Proper stall reovery for JAR 25/FAR 25 machines
 

Guys,
Before they even got into the problems and confusion of the stall warner going off then on (below 60KTS) they ignored the stall warner sounding continously for 50 secs.

At no point was there any attempt to corectly deal with the problems eg PF " I Have Control - Action the ECAM items" no formal attempt to analyse what was going on - just an almost blind panic.

As has been discussed many many times on the tech threads when they reduced the power to flight idle the pitch decreased and the speed increased even with full aft THS. If Pitch down had been commanded the THS would have trimmed forward and together with the power reduction would eventually have resulted in a recovery.
The problem lies with inapropriate drills, a complete failure to follow the correct cockpit procedures and no command and control.
Reason - failures in the training they recieved and procedures they were trained to follow which is also a theme for the colgan crash.

Somethings that strike me now after this marathon.
A wry note.

The :oh: time taken from accident to report seems roughly normal for the French. :ok:

As usual no sense of proportion or anticipation of problems & adopting immediate solutions.
Instead it's left to the relatives of the deceased to continue to 2nd guess the "what if" scenerios just like when the survivors froze to death at Mt St Odile.

The tragedy has primarily been blamed on :bored: guess who?
(Same dead people)

Air frantic is clearly on the defensive, BUT....
big but (t)
...it now has one of the worst safety records in the world, and the price of rescuing the FDR etc has already been astronomic.
This company could face liquidation over this latest of many fiascos.

:ugh: If they continue to operate, who is going to bale them out this time?, or will they merely go for the standard French rebranding exercise for unpopular, unsuccessful or plain lethal companies eg*. ...

Let's not forget the current French government doesn't have any money.

Is it going to be hived onto the insurance industry or who is going to be behind coming clean for a change?

Agreed. After arriving at the correct control inputs through a process of elimination, the last thing that they need to hear was that they were doing it all wrong...

An experienced pilot would not have pulled up to 14 degrees at 35,000 ft and expected the aircraft to do anything but stall. He probably didn't know how the stall warning shut off below 60 knots either. An experienced pilot would have held cruise attitude around 2 degrees nose up, maintained cruise power and got a checklist every aircraft has called unreliable airspeed and saved hundreds of lives.

BUT THEY DIDN'T.

from avweb, prolly not news to a lot but however.The French news agency AFP reported Wednesday (one day ahead of the official final report's release) that investigators have concluded that pilot error and technical malfunctions caused the crash of Air France Flight 447 in 2009, killing all 228 aboard. "A source close to the case" told AFP that speed sensors on the Airbus A330 "froze up and failed" as the aircraft entered a line of thunderstorms while flying from Rio to Paris. That information was reported more than a year ago in factual findings. However, the source also told AFP that the official report of the French Accident Investigation Bureau, BEA, concludes that the captain then "failed in his duties," and "prevented the co-pilot from reacting.

So the sensors "froze up and failed" did they? So did the senseless ones up in the front.

When I go SLF again I hope I don't have such clueless losers piloting me. They should have started with breaking a few model airplanes. They might have learned the basics with small pain, and saved their profession the shame.

I had a quick read of the report conclusions and there seems to be an assumption that it is normal for the autopilot to drop out due to UAS. I can understand that the autothrottle requires airspeed reading, but a 3 axis autopilot should not require airspeed and does not on basic aircraft.

So if a Beach Barron suffered UAS, the autopilot would keep flying the plane giving the pilot a chance to work the problem.

Could not Airbus design a plane so that full control does not need to be passed back to the pilot should any input data including airspeed be incorrect? It would be easier for the crew to work the problem if partial automation was maintained.

Immediate actions should have been attitude and power. These instruments worked throughout. VSI and directional instruments worked throughout also. Not only did this guys ignore the basics, they ignored them for 4 minutes. I conclude that the basics were not taught properly, never mind the fact that they were given no opportunities to practise them. This is flying lesson 2 for Pete's sake.

The report doesnt emphasize the big problem that confused the crew in:

-The stall horn discconecting below 60 kts.
-The big problem the automatic Trim can cause.

The FBW in the airbus doesnt have artificial feedback on the sticks so an automatic trim becommes absolutely necessary for hands off flying ( elevator neutral to cg ) if we want to make flying in this planes bearable for the pilot in a day to day operation.
Therefore,this trim being full up if commanded to do so does create a problem after the crew still has not figured out they didnt need to pitch up so much... specially because the trim up will stay there unless commanded to go down... making a dynamic neutral stability situation WITH a pitch up and high AOA taking the aircraft into a stall.

Thats why there are laws in airbus aircraft...because if there where none, almost all pilots would stall the aircraft with that lousy philosphy and hence, protections are needed, but guess what... that day there werent any protections available after pitots got frozen.

And there in lies the problem, you can't expect the aircraft's automation to get you out of every problem. Sure, Airbus could make some changes, I would start with WoW component to stall warning, maybe even some way for both pilots to know what the other is doing with the controls. But if you sit in an airplane thinking that automation will save the day, then you have no business sitting forward of the re-enforced cockpit door.

There is a lot of basic airmanship missing from this accident. The "box" that needs fixing in this case is the one that is racked right between the two arm rests. It has double redundancy and is supposed to be the most powerful computer in the flight deck, the one that takes over when all the other ones fail. There is no way to replace that box, and any attempts at removing inputs into it can lead to this sort of sad and tragic result.

That is not just an Airbus problem, but one which the whole industry needs to deal with. Airlines being one of the main culprits with their accountant managing and rampant, unchecked cost cutting. Some things are too important to cut.

This is what happens when some short-term manager makes a decision he knows nothing about which has consequences years down the line, of which they where told about by professionals who new better at the time.

All stall related accidents could be completely eliminated by installing a $100 AOA sensor. In fact, why are we still even teaching stall speeds at all? AOA never changes with altitude, load factor, anything. It's the only thing we should be referencing.

Do you really think an AOA indicater would have helped these two when fully functioning attitude indicaters, altimiters, VSI's and GPS ground speed info didn't help them? I don't think anything but a fully functioning autopilot would have saved them. Sad, isn't it?

Just seems to me the report is biased against the pilots and pitots and is not emphasisizing all the design and instrument deficiencies of the aircraft. An AoA gauge should at least be there as a backup. I think the newer A380 has one.

In the confusion of all the other things going on, I agree an AOA would not have helped here probably as the system was based on airspeed.

But I think stalls should be de-coupled from speed completely. A stall should only be referenced as an angle. The speed tape in the MFD should be angles, not speed. Then we'd eliminate almost all stall related accidents.

If they had held their altitude the attitude indicator would be their AOA in level flight. Any experienced pilot would have done that. Unfortunately if you need an autopilot to do it for you, you are out of luck so you need to know how to do it manually.

OK, the BEA are saying that the crew on the day were part of the problem.

Maybe, or maybe the "system" was the real culprit, and a group that is never to be seen when things go pearshaped are more culpable.

How many long haul pilots on the Airbus or for that matter any other long haul aircraft have had any experience of hand flying at cruise altitude? Not many, and one of the reasons for that is the bean counters, who get upset that pilots flying the aircraft rather than the automation may cost more because it's not operating as efficiently.

So, most pilots have not hand flown in coffin corner during normal operations. Have you ever done that in the sim? Perhaps not, and that may be because cost benefit analysis done by (guess who) the beancounters, states that accidents such as AF447 are so rare, it's not cost effective to train to such high levels of skill. Really? I wonder if the bean counters ever travel by air themselves? One has to wonder. If I then ask how many people have had to deal with failures in the sim when hand flying at high level, it's probably an even smaller number.

How many of those beancounters and high level training people are actually at the airport comforting grieving relatives when the result of some of their policies is made painfully apparent? Not many, they are always well protected from the sharp end of such involvement.

Now let's go down another road. How many people have used devices such as a DVD recorder, and thought when using it, why did the programmers do the program in this order, it's crazy, the feature I use least is the first in the menu, and the one I need most is the last, and if you look into it, the reason is that the first item is probably the system set up, and nothing else will work if you haven't done that, and then they move on to other things, and the timer programming comes often last, probably because it's the most complex area, that needs all the others , but it's the routine that the user will use most often, so in a well designed system, it should be first on the list, and the lesser used items should be further down the list.

Same scenario is sometimes true in avionics, and in things like ECAM alerts, the order they are dealt with is sometimes a lot less than intuitive, and certainly not the order than a human flight engineer would bring then to the attention of the PF or PM, having taken them all into consideration and evaluated what they all mean. Computers are wonderful, but they have limits, one of which is that they only make decisions one at a time, and only in the order of programming, which in a lot of cases takes no notice or attention to the phase of flight or the state of other systems that may or may not have been evaluated in this iteration. Some of the ECAM type alerts that are thrown at an already busy crew are not critical to the underlying main and most important criterion. Aviate, Navigate, Communicate.

It is significant to me that in 3 incidents in recent time, the system warnings and alerts have in some respects got in the way rather than helping. The 380 that had the uncontained engine failure, they were a very long time working through all the check list issues before they could eventually put the thing back on the ground.

"Sully" Sullenberger commented that when he put the 320 into the Hudson, there "wasn't time to go through all the checklists", and that resulted in a vent being open below the "water line"..

The AF incident was made more difficult to deal with by misleading guidance on the instruments.

Then there's the whole issue of the stall, and awareness of it, both from the crew aspect, AND the aircraft, which was able to stall because the automation had already thrown in the towel and degraded it's operating mode, without making that very important fact known in no uncertain manner to the crew. Do you describe that as a design fault or a design feature.

Over 40 years, I've programmed many computers, and the "trick" to successful programming is to make sure that the right response comes out of the system even if some of the inputs are wrong. Getting the system, whatever it's meant to be doing, to reject input that's wrong, is more important than getting it to validate and work with the right data, and all too often, it's the manner in which the system deals with the errors that makes the difference between staying in the air or crashing.

There are other issues, like the 330 not being stable in pitch, which because it is flown by automation is acceptable to the people that certify it. Maybe, until as already mentioned, the automation throws in the towel. If as a result the crew is given an aircraft that's degraded, and also not stable, that's not exactly giving them too much assistance.

I'm not going to go down the road of the crew training and experience issues, I'm probably ruffling enough feathers and sensitive egos already, and to go there, and bring up issues like self funded type ratings, cruise pilots, and training systems that discourage people from using spare sim slots to improve their knowledge will only make the issues even more contentious.

Over 10 years ago, the EU funded a research project that was supposed to aid and improve the quality and capability of flight deck automation, by improving the evaluation and analysis capabilities of the systems. It seems that the changes that should have come out of that project are being stalled somewhere, as I've seen very little real change in the way that most of the systems provided automatically are operating.

I've seen this accident described in other places as Airbus' Titanic, and in many respects, it is, and how both Airbus and the industry responds to it will be very significant.

One thing is clear, for a vast number of reasons, many issues that have been raised in respect of training, experience, certification and design of flight deck systems are all going to have to be looked at in a very different light as a result of the findings of this report, the implications of this accident are as far reaching as Tenerife and Kegworth in terms of the issues raised and their consequences.

I just hope that all the people implicated are really listening.

In a strictly legalistic manner, yes, the crew of 447 on the day made mistakes that were contributory to the outcome. As to wether those mistakes were "pilot error" is very much a question that needs to be discussed in a lot more detail and over a wider group than even the inquiry team, and with wider issues than just the operation of AF447 in view. It seems to me that the 447 crew were as much victims as the rest of the unfortunate people that were on board the aircraft.

I am not sure that the BEA have succeeded in fully identifying the wider and larger issues that led to this event having the outcome that it did, or more specifically, I am not sure they have given enough emphasis to the underlying issues that are clearly implied in their findings. That may be because the media is taking soundbites, and maybe because of the manner in which their report has been presented. Hopefully, when the specific and detailed findings are analysed in depth, there will be changes at all levels of the industry,

I can only hope.

bubbers44:

I mostly agree. Except I would have placed the nose 5 or so degrees below the horizon, and reduced the power to "cruise" descent simply to go for better air, so to speak.

Errr, that would be Chesley Sullenberger. (when in doubt, Google). :ok:

Indeed, but that wasn't what they called him when they interviewed him on CBS news (via Sky) while I was typing my original. His comments were interesting too, they were in a Sim at the time, discussing the BEA report, and the crew response to the problems, which he found "strange"

Let's be clear. There was pilot error. That is a fact that is indisputable among fair and rational people. The pilots neither created the correct mental model of the incident nor implemented any of the correct procedures to respond to reality effectively.

How much the crew is to blame for their errors is a different question. I certainly agree that a technological failure put them into a bad position and that technology could have done a better job of helping them out of it. At the same time, insofar as the human crew is the ultimate back-up to the technology the crew failed in their duty.

I'll leave the precise apportioning of blame to others. Suffice it to say that there is plenty of blame to go around and the crew cannot be exempt.

Perhaps Sky are idiots? Most that knew him called him Sully. His name is Chesley B. Sullenberger. How does a reporter come up with Jay?

He was probably too much of a gentleman to correct them.

Nonetheless....Your point is well taken. I am sure his and many others will continue to find the the report disturbing, because it is just that.

Human Factors
 

I'm a cognitive psychologist, not a pilot. I've just read (well, skimmed parts of) the BEA report, and I think it's interesting that it emphasizes a few issues:

• Diagnosis : did the pilots diagnose "unreliable air speed"?
• Stall warning: did they comprehend it?

The report suggests

• Diagnosis : the pilots never diagnosed "unreliable air speed". Analysis of the dozen or so similar incidents where pitot tubes froze suggest that most of those crews did not diagnose it either.
• Stall warning: did they comprehend it? The report provides references suggesting that in a confusing environment, humans can be cognitively deaf to aural stimuli, and tend to prefer and respond to visual stimuli much better.

So, from a cognitive perspective, the accident makes sense. A big part of this was the human-machine interface, which did an extremely poor job of letting the pilots know what was actually going on.

Could they have done better? Of course. Are they entirely, or even primarily to blame? Far from it.

How many recent accidents have been caused by problems with the AFCS, whether it be failure, reversion or simply the pilot being unable to engage it in the first place?

I can immediately think of four - Kenyan, Ethiopian, Turkish & Air France. There may be more.

There seems to be a growing number of pilots these days who can't actually fly & when the autopilot decides to have a rest they are left in control of a large aluminium tube full of unsuspecting & trusting people, with no idea of what to do next. Is the licencing scandal in India not exclusive to that country & more widespread than people think?

Airline flying is supposed to be the pinnacle of aviation, only reached after many years of study, training, experience & perseverance. This does not seem to be the case anymore. People obviously believe that as little as 250 hours is enough.

Some of the comments here indicate that they believe that all airline pilots are created more or less equal. I have sat beside & behind enough of them to know that that is not the case. Some airline flight decks are populated by people who have no business being there. But they are cheap - just ask the accountants who put them there!

Some comments also indicate that people believe that the answer is more automation or a refinement in the current automation. I'm sorry, but I don't agree. If you can't tell when the automation is behaving incorrectly, or you have to rely totally on the aircraft to tell you what to do next with some verbal warning or instruction, then you have no place in an airline flight deck. Does anybody remember having to look 'through' the flight director on occasions & simply fly the aircraft?

The cost cutting mantra of modern business that has flowed into the airline industry is taking it's toll. I have seen a drop in both quantity & quality of training in recent years. Reducing T & C's is possibly reducing the quality of peolpe coming into the industry as well. Arguably we are no longer getting the brightest & best any more. The question is - is cost cutting winding back all the gains that have been made in aviation safety over the last 2 or 3 decades? Are we seeing the beginning of another era of increasing accident rates?

IMHO, the reaction by the PF on this flight to a loss of airspeed indication, followed by the A/P dropping out, is inexcusable. The decision by the more experienced PM to continue to let him fly after his initial reaction of excessively pitching up at that altitude in also inexcusable.

If we have a generation of pilots in flight decks who can't actually fly, then it is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

Yes,no argument on that, but I am not sure it can be described as error in that they were not equipped to deal with the scenario they found themselves in. The reasons for that need to be laid bare and never allowed to happen again, and there is a clear requirement for significant extra training and awareness, but that's post event hindsight, at the time, the relevant people saw nothing wrong with the way they were operating, and that may well be a false sense of security because the automation is usually so reliable.

If I had to put words to it, pilot inadequacy is closer to the mark than pilot error. They were never trained how to really fly the aircraft, they were trained to fly the automation, which is fine while all the systems work as designed, but if they don't, this is the inevitable result. The reasons for that are much wider than just the pilots, they go right to the top, and fixing it will have to go to the top as well.

That's a highly dangerous way of thinking.

The argument that some system or combination of systems failed the pilots ignores the reality that the pilots are part of the system. After all, if the only cause of the crash is that the system(s) failed the pilots then the best answer is to get rid of the pilots entirely. The argument for improved training and systems is premised on the notion that pilots have some purpose on the flight deck. It's irrational to claim that pilots have a purpose and then when then plane crashes shift the blame somewhere else.

Voltaire said that with great power comes great responsibility. This can be condensed to the idea that with power comes responsibility. Since the pilots clearly had some power to prevent this crash they clearly must bear some responsibility for not doing so. It's axiomatic.

What would have happened if the automation had NOT dropped out...?

What would have happened if the automation had said to itself, "hummm, the airspeed sensors seem to be taking a break, let's ignore them for a while and see what happens if we just keep doing what we have been doing for the last 3 minutes...."? May be flash an ECAM warning stating they were in "speed extrapolation mode" or something?

These planes are designed with fuel economy in mind and in cruise get trimmed for rearward CG for better economy and at cruise they are also flying close to coffin corner. The automation can fly the plane to the accuracy needed in cruise but can a low hour pilot flying manually?

In smooth air the PF would probably not need to touch the side stick for a minute or so until the UAS corrected itself, but in turbulent air, at night, and possibly in cloud that is a difficult scenario. I think the autopilot dropping out and control laws degrading so protections such as stall protection are lost, should not have to be the case for a UAS. Design a system for the worst scenarios and build in redundancies to better give the pilots a chance to manage that system when there are failures.

and at cruise they are also flying close to coffin corner

typically 40-50kts spread between VLS and MMO, not exactly in any "corner", Airbus says to "respect the stall warning, as it is generated by AOA, not air data, they were in a confusing situation for sure, and at night, in weather, not an enviable position to be in for sure, unless they had struck hail, and unless the radome failed/partially separated, the AOA would have been accurate...

I'm not a professional pilot but I have a lot of intuition, if you want to call it that, for what being a professional pilot would entail. I get along very well with pilots. "There but for the grace of God.." Why?

I'm actually more interested in airplanes than in flying. I'm not even that comfortable in the air these days. But I never tire of seeing aircraft, particularly large ones like the A330, defeating gravity.

And I just can't imagine a pilot who has no interest in airplanes. Well, your ass is constantly on the line, because you ere 5 to 8 miles up and your motors must keep running and your control surfaces in place and symmetrically distributed. Your ass and the rudder are one.

Now, anyone with any interest in airplanes will make some effort to understand how they work. And that means understanding how the air works, because there is no airplane without air.

But in this crash, there seems to be no interest at all in either air or airplanes - because otherwise, how would it be possible to fail to understand the simplest facts about either the atmosphere or flight dynamics? Particularly when your own personal death is the cost of ignorance?

Why would anyone get inside a machine that's going to be 8 miles above the middle of the ocean without understanding every rivet in the galley if necessary? Much less how it stalls?

I just can't understand this. And I can't understand why anyone would design an airplane with disconnected controls unless they expected the pilot to one day be redundant.

What the local papers say...
 

Here in Germany the local papers are repeating the two main points, in layman's language, from the report: the crew did not cope adequately with the problem, and part of the problem was the design of the aircraft.

It will be interesting to see if there's any significant drop in traffic for Air France after this. I don't think there will be, while the A330 is a very popular type of airliner and likely to remain so.

It seems pretty obvious that climbing at a fixed power setting from cruise is going to cause a reduction in speed. That's something we learn very early in our training. Never mind what, if anything, the ASI is showing, it should be obvious that a gain in altitude implies a reduction in speed if nothing else has changed, so? Of course that basic point is very obvious in a simple aircraft, but it was clearly overlooked in this complicated A330. I guess that means it will be 'Back to the drawing board,' in some measure.

it should be obvious that a gain in altitude implies a reduction in speed if nothing else has changed,

In still air, yes, but in an area of convective weather, that's not the case....remember it wasn't exactly clear blue skies they were operating in at the time this event occurred now were they?

Not defending the apparent errors made by the crew, but rather encouraging the "after the fact experts" here on this forum to look at WHY the crew might have reacted in the manner they did...

Maybe airspeed unreliable training scenarios should include distractions such as convective weather and turbulence before the event occurs....

Amundsen the celeb explorer wrote :
Victory awaits him,who as everythings in order.
Luck we call it.
Defeats is definitely due for him,who has neglected to take the necessary precautions.
Bad luck we call it.

Methink this apply perfectly for this accident

With ever increasing use of automation during basic training these days & the subsequent reduction of simple hands on manual flying of the aircraft. More & more Pilots coming through the system, could very well find, that the first time they ever have to actually think & manually fly the aircrat, is unfortunately when something has gone wrong big time. No winners here Folks, but let's get back to some simple basic flying training skills of old & only once these are understood, move on with the automatics. A quite terrifying & ghastly time for the Crew & pax as well on the A330, they had it all, at night, poor wx, automatics dropping out etc, but a better grasp of the basic skills may just have saved them all. God Bless.

Total layman here so please excuse me. I'm just a tad confused about something:

Ironbutt said
But I seem to remember reading on one of the other numerous threads that below a certain airspeed, the stall warning stops. If this is the case, then if they pulled up, with very low airspeed and a nasty AoA, then wouldn't the stall warning stop giving the impression that there was no stall? Then when pushing nose down, the stall warning would start again when airspeed increased above the limits 'causing' them to pull up again to wrongly get out of the stall?

Even if that was the case, shouldn't they have known about this behaviour?

Obviously if I'm totally wrong, I'll butt out again... Sorry.

Thanks for all your input, this is a very interesting read.

Indeed this can happen.. only if you don't check your airspeed ... (who was under 60 knots) and if you don't know the specifications of your aircraft ...
Anyway .. when you read 60 knots (all parameters indicated that this speed was valid) on the speed indicator of an A330 .. you can deduce two things:
Or you are rolling on ground
Or if you are in the air ... your plane is no more flying .. he is falling like a stone ... (check altimeter)

soylentgreen, quite the most succinct and, in my opinion, the best summary of this accident I have read so far - thanks

@GarageYears
 

This is extremely valid point, one that all technical guys should be discussing.

There are a variety of new, very cheap sensors that could be added to every plane to make something like that possible. In this case, equipping the plane with multi-axis acceleration sensors would allow very good approximation of air-speed for hours even with all pitot tubes out of commission. These solid-state sensors have been around for almost 20 years and today everyone has one of them inside their smart phone. They are very inexpensive and extremely accurate.

There is a certain amount of idiocy associated with the way automation is pursued in all "regulated" technology areas. Nobody dares to say that the only way to safely do something like that is either:

1. Full sensors and systems redundancy where each reading needed for proper functioning of controls is replicated 4 or more times, leading to the situation where complete loss of necessary control input would require several unrelated but simultaneous failures.

2. In absence of full sensor redundancy where dropping of automation due to unreliable or missing inputs is allowed as even fairly unlikely event, the crews should be able and required to regularly practice flying without the automation.

Sensor redundancy is possible but is not done due to regulatory costs. To begin with, Pitot Tube is an archaic piece of sensor that should not be used anymore. It is being used because introducing new technology requires decades of bureaucratic and legal hassle. Not only it has to be approved by variety of bureaucrats but anything new introduced to the market (no matter how good) is instantly a target for lawyers. If the AF447 had brand new kind of any type of sensors the lawyers would instantly claim that this was the reason for the crash.

To see how logic and sense have nothing to do with today's law, examine all the lawsuits against Toyota, for example - where people claimed that their car accelerated on their own. The only way to end this nonsense would be to allow libel suits and damages against parties that make such idiotic claims.

In airplane market - look how many years it took them to start using solid state voice and data recorders in place of the mechanical ones with magnetic tape. Here, the decision to use them should be crystal-clear.

1. Even most retarded lawyer cannot claim that using solid state recorder instead of magnetic tape can cause a crash

2. Solid state recorders are much smaller, able to withstand moisture and heat that no magnetic tape can.

3. Solid state recorders are much cheaper. For the price of one mechanical recorder you can have ten solid state recorders, one in every part of the plane, each recording a full copy of the data.

The problem is that while there is a big demand for automation (mostly because of fuel efficiency concerns), the regulatory framework is absolutely not able to allow to do it right (the full redundancy path), and so it is done same way if someone was trying to put a fuel efficiency automation on a stage coach.

With such approach - it makes perfect sense to drop automation due to unreliable sensor reading because in absence of sensor redundancy the pilot still has more sensors than the plane and in theory should be able to handle the situation - IF he is trained to do so, that is and can use his eyes and ears as a substitute for a faulty sensor.

Pitot tube - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Modern ways to very accurately measure air-flow:

Mass flow sensor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Airplane application of such a sensor would basically require a little metal peg or even simply piece of metal foil stuck on a wing. The principle of operation is such that you heat a piece of metal to a specific temperature and measure the amount of energy required to keep it at that temperature. The bigger air flow cools it faster so more energy is required to keep it at constant temperature. Damaging/disrupting/contaminating such a sensor is orders of magnitude less likely than Pitot tube.

p.s.
 

In case someone wants to argue that regulatory bureaucracy is not the problem:

Title 14: Aeronautics and Space

CHAPTER I: FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (CONTINUED)

SUBCHAPTER G: AIR CARRIERS AND OPERATORS FOR COMPENSATION OR HIRE: CERTIFICATION AND OPERATIONS

PART 125: CERTIFICATION AND OPERATIONS: AIRPLANES HAVING A SEATING CAPACITY OF 20 OR MORE PASSENGERS OR A MAXIMUM PAYLOAD CAPACITY OF 6,000 POUNDS OR MORE; AND RULES GOVERNING PERSONS ON BOARD SUCH AIRCRAFT

Subpart F: Instrument and Equipment Requirements

125.205 - Equipment requirements: Airplanes under IFR.

No person may operate an airplane under IFR unless it has:

(a) A vertical speed indicator;

(b) A free-air temperature indicator;

(c) A heated pitot tube for each airspeed indicator;

(d) A power failure warning device or vacuum indicator to show the power available for gyroscopic instruments from each power source;


Meaning - nobody is allowed to use anything other than the archaic pitot tubes for airspeed reading and gyroscopic instruments while we for years have solid-state sensors that are more than 10 times more accurate than gyroscopic instruments or pitot tubes.

I am fairly certain that this would not have happened with a proper HUD or FLIR or similar technology. If the hud can give a sense of the horizon (which is a big point of HUDs) the pilots _should_ have quickly realized that "this attitude is not right at this FL" and pitched down. I have a very hard time seeing that a HUD would not have worked for them, but you never know. Also, the HUD has to be able to use backup info of course. I have seen this done so it is of course doable, even though I have a really, really hard time accepting planes with exclusively electronic backup systems....

Q from a non-pilot: Could any of you professionals here explain what knowledge of flight physics is taught to pilots in their training, and how much most of them will remember after ten or so years on the job?

Also, having read soylent green's post which seems very convincing, forgive my continuous ignorance but I would have thought that any pilot, in instrument conditions, would monitor basic things like their artificial horizon and variometer, displayed on the primary flight displays. Do we have to conclude that these don't give enough of a clue to diagnose a high-altitude stall? And what could you imagine, supposing this was the thread to discuss that, how an optimal feedback should be displayed?

The reason why I'm asking this is, I'd like to understand how improvements to the cockpit design and interfaces might be made to help particularly pilots who, for whatever reason, are temporarily not at the very top of their skill (nothing implied here!!!), cope with unsusual situations.