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)...

- as pointed out. of no relevance to this approach. Nor is the 'loss of hearing' mentioned earlier. A proper pilot should not need to wait for either PM to try to tell you you have :mad: up like that nor find you have missed a 500/1000' gate when it is glaringly obvious minutes before you have 'screwed the pooch'. As depone said "because it displays a long period of reckless indifference to the obvious fact that the approach was never going to work."

I do not understand the reluctance of crews to ask ATC assistance in such instances. "Excuse me old chap, but could we turn 90 left or right to lose a spot of height, don't you know? Perhaps even an orbit?" The neck hairs should be getting active in such a scenario. Consider the CALI crash. They were hot and high and should never have attempted what they did; a straight in NPA. That was a non-starter, so was this, so why get sucked up a cup-de-sac, only to go Oops later on. Pissing into the wind is something ill-advised. You should be able to realise it ain't going to work even before you start.

- and as pointed out earlier, that was probably before ToD (or even, in this crew's case, when they reported for duty.......?).

To note that the CVR was erased by the crew ...
This is not the first time regarding the Air France crew and this is nothing about penalty for this kind of behavior

Wow.

But I have to ask WTF is wrong with Air France? I have seen myself this kind of approach in xxx in the Near East, and it looked like it would be great fun, if it had been in an A-10 Warthog instead of a 737. But WTF is Air France doing this for?

Air France have a downwind overrun. Then they have a team who could not understand why 20 degrees of pitch at 35,000 ft makes an aircraft go down instead of up. Then they nearly had a replay of the same incident. And now this?

I hope someone at KLM-Air France is having a rethink of training.

I had this just this spring in xxx (wild westville in the Near East), where I was invited to make an ILS approach from 6,500 ft at 10 miles. I was incredulous and said I was not a dive-bomber, while ATC could not understand why I had refused such a lovely approach.

But I have noted at this airport that the locals take these daft approaches as a challenge, and to refuse would be to lose honour and face, and so they try to get in whatever the request. Scary stuff when you see it happening so often.

Intruder
 

I think you missed a word or two from the report....

zimmerfly - indeed - I missed that too. What a 'shame' the CVR was 'erased'. The 'discussion' at 500' would have been an education, I feel.

Unbelievable, thats all i can say really. 3 experienced crew that can't recognise a stall, A380 wingtip thumping a tail at JFK on a high speed taxi, a 747 that went off the side in Montreal i think and now this.......Do they still have vino with their meals? Pass the bog roll.....

BOAC, agreed, maybe they should have sought help in these pages on the subject of descent planning!

Even the phrase "ENERGY MANAGEMENT" doesn't seem to feature in the plethora of FCOMs, OMs and all the other books we're supposed to consult in our attempts to arrive at the T/D point with just the right amount of energy as specified by the manufacturer, training depts, management and others.

It's not rocket science to realise that a tube full of pink quivering people, luggage, freight, fuel and its own structure weight (sorry, mass!) hurtling along at altitude and speed needs to be carefully controlled and managed to efficiently dissipate this energy until touchdown?

Yet the supposedly EASA supervised company for whom I operate has seen fit to remove the "clean" descent tables from the 'Performance Inflight' section of the QRH, see thread querying this.

Luckily I'm a G O F who has worked out his own figures and compensation factors for winds/weights etc and though my trackmiles to impact figure regularly equals the FMC computed figure to within 1%, @ ToD, said FMC regularly deviates from what I'm happy with later in the descent. By which time I have neither the capacity nor interest to attempt to persuade the FMC to "join me", so level change or V/S is regularly used to solve the problem.

At least every 5000' feet in the descent, and sometimes more often, I am comparing my estimate of trackmiles with the computation of height above T/D, IAS+weight compensation and instantaneous W/V and adjusting these to cope with ATC variations

Not surprisingly advice on descent planning is a regular query in this forum, presumably from newbies and those who are confused by the many and varied solutions offered, including by their training staff.

As rushed approaches stiil feature regularly in Airline Safety comics, the problem will not go away til it is grasped and discussed and thrashed out with some EASY method(s) promulgated by the training organisations.

Maybe we should not concentrate too heavily on the culture within AF and look to our own TRTOs who seem to have let this fundamental principle of airframe management slip through the net at best, or have ignored it at worst, so we end up with everyone doing their own thing.

As long as the FDM program demonstrates the rushed approach is still out there as a significant proportion of all approaches, then this sort of story will repeat, and maybe with more tragic results? :ugh:

I wouldn't be fired but shot for that type of carry on at my outfit. What happened a good old orbit, dogs legs etc.

As a non-pilot, I may be talking out of my khyber*...but surely,in these times of high fuel-costs, they should have throttled-back miles before and then "coasted" down, using all that expensively -bought energy , rather than "dump" it via speedbrakes, Gear-drag etc (presupposing it worked and they didn't need to burn even more on a go-around) still an expensive and inefficient way to get down.

look on the bright side....better than too low and slow! :hmm:

* Khyber Pass... = .Ass

You are indeed talking out of your @ss. ;)

To quote from Avherald:
They couldn't have "coasted" it down because they had already commenced descent.

After the runway change, provided the cabin wasn't going to be caught before touchdown, there is no value in not using extra drag to get the thing down on the ground. Coasting it down = more flying time = more operating costs.

Actually, 'Bloggs' and Steve, they were indeed 'easing' it down (in V/S) and were ALREADY high when the runway change happened.

Let's face it guys and girls, FL 207 33nm from touchdown at 276kts?? This is kindergarten stuff! As someone said, it is either gross arrogance or incompetence - or, of course, both. We (I) can 'forgive' forgetting he was still in V/s while re-briefing, but.......................................

Air France = Garuda of Europe.

Oh...except that Garuda have now lifted their game and are actually a decent airline.

So sad.

(no offence meant to any Garuda employees past or present)

I continue to be amazed by AF's antics ...

Having been around their cadets :rolleyes:; they're certainly a different breed to other student pilots!

What angers me is the continual 'bashing' of other airlines by AF which result in EASA placing them on the black list & AF picking up their routes ... :ugh:

A case of the pot calling the kettle black I feel!!!

To be fair I have seen approaches like this in almost every airline. Some end up in the news, some do not.

What bothers me the most with Air France is the denial. You will soon see a public statement from their marketing department saying that the crew "were heroes that saved a potential dangerous situation by performing a go around in the last minute" :ugh:

Look back at every accident they have had and the arrogance and the denial is stunning. THAT is why they are on my no fly list.

I imagine the flight back to CDG was rather quiet? I am guessing the return sector is why there was no relevant information on the CVR? If the CVR was actually 'erased' they should be sacked for that alone! The rest is extraordinary, but actively hindering a subsequent investigation would be culpable, and inexcusable.

I find it difficult to comprehend how anyone can fail to 'hear' "Whoop Whoop. Pull up!"

The whole system is biased by regulations, airlaw , unions etc.. Prerogatives and power granted to the commander of the flight, assume a captain sound in body and mind and not an insane totalitarian doing a one man show onboard.

It is also a cultural problem, in France the hierarchy and protocoles are very high and of a prime importance, and so is the case in the ex french colonies.

The british system is totally different where safety is paramount and the reporting policy was introduced at the very early stage of aviation. A cabin crew , f/o could report a captain if he something wrong was done , which is not the case in France and less in Air France where captain god would always be right , or any report against him would disappear...

It has to be changed from the management side . It' s not even a training related issue , if your management accepts you being unskilled you are still the best pilot as you speak french and hold a french passport.
Sad to say but Airlines do more politics than aviation

UAE identified this cultural problem and chose to adopt the british system and look at the results Emirates, Qatar, Etihad are succesful airlines .

It's not a matter of being assertive , or well trained or whatever . Any contradiction from the first officer side could have bad consequences and turned against him by the management. And NOBODY will support you in the whole management.

As a first officer in the french system you are by Default wrong.

I am not british but these are true words.

Air France flight deck culture
 

Egalite, fraternite et liberte.................there's your answer !