gazumped,

in the sentence quoted you were talking about the airplane. The crew is another matter altogether.

With reference to the China Air B747, it's fair to say they were distracted by the engine failure and none of them was flying the aircraft, but once it had stalled, there was a fair bit of skill involved in getting it back to level flight and putting it safely on the tarmac.

The difference there was that the crew worked together to diagnose the problem in time for a recovery to be performed. That didn't happen for AF447.

Equally important, it was daytime and the crew could see what the problem was.
The crew of 447 did not have that unequivocal input, they got instrument failures and stall warnings that came on when they tried to do the right thing. I think there but for the grace....

Not forgetting to retrim forward off the full nose-up stop...:cool:

Trim
 

My understanding is that was not necessary, although it appears that manual nose-down trim input would have speeded the recovery.


@DozyWannabe

Post stall high speed dive recovery.

I think D P Davies got it. Inter-alia, pull up until the nose gets to the horizon then push forward to level off and let the speed stabilize so you don't run out of ideas once again.

Click, click, click. :hmm:

Is it naive to suggest that those who wanted to live out their careers would find a way to learn it?

Or at least how to follow the unreliable airspeed checklist when they had unreliable airspeed?

STALL recovery
 

Airbus has to take responsibility for indoctrinating pilots that the Airbus could not be stalled.

The Stall recovery in the QRH coming out just afterwards, shall matter in court.
Right?

They did no such thing. The fact that the protections prevented stall in Normal Law was purely a sales pitch. The presence of Stall Warning and such in the FCOM is down in black-and-white and always was.

Additionally, the idea that the PF was pulling up to engage protection from stall ignores the fact that neither PF nor PNF ever acknowledged that they were either approaching stall or stalled.

I do not know why people still want to reopen this "stall" debate.
From the published reports and the briefings given by the BEA (i.e. by people who have listened to the CVR , just not read partial edited transcripts ) :
a) the 3 crew never realized they were in a stall.
b) we will never know what they really saw on the displays.
c) the audio and visual warnings were multiple and confusing.

How would some of you have reacted in similar circumstances ? Easy at home in front of a PC.
There are lots of lessons to be learned from AF447, one of them is interface between automated systems and humans. That is worth spending a lot of energy.
For the rest .. leave the guys alone I would say.

It doesn't. Notion that Airbus indoctrinates pilots that its aeroplanes can not be stalled is misinformed at the best and libelous at the worst.

The most famous essay of Harry Frankfurt might improve understanding.

Correct. They went into Birgenair mode; few unreliable indications caused them to overreact and stopped believing most of them.

We can never know what the crew believed it was seeing (it is so for any crew on any flight that had the misfortune of being the very last recorded on FDR) but we can assume what was displayed with such a high probability that colloquial phrase "we know" can be used safely.

Getting stall warning if one desperately tries to climb the aeroplane above its performance ceiling is consistent, not confusing.

Who cares about PPRuNers! 30something other crews reacted not completely appropriately yet never got to the edge of envelope! Those who got stall warning either considered it spurious and maintained attitude or pushed and descended, therefore survived. There was TAM crew who pulled till stall warning, then pushed, repeated the cycle a couple times giving their passengers a hell of a rollercoaster ride. BTW, captain of West Carribean 708, MD-80 that was lost after high altitude stall manually trimmed stab to full nose up position in desperate attempt to keep the nose up. So much for the evils of autotrim.

Only on internet discussion sites.

Well, to be more precise we can assume with a great degree of certainty what the MFDs for the left-hand seat were displaying, because the DFDR takes its information from the same feeds. I think it's also safe to assume that there were no obvious discrepancies between the LH and RH displays because there is no reference to any kind of discrepancy on the CVR.

Only in your mind ... Already in 85 the message from Airbus was "Elimination of stall"

At least the system let the pilot do that mistake himself and not do it for him ...

So, would you mind telling me when Airbus stated that you cannot stall in Alt or direct law?

Clandestino : I respect you a lot, as 90% of what you write is educated and constructive .
but when you answer : this belongs to the 10%.

Many of us who have been around a bit , start to believe strongly that HF issues are getting beyond the " James Reason-Sidney Dekker" lines of thought.
Accidents such as AF447 or TK1951 to take 2 recent ones, but also the incidents we see in ATC today,( especially those involving STCA and TCAS) strongly point out to a discrepancy between humans operators and automated systems, also programmed by humans, and how both interact with one another.

Also I am getting tired to see our own kind so keen to blame their own people for their mistakes. The very easy way out: the buck stop with the first one responsible. the ideal Fuse ( le fusible ideal , not sure if that translate well..)
,

Ask Airbus, the statement is from their own publication.
Were they confident or arrogant enough to not leave normal law ... ?

Re, and, Sigh. You just never give up.

Anyone who thought that the Airbus A320/A330/A340 would be "protected" from the stall in all conditions wasn't paying attention and shouldn't have passed the course. From a 1992 CBT (computer based training) lesson...


http://www.smugmug.com/photos/i-KRNS...KRNSqw4-XL.jpg

This is not true. I've been qualified on A340 in 1998 at Airbus' school in Toulouse and they never told us such bull****. It is clear that any pilot A340/320 rated knows perfectly that his aircraft can stall if in ALT or direct law ( even in normal if special adverse conditions are present). We are pro anf everything is clearly written in the FCOM.

OK, next question. Is there any indication that the flight crew on AF447 aware that they were in alternate law? Perhaps they missed that in the confusion & thought they had stall protection.