Air France does a 'Memmingen'.
 

The report was posted on Aviation Herald today. Report: Air France A319 at Tunis on Mar 24th 2012, extreme rate of descent on glideslope intercept, GPWS alerts and descent below safe altitude

Having done a search, I cannot find a discussion on Pprune about an event which is just as serious as Ryanair's Memmingen incident; more serious in my opinion because it displays a long period of reckless indifference to the obvious fact that the approach was never going to work.

A few quotes from the article:

"At FL207, 33nm to touch down"

"The aircraft descended through FL100 13.5nm before touchdown"

"Doing 250 KIAS the aircraft intercepted the localizer 8nm before touchdown at 6000 feet, 3400 feet above 3 degrees glideslope"

"Descending through 3550 feet, 1700 feet above glide, about 5nm from touchdown, flaps still at position 0, vertical speed -4400 fpm, speed brakes and landing gear extended"

"8 seconds after the landing clearance the first officer advised they were "a little high""

No kidding!

"a GPWS warning "Sink Rate!" sounds at 836 feet AGL, 220 KIAS, 2500 fpm rate of descent 2.5nm before the runway threshold. The GPWS calls "Pull Up! Pull Up!" and "Too low! Terrain!""

They then performed a GA and landed safely.

As for the 1700 hr co-pilot who was PM:

"He realised they were above profile and made the captain aware of this fact twice, but having been commander on other aircraft types before he did not want to encroach the captain's decisions. Due to the unusual request to do an orbit on final approach his work load got so high, that he did not think of calling for a go-around".

My bold. Is this a problem in Air France: Co-pilots too scared or incompetent to speak up?

And as for the PF:

"The captain said in his interviews, that he realised at FL100 the approach was compromised. Given the excellent weather he wanted to descend the aircraft onto the profile however".

Oh, that's ok then.

Why were they so late starting their descent? Were they checking their flight scedules on a laptop perhaps?

Incroyable as zey say! The reason for non-Pruning of this until today I guess is that it has only just broken into the non AF world on 14/6? Useless PF and useless PM - and that is in a two-crew cockpit. NB The PM's '1700hrs' were 'on type'.

This merely adds to the convincing belief that AF is a dangerous airline and should be placed on the list.:ugh:

So 20,000' at 33d. 10,000' at 13d. Clean at 5d with -4,400 FPM.

Wow.......:hmm:

Is the Capt still LHS?

Possibly promoted to management by now?:sad:

Sounds very similar to GF072 - too high, too fast, request an orbit, go-around.

Normally...yez.. :ugh:

I'm surprised he didn't try to sideslip it as well. What is going on in Air France?

The thing that really troubles me is WHY would a professional crew who fly regularly, presumably without incident, allow such an OFF THE SCALE event to manifest in the first place BUT to then CONTINUE with it to less than 1000' AGL and only at the last possible moment conceding "defeat". We've all been high/fast at some point but COME ON - this is bordering on criminal negligence.

How can this happen in a major European flag carrier? Training? Lack of NoTech appreciation/application? Arrogance? Really, really worrying.

Obviously like others they need to get onto PPRuNe and ask for advice on descent planning.......................................? - used in its basic meaning of 'paid for work'?

I don't fly the Airbus, but surely Flaps 0 at 5nm when you've been high for so long is a little odd? Can't you get slow and dirty in a 'bus?

20000 ft 30 miles out should trigger a "can't be bothered to try" to start with.
Basic skills and they failed with flying colors!
This seems to be a pattern with AF.

Mikehotel
 

What is the max flap speed in a 320?

230 for flap 1.

-> foxniner

According to the report, they were asked to start the descent early.
They selected -1000 VS.

They had a "cockpit visit" in the last minutes of the cruise, didn't do the approach brief until the start of descent, and the capt'n noticed they were still on VS only at the end of the briefing (which was approx FL200 - 30nm)

does AF have a 25nm / 5000ft / 250 kts kind of gate ?

Comparable with fatal crash of AI Express IX812 in Mangalore on 22nd May 2010. Here pilot continued with the landing and after touching down 5200ft down the RW with 2800ft remaining applied reverse then decided to go around and went downhill. Appx 40nm to touch down FL184. Joining 10DME arc 8500ft instead of 2900ft, when on localiser
4DME 3250ft.High by 1668ft.ROD 1000ft/mt.
3DME 2815ft.High by 1565ft.ROD 1260ft/mt.
2DME 2220ft.High by 1280ft.ROD 2000ft/mt.
1DME 1450ft.High by 825ft.ROD 4000ft/mt.
Very difficult to comprehend why any one would do such an approach? Does human mind sometimes stops thinking and looks for instinct which is just not there because it is not our habitat.

"Cockpit visit" - definitely a threat at that stage of the flight QED

There are times when you have to be assertive and deny any such requests (unless for emergency reasons - ie cabin crew informing etc).

I have seen pilots become so "task saturated" that they are almost not aware what is happening. This is where PNF has to assertively step in and save the day.

Psychologists have established (and subjectively I think they are correct) that when humans become "maxed out" the first "sense" which the brain deletes is that of hearing. ie the ear (physically) hears what is being said but the brain says "hey am too busy to listen to that at the moment!".

So FOs need to be trained to do a pattern interrupt. If after (say) 2 prompts there is no response it may be necessary to actually shake the other pilot on the shoulder (say) to get his/her attention and assert in command tone "Too high - Go Around" or some such thing.

In the end it all comes down to SOPs, training and disciplined operation.

So what happened to 'Stable approach criteria?' Engines spooled, landing config etc etc.

If they had set Config 1 or higher the approach would have been even more of a mess, the engines would have been at approach idle.

They never got to 500' (our threshold for VMC stabilized approach)...