From May 2008 to March 2009, nine incidents (UAS) of icing of the Pitot probes are recorded on the A340/A330 fleet of Air France.
These nine cases involve Thales AA probes.
Company Air France
Nation : France
Aircraft registered in France
BEA : French investigation agency

CONF iture:

Thanks for your correction and other observations. You've convinced me that "Prend ça" is probably not referring to the ISIS.

V/S exceeded 6000 fpm at approximately 02:11:31 and the PF's remark about the vario was at 02:11:58.

Coincidence?
AF 330/340 PHC logic had been modified since summer 2008 (p12-13, 16, 34)

Remember the A340 TANA flight event - august 2008 (ASR - FGNIH AF908 CDG - TNR - ALARME STALL ET PERTE DES INDICATIONS DE VITESSE SUR LES PFD).

Yes, that just leaves over 20 that weren't. None of which demanded from the host agencies any action more urgent or widespread than that which was already being done. Prior to AF447, UAS was considered a relatively minor problem by the industry as a whole.

@Neofit: No, it's probably not a coincidence, but it's a stretch to claim that there was anything nefarious to the change. Note that the document doesn't specify what the change was - perhaps a temperature boost, perhaps an extension to the amount of time the heat is cycled on.

That document (via electronic translation) reads to me like it has the fingerprints of the SNPL all over it, with the same old arguments against the Airbus FBW layout that they've been using since the '80s. It also implies early on that the BEA report lays responsibility for the accident with the crew, when in fact it does no such thing.

Right .. but why it was also considered as relatively minor problem by a agency like the BEA for not investigate it .. and reverse (by recommendations) the idea that had the industry as a whole ?
Industry = profit
BEA -EASA = safety
The industry was playing her game ... what about the BEA and EASA
I'm certain that some questions about the BEA and EASA will popup at the trial .. and maybe it will be answers ..

As far as I'm concerned accident investigation agencies are still part of the industry. What concerns me is why you're singling out the BEA when they are far from the only agency that encountered the problem.

Also, investigative agencies tend to have a more peripheral role in non-fatal incidents. It's the recommendations of agencies with a broader remit, such as EASA, that tend to carry the weight - and they in turn hash out solutions with the manufacturers and the airlines.

It's important not to lose sight of the fact that the UAS situation triggered by the pitot tubes was simply the initiating factor. Far more central to the case is the question of why crews were insufficiently trained to handle such a situation, and a proper investigation into human factors - namely how a qualified pilot could become so overwhelmed by the situation that they do precisely the wrong thing consistently from onset to impact.

Re: the legal proceedings - call me cynical, but if I want the truth then the last person I'd expect to get it from is a lawyer. In fact most of the misinformation and scuttlebutt regarding Airbus has originated from within the legal profession via the news media.

Well you have the answers in your own message :)
So .. why a extra training for what was considered by the whole industry as a minor problem ?
A extra training was put in force "after" the accident .. as contrary of the general idea .. the UAS is no more considered as a "minor problem"
Note that some had warn long before the AF447 case that a UAS was not a "minor problem"

If blame culture is still alive & kicking, you can freely call my joyous world "Hypocrisia". For last decade and half everyone is publicly & officially denouncing it.

It might prove to be uneconomical.

So we can make loft deliveries in B787? There are civvie HUDs and folks using them are trained how to use them. There are procedures for dealing with unreliable airspeed that don't include HUD and AF447 crew did not follow them. Until such a time when no-HUD crew follows the prescribed procedure and it turns out to be insufficient, there is no real-life validated argument for "Everybody go fly the birdie!"

That's what I've been doing last 4 years.

No can do. When my HUD packs up, only thing we lose is CAT3A, CAT2 is still available so it gets MELed and I'm ordered to go out and fly without it. Do you think I can say "Sorry boss, but I fly strictly HUD, I can't fly PFD only anymore" and still keep my job after that?

Civilian pilots proficient in using very old and very proven concepts of instrument flying are still alive. Those unable to apply them are those who are sadly no longer with us. Attitude+power = performance. Watch out for illusions. Know your aeroplane. Still works no matter how much electronics get packed into airframe.

Excuse me... how many aeroplanes did we lose crossing the ICTZ? How many flights cross it daily? Dangerous it might be but crossing it should be manageable for any airline pilot, which 99.999% of the time it is.

You don't. You teach pilots to understand the aeroplane and the atmosphere so they can come up with solutions for problems not covered by books and procedures.

a) genetically alter future pilots so they are born experienced

b) train pilots so they are competent even when low houred.

What do you think real world does?

These are simple questions with simple solutions (not necessarily easy or cheap ones, though) touted as complex by snake oil purveyors.

It can and it certainly will if we treat it as FBW crash. AF447 is performance related - aeroplane, crew and system performance.

Patently untrue, certainly ever since we got FDM.

Because those claiming it's not OK have no leg to stand upon.

Last time I checked, the beast that pancaked into Buffalo suburb was turbo prop twin.

Not even if you live forever. That's why we got TEM.

First and foremost, would you be so kind to check total hours of the commanders of: Crossair 3597, Birgenair 301, KLM 4805 and Airblue 202.

So much for the experience being panacea for all flying ills.

Pretty clueless about how flying works, that anyone can have a bad day or be ignorant and marginally competent but lucky and have long flying career, yet pretending to be knowledgeable and judging who is pilot and who is checklist reader. Oh, well, there is always bottom of the page.

The ISIS installed in AF447 was a Ring Laser Gyro.

But mixed (polluted) in the algorithm with air data :\

My question was not looking for someone to blame for AF447, but trying to analyze the root causes of that crash as they would apply towards the future of aviation, that will have hundreds of passengers flying one-pilot, then no-pilot craft.
AF447 involved a plane that did not correctly represent it's state of having failed airspeed sensors followed by the deep stall to the pilots. The airline never trained it's pilots to recognize and address such a scenario, and the pilots never correctly deciphered the contradictory information at their disposal.
While blame can be attributed to the Airplane manufacturer, the airline, and the crew, blame should not be viewed as something to react against (unless you are a lawyer) as much as it should be freely discussed and used as a stepping stone to prepare for the future, which will undoubtedly see unmanned airliners giving us better reliability and cheaper flights.

Except for the last 7 words I could not agree more.

Err - yes it did. The ECAM, PFDs and warning systems all showed loss of pitot tube data, followed by UAS, and sounded the Stall Warning for over a minute once stall was in effect.

Check the previous threads - a UAS procedure was part of the documentation supplied to airlines.

As a tech guy, I fervently believe it won't happen in my lifetime.

So was the procedure supplied, or were the pilots trained or both? You might very well both be right. Just having a new procedure in the books does not mean that the pilots know (and understand!) it.
So was the UAS procedure part of the crew training at AF?
Did that particular crew went through UAS procedure training?

The BEA report covered that in depth

The closest from the Hard Fact is from the FDR data on the day of extraction, not from a published trace you can chose the color or the shape without sharing the raw material.
Full data to the families.

And you are not more interested that the BEA in knowing what's behind that 'vague word' that seems central for the 3 crew members to understand why they act as they did ...
The same way, you and the BEA are not interested in the Wiring ACARS MSG.

Should I care ?
If AZR had been a close friend of mine and on that flight deck, I know where my priority would go before blindly accepting his condemnation, get the full data, go to the hard facts.

The problem is, the more I look at the document purported to be on behalf of the families, the more it looks like your standard SNPL hatchet job, and I have to wonder if the SNPL have loaned the group their legal team for their own purposes.

They're not interested in the truth, they are interested in maximising the potential for civil action against those with the biggest pockets (namely Airbus and AF). The SNPL take great pleasure in smearing Airbus at any opportunity, so there's a degree of mutual interest there...

Then keep on looking dozy and tell me where the SNPL is putting all his weight to get the full data ... ?
SNPL is pure diversion nothing else.

If it's a diversion, then why does the document diverge into talk of conventional controls (with regard to stick-shaker), and erroneously claim that the BEA report puts the responsibility for the accident with the crew (which it does not)?

Noise around
Nothing concrete

Answer my last question