Airbus crash/training flight

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

Oh dear.

Hope Rainboe's not about.

If you are sir, take blood thinning agents at your earliest convenience


Edit; please previous poster, stop.

You aren't helping anything or anyone.

Least of all the work colleagues or relatives of those concerned

[Brian Abraham]

Of course we can't jump to conclusions, the answers will come in the fullness of time, but abrupt pitch ups are not unknown.

24 SEP 1994 - Tarom Flight 381 approach to Paris-Orly Runway 26 and the captain was at the controls. He decided to perform an automatic approach and landing. The flight crew started to put the aircraft into the approach configuration, with slats and flaps at 15/0 at 10.42:05, then at 15/15 at 10.42:53. The landing gear was extended at 10.42:57. Approaching the OYE beacon at indicated speed 250 kt and heading 325, before lining up with the runway, the Captain noted that the aircraft was not capturing the ILS glide slope automatically. He disconnected the AP and continued the approach on manual control, keeping the Autothrottle in operation. As the aircraft descended through 1,700 feet, at 10.43:22, with a speed of about 195 knots, the Captain asked for flap extension to 20 . The VFE, the speed limit authorized for this new configuration, is 195 knots. When the flap control was set to 20 , the thrust levers advanced and engine thrust increased. The flight crew countered the nose-up effect resulting from the increase in thrust by using the pitch controls, with the auto-throttle (ATHR) remaining in automatic mode. The throttle levers were then quickly brought back to the idle position. At the same time, the trimmable horizontal stabilizer started to move in a nose-up direction. The nose up effect that resulted was countered by the flight crew through gradual nose-down action on the elevators. When the trimmable horizontal stabilizer reached its maximum nose-up value and the elevators also reached their maximum nose down value, the throttle levers, according to the FDR readout, moved rapidly to their stops. In a few seconds, the flight path started to rise and the pitch attitude went to 60 . Witnesses saw the aircraft climb. It banked sharply to the left and the right and stalled before adopting a strongly negative pitch attitude (-33 degrees) towards the ground. The maximum altitude reached was 4,100 feet, while a minimum indicated speed of 35 knots was recorded. The stall and ground proximity warnings sounded during the descent. The flight crew managed to regain control of the aircraft, with the lowest point being around a height of 800 feet, that is 240 meters from the ground. The flight crew then performed a visual circuit, followed from the tower by the controller. The second approach was made with a configuration with slats and flaps at 20/20. Landing took place at 10.52:25.

And many more.

FAA human factors report "The Interfaces Between Flightcrews and Modern Flight Deck Systems" http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Aero...0/interfac.pdf

[White Knight]

Loose Rivet - no 330 has 'famously' gone into the trees... A 320 once did, but that's done and dusted.

[ExSp33db1rd]

I can tell you it was only flying on one engine, I'm sure of that, I would have heard the sound of the second. And with only one engine there was nothing to be done

Clearly each engine makes a different sound, don't they ? and a lightly loaded 2 - eng aeroplane clearly can't fly on one engine.

Enquiry complete.

[davidrnz]

2) they flew at around 1400 feet or so (at 4 Nm from threshold)

... and where did we get that choice piece of misinformation??

They were on or about the 11DME arc and were apparently cleared to 4000ft.

4NM from the threshold is not over water.

I'll go with Tyres here .. leave it.

[Loose rivets]

no 330 has 'famously' gone into the trees... A 320 once did,

Sorry, my mistake, will correct.


Done, yes. Dusted? Situations like that one always leave that nagging doubt. Well, to me anyway.

[Mercenary Pilot]

Porter1 go back to the flight sim forum from which you came and stay there, you're talking absolute bollocks about something you clearly know nothing about.

[Mshamba]

So you prefer the "all-electric" and largely plastic 787?
The days of cable and pulley flight controls are way behind us.
Even the antique 777 is fly-by-wire. Maybe you should explain, not delete.

I think its less being scared about fly by wire, more concerned about the microchips in between telling the aircraft what the intensions of the pilot might have been. 1:1 transmitting pilot signals "by wire" to the aircraft works fine. Understood the comments like that.

[Airbus Unplugged]

Ok. I'll cross you off that invite for a ride inthe B2 and the one for the F117.

[Finn47]

"4 NM from the threshold" it definitely was not as the distance to the sea is at least 7 NM. Would have been easy to check.
If they were indeed descending through FL 120 and cleared for 4000 feet for an ILS approach, but were observed to be at roughly 1000 ft some 10 NM out, this would suggest to me their problems had already started a bit earlier and they could not control the descent for some reason. Hope for answers soon.

[fun123]

Fly By Wire

ChrisVJ #128

There are cars made in Japan with so called fly by wire steering, that is an electronic link between the steering wheel and the steering rack. The one that come to mind is the new Honda Legend, but no country outside of Japan will certify it for use on their roads so the export models get conventional systems. Makes you wonder why then that aircraft manufacturers can get acceptance from their fly by wire products?

[esa-aardvark]

The thing about aircraft is that they have line of sight to a lot of orbital hardware.

Back in my working day there was a project 'aerosat',
which could have been developed to enable data
forwarding. Before it's time and canceled around 1982 due to lack of interest by the aviation authorities.

[L337]

Makes you wonder why then that aircraft manufacturers can get acceptance from their fly by wire products?

How much knowledge do you have of aircraft fly by wire? Any at all? Because the above statement demonstrates to me that you have absolutely no knowledge of aviation, and in particular FBW.

Have you ever operated a FBW aeroplane? Do you understand the word quadruplex, triplex, redundancy or Control-Configured Vehicles? Have you any knowledge of the certification processes required? The flight testing regimes and requirements?

To arrive here with your first post and then condemn FBW aircraft by comparing them to a Honda Legend is brave.

[international hog driver]

I just discovered that I knew one of the XL cockpit crew involved in this accident and I must say I am a bit stunned.

Let me assure anyone here, there was no lack of experience on the XL crew involved as one was the DO and the other a TRI on type.

The only facts are that whatever happened happened quickly and was beyond normal (words from an Airbus TRE) make of it what you will.

RIP my friend, I hope its only blue skys in the beyond.

[ChristiaanJ]

Originally Posted by davidrnz

There have been a number of reports that the a/c was flying at about 1000ft. I don't know whether these have all come from one source or from various.
What seems odd to me is that the last clearance they received was direct LANET, cleared LANET ILS 33, descend 4000 feet (source: this thread).
Looking at the approach plate for the LANET ILS 33, they were on or near the 11DME arc. The plate shows establishing on the ILS at or above 2000ft.
Based on those two pieces of information, they should have been nowhere near 1000ft. Were they below the flightpath or did someone just imagine that they saw the a/c at 1000ft?

Initially, various witnesses reported the roughly 1000ft I quoted. More recently, there is a report from the tower controller (presumably based on the approach radar?) that the a/c was at 2000ft when it started a turn and then descended rapidly until impact.

CJ

[ChristiaanJ]

Originally Posted by ChrisVJ

..... after all we hear often enough of physical control systems being jammed, either by mis-installation or foreign objects or by minor structural damage that would not in itself bring an aircraft down.

I forgot to mention....
On Concorde it was belts and braces and an elastic band and a piece of string....
Three hydraulic systems, two separate electrical signalling channels, mechanical backup (rods and cables) and finally, if the mechanical controls were jammed, strain gauges on the controls, that detected the forces being exerted by the pilots and controlled the system that way.
Don't know what's on more recent aircraft.

CJ

[RatherBeFlying]

Flight Recorder Found

Midi Libre - Fait du jour - Une première boîte noire a été repêchée hier

Le second enregistreur, qui contient toutes les données du vol (vitesse, paramètres de navigation, réacteurs...) a été localisé mais, plus difficile d'accès, n'a pas encore été repêché. Il devrait l'être probablement aujourd'hui.

Loose translation: The flight recorder has been found, but access is more difficult. It should probably be recovered today.

[HundredPercentPlease]

Originally Posted by ChristiaanJ

Don't know what's on more recent aircraft.

And nor do 90% of the "aviation enthusiasts" posting on this thread. The 320 is an extraordinarily capable and robust aircraft compared to many other similarly sized types. Triple hydraulics (yep, with a DEF you get plenty of electrics and hydraulics) and a flight control system that has that many redundancies, backups and internal checks that it makes even the most seasoned Airbus pilot get a minor headache.

This short thread is worth a read:

http://www.pprune.org/engineers-tech...em-voting.html

It would be great if this thread could regain it's focus and be a source of useful information for the thousands of Airbus pilots who are wondering how on earth such an accident could happen. As usual, we need to know whatever it was, so that we can do our bit to make sure it doesn' happen to us. Those who want to copy and paste ridiculous newspaper inventions or spout some regurgitation from the Discovery Channel (or even those who have spend a lifetime in a 737 who want to vent their unfounded opinions on a more modern aircraft that they have never flown) could they please go elsewhere and leave this thread as a place for sensible and informed discussion?

[beamender99]

Flyingphil

I can not find the Report right now

A 2001 reference

Cross-wired Controls Almost Bring Down Lufthansa Airliner | Air Safety Week | Find Articles at BNET

[DozyWannabe]

I can understand why some become pitbulls, this is after all the professional pilots forum and not for amateurs to expound their crank theories on matters they don't understand.

In all fairness, it's not entirely unknown for some of the professionals on here to expound their own pet prejudices against technologies, borne possibly out of fear they don't fully understand said technologies. "Computer says no" is a funny one-liner on TV because it reflects real-life experience with unyielding technology at home or in the office, but it bears absolutely no relation to the functioning of a modern FBW aircraft control system.

I'm not going to say anything about this accident until we have some more concrete information about what did or did not happen, but it does sadden me to see the finger pointed at technology before any of the wreckage has been brought ashore.