Are you aware that when humans become "maxed out" that the first sense the brain "deletes" is that of hearing? This means although the ear receives sound the brain does not send it to one's conscious awareness. Whilst not wanting to get into the Airbus v Boeing debate, the stall warning on the latter is stick shake through the control column - maybe the pilots would have been more aware on a Boeing as to what was going on?

Rather than "ignoring" a stall warning they were not aware of the fact that the aircraft was stalling - if they were they would have applied recovery action.

That subject was done to death several times over on the Tech Log threads. The existence of several accidents where a stick-shaker was ignored either through sensory overload or because the crew believed it was a false warning suggests that it's a matter of opinion given the evidence available.

The consensus seems to be that a tactile warning *might* theoretically help, but it's not a certainty.

"Stupid" isn't the right word. The issue is one of human psychology under pressure and how it can severely skew the decision-making process. See also: being so concerned about work-time regulations that you try to take off without clearance, committing to take-off despite disparate airspeed data, attempting to fudge an approach rather than turn around and try again etc.

Quote:Rather than "ignoring" a stall warning they were not aware of the fact that the aircraft was stalling - if they were they would have applied recovery action.
Their Altimeters were working!and there Vertical speed indicators as far as I have read in the report,10,000 ft a minute come on these are three supposedly experienced crews!looking at the report they hardly had any training in stall warning or recovery:eek:
Too much computer flying experience rather than hands on experience IMO,computers/equipment fails....what do we do????:ooh:

To be fair it's only with the benefit of hindsight that all the Monday morning quarterbacks now know those instruments were working and could be relied upon...........

Having witnessed how quickly it is possible to be close to overwhelmed by events in the cockpit to some degree I'm with the "maxed out" theory and would certainly second fireflybob's comments that hearing is the first of the senses to "go" when you are overloaded. In order to really understand the reason for initial backstick and the subsequent response, or lack of, to the stall warning, we need to be able to know what the two pilots were perceiving throughout the onset of loss of control and subsequent stalled descent - trouble is we never will.

Dozy

Agree 100%

wiggy

"In order to really understand the reason for initial backstick and the subsequent response, or lack of, to the stall warning, we need to be able to know what the two pilots were perceiving throughout the onset of loss of control and subsequent stalled descent - trouble is we never will."

I disagree, utterly. you would enlarge your understanding manifold once hearing evidence that is unfortunately unavailable to you, or to the public.

The CVR tells BEA everything, they tell us next to nothing. It is quite possible the CVR will find its way into the public domain. If available to you, would you listen? Or would you cover you ears, satisfied with a 'story'...

Lyman

I don't have an axe to grind over this; I don't fly an Airbus, and I don't work for AF, but I am of the opinion that simply labelling the AF crew as "stupid" does nobody any favours. If the full evidence you suggest exists becomes available to us why wouldn't I listen?

Question concerning RELIEF PILOT
 

Hello to you all,

although having read quite a few posts on AF447 I haven't been "in" here for quite some time, so please forgive me if anybody else posed this question already.

I have a problem determining, who the relief pilot finally was.

In the report pg 21 it says:
-One of the copilots was PF
-The CPT woke the second copilot and said....he's going to take my place
-The PF was sitting in the R/H seat

on pg 24 it continues:
-The copilot in the R/H seat was the relief for the captain

on pg 58 it says:
-The relief pilot enetered the cockpit at 1h59min26"

on pg 115 it says:
-He (the relief pilot) stayed in the R/H seat

So to me, the FO with approx 800hrs on type was the relief pilot, flying the plane and sitting in the R/H seat. BUT, than the statement on pg 58 cant be true.

Am I correct or am I missing something?

Thanks for clarification!

BluJet, it is clear to all who have read all these threads.

My comments added to your points;

“In the report pg 21 it says:
-One of the copilots was PF - Bonin (least experienced FO)
-The CPT (Dubois) woke the second copilot (Robert) (and said....he's going to take my place (In his, LH, seat, not as captain)
-The PF was sitting in the R/H seat - Still Bonin.

on pg 24 it continues:
-The copilot in the R/H seat was the relief for the captain (Dubois had ascertained that Bonin was qualified)

on pg 58 it says:
-The relief pilot entered the cockpit at 1h59min26" - Robert.

on pg 115 it says:
-He (the relief pilot) stayed in the R/H seat- Still Bonin.

Hi ChrisN

How can the relief pilot be Robert (pg 58)
and Bonin(pg115)?

I don’t know what led the French author of the report to write in a way that the English translation contained what you quoted, but who was where and when is firmly established.

This has been gone over numerous times. It is called the oozlum bird and you are making it come round again.

PF-PNF -CPT ... who care ?
It was no PF's during the event .. just some guys trying to play PF each in turn and not understanding how fly the aircraft ...

Fatal Flight 447: Chaos in the Cockpit - 4oD - Channel 4

I found the program very interesting. One of the comments was that the pilots was startled by the events that started to take place.

But I found few things confusing, first, they did not show/explain all the error messages that the pilots first received that might have lead them to a state of confusion.

Furthermore to Airbus pilots, when did Unreliable Airspeed become a memory item? Was it trained in the past? Was it part of the QRH in past? When it was not a memory item?

Now in this documentary they played some of the CVR that was going on.

1.From this first the captain left his seat as he knew they was approaching a storm.

2.There was for me very poor CMR / SOP structure in the cockpit, with regarding handover of the aircraft, who had control, and who was doing what.

3. When captain finally returned there was no DODAR style revision of what had happen, what was going on.

From what I understand from the Airbus training now, it is now 5 degree pitch and CLB detent thrust, disconnect all Autos and Flight Directors.

Than PNF should find in the QRH power setting and and pitch angle!
Is this something that was implemented in the Airbus training after the AF447 accident?

What I am trying to understand is, was the AF crew victims of lack of training to handle this specific situation, or should they have been aware of these procedures.

Was also crew made aware during their training, that stall warning, would normally always be reliable vs other error messages, like overspeed?

From what the TV program showed, however much is correct there I don't know, but it does seem like the PF (RHS) locked/jammed the controls for to long time!
But if as they explained in the tv program, the pilot in the LHS was also doing inputs, after taking control, why did they not get message of dual inputs straight away?

I find the program lacking on a few important details at various times, maybe it is just oversight and lack of knowledge during the production, assuming the main facts are correct!

It is a curious case, but you have to question the crews lack of judgement overall, regardless of the faults with the aircraft.
And of course, it is so easy for us now to sit and see what they should have done, still 38.000 ft is a big fall!

truckflyer:

Pursuant your last line -- 38,000 feet being a long fall -- one of the points we had discussed in this family of threads from a host of different angles was:

If your nose is up and you are still falling, as evidenced by your altimeter continually decreasing and your vertical speed indication being negative, at what point do you diagnose "we are stalled" from that evidence, even if your airspeed indications are AFU? (We'll set aside for the moment an annoying audio stall alarm that goes on and off, see the BEA final report for how that fits in ...)

This may sound simple, but you get into recency of training issues. Also training content.

Typically, airlines do not do actual stall training in the aircraft (valid risk and cost reasons), and do not have simulators that can accurately emulate a stall (lack of data points, apparently).

You then may ask: at what point has any A330 pilot been presented with the visual problem noted above, and asked to diagnose/solve it? In old school training, you could call that situation a degraded panel, or partial panel, stall in IMC conditions. (Under the bag, as it were, in training flights).

That sort of training is apparently not done.

This takes us back to the training that is done, which is stall prevention. Seems that didn't take. :(

The simulators can emulate stall conditions to a fair degree of accuracy - certainly enough to train the points you refer to (nose-up, lack of roll stability, rapidly unwinding altimeter). The issue is that the aircraft behaviour in a stall is based on extrapolated data rather than actual acquired data. Judging by the simulated flight path in the report based on the PF's apparent inputs, the accuracy of the simulator is close enough that the difference is negligible, but it cannot be claimed to be 100% accurate.

I think the reason for focusing on stall avoidance was less to do with a lack of simulator fidelity than it was the industry-wide perception that by drilling stall avoidance procedures into crews, the need for stall recognition and recovery learned at PPL level need not be revised. This turned out to be a significant mistake with hindsight.

Stall prevention was trained, every sim. Lose no altitude, maintain back pressure. Thrust increase.

He did that. And kept doing it, until it became confusing, imho.

"Maintain back pressure" was never part of the drill.

For IAS, the procedure was:

PITCH/THRUST:

Above THRUST RED ALT and Above FL 100 - 5deg/CLB

http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp...nexe.06.en.pdf

For STALL WARNING, the "phases after lift off" procedure was:

THRUST LEVERS - TOGA
PITCH ATTITUDE - REDUCE
BANK ANGLE - ROLL WINGS LEVEL
SPEEDBRAKES - CHECK RETRACTED

http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp...nexe.11.en.pdf

I am curious at what point did Unreliable Airspeed, become a memory item?

Was it a memory item before the AF447 crash?

From the documentary it does seem, that if they had just applied the unreliable airspeed procedure, as soon as they started to get nonsense information, the whole thing would have been a non-event!

I am sorry, as I am relative new to Airbus, and I do not know the history of Airbus training in the past.

Was Unreliable Airspeed a memory item at the time of the AF447 crash?
If it was, why did not the Air France crew apply that procedure?

Or was it not, if so, how was the issued dealt with during training?

It did seem that the crew was overly confident in the Airbus, saying, "good we flying Airbus" several during the time they entered the storm!

Did they rely to much on the machine, and not their own basic flying skills?

Did they? I can't find it in the transcript... I'll have to borrow the book again to check that.

You are confusing the drill for T/O with "approach to STALL".

Maintain back pressure is how the altitude is kept stable. Takeoff involves some serious NU, hence the "reduce Pitch"....

Perhaps ?

No - the PDF links contain the "at take off" and "phases after take-off" actions. It is the latter I have quoted. One does not maintain altitude by maintaining backpressure on the stick/yoke - if the aircraft is trimmed correctly then no direct input is required.

The point is at no stage do any of these procedures refer to manipulation of the stick, as you suggest. You are making stuff up again.