.

I have seen it twice. I have also watched the GF crash in QAR style presentation and suspect similar.

Can anybody confirm if the aircraft had the CPIP Flight Director upgrade post-Ansett?

“The airbus did not fuel, to be more precise, it fuelled only on paper. As it is usually done, they put it done that they filled in 10 tons, but took less,” representative of the Armenian Community of Sochi Grach Makeyan is quoted as saying by Yerevan Aravot newspaper. According to him, the official version about bad weather conditions is unfounded. “We were standing near the air traffic controller, when he was in touch with the crew, who informed that they were having problems with fuel. The air traffic controller said ‘the crew started landing, its time to prey’.”

Found this on the Russian news agency REGNUM website. Interesting rumour - anyone have an idea why a crew would do that?
TP

Could the A320 have stalled?
 

After reading the article in Flight International (on 16-22 May 2006) about the A320 that crashed in to the black Sea at Sochi airport near the Russian-Georgian border, the first thing that came to mind was the tight right hand turn which the aircraft had made after the pilots were told by ATC to abort approach.

Looking at the flightpath you get a view of the normal missed approach procedure as a comparisson to the tight turn which the aircraft made.

Normal approach speed for an A320 is about 180-200 knots and the aircraft probably was within 10 miles of the airport since he was etasblished on the ILS...

Back to the turn, it's more than twice as tight as a normal missed approach procedure turn is, and here's my question, could the aircraft have made a too tight turn and stalled?

It was already flying at a dangerously low speed and a turn slows aircrafts down and stall speed increases with reduced lift, the tighter the turn the less lift the wings produce as the airspeed drops...

What do you think?

Errrm no....

Journo alert....

In normal law it is physically impossible to stall an a320, even with full back stick applied. However it is still an aeroplane so in certain conditions it may fail to gain height - but that's more the case in an engine out situation.

How about the weather conditions, they were reported to be very bad that day, could the aircraft have stalled because of turning into a strong enough tail wind? or by heavy turbulence? Windshear?

Not at all!

E.G. systems running normal.

I'm not going to say your wrong by any means, but if the 'bus encountered windshear close to Vls, then the alpha floor will apply power but this takes a bit of time. It would be possible to stall but the aircraft would then pitch down to get out of it....ie, it will not stall but it may well sink. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick? :confused: :confused:

What I'm thinking of is that the aircraft was already at low altitude, (less then 1000 ft) and sinking -300 ft/min in bad weather at low speed, needing to abort an approach and do a hard right turn which looks by the graphics as at least 30° bankangle... this is a tough manouver to do for any pilot...

I'm not that familiar with the A320 but I've done some reading about it and seen a lot of information videos but is the aircraft really so good as to survive a manouver like that? at such a low speed and at such a low altitude in those conditions?

Founder, with all due respect the technical points you raise show your complete lack of knowledge and I suggest you refrain from such unfounded speculation.

Sinking at 300fpm is not enough to be following a glideslope. A turn of 30° bankangle is a normal turn in a commercial airliner and hardly constitutes a 'tough' manoeuvre for ANY airline pilot, even in bad weather. as already pointed out, an A320 would be doing considerably less than 180kts below 1000'.

PP

:sad: i offer my sorrows to all personal on board. may they rest in peace. :)

er.........then it isn't stalled is it?
It is not possiblle to stall in Normal Law but it is posible to hit the ground:ugh: :ugh:

So what do you think happened?

Founder...
Im not entirely sure whether im on the right track here, nor do I know what graphics you refer to, but I think you may be slightly confused about this procedure.

A missed approach procedure is published to direct pilots after an approach is aborted for whatever reason. The turns depicted on the plates however have no scale as quite obviously different aircraft travelling at different speeds have a different turn radius. All turns on instrument procedures should be rate 1 (ie 3 degrees a second). On a seneca for example this may be about 20 degrees of bank but on an aircraft travelling much faster this will be increased to maybe 30 degrees which, as said in a previous post, is quite normal for an airliner. I think its safe to say that the angle of bank wasnt the only cause of the trouble encountered.

Chris

It's going to be tough to work that out with so little evidence, Founder, and I'm not going to pre-empt official findings, particularly given that the flight recorders have yet to be dragged from the depths.

There are presently no conclusions - there is no indication of the technical condition of the aircraft and its engines, there is no solid flight data from the aircraft itself, and only basic information acquired from radar data, communication records, and interviews with air traffic controllers and airport authorities.

But regarding the circumstances of the accident, I'll echo other posters' points regarding the similarity of those circumstances to the Gulf Air accident, also involving an A320, of August 2000.

Both involved the aircraft making a coastal approach, in darkness, and under testing conditions - the Armavia flight owing to the weather and the Gulf Air flight owing to an unstable approach.

Both attempts at landing were aborted with the crews turning the aircraft away from the approach centreline in a direction which took them over a expansive body of water - featureless terrain at the best of times, and in the dark especially difficult to use as a visual reference.

Without a visual reference, the ability to retain situational awareness of the aircraft's attitude, movement and position by ordinary sensory perception is seriously impeded - hence the importance of pilots' closely monitoring and trusting the information relayed by the aircraft's instrument panel.

Nothing above is intended as a conclusion, by any means, but the circumstances provide a timely reminder to a simple fact which has been demonstrated in aviation time and again: if the aircraft isn't doing what you think it's doing, or isn't where you think it is, then sooner or later there's going to be trouble.

Disorientation on go around, will be reinforced if we know as to whether the aircraft had been modified with the upgraded Flight Directors. Minor point- not all ex-AN 320's were equiped with predictive winshear.

I must add, if you have watched the GF crash reproduced with FDR data, you will note the aircraft should have crashed on it's first orbit- I recall it went from 700' to 200'! Below average piloting skills the major factor and not the convenient somato gravic illusion Gulf Air likes to run with!

In my experience, spatial disorientation on G/A in A320 aircraft is exascerbated or a combination of the following factors:

1) Poor raw data & I/F skills which Airbus operations can hide.

2) An inability to confidently reinstate automatics after a 'botched' approach where correction initially involved disengaging them.

3) A nose low TOGA go around. Hesident and under confidence from crews in point 1 above can be prone to this.

4) A combination of somato gravic illusion, speed tape confusion and mode confusion has a further nose over on Go Around. The Airbus now rapidly lights up like a Christmas tree with visual and aural overspeed warnings, distracting crew further. Mode confusion and distraction can lead to a crash - GF for example.

I need to elaborate here. Speed tape confusion on Airbus PFD's is sensory and I have observed it in two ways amongst crews. Demonstration of speed brake to ab initios- VLS physically appears to run up the PFD and the nose is pulled up to 'escape' the illusion ( quickly countered and just a minor stepping stone in a glass upgrade ).

But the problem area is the other way and in it's extremity is a nose low Go Around. As speed rapidly increases, the red barbers pole for the flaps can have the illusion of running down the PFD; a further nose over to escape the illusion will put your PFD well into the barbers pole. Somato gravic illusion may exascerbate the confusion.

So here we now are- nose lowering further, TOGA thrust, distracted by overspeed warnings and GPWS, but the PFD speed tape is confusingly completely red and you have no concept of power plus attitude.


Airbus was probably well aware of the problem. It made sense to upgrade the Flight Directors so the Go Around manoeuvre was simplified. I don't believe Ansett aircraft had been upgraded. So it is likely the Armenian aircraft were without the function.

Gnadenburg, why must you speculate on the cause of this crash, and why must you point the finger at the crew at this early stage? I am quite sure that if you are ever involved in an accident/incident the last thing you want is a bunch of pseudo experts coming on here and blaming you. The facts are not fully known and its very unprofessional of you and others to behave like you have all the answers. There is a system of accident investigation for all crashes and as a professional you should respect that and wait for it to happen. Anything before that is totally unfair, even on a RUMOUR forum. This goes beyond the bounds of gossiping as people lost their lives. Have the decency to show some patience and stop showing how little you know about the A320.

An odd outburst Jack. So I take it you were completely satisfied with the GF 72 report?

Mode confusion is the precedent for all 320 crashes. So don't silence the discussion. That would be unprofessional in itself.