As an aside, I wondered how a modern airline pilot travelling as a passenger would fair in the "both actual pilots become incapacitated" scenario.

I have always assumed that in the past a Stratocruiser pilot could have safely landed a DC-7 or L1049. And vice versa.

Perhaps DC-8s, B707s and Comets too.

But does my assumption work for B747, B777, A330 etc?

I think your question is based on a popular cultural myth, but wouldn't the transition be getting easier? Hopefully, since only two pilots are required these days. "People, I don't wish to alarm you, but can anyone do Windows?"

A minor nitpick....
"puissance" = "power" and "poussée" = "thrust".
The press would probably use "power" in both cases, "thrust" being too technical for the general public.
In technical language, French and English make much the same distinctions between the two terms..

Shadow has summed up the most likely sequence of events IMO.
But long ago at the start of these debates I asked a question that has not yet been answered:

Do AF regularly flight plan Airbus ops at FLs where coffin corner conditions occur, and where safe flight with degraded automatics would be highly problematic?

If the answer is yes, then presumably other Airbus operators do the same.

That being the case I will no longer travel anywhere on an Airbus and will advise my friends and family to do the same.

vee-tail-1

Not so fast, Airbus is safe, as is flying. Coffin Corner was calced by Hazelnuts39 to be at 46,000 feet, or something, well above 447's flightpath.

vee-tail-1,
Do a bit more research.....;
You'll find the average long-haul does fly quite close to "coffin corner". Nothing to do with AF or Airbus.

Yes, stop traveling on airplanes..... and in cars, too.

FDR (and CVR?) data to be released by end of next week
 

I haven't seen it mentioned here so far, so here it is: French media are reporting that the BEA will release the "raw data" (probably not that raw) from the data recorders (both of them?) by the end of next week. It is said that this upcoming release will not include a statement on the causes of the crash, because the investigation is far from being complete at this point in time.

According to the BEA, this is done to stop more so-called "leaks" from appearing in the press and propagating inaccurate or plain wrong information on the supposed causes of the crash.

I find it a bit difficult to understand how they plan to release data from the fight recorders without doing some interpretation and therefore providing hints at the most likely causes, but that's what's being said anyway.

Does that mean "On your bike, mate" ?:E

Air Trans Pilot Benton West was subsequently killed in a car crash "hauling corn"

Airtran Hero Killed In Crash — Civil Aviation Forum | Airliners.net

alainthailande
 

It's not so difficult to understand. The BEA will say what happened. Not why it happened.

I'll go have another Singha.

Reuters reports that Friday is the day the BEA will release a 'sequence of events'. I wonder if they will release a CVR transcript?

Investigators to give details on 2009 Rio-Paris Air France crash | Reuters

Hi,

Forget it !

Christiaanj bearfoil
From your replies I see rampant complacency, and would suggest Airbus is only safe if restricted to day VMC. The Airbus design philosophy is flawed, and unsafe. Plus the new breed of 'pilots' / IT monitors inhabiting the flight deck are inexperienced in hand flying, which the design of the aircraft prevents them doing anyway. The ever growing list of incidents, and near misses would seem to confirm my pessimism.

vee tee you are talking from the wrong end. Turn yourself upright and start again.

I remember a completely analogue Boeing losing air data and guess what it crashed.

I remember a 757 having a problem with only one speed source and not all 3.
Guess what...it crashed.

Aircraft are complex and inherently safe. When things go wrong however, regardless of manufacturer analogue/digital, all rules are null and void.

Now please come and join the real world.

It's pretty amazing then that dispite them being "unsafe" they have similar safety records to Boeing? Which are also pretty much computer controlled these days anyway. The A330 came along in '93 and hundreds of them are in the air as we speak... how many of them have dropped out of the sky since?

Statistics are not on your side. It's pretty obvious that you have a personal dislike of this particular brand of plane but that doesn't alter the cold hard facts so do yourself a favour and stop spouting nonsense.

Captain not in cockpit?
 

DER SPIEGEL (a usually reliable German weekly) reports here (sorry, only in German) that the CVR reveals that Captn. Marc Dubois rushed to the cockpit and shouted commands to the two pilots flying, moments before it all went horribly wrong.

According to the Spiegel report, the pilots successfully tried to avoid the convenctive wx in front of them, but the pitot tubes iced over. Shortly after the ASIs failed (I quote Der Spiegel here), the a/c was pulled up steeply. If this maneuver was commanded by the pilots or the systems is - according to Der Spiegel - unclear at this stage.

DER SPIEGEL in engl.
 

Here is a comment in english on DER SPIEGEL

Report: Pilot "not in cockpit" when Air France plane ran into trouble - Monsters and Critics

Your comments (rants) add nothing to this thread and only divert attention from whats important: finding out what brought down AF 447.

FYI, the A320 series of aircraft have one of the best safety records in the history of aviation, and they have been flying for over 20 yrs. So can it!

Finally, it is true that AB pilots do more system monitoring than hand flying, but that is the way of the world. I myself can control all of my business via my hand-held I phone. I don't remember anyone's phone number anymore, because I don't have to. Is it full proof? No, in a pinch I cant even remember my mothers phone number.....:rolleyes:

Well.......
Just go to the webpage of BEA and you will see that they DO ALWAYS publish
the CVR transcript.

AF 447 was not brought down by a design philosophy, it was brought down by a set of events which are not, as yet, known with sufficient completeness to draw ANY conclusions as to proximate cause, much less contributory causes. Furthermore, the only thing that preconceptions (positive or negative) regarding design philosophy can do at this stage of the investigation is to reduce the completeness of the analysis of the empirical evidence, to the overall detriment of the proper objective, which is improving aviation safety.

Something else important to keep in mind, before condemning the design philosophy whenever there is a severe incident or accident affecting an FBW aircraft, is a characteristic of abnormal incidents that occurs for ALL types of embedded computer systems. (Indeed, a characteristic that is well known in the embedded computer industry, and was widely discussed 40 years ago, but is largely taken for granted today.) Whenever an embedded system is widely deployed to control (or "automate") a formerly-manual process, the proportion of severe abnormal incidents goes up while the total number of abnormal incidents goes down. Note it is the PROPORTION that goes up -- the total number of abnormal incidents goes down, but the embedded system is so good at dealing with routine problems that the number of common incidents is reduced far more than the number of unusual/severe incidents.

In the case of sophisticated flight control systems (all of them, not just Airbus), the very presence of the system may increase the risk of extreme or severe events by doing such a good job of dealing with common events that the (collective) exposure of those aircraft to the possibility of the uncommon events goes up.

For an excellent discussion of the differing kinds of risks that affect complex systems, see
Epistemic and Aleatory Risk « Dark Matter
That author has also written interesting material regarding AF 447 from a systems safety perspective, see
The Airbus A330 Aircraft & System Safety « Dark Matter