RetiredF4

Nobody is disputing that, we are all in agreement here concerning that fact. But to built this agreement on the wrong statements is not helpful.

As i mentioned before, i see no sense in exchanging arguments of our own by disregarding the meanwhile published final report.

Agreed, there are 220 pages + appendixes plus pictures and graphs, we all should read it and use it. Either we have an oppinion along the report or against the report, but just to sideline it leads us on the wrong path.

@roulishollandais

Thanks, you can be sure that i download the files for my personal library.

Turbine D

Hi Lyman,

Being that you asked,

TECHNICAL DATA
RANGE: pitch +/- 90 degrees
roll +/- 180 degrees
ACCURACY: +/- 0.5 degrees
• ATTITUDE according
to TSO C4c:
• ALTITUDE: according to TSO C10b (AS 8009A)

It is called a standby horizon (attitude/altitude) display that is located to the right of the Captain's FD, but to the left of the engine operating display. Below it is two other instruments, one being a clock. Probably, this is how the PNF determined the PF was going up instead of down, level the wings, etc., and later on, the altitude callouts he made as they descended rapidly It may be capable of displaying speed, but not in AF447's UAS situation.

DozyWannabe

Sure - the point I was making was that we had interesting information *in addition* to the points made by the BEA - in that we had a transient stall warning similar to the DFDR spike without simulated blocked pitot tubes. In mentioning this I was not disregarding the report, simply suggesting that there may be another factor involved.

Turbine D

You feel insulted because you misread the word I used - Theorist. A conspiracist conspires, a theorist theorizes. I think you are a theorist. I think the salient points regarding pilots' actions have been released by the BEA in their final report. But if you want to know how thing were in Rio, what they are going to do upon reaching Paris, etc., well, .....
Theories, most theories tend not to hold water in the end because they have no facts supporting them.
It shouldn't be outrageous at all. The crew actually were unaware of the situation for the entire duration, not just precious seconds. And when the saw "crazy speeds", that didn't trigger the UAS memory list. The ECAM told them of the reversion to alternate law, but somehow the discipline and shared responsibility between PF & PNF wasn't there that night.
SEF is a pretty well known phenomenon when you get into clouds surrounding CBs, what is there to analyze? The heat in the cockpit is warm air suddenly drawn in from the outside, momentarily overpowering the environmental control system. With the warm air came the smell of ozone. It is a pretty common and unique smell. Today, you can actually purchase Ozone perfume by Sergio Tacchini to get a whiff of how ozone smells.
Could be one of two things - Stall Warning or Ice Crystals hitting the windshield.
I think it would be better said this way, "After nine threads, PPRuNe was relying on the BEA's Final Report to confirm their analysis."

bubbers44

It looks like the future is either smarter fail safe computers or more competent pilots. The CEOs will run it through their computer and decide which most helps the bottom line. At least that is how it has developed in the last decade. Good luck.

mm43

Thanks RetiredF4 for highlighting this anomaly, and it once more brings to the fore the hazards of "common mode" failures, especially those that then rely on faulty air-data to provide a warning function.

One can only hope that Airbus Industrie will look at using IR data as the point of reference when double or triple ADR disagreements are identified. In this case when ADR Mach values disagreed and the equivalent IR sourced value(s) was higher, then it should be used. This of course leads to the adoption of Vsyn or similar as dealt with earlier in this and other threads.

jcjeant

Hi,

Turbine D
The two go together

A conspirator can not be alone
For have a conspiracy it must be some people sharing the same view (or have a same theory about an event) and they are working together (in a way public or secret) to spreading out this theory to reach their goal

Lyman

TD

By artifact, I meant an actual snap of an instrument reading from the flight. Dozy says these are recorded, I asked to see one.

slats11

After reading thousands of posts about this, I guess my conclusions are:
1. Most (bit not all) people are reasonably confident in the independence and thoroughnes of the investigative process, and the conclusions drawn. Many were surprised they managed to recover the recorders, and then the data from the recorders. Perhaps as a result of previous criticism, BEA have made greater efforts to be transparent this time around, and recorded crucial steps (such as the sealing of the recorders). They recovered the two bodies to establish with 100% confidence who was seated at each position.

2. Apart from the pitot icing (a known problem), the aircraft most likely operated as designed. The UAS by itself should not have been sufficient to lead to this tragedy, and numerous previous incidents ended uneventfully.

3. There may be some aircraft design features which need to be reviewed. The stall warning cut out at low speed does seem unnecessarily confusing and may have been unfortunate in this case. There may well be others, such as the sidesticks being out of view of the other pilot.

4. I have read a lot of discussion about various control laws, and am frankly surprised at how much disagreement there is. Have things become too complex? Can pilots be expected to work through this in real time if these issues can be debated for many months here?

5. There should also be some thought given to the human - machine interface when things go wrong. For many reasons, the trend towards increased automation will continue, and pilots of the future will have less real "flying" experience. It is inescapable that these developments create a challenge when the automation fails. This challenge is predicable, and must be addressed. In this case, the pilots were overwhelmed by warnings and messages and conflicting data, and this contributed to the poor situational awareness and loss of control. This is also predictable. In an emergency, information overload will quickly lead to a feeling of helplessness and panic, and also confirmation bias as you search for something (anything) that fits with your (potentially erroneous) understanding of the situation.

6. There are obviously CRM considerations. After the upset obviously. But also prior to the upset. Was a 40 second handover sufficient before the Captain left the deck? At night, crossing ITCZ? Is it reasonable that the Captain suggested that a pilot had a sleep after he (Captain) went for his rest?

7. Video recording would greatly add to the CVR in the event of an incident. I don't believe this should be released to the public - some things do belong behind closed doors. But a visual record would surely strengthen the investigators understanding of exactly what happened, would lead to firmer conclusions, and would enhance lessons learned. In addition, the knowledge that there was a visual record available would help improve confidence in the investigation - in this case, we would know that the displays were functioning. Solid state data storage is cheap, compact and secure. Given that I am recorded when I scan goods through the supermarket checkout or pull out $50 from at ATM or fill my car at the pump, then maybe this is a development whose time has come.

T56

As far as video recording goes, it need not be done in real time. One picture every second would be adequate to determine what was going on at the time. This would allow for a long duration recording without an undue demand on memory space.

The same goes for displays. Instead of trying to shoot the cockpit displays with a camera, why not capture the actual displays and record them? Again, once per second would be adequate to determine what was going on, and yet not require an inexorbitant amount of memory to accomplish.

All of these captures (cockpit cam plus each display - 6, 8, what?) could be recorded on a separate memory module in the FDR, or in a separate Video Data Recorder similar to the FDR. As has been pointed out, the technology certainly now exists. And one capture per second for each camera/display would be sufficient.

Thoughts?

Lyman

Hiya slats...

You write: ....."1. Most (but not all) people are reasonably confident in the independence and thoroughnes of the investigative process".....

That is not wrong, however let me expand on the hole it leaves for interpretation.

The memorandum BEA released....

Out of sequence, out of scope, and not required by the mission BEA is charged with. The impression left with the public was one of suspicion, and rightly so, it appeared just prior to a massive opportunity for Airbus to pitch its products.

If I was leading the investigative team, I would have been livid to have been approached by any one from Airbus. Do you think this anomaly was spontaneous?

Wanna buy a watch?

DozyWannabe

The only person who brought it up at the time was you.

Well, you weren't leading the investigation - and in real terms it made sense. I suspect that if the BEA had been asked and they weren't certain they wouldn't have allowed the statement to be released. It's unusual, but logical - and IMO it's a big stretch to call it suspicious.

Lyman

Dozy...." I SUSPECT that if the BEA had been asked and they weren't certain they wouldn't have allowed the statement to be released. It's unusual, but logical..."

Lyman

Dozy..."and IMO it's a big stretch to call it SUSPICIOUS.

You may suspect, but I may not?

Lonewolf_50

slats, it is my opinion that your point 7 would be utterly abused by airline management for the 99.99 % of flights that don't end up in extremis.

Bank on it.

RR_NDB

Hi,

Why Airbus SAS design delegates to the crew UAS diagnosis?

Why Airbus SAS design allow "garbage" to be processed?

Why Airbus SAS design presents to the crew, during crisis, conflicting information?

All this is for:

1)Fault tolerance and graceful degradation?
2)Critical operation and ACCELERATED degradation?



Why not to inform the crew IMEDIATELY and PRECISELY UAS BEFORE triggering a complex situation like the cascade of events we had in F-GZCP?

On UAS early warning: Technically speaking this is VERY EASY.

UAS is considered an "insider information" ?

PJ2

slats11;
NOTE: italics are edited/added comments

While reasonable and understandable, this is a very naive view. I, and most crews, don't believe any such recordings should be released to the public either, but they will, in one way or another. Would that it were otherwise.

First, there are diverse interests in "knowing". Legal approaches are legitimate but cannot use the same data sources, (meaning historical crew and aircraft FOQA/QARs data - SSFDRs and CVRs obviously are used) that is used in a safety investigation, otherwise the safety processes which prevent accidents are at risk or destroyed.

The notion of "the public interest" is often legally more powerful than any laws intended to protect proprietary information including safety information. "Trust us" is often what one hears from the regulator, for example. Though it was and is illegal to release the actual CVR, in a lawsuit in Quebec, the CVR of an accident in which the pilots were killed was released to open court for all to hear. Release of proprietary safety informaiton can, and will be done by the courts.

Second, we know from their behaviour that the media has a voracious appetite for ratings and will, not might, pursue the availability of such recordings and they will be provided by someone who has access to the data. The Ostelli book on AF447 is proof of this fact. The "News of the World" illegal phone tapping is another. This is what the media does.

So, if video recording is introduced and an accident occurs, you can expect to see the video on youtube or a "reasonable facsmile", (animation) of same because that is the nature of media and the nature of our present society.

There is no question regarding your point that video recording would be of great use in many, though not most investigations; the Egyptair B763 suicide descent is often quoted. But there are other ways to obtain sufficient data. Though there are significant problems in changing/enhancing any such recording technologies, mandating an increase in the number of parameters and the sample rates of recording would greatly assist investigations. The argument is again from AF447 where the entire right-side instrumentation, (PFD/ND) is not recorded, the justification being a "statistical sample" is good enough. Those doing flight data analysis have argued against the merely-statistical approach for these very reasons but regulators also must listen to the airlines which argue against the huge costs of doing more than the legal minimum when designing data frames. (For a good treatment on data frames, refer to CAP731 Approval, Operational Serviceability and Readout of Flight Data Recorder Systems and Cockpit Voice Recorders)

It is straightforward (meaning that the data is available from the aircraft), though very expensive and technically complex to record all text on CRT screen displays, when they appear/disappear and what causes them to appear. Such a level of recording would be monumentally difficult and expensive, (due to multiple STCs), to achieve and analyze but it is possible.

The argument on the other side, the airlines, is the expense and therefore the ROI. The regulators are sensitive to the tremendous costs of requiring airlines to increase recorded information, especially for older types for which wiring, sensors, hardware/software must be installed to facilitate such recording. But such enhanced levels of recording would render moot most reasons for the installation of video recording without increased risk of the data becoming public.

The popularity of animations of crashes, (youtube etc) proves that recorder traces don't sell soap; videos do.

jcjeant

My last post about the BEA .. so all happy (suspicions about BEA)
BEA has a sister branch who is in charge of maritime events ... and although this branch is also subject to suspicion (yet a conspiracy?)
The site:
BEAmer : Bureau Enquêtes Accidents de mer : Accueil
An event made the headlines and continues to surface (no punt intended) from time to time
This the sinking of fishing boat Bugaled Breizh
Here are some links concerning:
Bugaled Breitzh
BEAmer : Bureau Enquêtes Accidents de mer : Rapports d'Enqutes
And search in 2004 for the report about "Naufrage du BUGALED BREIZH"
And
La verité sur le naufrage du Bugaled Breizh
Bugaled Breizh - Wikipédia
Naufrage : Bugaled Breizh : le dossier relancé par un mystérieux témoin - France - TF1 News
Everything is in french .. but it is easy to use an online translator ...
BEA and its maritime branch carry baggages from the past and can not get rid of ...
because every time they respawn when there is an investigation and if this is right or wrong does not matter for the press or the public
Someone released from prison after serving his sentence is still able to re-offend

roulishollandais

Michel A. was 9 months in jail..., Marc D., David D., Cedric B., died in AF447...

CONF iture

The Otelli book shows that the guy :

1. has been provided with modified data.
2. or has modified the data himself.
3. or has reported the real data in which case the BEA has modified them.

My vote is for A

Mass media keep quiet when it really matters.
They display obedience and are the tool of propaganda when needed.
Illusion or diversion ... Good Olympics.