Automation is fine as long as the human operator is sufficiently trained in it's use and is capable of controlling it. This is not confined to Aviation alone. Robotic surgery on critical anatomical areas and procedures involving Prostectomy for example, have a much higher success rate than manual intervention. Sorry for the thread creep, but automation is here to stay.

- do we know that? I thought the computers simply rejected the readings due to 'disagreement' thus possibly cascading events on the crew? - shows how much you know about aviation. Have you heard of the ITCZ for example? It kind of 'gets in the way' of your advice. What is 'near' in your mind, by the way - up, down left, right, 10nm, 20nm, 50nm, 100nm? Clarification of your 'answer' eagerly awaited by interested aviation people.

hello again BOAC.

I said "may" be the first time regarding the probes. There is already enough weather information out there to "suggest" they shouldn't have been where there were. Just as in previous Air France incidents there are justifiable questions to be asked about events.

Canada A340, a B747 in the far east which killed a passenger in turbulence.

The BEA has decided to publish a note with information on the first facts established, based on analysis of the data from the flight recorders. This note will be put on line on Friday 27 May at the beginning of the afternoon and will be available in English, French, German and Portuguese. There will be no press briefing.

Which is what was supposed to happen - the critical failure is that they didn't remove the tape afterwards

The Perpignan airbus crashed because they didn't tape stuff up (AoA sensors in that case) when the airframe was washed [although it shouldn't have been fatal if the flight tests had been done properly]

Tape? Can you get 'tape' with 'REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT' streamers?

Latest BEA factual report, of Frid May 27th (in English):

http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol....mai2011.en.pdf

AGB


which - rather oddly - is markedly dissimilar to the official French-language version...

http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol....mai2011.fr.pdf

AGB

"As accurate as the translation may be, the original text in French should be
considered as the work of reference."

I just re-read them side to side and I failed to see any "marked dissimilarity". May be they updated the translation?

:( There are some parts of the CVR on the report too.

I think that pulling up the nose of a stalling plane is not exactly what can take it out of a stall - but then I'm not a pilot. Maybe I am not the one who should be taking flying lessons? Maybe stall recovery should be taught at airline pilot school?

At this point I will continue to fly Airbus as an SLF, but I think I will not fly Air France ever again. There is no reason to have pilots in a plane if they don't get taught to hand-fly the aircraft. I think US airlines have really bad catering and unpleasant overage cabin staff, but they often have pilots who are ex-military or enthusiasts and who are natural pilots.

Edmund

As I said elsewhere, I don't understand why the PF continued making nose-up inputs in a stall environment. A suicidal thing to do, and elementary for anyone who's flown an aircraft. The results are plain (and very sad) to see, but how on earth does a proffessional qualified pilot with hundreds of lives in his hands make such a mistake?

Perhaps I'm jumping the gun, perhaps there's more to it and someone might put me in my place, and I don't mean to be disrespectful to a person who's no longer with us, or his family. I'm just shocked by the reading.

Should airline pilots have a yearly 'refresher' in a light aircraft to remind them of the basic principles of flying?

The Airbus has built-in protections that will 'prevent' it from stalling when all systems and computers are working, giving the pilot the 'idea' that even pulling all the way on the stick is probably the best response to a situation where altitude/speed are compromised. We are taught to do this in a CFIT scenario.
In the scenario of AF447, they lost the protections due to the airspeed being unreliable, and as per the information we have, never recovered Normal Law, however, the airspeed indication apparently came back to normal, but the airplane was already in a stall condition. my thinking the pilot was pulling to recover thinking he had the protections, or this is the natural reaction to the automation in the Airbus.
Angle of Attack is mentioned repeatedly in the report, yet this information is not provided to the pilot!
Airbus, PLEASE GIVE US AN ANGLE OF ATACK INDICATOR AND STOP BLAMING PILOTS!

I mean no disrespect to the pilots of AF447 but I really don't understand how experienced pilots with thousands of hours of flying can keep pulling on the stick from 38,000ft to 0ft without ever realizing that they killing themselves! Planes sometimes stall, it's a fact of life, so how come pilots do not receive the adequate training for such an emergency and are often taken by surprise by something as basic as a stall? Also, is there no training to rid the pilots of the pull on the stick "reflex"?

Yes, you are "jumping the gun". My suggestion is that we wait for a clear report on exactly what the crew was given to react to the situation in terms of displays, indications and warnings. A well meaning bunch of engineers attempting to automate an airliner to the maximum extent possible in order to provide the lowest training costs can create a confusing disaster when problems occur, especially when different systems start conflicting. The QA A380 comes to mind.

I once experienced a subtle airspeed failure at night in a B767 on takeoff with a slew of warnings at rotation. Both of us simply fell back to power, pitch, and a quick look at the runway length remaining which was normal. It was very confusing and cannot imagine a low time crew processing the problem along with the seat-of-the-pants feel that comes from 6000 hours in type. What would be even more confusing would be yokes/sticks or throttles that didn't offer feedback as to what the other pilot/autopilot or autothrottles were attempting to accomplish.

First of all both links provide on here fail to open. Perhaps there is too much traffic on the server.

Now if I go by the excerpt of the report I see on the forum, Air France is in a lot of trouble. There are simply too many things going wrong at that airline lately.

Now I say if there was no actual problem with the aircraft except for a momentary discrepancy between the LH airspeed and the standby airspeed (what about the RH airspeed), I can’t believe the two pilots in control stalled this aircraft and flew it into the ocean from 38,000 feet in a stalled configuration when it seems everything was working properly including the engines which seemed to respond to pilot inputs.

Why was the autopilot “OFF” for 90 minutes?
Were they just hand flying it for fun?
Did they have a technical problem with the AP?
Why wasn’t the captain advised immediately about the AP problem if indeed there was a problem?
Regardless while in RVSM airspace without auto flight shouldn’t they have advised ATC of the problem and either climb above RVSM airspace (doubtful the A-330 can) or descent below which means they would have had to divert back most likely to the main land.

Too many things that just don’t add up to a proper operation of an aircraft and to think the pilot flying was pulling on the yoke instead of pushing, what the hell was he thinking. People couldn’t believe the two pilots stalled a Dash 8/400 in Buffalo a couple years ago but you could always point to a piss poor commuter airline with lack of training, low time pilots with bad pay and bad working conditions but here we are talking a major world known airline with supposedly good training and pilots with experience. They are extremely well paid with very good working conditions and yet they can’t even recognise a stall and fly it into the ocean?!
I just don’t get it!

I go to the simulator 3 times a year (because I’m qualified on 2 types) and I can assure you that not only does our company train us on stalls but it is mandated by TC to do so. These include stalls at low altitude while levelling off at MDA in a landing configuration, stalls on departure in takeoff configuration with an engine out and high altitude stalls. We also practice for unusual attitudes which will be extreme at times in conjunction with the lost of the PFD, HUD or both PFDs where one as to revert to the STBY attitude indicator. I don’t understand why this wouldn’t be part of any airline training.

I’ll repeat myself again and I say if in the final report it comes down to a pilot error in which the 2 pilots stalled the aircraft and flew into the ocean from 38,00 feet a major clean up at Air France is warranted.

In the mean time I’m glad to have reserved by airline ticket on Air Canada to Paris next month and not on Air France (too bad I could have deadheaded on the A-380).

Airbus do have a stall recovery procedure, its in the QRH as are procedures for ADR failure etc. These are all things that are trained or should be. If your confused about pulling or pushing in a stall then you shouldn't be doing the job. Its basic.

Maybe they did not recognise they were in a stall or were confused/distracted by the discrepancy in airspeed. Yet again it raises questions about selection and training.

You could ague that we do have AOA indication: the STALL warning is based on AOA.

Sigh. I'm afraid the reaction of the whole SLF community is likely to be similar to the SLF posts above. AF now has the worst accident rate in Europe - see Airline accident ratings - and it will take a lot more than its flight attendants wearing badges with "Securite" (Safety) written on them to improve their image...

There are two major European airlines I try to avoid as pax on safety grounds - TK and AF - and today's BEA release doesn't change my views on AF.

It looks like:

- The PF may have believed that the plane was still in some Airbus law-state which should automatically prevent a stall even if inputs are nose-up;

- An AoA indicator would have disabused him of this notion pretty quickly.

Even if this pilot's response to the stall warning was inappropriate, there was another pilot and later even the captain who would have seen what was happening. Puzzling. Did they enter a deep stall which they could not get out of?

Related to this question is whether or not PF saw or sensed a decrease in airspeed which would cue him to a corrective attitude.

My experience is strictly VFR in a spamcan, but one thing I think that is very ill-advised about this statement is there is no information at all with regard to what the chaps up front were seeing - the story as is totally confusing, unless they were massively disorientated.

So much information is missing. I would much rather wait, and can't help but feel this has stitched the late crew up a little bit. Presumably this scenario is well-covered in their training regime? I just don't understand. Something happened that meant they were not able to apply what they knew.

Edit: DT has report that PFD and standby ASI disagreeing: Pilots battled with controls of Air France crash plane for four minutes - Telegraph

This unfortunate tragedy is just one more instance that demonstrates we are all loosing the basics of flying, as a pilot group. If indeed, the basics were there in the first instance.

Modern aircraft, including the A380 are not uncrashable and never ever will be.

Ever heard of K.I.S.S??

Ex 9 PPL syllabus stalling and recovery, level wings, pitch down break the stall apply power climb away.....dont get smart
So proffessional working pilots on this forum must know the answers as to why anyone would be pulling back when the airplane is in a stall condition, if its a reflex reaction brought about by hours flying a computer then I'm NEVER getting on an Airbus again

Hi there Whatsalizad, thanks for your reply. I suspected someone might take issue with my comments, and I have no problem with your reply. I've never flown a commercial airliner, but did fly in the military, and as you mentioned, Power + Attitude = Performance was king of my world.

Yes, the QA A380 incident was alarming / frightening, but they stuck to basics and got it right.

I agree that we don't know what indications the aircrew received, which is why I admitted that my comments might be jumping the gun. Apologies if they annoyed you.

An interesting exception to this might be a dark night, a lot of aural & visual distractions, working through checklist items, and just possibly your instrument(s) telling you that you are speeding up.

Dear Parsnip, please enlighten me: in what way is today handling a boeing less akin to flying a computer (or not at all) than in an airbus case?????

Aviation-interested SLF here with a few question:

So if I understand correctly the AP was disengaged - but do we know why?

Airspeed indicators malfunctioned but apparently only briefly - so why did that not change the law back when they came online again? Because they already stalled?

And is there no warning or indication to the crew that the law has changed?

And why is there in certain laws - if I understand correctly no stall warning - if it is something so essential?

And shouldn't a vertical airspeed have indicated the pilots that they are actually falling out of the sky and prevented them as long as they still had altitude from pulling back?

Thanks much

because the speed sensors went crazy:

hi there,

I be an uneducated SLF type,

Question: the report says that-
at 2:10:51 ..."

The trimmable
horizontal stabilizer (THS) passed from 3 to 13 degrees nose-up in about 1 minute and

remained in the latter position until the end of the flight."


at 2:12:02 ...

"Around fifteen seconds later, the PF made pitch-down inputs. In
the following moments, the angle of attack decreased, the speeds became valid again and the

stall warning sounded again."

Why did the indication of the THS NOT change in accordance with the pilot input???

Am I way off base here?? Confused???

cheers
Phil

Parsnip, the actions you list are in the wrong order.

your first action in a convential aircraft is to move the stick centraly forward while applying full power at the same time, DO NOT TRY TO LEVEL THE WINGS FIRST, as you may induce a spin. Once you have unstalled the wings you can then level them.

Airbus have recently modified their stall recovery procedures to delay the application of power until the nose has been lowered to prevent problems with the pitch up effect of the engines.

Maybe I am missing something but doesn't a pilot have a big horizon in front of him, on the PFD?

A 35 degree up pitch is kinda hard to miss.

"Firstly, it must be said that conventional instrumentation is not adequate for flight in the vicinity of the stall; pitch attitude can be most misleading, airspeed and altitude and vertical speed are only component parts of the one parameter which is all important - incidence - and in isolation, and indeed in sensible combination, these individual parameters can be either misleading or nearly valueless. The only valuable parameter is incidence. This is what dictates the behaviour of the aeroplane and this is what needs to be presented to the pilot."
From: "Handling the Big Jets", page 124, D.P. Davies, Third Edition, Civil Aviation Authority, December 1971

Out of curiosity, what happens with the pitch/power dynamic coupling outside of normal law? For instance, if power is advanced to exceed that required for level flight, outside of normal law, will the aircraft pitch up unless commanded otherwise by pilot or the autoflight system?

Secondly, would the stab trim movement be the FCS attempting to trim the aircraft to relieve the elevator load from the commanded nose-up attitude, in other words, everything was behaving as it should?

Jet Jockey A4

My understanding from reading the report is that the AP was off for 4min 23secs which was until impact. Not too sure where you get your figures from.

Although I have no manuals infront of me, I thought you could operate in RVSM airspace as long as you have 2 primary altimeters, 1 altitude alerting system, 1 altitude reporting transponder and 1 automatic altitude control system. I don't take that to mean you have to have AP working. As long as FD's are on. I could confirm this later with a check of the MEL.

Jet Jockey A4:

The autopilot wasn't off for 90 minutes, it disengaged aprox 4 minutes before the crash because of (suspected) pitot tubes freezing up, and resultant confliction of airspeed indications (causing the systems to revert to 'alternate law', or in English, over to the pilots). They weren't hand flying for fun!

You seem to be slightly unfamiliar with this case.

I agree with you on the training front, and when I flew I also had extensive training in stall recovery and UA recovery with a variety of parameters. So your comment 'I just don't get it' has total agreement from me, mate!

Hi Phil,

If you only briefly give a pitch down input the trim will not change immediately. There is no indication in the BEA Note on how long this down input was given (most likely briefly).

I would like a bit of clarification from those with more knowledge of correct procedures in a jet. I have limited single engine time and some limited unusual attitude training in a T-28. The single most fundamental aspect that was repeatedly drilled into my brain was unload the airframe.

If I recall correctly one of the root causes of the 737 crash way back (Pittsburgh?) was the PF's failure to take this fundamental step. I'm becoming more and more concerned at what appears to be a very low level airmanship displayed here....correct me if i'm mistaken...

My feeling is this goes directly back ot the discouragement of hand flying. When the instruments in front of you go south the only instrument left is the one your sitting on:)

Thanks Decurion.

Noted. Not enough detail in the report.

...and thats where the devil be!!:bored:.

The final report will prove interesting ....as this prelim ...leaves or raises more Q's then answers.

Like many here ...I just can't believe, a capable aircrew would not attempt to recover from what appears to be an obvious stall condition.

Phil

Could it be similar to China Airlines 006? The pilot fixated at one problem missed other severe issues at hand?

"Airmanship" and "Commonsense" are merely the use of things learnt during training, education and practice to keep one safe in the air. One doesn't "pick up" good airmanship or flying commonsense other than by those three aspects (or osmosis over a very long time).