Please don't shoot the messenger
 

I have been told that Air France are the only airline to have crashed three Airbus aircraft and a Concorde.

Correct?

BA never crashed a Concorde so it must be correct. Three Airbi would be 447, 340 landing overrun at Toronto and Habsheim airshow disaster.

I know of flights 296, 358, and 447, and the Concorde of course, but I don't know if they are the only airline with that many crashes on Airbuses. Don't know if I'd single out Air France.
The Air France Concorde crash was the only one, I know of, where it was totaled. That was a shame. Wish they'd bring that bird back. The problem with accountant types, is they don't understand intangibles. The Concorde brought a lot of intangible benefits to France and Britain. Like a concept car bringing intangibles to a automotive manufacturer by making it "cool". Unfortunatly, you can't put "cool" in a ledger.

Again as a non-pilot, I see some interesting 'compare and contrast' opportunities between AF447, BA38 and 'The Miracle on the Hudson'. In the first case, it _appears_, based on expert informed discussion in this thread, that the pilot(s) turned a potential minor high-altitude whoopsie when the aircraft suffered a comparitively minor technical failure at high altitude into a catastrophic crash, and in the latter two cases, pilots were handed catastrophic situations seconds from big smoking cratersville in the middle of major cities and used incredible skill and judgement to make inspired decisions not drawn from any manual, simulator exercise or checklist to save everybody on board (from memory, I read on here that the BA guy did something unusual and undocumented with the flap settings on the spur of the moment that got him onto the runway and... well, the miracle needs no further exposition). Do these cases really bear comparison in the above fashion?

Edit: And if they do, was the only relevant variable factor the background, experience and training of the crews involved?

Reading that I couldn't resist the irony .....

tangible originates from Latin "tangere", -> to touch.
tangible in English means -> "perceptible by touch"

intangible therefore can be perceived as .........

Don't know, but when the stall warning sounded, the PNF said "What's that?" Another translation I saw was "What's that all about". To me, "What's that all about?" Means "What's that? I've never seen/heard of that before." Where "What's that?" could mean he couldn't quite hear the audible "Stall" or I've never seen/heard of that before. Maybe some native french speakers can shed some light on this.
Oh the idiosyncrasies of language!

Good observation Gretchenfrage, I guess folks that understand intangibles, might be "In touch" or "With it" as some might say.

je ne sais quois? Nuance. Indefinable. ?

The PF said I think "What WAS that". Past tense?

The STALL (WARNING) triggered at .6 second before the exclamation.

It stopped without the cricket, after the PF said what he said.

In .6 second, he senses, and verbalizes "What was That" before the sound stopped?

It is not entirely demonstrable that the PF intended his interrogoratory because he did not know what the warning was. Nor is it certain his exclamation had anything whatever to do with the sound of the Warning.

It is too easy to form 'findings' that satisfy a preconceived theory, methinks.

Lyman
 

If you are referring to the PNF's "Qu’est-ce que c’est que ça", there's no past tense in there.

Lyman,
You think that's a pre-conceived theory, you should hear me when my medication wears off!
Anyway, I'd like to read or hear the opinions of native french speakers when, or if the actual CVR audio is released. There's a good chance it will shed light to what the PNF/PM was refering with the exclaimation in question.

This is outcome bias. To wit, "outcome bias is an error made in evaluating the quality of a decision when the outcome of that decision is already known."

No.

Honestly, I really doubt I'd feel happy with an alarm screaming every single time I'd be doing the right thing and turning off every single time I'd be doing the wrong thing again. Foster this pattern with the satisfying impression you're applying the right procedure, i.e. 5°/CLB. That can turn any rock-spirited man into a puppet.

Considering all that, it's all too easy to speak, all comfy in our couch :hmm: two years and a zillion articles on the event later.

Clandestino, when the a/c reaches it's max ops ceiling it will, very gently, loose some altitude and go up again, and then gently will loose some altitude again and then will go up again until all passengers are sick. Maybe the pilot will get sick too...

Rob21

Unless it reaches a point in the sky, depending on temp., where

It cannot:

Climb, because it will Stall.

Turn, or it will (Stall, then) Spin.

Descend, or it will overspeed.

A fair point re outcome bias, except that my understanding is that every decision made in the heat of the moment by Chesty Sullenberger and the BA-38 driver have been second guessed endlessly and tested in simulators by the great and the good ever since the events. Did I read somewhere that if the BA-38 pilot hadn't decided to make that flap setting, all the simulator tests indicate that he'd have landed on the perimeter road at best? Did I remember correctly that if Sullenberger had decided to try to make it back to the airport, the second-guess simulations showed that he only had a 50-50 chance at best of making the runway? I suppose the Sullenberger example is a shakier example, because who can know from the outcome whether he had a better than 50-50 chance of landing in the Hudson river in one piece? But the BA-38 example is on stronger ground is it not?

Chesley, kwh, Chesley. You show a different kind of bias than outcome, perhaps.

;)

They already did, either here or in the tech thread - apparently it's more along the line of "What the *beep*?". He knows what the warning is, but is quite surprised to get one.

Taken in context with the CVR and mechanical traces (as it should be), I get that he is not "with" the Stall warning, he does not increase Thrust, and does not attempt to hold altitude. He tries to climb, both are not included in recovery from the Warning in the procedure current at the time. No other comment is heard from either pilot, and that is quite strange. Until the complete and AURAL record is released, it is a guessijng game. Even after the "FINAL REPORT", w/o the complete record, it will remain a guessing game. Perhaps until the next similar accident?

Honestly, I really doubt that this argument has any real base. Even though repeated over and over again.

These guys chose to completely ignore the "screaming" stall alarm continuously for over 50 seconds (Do you know how long that is?).
And suddenly they decide to pay attention to it? I seriously doubt that.

But ok, let assume they suddenly for whatever reason cared about the stall warning.
So, you assume, the PNF acted the following way:
- I move the stick foward....oooh, stall warning , bad!
- I move it back....ah, silence again, good!

Excuse me, with all due respect, but that is the 'naive ad hoc learning behaviour' of a 3 year old.
But not the reaction to expected from a higly qualified aviation professional. If you had not completely forgot all about basic aerodynamics, flight mechanics, etc., how can you really believe that pushing the nose down can get you into stall????

I really love this kind of argument.
Well, it wasn't actually rocket science, what was demanded from them that night. Most basic airmanship would have been sufficient.

And if that cannot be expected from pilots anymore, then it might really be better to "design them right out of the cockpit".

What "right thing" was that?

Edited to say that ihg has covered my points very well, as did PJ2 when he said, "Are we not aviators?"