By misinformation and flannel, doth the truth become obscured :-). I must admit to a little disappointment at the level of discussion re AF447 and the same in the tech log thread, where one would expect at least some technical discussion about the report's recommendations. A few months ago, there were serious discussions about all kinds of issues, but now that the final report has been issued, no one seems to want to talk about it in any serious way at all.

Perhaps there are those who would prefer both threads to become trivialised, so that no external readers of influence take it too seriously, or is that too cynical ?...

Each side-stick is clearly visible from the opposite seat, therefore the excuse that the PNF was in the dark about what the PF was doing is false. They saw what the stick input was and agreed with the action taken, apparently. Not that it would have made much difference getting the nose down, even assuming the stick was held against the forward stops (which it wasn't). At an approx. -63 degree FPA ... combined with a markedly positive deck angle of 10 degrees NU or more, the THS was fully stalled (dropping at twice the rate of forward airspeed yields the -63 degree value for FPA [inverse tangent (2/1)] ).

Since the plane wasn't flying anymore, the situation was one of a mass being acted upon by three forces, gravity, drag, and thrust. The airplane naturally wants to weathervane into the oncoming wind (lowered drag), and the engine thrust was acting to prevent it. By reading these threads, it appears to me that firewall thrust is a technique used at lower altitudes. While all the attention is centered around sticks, force feedback, and design philosophy, the elephant is the room appears to go unnoticed.

CVR filtering
 

Can anybody on this thread explain why BEA don't give a full record of what was on the CVR. As an example compare with the corresponding detailed record in the NTSB report on the Buffalo accident. Is BEA afraid of something?

Hi,

Diversification
Methink the general answer will be:
The NTSB give a detailed record .. because all the CVR stances were of importance (related) to the event (or they believe it)
In it's final report the BEA warn that all stances in the CVR not related to the accident (or what they believe not related) were not in the transcript
It's not you or me to decide what will be published ..
And like it or not is another debate .... and maybe this will be debated in the trial (the only place for if any)

How do... md80fan
"While all the attention is centered around sticks, force feedback, and design philosophy, the elephant is the room appears to go unnoticed."

But nothing went wrong with the engines....:ok:

Their use was abusive, and except for being drug above their power ceiling, they did their level best to keep 447 Stalled....

You have a strong point...what are your thoughts?

Diversification...

Diversification
CVR filtering
Can anybody on this thread explain why BEA don't give a full record of what was on the CVR. As an example compare with the corresponding detailed record in the NTSB report on the Buffalo accident. Is BEA afraid of something?

In a word, of course. Well two words. They have witheld important data relevant to the crash, you can be sure. At the very least, inflection, tone, and expletives are missing. My guess is that they have released a bare minimum to prevent several things from happening.

The possibility, (surety) that another avalanche of comment will be generated.

The possibility that their clients will be angered by what they read....

Their handling of the investigation will meet with renewed anger... OR, new anger...

There is an off chance that something of great import is being forestalled by the redacted content....

They will be found to have "mishandled" and/or misrepresented some things...


ONE example, the Vs traces? Is that it CONFiture? (mode?)

Can anybody on this thread explain why BEA don't give a full record …
Read ICAO Annex 13, 5.12 ‘Non-disclosure of records.’

Hi,

Safetypee
As I have not the ICAO annex 13 directly under my eyes .. can you give the ICAO article where it's write that disclosure of CVR transcript is forbidden
BEA put what they want in the transcript .. they are free ...

Jcjeant

In the US, all government agencies are subject to formal inspection by an independent Grand Jury, who have power of subpoena, and access to all records.

Keeps everybody honest. Not in France?

Even not needed in Europe (EU)
Le Quotidien - «Oh merde...»
Google ... :8
Google*Traduction
The court decided yesterday to make public the cockpit recording on board, holding that the room was necessary for the discovery of truth. But the audio quality of the document is poor. However, in the room could hear a pin drop.

ICAO Annex 13, 5.12 ‘Non-disclosure of records.’
 

jcjeant via Google !

http://www.mexico.icao.int/icaoaspa2...0ed%5B1%5D.pdf

5.12 The State conducting the investigation of an accident or incident shall not make the following records available for purposes other than accident or incident investigation, unless the appropriate authority for the administration of justice in that State determines that their disclosure outweighs the adverse domestic and international impact such action may have on that or any future investigations:

5.12.1 These records shall be included in the final report or its appendices only when pertinent to the analysis of the accident or incident. Parts of the records not relevant to the analysis shall not be disclosed.

Also see attachment E for the legal advice.

Note the emphasis on the State.
The rest of the world does not have to follow the US, open disclosure, litigious approach often used by NTSB.

I find it more sad to realize that 228 people lost their lives when 2 pilots became "startled" and failed to recognize the situation they were in. I find it sad that the vast majority of participants here would rather defend a preconceived position that attempt to understand why this accident happened. I find it sad that self righteous pilots would condem fellow pilots. I find it sad that a small group of experts dominate a conversation and apparently live in front of a keyboard.


Why do you feel it necessary to even attempt to alter the perceptions and understanding of a group of people who you believe don't fly, or don't fly Airbii?

Dozy, The difference clearly is that with the A system the PM has no real idea of the control input history that led to that point of the flight. With the B system, it is available by just resting your fingers on the yoke or visually.

AF447 did not get into trouble all at once. It was prolonged incorrect control inputs that did her in. Monitoring the output (aircraft attitude) is not equivalent to monitoring the input.

Aterpster's buddy has made a reasonable expert evaluation.
When a Captain is called back to the cockpit he had better be in troubleshooting mode. Seeing the yoke full aft or nearly so would be cause to ask a loud WTF are you doing!!! On AF447 what he saw was two scared C/Ps and an aircraft that was not following control inputs. Don't tell me that the situations are equivalent.:*

Random bits.

If the habit to fly pitch and power were as "trained" in Airbus training as is constantly checking FMA for correct mode and values ; and as is a slavish focus on satisfying the ECAM master, maybe we would have no accident to discuss.

Is it your position that every system is acceptable provided that the operator is "trained"?

Next, you can't have it both ways. Which instruments are primary? Flight directors and FMA's, or attitude and power? The "it could never happen to me" crowd was quick to inform us that the ill fated AF447 crew needed only to fly pitch and power, and now you inform that FMA is important. [/sarcastic bad attitude]

If none of this makes sense, see the next paragraph

It gets a bit annoying to have it implied that I the Bus pilot am an outsider to an airline pilots job, but this is a (basically) anonymous forum so I wont try to convince you otherwise. Your previous series of counterpoints show me that we have a language/cultural barrier and I only speak US Govenment school English. You failed to read it as I wrote it and that's my fault. Carry on.

Machinbird, when I first learned to roll, I input aileron until I reached the roll angle I wanted, then I had to reverse the aileron, to stop the roll. That established the angle, and I turned.

When Bonin first pulled up, to correct the descent left over from autoflight, he would have had to do the same? Push, to stop the Nose from rising further?

Because what I see in your well developed essays on PIO, I see also in Pitch, Bonin seemed never to have sussed the Pitch he had commanded from the very first. His Pitch, though averaging UP, also fluctuated, and he seemed as behind the aircraft in Roll. He did not arrest his original input, and the aircraft ended up seeking what it determined was his command, an average of UP.

His lack of response to Horizon is unexplained.

Relative to Dozy and his Stick fascination, I submit that seeing the stick is not necessary, and in fact, not helpful, to the other pilot. Where the stick is positioned likely has no relation to the command, each command must be bumped, rebumped, and bumped again, to get the command first to show, then to arrest, then to check the proper instrument to determine where the aircraft ended up.

Likewise your comment on the history of each bump, it is impossible to know, and even if known, cannot immediately be linked to aircraft response. Now holding the stick in a position might offer some info, but unlessJ there is a focus established by the observing pilot, he will not know the relationship of the stick to the attitude.

The stick does not convey the correct information, unless it is followed, and Studied,

As to the timing of each bump, it appears it is a process of guesswork, bump and suss, bump and suss....

It seems that the Bus demands complete focus of the pilot to not only make inputs, but to analyze and reanalyze their effects, on a continuous basis, who has time to peep the panel?

Wherever the yoke remains, that is what it is doing, it is not forward, back, neutral, forward, whilst the pilot susses out what it is accomplishing?

TTex600,

It is not 'Airbus' Training but 'Air France' training. Please do not confuse the 2. It is based on Airbus recommendations but done in AF premises with AF instructors based on AF SOPs.

ACARS
 

Would any of the 3 pilots read the ACARS after 02:10/02:11:49 (on the paper copy) ,so would they have known the Pitots clogged FAULT . Did they???:uhoh:

@DozyWannabe: Maybe the report can help?


Edit:

yes , unfortunately i tend to agree.

Reading ACARS
 

No, Roulis,

Pilots don't read the reports that are sent by the ACMS (Aircraft Condition Moniyoring System), via the ACARS (Aircraft Communication Adressing and Reporting System) back to home base (note: equipment may have slightly differerent names/acronyms with different manufacturers).

That sort of technical reporting is done behind the back of the pilots, so to speak. In theory it is possible to call up those reports, or even print them, but that is rather time consuming, something to do as a passtime during boring cruise hours.

For a pilot, anything that is worth taking action on, is delivered on ECAM. For the rest, a dose of common sense is needed to fly any aircraft - yes, that means that, flying an airliner, setting the nose (or letting the nose go) to 15 degrees pitch-up at FL350 is a folly.

Because the perceptions, which are neither right or wrong per-se, lead to understandings are wrong in many instances.
I, like RetiredF4, tend to agree.

ACARS
 

@Emit

difficult to be in the back of marc dubois coming back...
and noting about pitots clogged was written on.the (bad redeable) ECAM.
Robert and cedric heard the printer of the ACARS system and they sometimes took the paper (BEA!!!):E

Prints
 

Hello Roulis,

I have to scan through the BEA report to find your reference to the ACARS print events.

ACARS and ACMS setup may differ from company to company, but
usually, pilots only get (or make) prints of messages that are addressed to them. Technical messages by ACMS are handled autonomously by the system, no pilot input or checking applies - take for instance the Take-off reports for engine trend monitoring. Only out of curiosity (and boredom) will a pilot ever search for those. The airspeed / Air Data discrepancies that were sent to Air France maintenance were "not for pilot's eyes" . That does not mean that were "kept secret" from the pilots, it is only so that the pilots get their technical indications from ECAM. The indications of what the airplane is doing, is displayed on the Primary Flight Display.
ECAM doen't overwhelm you, you (the pilot) must properly prioritize your tasks, always, all the time.
Could the listing of cryptic messages on ECAM be called a pain in the ass, confusing, etcetera? Yes, but as a pilot, you must be able to cut through the crap, simply keep the nose of the aircraft near the horizon and sort things out properly.
The transcript of the CVR shows, uh, a lot of silence, during the falling piano act of the aircraft, not really a well orchestrated trouble shoot of a nasty, but otherwise simple malfunction.

The ACARS prints that were heard on the CVR may have been weather reports for the enroute alternates, that is the sort of things that pilots use the set for.

Checked the report, found these events.

00:41:50 Noise similar to tearing off an ACARS sheet

01:04:57 Noise of paper being torn


Read the transcript text and you will find it is exactly what I meant: communication with dispatch about alternate airfields, weather, etcetera. During the falling piano act, there is no printer activity listed.

Edited for transcription quotes.

Again, if the pilots you guys are writing for do not fly, or do not fly Airbii, why do you care about their perceptions? That was/is the context of my post.

While I'm on my soapbox, and directed at no one and everyone - The self righteousness around here from some who want to exonerate the machine at the expense of the dead is sickening!

If you men really want to correct misunderstandings, you might try to better understand the entire organism of a modern pilot vs focusing solely on the infalibility of his/her machine. Explain how they missed something so obvious as an 11000fpm descent. Explain why the stated on the CVR that they didn't understand what was happening. The ill fated crew was obviously NOT totally incompetent, yet the only reason most pilots on this forum can give for the accident is crew incompetence.

Maybe they just had the wrong perception, maybe they suffered from a misunderstanding, sure that's the answer.

"It is based on Airbus recommendations", but it is "not Airbus". Please explain.

Now, back to the Olympics

Hi All,

I spent this night in the sim.At the end of the section we still had 30 minutes for free time.
I asked the instructor to level me off at the optimum level for the weight we had , (205T), which was 37000 FT.
It was tested in a new simulator.

I disconected ADRs 2 and 3 and I wanted to force the airplane into stall.

General Impressions:

1.It entered in full stall at around 40thousand feet , well into the red line.

2.To force it into stall I was using a pitch up of between 15 and 20 degrees of pitch and climb thrust.

3.Just before stalling the airplane pitched up by almost byhimself to 30 degrees.

4.It then started sinking R/D between 10 and 15000 ft/min.

5.Then I pushed the side stick full forward and kept it there. NOTHING. Interesting to note that I was maintaining pitch 10º Down , but it never got out of stall.

6.At around 26oooFT I reduced the thrust to get a pitch down moment.

7.It never recovered from stall until the instructor freezed the sim at 4000 feet.

8. Tried the same again. The same happened.

9.Leaving the sim , I met a coleague , very experienced on the A330 who told me thre is a trick to recover from stall. Set manual pitch trim to full down. I didn`t tried it. Maybe next time I have some free time again.

Conclusions:

1. If the sim really reproduces the airplane behaviour , the AF447 was is deep stall and they would never recover.

2.I had never heard about trimming down the airplane.So the crew didn`t for sure.


Your opinions.

A-3TWENTY
Thank you for your posting, it's been very interesting.
So A330 falls in deep stall.
May I ask you:
-Was there any fuel in Tail Tank? If yes how much?
-Was the stabilizer trim full nose up?
Thank you in advance for your kind response.

Hi Dove,

Answering your questions:

I had 50 tones FOB.I didn`t notice how much fuel I had on the trim tank because I asked the instructor to put at 37000 ft. I didn`t climb till there.

So I don`t know if the sim makes the transfer when we are positioned on that level.

The trim:
Probably it was full up , because I kept around 15-20º nose up until it completely stalled.

And completing the latest post.

With the side stick in neutral during the stall it kept a pitch of around 10º in stall.When I pushed it fully forward, the nose came down to around 5-10º NOSE DOWN, but it never got out of stall.

All of which is meaningless. The simulator cannot reproduce reality because the conditions are outside of the tested envelope for the aircraft.

A320
Good post and I assume by disconnecting 2 ADR's that put you in ALT2 Law as per AF447? Its concerning that the system allows full up trim on the THS to be achieved in a short time followed by a stall whilst then not allowing trim to unwind in time to enable a recovery.

I wonder how many manual turns of the trim wheel would be necessary to initiate a recovery and if the automations can be improved to assist in stall recovery?

As I told before I wasn`t sure the sim was able to reproduce it , but what you said makes sense.

You only saw, what the sim was giving to you. It did not reproduce the real behaviour of a real aircraft, as there is no reliable and tested data base available.

If you want to know details about it, then read the BEA final report concerning AF447. There is a lot of information in it concerning simulation and simulator behaviour and reliance outside the tested flight envelope.

Concerning the trim the simulator might have been in Alt Law with Autotrim available and might have dropped into Abnormal law during the excessive pitch, where autotrim is no longer available.

When no data SIM is just a toy
 

One area of concern that this accident has, at least to me, demonstrated, is that once the aircraft starts to get close to the edge of the known data, and is outside the box, then all guesses as to what the aircraft will do is just a guess....

Computers should do what they are told to do.

Lesson 1 in BASIC was to make a computer

PRINT " One + Two = Five "
RETURN

One + Two = Five

There, my computer has a fault ! (Where is the programmer ?)
Even my circular slide rule can tell me how many miles there are in a Kilogramme !

An early computerised N.Atlantic flight plan was much faster than usual. Somewhere 10 Degrees of Longitude had gone missing. ( The 10 Degrees were spotted in good time and replaced.)

- if you look back through the various threads you will note that many, including me, consider you needed -50 degrees of pitch to unstall. I doubt -10 would do it in time. Are you saying the sim would not GIVE YOU -50 or that you selected -10?

A3TWENTY,

does the simulator produce a log of flight parameters, like a FDR?
if yes, is it similar to the actual FDR data from AF447?

AF447 showed no tendency to do that.

NOTHING? When did it go from 30º Up to 10º Down?

P.S. At what point did you consider the airplane stalled, i.e. what criterion did you use to identify the stall?

I was a F/O and also a F/N. At IBM's suggestion I arranged that I and another N/O ( a Straight Navigator) visited American Airlines newish Computerised Flight Planning Center at Idlewild, I think it was in 1964 or '65. They showed us that Coast to Coast they considered 11 different routes and 9 different vertical profiles, Step up and Step down as well as Long Range Cruise. ( It was a total of 99, I remember.) Each was costed. They said that Captains usually took the lowest cost fllght plan. ( I suppose that this was a form of Spread-Sheet presentation.)
They only covered their own routes and the then newish B707.
We were then piston engined. We were long haul charter and might, and did, go anywhere. Often even ground communications were unreliable to many of "our" airfields. ( I went to 80 countries and up to a dozen airfields in some of them.)
Perhaps we were too soon !
A little history.

P.S. Lyman has reminded me that Idlewild had become JFK on 1st. Jan 1964.

P.S. At what point did you consider the airplane stalled, i.e. what criterion did you use to identify the stall?

From HazelNuts.......


At what point did 447 Stall? What is the relationship of the power ceiling, and the lift ceiling exceedances to the "climbing only due to her momentum"?

I have been trying to establish the cues available to the crew around the STALL.
BEA claim she started her descent without a nose drop, as far as I can tell...

She more or less just started to 'fall', rather than break? This suggests there was no immediate and drastic increase in drag. Certainly there was drag throughout, but the AoA did not appreciably reduce, where is this mysterious and drastic drag arrival? It did not re-orient itself on the airframe, and the g did not shift dramatically, how were they to know they were Stalled?

Wouldn't the STALL more likely be associated with the passing through of the lift ceiling? This happened at what time, can it be known from the report? How long was she climbing on momentum, rather than thrust, and lift?

Linktrained....

Howdy ado... In 1964 if you were at Idlewild, you were actually at Kennedy.

This difference didn't prevent the pilots of conventionally equipped aeroplanes from pulling into stall or Airbus pilots successfully negotiating the loss of airspeed information. However, your claim, which many a PPRuNer would readily agree with, is indeed useful as it reveals not what is wrong with Airbus controls interface but what potentially dangerous habit many a pilot has acquired: checking just the controls movement to see what the aeroplane is doing. Now this might be newsworthy to some: control or thrust levers positions are only demands, which absolutely has to be crosschecked against the instruments to see what effect they have on the aeroplane! That you need to have closed loop feedback via instruments is something trained from first second of instrument flying and is as true on C-172 under the hood as it is in A380 flying through clouds. Ask the last crew of the G-YMMM about the discrepancy between thrust levers position and delivered thrust, you won't be able to ask those who pulled and pulled, yet they could not bring the nose up nor prevent the ground/sea impact.

1. habit to fly pitch and power is not trained on any Airbus course. It is understood anyone starting the course is very proficient in instrument flying. Preface of any Airbus FCOM refers.

2. when dealing with simple, even multiple failures, ECAM gets it right so following it is well advised, however it is unintelligent computer so it doesn't relieve the pilot knowing very well what he is doing when performing ECAM actions and why he is asked to do that. I suppose "slavish" feeling comes from the pilots too lazy to know their aeroplane properly so can not evaluate whether what ECAM tells them makes sense. I am pretty sure explanation how you figured out there would be no accident to discuss if it weren't for ECAM will be pretty interesting read.

No, this is your straw man argument. Not every system is acceptable. Those well designed, tested, certified and field proven stand very good chance of being so. That they can nevertheless turn out to be lethal in unfamiliar hands is just the way our universe is structured. And no, you don't get familiar just by adding the flight hours in the logbook or by hand flying whenever you feel like it. It's about knowing what your aeroplane can and can't do and how to return her into the heart of the envelope, when you have unwittingly chased her towards the edge, or beyond.

Not much sarcastic but I'll concur it's bad. Let's ignore the last part and assume post was made in good faith. In aviation it often is not case of "either-or but" "and...and...and". Pilot must always recognize when flight director is leading him along the optimal flightpath and so it is to be followed (99.99% of the time), or when it deviates so it must be disregarded. For those doubting the benefits of attitude flying, it is beneficial to remember FD displays attitude command.
"Trust me, I'm a pilot", eh? Ad hominem is still invalid argument, even when it is self-inflicted.

Nope. This machine was not infallible, none is. It failed in utterly manageable way. Why minor fault resulted in catastrophe was puzzling even for BEA HF experts just piling up theories on top of each other.

Because they did not understand what was happening.

It does not. Covered many a time why it does not. Scrap the rest of the sentence.

They could have pushed forward and let the autotrim do the job.

Unpublishable.

What a silly straw argument.
Antiskid does not prevent runway excursions completely, therefore those systems are not useful?

Car accidents during braking actions involve more cars with antiskid systems in Europe than cars without such a system. Naturally because most cars on European roads are equipped with such a system.

You name it absolutely correct, and what do you want to tell us?
How is your closed loop feedback ------ demand by pilot via control / thrust levers position versus effect crosschecked via instruments ------ functioning? For the PF it is functioning, as he is the one who is initiating the demand (assumed that the demand is not altered by the automation), the PNF might lack the demand (control position) and has to rely on the effect (instruments) only. The closed loop system is not available to him.

That didn´t go unnoticed during the analysis of BEA and is posted in their final report.