AF447 wreckage found

[Lonewolf_50]

PARIS — Victims' relatives and a pilots' union Wednesday said they had lost faith in a probe into the 2009 crash of an Air France jet that killed 228 people, alleging it sought to clear Airbus of responsibility.

The Goodrich probe or the Thales probe?

I note the semi-histrionic language, but I feel the pilot's union has a defensible point about the stall warning as possible factor influencing cockpit decisions during attempts at remedy/recovery.

[SLFinAZ]

Thank you for the clarification, so the "do you have your commercial license" is a procedural question and not a reflection of of the captains perception of his skills as an aviator. This leads me to a couple of follow up questions:

1) I always thought that routes like this one normally drew from a relatively small cadre of pilots with the seniority to bid on that route successfully, further that the crew origination was in Paris so this would be the return leg. I'd assume the captain would be aware of his crews credentials based on prior experience or would "interview" and review credentials for anyone he'd never flown with before flying with them....especially on a flight that called for him to be away from the flight deck at some point.

2) My second assumption is that in the event of any unusual circumstances the senior officer on the flight deck is in command in the captains absence regardless of who is "designated" as the "PF" (given both are in reality just monitoring systems). Once the AP kicked off and the 1st fault display occurred the senior FO had a clear cut responsibility to take control of the aircraft the moment he felt the need to correct the actions of the PF. Had he simply said "my aircraft" more then likely this would be no different then any other similar incident relating to A330/340 issues.

To me this is a clear cut failure in the command and control culture for the airline in question. I am also amazed that the captain did not immediately take his seat back. Regardless of any other circumstances for the aircraft to hit the water with the captain having never taken control of the aircraft speaks volumes about very serious cultural issues (again my opinion).

When you view this incident in the frightening context of its current representation it drives home the reality that we are on the cusp of some significant precipice. For a major "flag" carrier to have flight crew trained to such a low standard that they were incapable of handling what should have been a "minor emergency" is appalling. I can not fathom a company culture that would allow a more seasoned FO who actually knew what to do sitting by while he literally watched an obviously overwhelmed pilot kill not only himself but the souls for which he had responsibility in the captains absence.

While it might be possible to rationalize this accident within the context of a regional airline like Colgan, a "third world" airline like Libya (Afriqiyah) or a national flag carrier where significant cultural issues impede cockpit CRM (Turkish Airlines) how do you do so with a flagship western carrier?

To me it's a very clear wake up call that the obvious benefits and economies of automation have led us to a point of not only diminished returns but significant risk. When even major western carriers have reached a point where 5,000 hr FO's no longer have the fundamental skill set (and cockpit culture) to handle readily foreseeable contingencies.

[jcjeant]

Hi,

The Goodrich probe or the Thales probe?

Probe in the context is "investigation" !

PARIS — Victims' relatives and a pilots' union Wednesday said they had lost faith in a probe (investigation - my edit) into the 2009 crash of an Air France jet that killed 228 people, alleging it sought to clear Airbus of responsibility.

[CelticRambler]

From Le Figaro's inside source: Unpublished CVR

An article hinting at some of the dirt yet to be thrown, but possibly also explaining the sudden withdrawal of cooperation ...

Il est 0h15 à bord du vol AF 447. Alors que tous les avions présents sur la zone ont choisi ou vont choisir de modifier leur route pour éviter une zone de cumulonimbus, le commandant de bord du vol AF 447 dit à son collègue: «On ne va pas se laisser emmerder par des cunimbs.» Les «cunimbs» sont les cumulonimbus chargés de glace qui peuvent entraîner un givrage des sondes Pitot. L'AF 447 est le seul avion, la nuit du 1er juin, à avoir poursuivi sur une route rectiligne. Il ne modifiera sa trajectoire que de 12 degrés en arrivant à proximité du phénomène météo. Il sera alors trop tard pour l'éviter. Vingt minutes avant le crash, le commandant de bord annonce: «Ça va turbuler quand je vais aller me coucher.» Puis au moment de quitter le cockpit: «Bon allez, je me casse.» Le commandant de bord est donc allé se coucher en connaissance de cause juste avant les turbulences qui ont marqué le début du drame.

For the benefit of non-francophones, the quoted speech translates as "We're not going to let ourselves be messed about by some CNs [i.e. reason for not deviating] ... that'll be [pretty rough] when I go for my rest ... Right, I'm off."

According to the article this section of the recording was excluded from the interim report because "it didn't add to the explanation of what caused the accident". I suspect the criminal investigation will think otherwise. The inside source also reports that Air France is dragging its heels with regard to providing the BEA with full details of the crew's training. You'd almost wonder if someone in the BEA lost a relative in the crash and has decided there's no honour in protecting AirFrance just because it's French ...

[jcjeant]

Hi,

From Le Figaro's inside source: Unpublished CVR

If this is true .. it looks like the beginning of a funeral march for Air France as to the quality of its pilots and for the BEA about it's transparency ....

[grimmrad]

Regarding the question about a license... does that mean you can be pilot in a major carrier WITHOUT the license??

In my profession you cannot even touch a patient under your own responsibility and without supervision without proper certification!

[Neptunus Rex]

So, as I read that, in order to get the THS even to start moving back to a sensible angle, the Perpignan pilots (and later the AF447 ones) would have needed to shove the stick full forward and hold it there for quite a while, until the THS 'accepted the situation' and started moving back from 'full up.'

Not quite. Manual pitch trim should have been available in both cases.

[KBPsen]

Originally Posted by jcjeant

Sorry but:
Or you don't understand .. or you are blind ..

Or I am not seeing the reports as an opportunity to find fault no matter how contrived or twisted.

As you obviously do not know what a FDR looks like or is comprised of, let me educate you.

There is a chassis, a CSMU and a ULB. The CSMU is mounted on the chassis and the ULB on the CSMU. Each has it's own part and serial number.

The entire assembly is called FDR.

BEA shows the recovered part of the FDR, which is the CSMU. They also list the FDR from which it came by maker, model, part and serial number.

It is only in your biased layman's mind that there are any inconsistencies.

[thermalsniffer]

Boo to the BEA

I am sorry, but I do think the BEA has lost a tremendous amount of credibility here in the withholding such information, IF THIS IS TRUE.

IF TRUE, the failure to deviate is very relevant to the accident (one of the Swiss Cheese holes), otherwise why publish the deviation map of the other flights. Many in all the threads have asked a fundamental question of "why did they not deviate?" To me this is as fundamental as "why the zoom climb?" in the understanding of this accident.

IT MAY NOT BE TRUE. I remember some reporting about the Captain rushing into the cockpit and saying "this is a stall." I have yet to see that.

So PF is a bad pilot he pulled up.
Now CAP is bad pilot he did not deviate and flunked a check ride or sorts.
Next watch out PNF.

[Jazz Hands]

I haven't seen anything that suggests any lack of integrity with the BEA investigation. On the other hand, I have seen a lot of desperate attempts to avoid pinning any responsibility on Air France and SNPL. I was given an insight today into just how deep the animosity and frustration runs regarding the stance adopted by Air France and SNPL. The rot started with the BS over the "conspiracy" at Habsheim and doesn't seem to have dissipated.

[jcjeant]

Hi,

Regarding the question about a license... does that mean you can be pilot in a major carrier WITHOUT the license??

In my profession you cannot even touch a patient under your own responsibility and without supervision without proper certification!

Well ... with the question about license from the captain in mind .. seem's that is possible .. at least on AF aircrafts ...
It's also possible to have a false license (as shown in the past and not particular to Air France)

In my profession you cannot even touch a patient under your own responsibility and without supervision without proper certification!

I suppose it's the medical sector
It's not the first time that press reports shown a plumber touching a patient in a hospital .. and even practising for weeks before it was discovered

[DozyWannabe]

Hi all,

Took a day's "sabbatical", getting too involved...

Originally Posted by Graybeard

DWBirgenair was different, because the lower ranked FO knew what was happening

As did the PNF in this case, judging by the CVR.

The FO could have overpowered Capt. by pushing harder on the yoke. Could he have done that with a joystick?

If he'd called "I have control" and pressed the priority button, of course he could have. The issue for the Birgenair F/O, as it was for the AF447 PNF was that he wasn't assured enough of his assessment of the situation to take positive control and hold it.

As for your argument that the 777 backdrive can fail: it's built to the same safety standards as the Cat IIIc autoland, i.e., 10 -(7?) probability of undetected failure.

As are the Airbus systems, so why trust one system and not the other?

Originally Posted by xcitation

are you saying that the nose ups did not cause the stall warning.

I'm saying the stall warnings were triggered by the flightpath, not the input - so to say the situation regarding stall warning needs addressing is true, but to argue that the stall warning significantly and repeatedly stopped the PF from doing the right thing (nose down) because the warnings were triggered *as a result* of his nose-down input is untrue.

Originally Posted by RWA

Fair enough in its way, Dozy, mate.

But looking at it another way, for a bit longer than aeroplanes have been around, bicycles have. It would be perfectly possible, with today's 'electronic aids,' to design a bicycle that didn't need handlebars; so that the rider could turn just by 'body lean,' with his/her hands in their pockets....

But no-one has yet designed a bicycle that works that way. I'd venture to say, because yer av'rage rider would get a bit confused......

But in fact there have been plenty of alternative bicycle designs that riders have adjusted to (I see them every time I'm in town), so I don't see the correlation.

Originally Posted by RWA

So precisely WHY, in your opinion, did Airbus opt for 'no feel/no feedback' etc.? A revolutionary change, after the best part of a century of producing aeroplanes that all 'worked' the same way?

My own view is that it was a matter of 'less weight/lower cost.' I can't think of any other reason?

Maybe you can?

Well yes - for a start there's systems complexity, which is the engineering axiom that for every feature you introduce, what comes with that feature are additional potential points of failure. This was the first FBW airliner - it follows that you'd want to keep the systems as simple as possible. These requirements had been drawn up since 1982 *with input from pilots*, who didn't think that going from yoke to sidestick would be a big deal. Indeed, if it was as big a deal as some make it out to be, why have there been no hull-losses caused by the lack of interconnected sidesticks, and why is there clear evidence that at least one airliner with "classic" controls suffered the same fate?

What bugs me about the whole Airbus FBW deal and how a specific subset of the piloting community perceives it is that it started with the press. It was the press that started asking questions like "How long until we have a pilotless airliner"? It was the press that was used to spread misinformation such as "The A320 thought it was landing and overrode the pilot". Over the years I've looked into it I've seen statements from otherwise sane men and skilled pilots that include rubbishing the A320 versus the B737 by comparing the Citroen 2CV with the Ford F-100. I've read assertions that Airbus make "plastic planes" that will disintegrate at the first sign of trouble despite the fact that the first A320 to crash mushed into a forest and remained intact, an A320 landed on the Hudson and everybody got out, and that the only airliner to survive a missile strike and land safely via engine power despite the loss of all hydraulics was an A300. I've seen accusations that Airbus are the only manufacturer to try to influence the outcome of accident investigations despite the infamous DC-10 "Gentlemen's agreement" and Boeing's efforts to pin UA535 and USAir427 on pilot error in the '90s. All of this has been borne from a prejudice that seems to stem from the idea that Airbus have been trying to sideline pilots - including by introducing the 2-person cockpit (not true - the first 2-crew aircraft were the BAC 1-11, DC-9 and Jurassic 737), by introducing complex computer systems that pilots were unable to understand (again, not true - the first accident caused by overreliance on a sophisticated autopilot was EAL401 - an L-1011, and another famous one was AA965 at Cali - a B757) and by designing and building an aircraft that was a "beancounter" and engineering dream, but froze out pilots in the design process (see before - pilots were involved in the A320's requirements-gathering phase). I've also seen plenty of references to Bernard Ziegler, and some of the less-than-clever (with hindsight) things he said, but very few references to Gordon Corps, who was a pilot's pilot and very much enthusiastic about the A320's potential.

All of these misconceptions could have been avoided by doing a little reading and finding out what the actual state of affairs was, but instead the easy option of bashing Airbus for apparently being anti-pilot, anti-safety and (God forbid) French seems to still have a surprising hold amongst some pilots, and all of it came from the same lazy reporting that is so frequently decried on these forums when the press gets something wrong.

I know some on here probably see me as an apologist for Airbus and for technology, but I can assure you I am completely neutral - I just can't abide prejudice that stems from being misinformed.

Originally Posted by RWA

That’s the contradictory bit. As far as I can see, from the chart on page 111, the THS movements simply weren’t ‘consistent’ with the pilots' inputs at all. Indeed it appears only to have made the one movement – to ‘full up’- during the whole episode.

If you follow the general trend of the inputs over time, you'll see that the THS was just doing as it was designed to do - compensate for the pilot's inputs and hold trim accordingly. The problem is that if you compare the amount of flight surface movement commanded by the FMC to maintain altitude and heading in turbulence with the amount that was commanded from the PF's sidestick following FMC disconnect, you see a glaring difference. The THS did what it did because the PF was inexperienced at high-altitude manual flying and was overcontrolling.

[katie2931]

Hi. This may seem like a rather simple question from a normal girl interested in all thing aviation after lots of flying over the globe... so forgive me but why did the pilots not actually 'feel' they were descending rapidly? would it not be obvious that they were stalled and falling out of the sky? No g forces?? Thankyou

[funfly]

You get the distinct impression that they did feel that they were falling but thought it was nose down.

[ankh]

> would it not be obvious that they were stalled and falling out of the sky? Good question; that's why I asked above if the pilots could distinguish a stall from a "high speed stall" because I was wondering the same kind of thing. In the dark, in storm turbulence, I wondered if there was any way they could tell which kind of stall, assuming they believed the alarms; as I recall the moves required for recovery would be different.

[Karel_x]

When they were falling with constant descent rate, about 10.000 ft/min, they cannot find it by their senses. They could discovere it by the instruments (altimeter, variometer) in combination with their nose up attitude (by artifical horizon). If they had an AoA meter, the could discovere it seeing extreme angle of attack.

[jcjeant]

When they were falling with constant descent rate, about 10.000 ft/min, they cannot find it by their senses. They could discovere it by the instruments (altimeter, variometer) in combination with their nose up attitude (by artifical horizon). If they had an AoA meter, the could discovere it seeing extreme angle of attack.

At least ....
At the speed with which they came down .. they would certainly have some effect at the eardrums due to pressure difference ... (hurt feeling)
Even at reasonable rate of descent you feel this (even if cabin pressurised)

[xcitation]

Originally Posted by katie2931

Hi. This may seem like a rather simple question from a normal girl interested in all thing aviation after lots of flying over the globe... so forgive me but why did the pilots not actually 'feel' they were descending rapidly? would it not be obvious that they were stalled and falling out of the sky? No g forces?? Thankyou

What makes you think they weren't feeling the rapid descent?
Commercial pilots are trained to fly by instruments and not to obey their perceived motion. In zero visibility it is even more dangerous.

[Teddy Robinson]

This comes down to scan, and basic IF skills. IF one is programmed to be protected, and the warnings are not fitting the picture, you either revert to basic skills or try to figure out what "it" is doing all the way down to sea level.

What it looks like to my humble bit of experience anyway.

I was non Airbus trained in the industry, then type rated on it .... perhaps the best way.

[larssnowpharter]

A couple of questions:

1. Given that the BEA Interim Report seems to be pointing a finer at EASA and Air France:

that EASA review the content of check and training programmes and make mandatory, in particular, the setting up of specific and regular exercises dedicated to manual aircraft handling of approach to stall and stall recovery, including at high altitude.

and that AF have introduced additional training cf:

5.1.3 Crew training
Training in a flight simulator
Additional session entitled “Unreliable IAS”:
 Summer 2009 (A320, A330/340)
 Booklet and briefing from the session: key technical points, HF and TEM (Threat and
Error Management) considerations
 Revision of emergency manoeuvres, at take-off and in cruise.
 High altitude flight in alternate law
 Approach to stall, with triggering of the STALL warning
 Landing without airspeed measurement information
 Associated briefings (all cockpit crew):
o Weather radar
o Ice crystals
Note1: This information has been integrated into the type ratings.
Note 2:

Is there anyone out there who can draw a direct comparison between the training the AF crew had and their own experience? In other words, was the AF crew trainíng 'par for the course' compared to other operators or sub par?

2. Which of the 2 co-pilots was PF?