AF447 wreckage found

[Welsh Wingman]

Mr Optimistic

The PNF in the LHS, when the A/P disconnected, could well have been asleep until sometime between 1H 55 and 2H into the flight. The A/P disconnects at 2H 10 05, the stall alarm sounds at 2H 10 10 and the PNF is "not happy" by 2H 10 27 and starts "nagging" the junior F/O P/F and PIC re: airspeed and altitude.

By 2H 10 49, 2 seconds before the stall alarm triggers again, he is anxious over the failure of the CDB to return to the cockpit, but does not take the controls until 2H 11 38 (maximum height was at 2H 11 10), and then "relinquishes" control as the CDB enters the cockpit 5 seconds later (and the stall alarm ceases a further 2 seconds later due to the AoA design issue). AF447 hits the ocean at 2H 14 26.

All over - 4 minutes 21 seconds from start to finish, with maximum altitude reached 1 minute and 5 seconds after the A/P disconnect.

I can see little in the CVR (admittedly little has been disclosed to date) to suggest that the PF would have saved the aircraft under any system. He had experience, in addition to his training, working against him. My yoke/SS debate with DozyWannabe, or rather our feedback debate, is under what circumstances, or under what amended system (if any), the PNF might have been induced to take control and assume the PF role in the first 30-60 seconds and stabilise the flight through P+P (alternatively, been in a better position to brief the returning CDB - albeit it was a rapidly worsening scenario by that stage, stalled and falling). Irrespective of AF procedures, he had the ultimate incentive. Additionally, in the interests of wider airline safety, another PNF in such a scenario (however widely you define "scenario").

One critical point to consider - better feedback from the aircraft and something more direct than another alarm or FMC screen i.e. seeing clearly what the PF was doing with his RHS SS, plus what was happening to thrust and trim. To what is the aircraft responding? Once the VSI is hurtling downwards, more difficult but enough for the CDB/PNF to diagnose the stall (despite the on/off stall alarm confusing them, with no AoA indicator/BUSS). My own view is that the CDB did not take the LHS because he wanted to step back and get an overview of what had happened (other than the aircraft "had gone mad" - my words, not from the BEA report).

[Welsh Wingman]

Lyman

"Mutiny was alive".....

My instinct - if PNF had decisively taken command, PF would have willingly acquiesced and happily run the UAS drill.

Put yourselves in the shoes of the PF - he was being "nagged" at by a PNF fretting over the CDB's ongoing absence. Inspiring, when PF is PIC under AF's "interesting" chain of command procedures at that time?

So, if not an interconnected SS, what was needed re: inducing PNF (in the context of experience/training/the cricket stall alarm being ignored) re: what the PF was commanding through his SS and its effect on altitude, pitch, AoA, thrust and trim.....?

[DozyWannabe]

Originally Posted by Welsh Wingman

The PNF in the LHS, when the A/P disconnected, could well have been asleep until sometime between 1H 55 and 2H into the flight.

He'd just come back from what he called a "doze", why would he need to sleep again? Judging by the CVR excerpts, he spends the first few minutes being briefed by the PF, with several references to REC MAX (which the PF's inputs eventually cause them to exceed, but this is never noted), and makes what looks like preparations to get around of the worst of what the weather radar is presenting by suggesting a minor course change and reducing the display range of the PF's weather radar - thus increasing resolution of the immediate area, followed by preparing for a possible bumpy ride by moving from managed to selected speed, selected at 0.8 Mach, (which I think is what he means by "computed" and "manual").

Fundamentally I'd say he seems pretty plugged in and situationally aware.

[Welsh Wingman]

DozyWannabe

I don't mean PNF is still tired, but he entered the cockpit after his rest break a mere 10 minutes before it all kicked off (i.e. UTC-3 is Brazilian take-off time, the layover destination). The first 30-60 seconds after A/P disconnect was decisive, because thereafter you are graduating from hurdles to the National fences.....

[DozyWannabe]

Sure, but the main problem from that perspective judging by the 3rd Interim Report is that according to the book, in the situation whereby the crew consists of a Captain, F/O and relief pilot (i.e. not another Captain) the Captain is supposed to make it explicitly clear which pilot will have which responsibility and also, importantly, determine the parameters by which one is allowed to take control from the other.

The informal nature of the handover after the PNF takes his seat, compounded by the Captain's question to the PF if he had the requisite qualification to be relief pilot (implying this had not been determined earlier, and also according to the BEA implying that the PF is now relief pilot), all indicated a rather cavalier approach to the procedure, so the PNF is quite rightly getting more and more agitated over the handling of the aircraft by the PF after A/P disconnect. Possibly he fears getting written up if he oversteps his bounds - at this point the aircraft is climbing and bucking slightly from turbulence but is not in any immediate danger.

I suspect he initially summoned the Captain not only because of his concerns over handling following A/P disconnect, but also to clarify handover procedure. The report states that under normal circumstances the PNF would have taken on the relief pilot role, which implies that the current state of the flight deck hierarchy is unusual. 2 seconds after "where is he? er", the stall warning sounds continuously for approx 56 seconds, for 54 of which the Captain is not present and the PNF has to process the change in situation from getting written up if he does something he's not supposed to to potentially being in mortal danger if he doesn't do something.

As I said earlier, human factors experts are going to be pulling this one apart for decades. In many ways it's even more complicated than Tenerife, but the ultimate similarity looks to me like getting over the "If I do something I could hurt my career" thought to transition to "If I *don't* do something I could lose my life". The PNF appears to make this realisation 7 seconds before the Captain shows up, but then defers to the Captain on his arrival while the PF continues to make the situation worse. He's satisfied his inital worry because the Captain's here to get things sorted, but in the meantime the situation has become considerably more perilous.

I find myself agreeing with Lyman (whodathunkit?) - the arrival of the Captain ended up coming at a bad time.

Another similarity with Tenerife is that the PNF in this case, like the F/O in the Tenerife case, does not feel he has the authority to physically intervene, but instead tries to resolve the situation verbally while his mind is working through the problem.

AF447 : "You're going up, so go down", "Above all try to touch the lateral controls as little as possible eh"

KLM4805 : "Wait, we don't have our ATC clearance [to PF]", "We are now (at) take-off [to ATC and PA1736]"

[Welsh Wingman]

DozyWannabe

A cavalier approach to an interesting system. Link to Takata:

http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/45687...ml#post6619789

[Lyman]

There is nothing whatever crisp, decisive, or authoritative about the flight deck conditions post handoff. Well, "I have the controls" is decisive."

If one comments on a problem, and takes no action, it is considered a suggestion. The call to Captain came when chain of command was the worst problem they were facing (to them). So call the Commander, and let him sort this out? FFF. First, F n FLY....... Shall we have a meeting? then a vote?

How does this happen, and in its evidence here, how pervasive might it be? The a/c is a dream to fly, solves all problems, so why not have a spat? Clearly, there is no pressing anxiety, no focus. If one thinks that this a condemnation of the flight crew, look past one's conclusions, and ask: How is the Culture derived, enforced, and maintained?

"So, (SO?) we've lost speeds.....Alternate Law." These crew are describing in pathetic tones what is wrong with the culture at Air France, not what is wrong in this cockpit. The a/c did what it was supposed to, and so did crew.......

So if we are to continue to foster and tolerate Flight OPS in this manner, a suggestion, go DIRECT, because if that doesn't get one's immediate attention, don't bother calling the Captain.

Everyone gets a participation ribbon, and applause for doing what is trained....

Whatever happened to leadership? The Plane can't lead, and followers need a leader. Initiative comes from confidence, and confidence comes from experience. "What am I doing now?"

[ChrisVJ]

Apologise for my ignorance however something occurs to me.

To draw a simplistic parallel many pilots today do not practice spins during their PPL because the FAA etc discovered that more planes were being lost in practicing than in inadvertant spins during regular flight and though we all practice developed stalls most of our time is spent diagnosing initial stall and preventing it's development.

When Airbus pilots practice stalls in the Simulator do they actually practice fully developed stalls? ie, all the way to less than 60 knots and where the stall warning turns off or just to the point of stall warning and then lower the nose and recover. If that were the case it is relatively easy to imagine that when the PF lowered the nose and the alarm sounded his reaction would be to raise it again, hear the alarm suspended and conclude that lowering the nose was dangerous.

[exeng]

ChrisVJ

all the way to less than 60 knots and where the stall warning turns off or just to the point of stall warning and then lower the nose and recover

On the 320 course with a UK carrier - just to stall warning and recover - nowhere near the invalid airspeed area.

[amos2]

Do any of you lot of wannabes really think that any professional airline pilot is the least bit interested in all of the nonsense that you are writing?

indeed, can I ask?, who are you writing to?, yourselves, each other?, or perhaps some sky God you worship?

Give us a break, go and watch TV or latch onto some other cause!

[BOAC]

Originally Posted by exeng

On the 320 course with a UK carrier

(Noted ). Let's face it, that SHOULD be enough given a basic competence in the licensing and training of airline crews.

[grizzled]

BOAC...

"SHOULD be enough" would be correct if training and licensing were the same (or even similar) to the days when folks like you were trained. Sadly, it just ain't so today.

DOZY...

Your post #3318 sums up well (IMO) one of the major contributing factors to this convoluted, intriguing and tragic chain of events which we call an accident. I'm certain you are right about the human factors discussions going on for the next few decades -- as will the discussions of other aspects of this occurrence, hopefully.

LYBEARMANFOIL...

I have removed my comment, as Lyman has modified his post

AMOS2...

There are plenty of well thought out posts, even well posed questions from SLF. Just try to weed as you read and mentally toss out the chaff, rather than let it ruin the harvest. (Though it does make one wish sometimes that there was a better format than pprune. When it comes to aviation there isn't.)

There are many of us who don't post nearly as much as we used to (especially re AF447) but we do read the threads. And we PM a lot. (Maybe I'm just lucky that I find a few ounces of whisky more therapeutic than posting.)

[RAT 5]

Firstly, given there are >3300 replies here, I have not read them all. I'm picking up on the confusion caused by reducing attitude and a stall warning sounding, and then hauling nthe nose back into a stall with no warning going off. There have been various accidents where pitot or static vents were blocked, ADC's malfunctioning or ADI's freezing. In many of them there was height and thus time to spare. There was significnat confusion and matters made worse because the crew did what they normally did in decyphering the instrument information. From TV reconstructions of the incidents at no time did anyone stop and say "this can not be correct. My aviation training and gut feeling tells me this is wrong. The laws of physics and aviation have not suddenly changed. So lets go back to basics and find out what is really going on." e.g. inputting nose down elevator in +ve G flight does not cause the altimeter to show a climb or speed to reduce: reducing attitude does not cause an a/c to stall. Something in all the electronic wizardry is scrambled; the computers speak with forked tongue. Let's pause and use our knowledge to find a safe place and then analyse what we know and what we see. There is time and there are other sources of information for us to consider to resolve the apparent confusion and false information.
How we introduce this philosophy into training is a big question, but if it had been there in many of the fatal accidents perhaps they would have been survivable. In all the cases I've seen, and am thinking about, the a/c was flying and controlable. It was the pilots, presented with incorrect performance parameters, who crashed the a/c. I know this sounds easy sitting in the arm chair. Would we have acted so calm in the reality? I don't know, but I believe it can only be helpful to introduce some of these scenarios in recurrent training. Every 3 years in recurrent training we are supposed to tick the 'flight instruments' box. I have never been given such a scenario, only a very simple unreliable airspeed problem, which was not flown to a landing, or another simple problem. When I wrote recurrent training programs I searched the real crash causes and included them in the syllabus. The crews often knew of the crash and were intrigued to learn from them, practically, not just reading the reports. There was real purpose in the training, not just box ticking. Sadly, it is no longer in my remit. Do others have any useful training experiences which could help with this dilema?

[PJ2]

Originally Posted by TJHarwood @ Post # 3183

The problem is far far wider than Toulouse......

Yes, indeed the problem of the handling of automation in the industry is far broader "than Toulouse" and the evidence for this is widely available and has been since the mid-1980's. The problem stems from an infatuation with the huge potential cost-savings, with added flight-safety benefits. On the whole the history of automation's introduction and acceptance by the industry, particularly those who use it on a daily basis, has been successful and the accident record supports this view as does the wide acceptance of those who initially transitioned through the Lockheed L1011, B767/757 to the B777 & A300/A310 to the A320/A340 and A330. The numbers tell us that the initiative is successful by both cost and safety standards.

It may initially seem obvious but an "automation accident" could be understood as a "cognitive" accident as much as it may be understood as a technical accident. This is in contrast with past causes which usually involved weather, navigation error, mid-air collision or CFIT. In the end it's all "cognitive" but the character of engagement with automation where "something is done for oneself by a system in which many though not all decisions governing outcomes are resident within the system and do not emerge from oneself" is materially different than the "bread-and-butter cable-and-pulley pilot engagement with/without hydraulic support" traditional approach to solving the problems of controlled flight.

The material difference is, automation intends to solve "the problems of flight", (this description requires a lot of unpacking), which were ordinarily understood intuitively from long experience and a few rushes of adrenaline. Sometimes a pilot is solving the problems of automation which in turn are solving the problems of flight but for the most part, because of the long history of very robust research and development in the design and implementation of "automation" per se, the two complement one another -again, the record clearly demonstrates this - automation has come to terms with both cost priorities and safety principles.

But there are exceptions, some unforeseen, a few bad design decisions and as always, the human factor...that category of events which occur because people are people and sometimes subvert or otherwise use in the most imaginative but unanticipated ways, systems which have the best and most honourable design foundations and technical intentions.

I wouldn't think the term "ergonomics" would be helpful in delineating the problem for the purposes of study, but how the question(s) is/are enframed always determines the nature and character of the answer so it is important to understand how to ask the question. (That's just another way of saying, "eastern rats perform better for eastern psychologists", or, "to a two-year old with a hammer, everything is a nail").

Against this unfolding automation trend from the early 80's on, AW&ST ran a series of very well conceived and written articles on automation in 1995. (I've made PDFs of those articles but don't have a place to post them yet.) Essentially, the articles are saying the same thing as we are today, which begs the question concerning "more automation?"

I am hearing from good friends in the industry that an automatic response to TCAS events is being considered. The reason is, there are numerous incorrect responses by flight crews to TCAS RA events. Designers and the industry are reaching for more automation.

Here's a clear example: In running a FOQA Program, we designed 28 specific events which enumerated and otherwise captured, very specifically and in detail, all TCAS events and crew responses. We were motivated to do this because both Lufthansa and Air France had done this years earlier, (1994, IIRC), and they found what we were finding in our budding Program.

The solution is comprehension and training, not more automation, but that argument seems to have been superseded by the decision not to use these 28 events to determine what and why TCAS responses weren't always correct, in favour of an automated response. I have not studied the Uberlingen accident sufficiently to know whether an automated response would have avoided the collision or not, but that is not the issue: the issue is a decision to reduce margins of error because it is now possible to do that while demonstrating that automation can produce "acceptable levels of safety".

And so this is another aspect of automation which is quite different than the one "we old guys who flew steam", faced. We now have young people, (20's, 30's) who have never known anything but glass, FMCs and varying levels of automation. For many, their first jobs were as likely to be on automated aircraft as on a Beaver flying hunters, fishers, oil-men and arctic workers into strips which demand a very high situational awareness, physical and mental sharpness and for which automation remains an infant.

The question of automation has always been enframed in traditional ways when the real problem is how the pilot engages, or is engaged by, computer solutions to the ancient, unchanging problems of aviation. For example, the article written by someone who claimed to be an experienced A330 captain and who said that flying the A330 was just the same as playing a video game may have described one tiny aspect of the character of this interaction but missed entirely, the fact that if one's competence with this or that video game is questionable it is wholly inconsequential while flying an aircraft, however done, is not. Others have said this, but the act of digital flight is a twice-removed cognitive step from handling the airplane.

The best example is one we all know about...the analogue wrist watch that always tells us "how much", and the digital equivalent which requires a higher level of cognitive engagement to first calculate, then construct a model of, then interpret one's own situation on top of such model, before one can determine, "how much". What is the meaning of "clockwise", or "half-past three" when one is interpreting a rolling series of numbers?

These are not insurmountable but as others have said very well here, such changes to digital flight do require different training methods, practise and cognitive responses.

People respond best to images, most strongly when such images "tell a story", and not to single digits from which "how much" must be intellectualized and then re-expressed as an image which then conveys "the story" which is usually a specific metric as compared against the whole, all in one image. The airspeed and altitude tapes do this to a certain extent already, but the TCAS response described earlier, seems to have more than its share of incorrect responses primarily because of the way the RA information is presented on the PFD.

TJ Harwood, this is all off the top of my head and is intended as thoughts against which others may push and change, dismiss or add to. As a pilot of these aircraft for 15 years, my approach was to "look through" all the automation to see what the airplane was doing and that meant airspeed, altitude, rate of climb/descent, heading/track and engine thrust, and if all of these were what were needed for the job immediately at hand, and they were trending (for the next ten miles or so) in the right direction (and "no changes" is a trend), then I let the automation do its work.

I think that is what was meant when someone else here said that automation was an assistant to the pilot; it is most certainly not a third or fourth pilot but as that dangerous mentality gets even more established, especially with managements and pilots who have flown nothing but automated aircraft, the way back becomes very difficult because fear builds upon fear and soon one is afraid to fly. Seen it, and I doubt very much whether this was ever the original intent of those who contemplated using microprocessors to solve the problems of flight.

I have already referenced some whom I believe have some important things to say. The interesting thing is, we are not hearing from many pilots, and I think that is because they're getting on with it and flying their airplanes, treating it just as is described above...For most pilots, automation is transparent to the task at hand, and instead we have the age-old aviation problems remain, which the major innovations of SOPs, CRM, Threat-and-error management and thorough training, as well as EGPWS, TCAS, ADS-B/CPDLC, SatNav are all intended to resolve and for the most part, do.

I look forward to reading others' views.

[Lyman]

Automation, per se. On its own. An excellent solution(s). After twenty years, the proofs are easy. It int the problem. Seeing it as a solution is the proper perspective (imho). So why the LOC, the less than intuitive reaction to what have thankfully become rare events?

Dependence, and an as yet unappreciated chasm between the solution, and its application. The box is a better flyer, but the pilot is a better thinker, (read problem solver)

Ahem...."Level off and troubleshoot".

OK, that is called "management" in my country.

What else is missing? Leadership. Leadership cannot be drilled, it is innate, and when there is need for it, and it isn't readily available, people will occasionally die for its want.

[BarbiesBoyfriend]

PJ2. You've tried to put a complex subject into words. It therefore reads a bit like a lawyers letter.

I agree, but put more simply- the autos should never be used to do stuff that the pilot can't do. Firm.

At the start of the 'automation' era, there was never any question of this. The pilots were well trained and highly able. Plugging the AP in just 'unloaded' the pilots allowing more time and capacity for other tasks or just a wee rest. As they still do of course.

But, nowadays, skilll levels aren't what they used to be. Many pilots who might once have managed well without autos would struggle if suddenly deprived of them. (the autos mask the FACT that their flying skills are dormant). They've become over-reliant on the autos.

Other, newer pilots DEPEND on the autos and are up **** creek as soon as the autos are off. They frankly rely on the autos to get through the day!

Whether you see any problem with the above is very much a matter for you. But that is how it is these days.

If the autoflight system falls over at the wrong moment- and when they do, they sometimes do it big time, the modern auto-dependant pilot has damn little poling experience to fall back on. As AF447 demonstrated.

Unusual attitude? loss of data? bit of turbulence?? Having to hand-fly (as we quaintly call it nowadays!)????

What they going to revert to? What experience are they going to fall back on?? How much AP OFF actual 'stick time' have they got?? 1% or less of what's been logged!

In other words- 'Damn all'- that's what.

Autos: 'great'! Let's have them and use them.

But let's teach people to fly too though, and KEEP them up to speed with their hands, so they're READY. STRAIGHTAWAY! when the damn things take a day off.

It won't be that expensive.

[MountainBear]

In the end it's all "cognitive" but the character of engagement

This is typing disguised as thinking. It's a mind that's more interested in appearing like it's thinking than actually thinking.

When we write "A=B" we don't mean that the letter A shares the same graphical design as the letter B. Math is a symbolic language. When we write that A=B we mean that at some level of abstraction A shares some property (but not a unity) with B. Thus for every A=B there is also the contrapositive that A != B.

If in the end it's all cognitive then A=A a statement which has the same informational content as "everything is everything". Nor is this reality changed if one changes "the character of engagement" so that there is some other symbol between A and A: A+A, A-A, A*A.

Nothing that you wrote is on any use for a person, a pilot, or a judge as a tool for decision making. I don't know which is worse: the nihilism that is so en vogue among the political set or the nominalism so prevalent among the intellectuals.

[PJ2]

BBB;

Yeah, probably reads too "stiffly" but it's an entry into the ongoing discussion and may or may not be helpful. Another candidate for deletion, probably.

Mountain Bear;

A vigorous response and frankly appreciated. I would expect no less from the Analytical Tradition. There are fields in which that kind of dialogue is useful and relevant but not in discussing cockpit behaviours.

[deSitter]

That's just BS - A=B means A and B stand for one and the same thing. Period.

[DozyWannabe]

Originally Posted by PJ2

Yeah, probably reads too "stiffly" but it's an entry into the ongoing discussion and may or may not be helpful. Another candidate for deletion, probably.

Not at all. For someone like myself it provides a balanced view of the issues from the perspective of a pilot, which is something I can do my level best to empathise with and "put myself in the shoes of" based on theory and my few AEF/AEG hours (along with a career path which also primarily uses me as a cog in the mechanism, despite my training and experience giving me more latitude if I need it), but can never wholly replicate, which is why any post I make on here automatically comes with caveats.

It's good stuff as far as I'm concerned - more please!

Originally Posted by deSitter

That's just BS - A=B means A and B stand for one and the same thing. Period.

Not quite, as always context is everything. As far as informatics (i.e computer) algebra goes, it depends on the definition of A and B. If they are both constants, then what you say is true (or to elaborate, A and B share the same value, even if they do not refer to the same "object"), that said, if two constants are defined as having the same value, then one of those constants is effectively redundant. If either are variables, then the value of either can change at a later stage, rendering the expression "A=B" transient.

(Hark at me, talking discrete maths at 2am on a Sunday morning - how rock'n'roll am I? )

Originally Posted by BOAC

(Noted ). Let's face it, that SHOULD be enough given a basic competence in the licensing and training of airline crews.

Just noticed this - and you're right, technically it *should* be enough, and with the new stall recovery procedures one would hope this was a plugged "hole-in-the-cheese"*. However, non-practiced responses and training to correctly identify an *actual* stall still worry me. I've said this before (Hell, at this point there's very little I *haven't* said before, so thanks for putting up with me), but how much of an airline's training budget would be eaten up by once a year taking a single-engined trainer up and practicing an *actual* stall recovery or ten? As a touch-typist and guitarist I'm well aware of how much I rely on muscle memory - surely it must be similar with pilots?

* - I'm aware that the emerging new techniques in determining behaviour patterns, including our own PBL's "why-because" work, give a far more detailed and complete picture of accident sequences, however I still think the "holes-in-the-cheese" method is a great way of rendering this stuff comprehensible to the layman, as well as requiring a few paragraphs to summarise, as opposed to a dissertation!