I stated that before already. They recognized the first intermittent stall warning as a valid indication due to applying too much NU input (like pulling the A/C into the stall warning AOA) at begin of climb and reacted with ND input (reducing the climb rate to 700 fpm). There was too much NU SS input after the disengagement of AP+Athr due to inexpierience and lack of training, the reaction of the aircraft with the amount of pitch was a surprise. The correction with ND input was not big enough (PX comfort, not to want overreact again,...)

The second stall warning was honored with the stall recovery procedure by applying TOGA thrust, however pitch reduction was again either not applied correctly or not applied enough or other reasons (cant think of any though besides of thrust, which i myself cant qualify, although it is of concern in oficial airbus publications dealing with new stall recovery procedure) caused the pitch to increase to 16°.

What else than a reaction to the stall warning should have motivated the crew to apply TOGA thrust?

'What else then a reaction to the stall warning should have motivated the crew to apply TOGA thrust?'

'If they were unaware of Stall, they would select TOGA exactly, why?'

I am not convinced they knew/thought/suspected they were continuously stalled. Perhaps belief in the reliability of the messages and warnings left them and in a fog of doubt they tried to 'climb out'. Nose up and lots of thrust. What was in their minds ...structural anomaly, inexpliable control faults, heavy icing...we don't know, but.......

Edit: 'We have no valid indications...' was it ? Not we are still stalled or try this, that or the other. Yes I know the CVR was heavily parsed but without use of the word 'stall' I think the first question is did they know, and perhaps the second may be, knowing that why did they...........

I would consider this as an option, if they wouldn´t have talked about the unavailability of a higher FL due to OAT just some minute before. And without AP and Athr the aircraft is easier to fly in lower FL than at max possible FL.

It´s one of the first lessons learned with TS and buildups: Don´t try to outclimb one, it might rise faster than your machine is able to climb. Aditionally, there was no danger from below or from the FL they where flying at, which would have disappeared when flying 2000 feet higher. At least i dont know one.

An intentional climb is a "no option" for my thinking.

Also this was posted before, i think it is appropriate to look at this article again.
Some points out of it:

The value of the AoA SW depends
on the Mach number. At high Mach
number, the AoA SW is set at a
value such that the warning occurs
just before encountering the pitch
up effect and the buffeting.

Typically, in cruise at high Mach
number and high altitude, at or
close to the maximum recommended FL, there is a small margin between the actual cruise AoA
and the AoA STALL. Hence, in
ALTERNATE or DIRECT LAW,
the margin with the AoA SW is
even smaller

Equally, in similar high FL cruise
conditions, in particular at turbulence
speed, if the pilot makes significant
longitudinal inputs, it is not unlikely
that it reaches the AoA SW value.

For those reasons, when in ALTERNATE or DIRECT LAW, it is recommended to fly at a cruise flight
level lower than the maximum recommended. A 4,000 ft margin is to
be considered. Then, for the same
cruise Mach number, the IAS will
be higher, the AoA will be lower,
and therefore the AoA margin
towards AoA SW will be significantly increased.

A practical exercise done in flight
in DIRECT LAW on an A340-600
and well reproduced in the simulator consists in performing a low altitude level flight deceleration at idle
until the SW is triggered, and then to
push the THR levers to TOGA while
continuing to pull on the stick in order to maintain the altitude.
The results of such a manoeuvre
are:
q In clean configuration, even if
the pilot reacts immediately to the
SW by commanding TOGA, when
the thrust actually reaches TOGA
(20 seconds later), the aircraft
stalls.

This shows that increasing the
thrust at the SW in order to increase
the speed and hence to decrease the
AOA is not the proper reaction in
many cases (this will be developed
in the following chapter).

In addition, it is to be noticed that,
at high altitude, the effect of the
thrust increase on the speed rise is
very slow, so that the phenomenom
described above for the clean configuration is exacerbated.
Obviously, such a procedure leads
to potentially unrecoverable situations if it is applied once the aircraft has reached the aerodynamic
stall (see next chapter).

Even if the traditional procedure
can work in certain conditions if
the pilot reacts immediately to the
SW, or if he is not too adamant on
keeping the altitude, the major issue comes from the fact that once
the Stall Warning threshold has
been crossed, it is difficult to know
if the aircraft is still approaching to
stall or already stalled. Difference
between an approach to stall and an
actual stall is not easy to determine,
even for specialists.

The AoA decrease may be obtained
indirectly by increasing the speed,
but adding thrust in order to increase
the speed leads to an initial adverse
longitudinal effect, which trends to
increase further the AoA (fig. 4).
It is important to know that if such
a thrust increase was applied when
the aircraft is already stalled, the
longitudinal effect would bring the
aircraft further into the stall, to a
situation possibly unrecoverable


Well, enough said from my point of view, i´ll go back to my armchair, hope i didn´t produce too much garbage.

Yes, I see that. As SLF who am I to know, however climb is exactly what they did in the first instance and subsequently they were faced with rapidly unwinding height by which time their previous height limit was a fading memory. Two possiblities then, they were stalled, knew it and didn't begin to start a plausible recovery owing to what.....bad training/inappropriate SOP's, bad execution or second, didn't get the diagnosis right and were then flummoxed ? Had the Captain got all the facts when he returned (about which there is doubt) perhaps he could have illuminated the fog. If (biggish if I grant you), even he couldn't get at least a timely start to a stall recovery going isn't the simplest explanation that they didn't realise they were stalled ?

Sorry, just saw the subsequent post !

Be patient
 

Greetings,

I keep asking myself (slegde hammer)... Why don´t we wait till friday or even more... Read what the ppl involved in this investigation have to say? We haven´t that much data so far... Neither did those involved ever sinds 2009 till now...
I hope you stop fighting each other, coz the goal is to solve the problem... Nothing else. You will contribute to that goal (and you already did without notice), by thinking toghether, not the other way around...

Challenging ones teachers
 

If I may briefly chime in and then return to lurking: In my own profession of medicine we strongly encourage students to challenge old dogmas and procedures; in so doing they really can wrap their heads around why "the rules" evolved the way they did. More often than not, in surgery/aviation lessons learned are hard won, and sometimes fatally so. Rules of thumb can help when one is overwhelmed with sensory input from sophisticated technology.

As time goes on, and our understanding of deeper mechanisms evolves, so can our hard learned drills and emergency procedures. IMHO this needs to happen slowly and cautiously with attention to what has been learned in the past.

Hello averow.

Unfortunately, all too often the attention paid to sincere questions is directly proportional to the standing of the questioner.

To the extent that this is not so, your post is compelling. Surgery especially has a relationship to your sentiments; for a long standing aviation protocol has been given some attention in the last few years. Briefly, the Operating room is starting to be understood as a sort of flight deck, where decisions and actions are critical, and time sensitive, to put it mildly. Two concepts are assigned a new perspective: CRM, and Lists.

Cockpit Resource Management, and the checklist. Perhaps a PM, I was recently deleted for mentioning an object that I assume is available at some price.

As I'm sure you both know, Dr. (and writer) Atul Gawande's work has been important in this regard.

BEA 3rd report out on Friday
 

Hi,

In a simulator test .. the plane was recoverable ....
Press "France Infos" (french)

Vol Rio-Paris : la catastrophe reconstituée dans un simulateur de vol - international - toute l'actualité internationale - France Info

Is there an English version of this anywhere??

No. The author (pilot?) states clearly they succeeded in recovering the simulator from the 'stall' because they knew exactly what was happening. He does not say tne plane was recoverable in reality.

And we've already been through the difference between the simulator and the plane in that part of the flight envelope.

Hi;

That's a interesting statement
How does the pilots "in reality" don't know they are in a stalling aircraft ?
Airbus instruments and systems are wrong to the point to not show valuables indications to the pilots ?
Are the Airbus simulators better than the real thing ?
The pilots in the simulators were able to see they were in a stalling aircraft .. why not the AF pilots ?
The conclusion anyways reality or not is a good point for Airbus ....

I listened to the conversation and to me it is not clear what they are getting to... A lot of talking but no clear answers.

The one theme that does come back a lot is the relationship or interface between aircraft and humans and how Airbus may have to rethink it big time.

It seems the two pilots perhaps three when the captain comes back into the cockpit didn't know what was going on or what was wrong. They were confused and did not know how to solve the problem(s) and how to apply a solution to get them out of it.

At one point they say the aircraft stalled but then say the systems worked because the Airbus cannot stall? Apparently they had access to the cockpit transcripts because they say you can hear the "Stall warning" and that there was no panic in the cockpit all was calm and professional.

They claim from their test in the sim that the crew had about only 40 seconds to figure out and save the aircraft that after that they were going to go for a ride until it crashed.

Not being an Airbus pilot I am totally shocked that these pilots did not know they were in a high altitude stall scenario and could not just apply common sense and fly the aircraft out of it.

What is it with the Airbus that a pilot cannot just push the nose over to a 5 degree nose down and apply MCT and fly out of this stall?

BTW, one of their so called aeronautic experts is a pilot but there is no mention of his background/experience or what type of license he holds and if he is typed on any aircraft in the conversation. The other is or was at one point an Airbus 330 pilot but that's all we know.

I guess it would be prudent to take what is said in this conversation with a grain of salt because there are a lot of unknowns.

Best wait for the July 29th report from BEA.

Beniada is an aviation journalist, with a quite nice photo book about Concorde to his credit. His competence and experience as a pilot is unknown.

Feldzer did fly as an Airbus captain... then became director of the Le Bourget museum. Now retired, and mostly known as a "talking head"/"expert" the moment French TV needs one.
He's the one that came up with the moronic idea of starting up the engines of one of the French museum Concordes.... which should give you an idea of his "technical competence".

Well, on that you could call Mr Feldzer a liar, plain & simple :
- the aircraft did stall
- most of the protections were inop (ALT LAW + rejected ADRs)

However, I think it's more a -very poorly phrased- attempt of vulgarization. Which by the way will indeed somehow "protect" the aircraft maker reputation, for sure.
In french, "décrocher" (to stall) may be heard as a "violent" phenomenon to the general public. OTOH "s'enfoncer" (to sink) is a "softer" thing... and may be more "meaningful" to an uneducated ear (no offense).
And protections seem to stand for some flight laws/FBW features, here (i.e. maintaining pitch when stick is released and/or maintaining 1g)... Bad phrasing again, using a precise, technically meaningful word in an "oblique" sense.

I listened to the entire interview (thanks for the link) and did not learn much (if not nothing). It is clearly intended for the "general public", hence my interpretation above. Too bad one doesn't think it's worth to explain correctly... I'm sure it's possible, with a little (more?) goodwill.

------

@ jcjeant : "The pilots in the simulators were able to see they were in a stalling aircraft .. why not the AF pilots ?"
That's not what is said. It is said they (those who take a sim tour) were able to recover because they knew [by the briefing] what was going on. Not because they saw it [from the instruments].
(my comments between [brackets])
I think your other (previous) questions were purely rethorical ones, and don't call for an answer. :)

Hi,

The press again ....
They tell they had access to parts of the BEA report to be published in few hours..
AF*447*: le rapport d'enquête met en cause l'équipage* - Yahoo! Actualités
I read that the less experimented pilot was the PF ..
I read also that this crew had not have adequate training for the situation encountered by AF447 (loss of speed indications)
Read also that all commands of the pilot were perfectly executed by the plane system
And also read that never the crew know they were in a stall situation
Again and again all fingers are pointing to the lack of training of the pilots and some errors made in the event.
And immediate reaction of a AF union (Alter)
Les accusations contre les pilotes du Rio-Paris relancées - Le Point
Wait and see ....

Did you expect anything else from 'Alter' ?

You've got to wonder what goes on at Google Translate when the following is submitted for translation into English and German.
The result being:-

• The BBC has obtained a preview, elements of the investigation on the flight from Rio to Paris.
• Die BBC hat eine Vorschau, Elemente der Untersuchung auf dem Flug von Rio nach Paris erhalten.

Likewise, "metres" was translated in another article into "feet".

It seems a lot of people are making last minute statements before the report tomorrow. I agree with most of them because we have been saying that for months. Saying, I told you so, tomorrow, isn't much help right now.

Tomorrow, hopefully, we will get a meaningful report then we can talk about it with some facts.

and before the end of the day the talk will extend way beyond the facts

Clearly a very confusing and over burdened situation for PF. 40 second window to understand situation and recover is tight given the known facts.
For me the big question is why they chose the general nose up stick input with aparently PFD showing pitch already at +16 deg and a/s below Vs. Was the final hole to line up in the swiss cheese the stall alarm inhibited at <60kts?

Yes, that is how it was done.

Well, I guess this is all the extra information we are going to get. 'The aeroplane behaved perfectly, the pilots just stuffed up (now including the captain)........' etc. etc.

My French is well over fifty years old, like the rest of me, so I had to depend on 'Google-translate' for the main text. But I'll offer a personal translation for the title - colloquially speaking, "AF 447 : les pilotes en ligne de mire" probably translates best as "AF447 : the pilots to cop the s**t."

AF 447 : les pilotes en ligne de mire - Europe1.fr - France

One point of confusion in the cockpit can be attributed to the fact that the stall warning ceases to warn below 60 kts. There is evidence that the pilot at the controls at one point pushed the stick forward to lower the nose, and when the plane accelerated to over 60 kts, the stall warning started up again.

Which particular 60knots are we addressing? Indicated, or TAS? Time?

I'd have thought that there are at least two occasions, bearfoil - both IAS:-

1. the initial upset at the top of the 'zoom climb' - warning sounds, pilot applies TO/GA power, warning stops.

2. The attempted recovery (to quote the BEA 'note'):-


For all we know, that led the pilot(s) to try the TO/GA thing all over again?

In that connection, just noticed something else; the next entry in the 'note' is timed one minute and thirty seconds LATER than the one I just quoted - but the BEA tells us nothing at all about what happened during that period:-

Airbus chief pilot critical of AF crew
 

This has not yet hit the English speaking media. From Die Welt: Airbus chief pilot Ferando Alonso (sic) critizises the AF crew for not applying proper procedure by inducing a climb twice as steep as indicated and failing to react to the stall warning for 50 seconds.

German speakers:
Air-France-Absturz: Crew von Todesflug AF 447 missachtete Flugregeln - Nachrichten Panorama - Weltgeschehen - WELT ONLINE

Looks like pilot error!

Google translation of "Le Figaro" leak:

RWA’s translation included: "Fragmented elements and gearboxes," says the BEA

Could this be a mistranslation which should be “transmission”? I don’t see how “gearbox” makes sense in this context.

“Transmission” is used in engineering for gearboxes etc., but the word is also used in some contexts for human/human communication.


"Fragmented elements and communications" would make more sense to me.

Yes, it is a mistranslation.
No, it shouldn't be "transmission".

"réducteur" is the word. Translated as a noun (gearbox) by Google, it's in fact an adjective (in this case), meaning the leaks reduce the amount of sense the BEA put on the accident.
I'm not confident enough on my english skills, but perhaps 'reductive' or 'reductionist view' should do?

The BEA is saying it's too simple (and unrepresentative) to (just) say "pilot error, and that's all folks" (which is ~ what the mass media are doing, they don't want a complex answer, it has to be the plane's fault, or the crew's fault, but keep it simple for underbrains, please).

The BEA just published a "Synthesis note" and "Safety recommendations":
FR : Vol AF 447
EN : FLIGHT AF 447

Oh dear.:{

Is there more to be released later today?

The synthesis note is 4 pages in both French and English, and the set of recommendations is one page.

Quoting ChrisN:-
Blame google mate - the only translation I'll take responsibility for is the title of the article! :)

Avionista, as far as I know the BEA didn't say which pilot was sitting in which seat. I've been assuming that the normal setup - senior F/O in his accustomed (righthand) seat - applied, and further that the junior one was in the lefthand one, and also the PF. That's supported by the captain's words on leaving the flightdeck ("He's taking my place.") The point coulde be important since I understand that the standby instruments on an A330 are in a 'left of centre' position on the A330 panel - so if the main instruments were misbehaving it would have been difficult for the more senior F/O to take over, he'd have had to lean way over to his left.

Typical of the BEA on this occasion, though - they didn't provide even the simplest and least controversial information (like which pilot was flying the aeroplane) in their report.

Quoting Avionista quoting Le Figaro:-

In fairness to the PF (whichever one it was) I have to remind everyone that the only 'nose-up input' he applied at the onset of the accident was immediately after the sign-off. The BEA states that the 'zoom climb' started at least 11 seconds after that - and there is no mention of the PF moving the stick either way until he applies 'nose-down' to (successfully) counteract the climb.

That strongly implies that the PF did not cause the climb - unless the A330 takes 11 seconds-plus to respond to control movements?

In any case, flying manually, on instruments, in rough weather, one would expect that there'd have been literally dozens of control movements over the period of the whole event. But the BEA chooses to mention only three or four of them?

I only hope (without much hope) that this third 'interim report' gives us a lot more 'hard information.' For a start, the BEA must already know everything that the CVR and the FDR recorded? Be interesting to see how much more they decide to tell us? Maybe 'third time lucky'.........?

PS, thanks - SaturnV must admit that I rather expected as much (or, rather, 'as little').

One immediate contradiction 'jumps out' at you:-

Quote:

---

At 2 h 13 min 32, the PF said "we’re going to arrive at level one hundred". About fifteen seconds later, simultaneous inputs by both pilots on the sidesticks were recorded and the PF said "go ahead you have the controls". The angle of attack, when it was valid, always remained above 35 degrees.

"• Throughout the flight, the movements of the elevator and the THS were consistent with the pilot’s inputs.

---

If we are encouraged to believe that the THS reacted to 'noseup inputs' by pitching up, why did it not in turn respond to 'nosedown inputs' by pitching down?

RWA, there may be more later. There is a press conference at 14:30.

Oh dear x 2. :{:{

I do not fly or know how the systems work on the Airbus aircrafts.

I do not know if we have all the details yet.

I do not know if there is a cover up here (for those who may believe in that theory).

In any case if the information given so far is correct it is hard to believe a competent crew with experience on type would allow this aircraft to go from FL350 to FL380, stall the aircraft and never recover because they did not understand what was happening.

What even happened to flying the attitude and using power when all other things fail?

Someone with Airbus experience tell me this...

They still had 3 ADIs or artificial horizons available to them, no?

They still had full control over the inputs to the flight controls and engines, no?

The left PFD lost the airspeed for 29 seconds, the ISIS for 54 seconds so what about the right hand PFD airspeed indicator?
Does the #2 PFD airspeed source come from the same source as the ISIS?

Anyhow even if all 3 airspeeds were out for a limited amount of time how does that figure into not being able to remain at FL350 and not zoom climb at a very high rate (7000/min) to FL380?

If all fails with the airspeed (and TAS) you could always back yourself up with ground speed for a rough estimate. If an aircraft wants to climb when it is supposed to be level at a certain altitude, counter act the climb by nose down input. In most aircrafts when you disconnect the AP, one usually finds it is not "properly trimmed" and manual inputs are required. Is this not the case in the Airbus?

Maybe I'm missing something here because this happened in an Airbus but it is hard to believe that some frozen pitot tubes which were the originating factor in this tragedy confused the pilots to the point of no recovery.

From my point of view it sure seems like the crew messed it up and allowed an aircraft to stall at high altitude and never recovered it.

I don't know how a request for addition of an AoA indicator, as well as numerous additions to flight recorder parameters indicates that the BEA considered the aircraft "perfect".

Hopefully the interim report proper will be published after today's press conference, but it looks to me like what the BEA are saying is that while it appears that the crash was in part caused by a mishandling of the aircraft in the wake of a UAS incident, exacerbated by night IMC and unsettled weather, it also suggests that the pilots did not receive proper training in either manual aircraft handling at high speed and high level flight, CRM training in how to operate and communicate on the flight deck when the captain is on his rest period, and that the aircraft itself presents information that could be perceived as confusing when outside of its flight envelope. In short, there's room for improvement at both AF and Airbus (and I suspect the industry in general).

[EDIT : Note that my info comes from the "Synthesis" and Recommendations published this morning, which may not have been available when you posted. If anything I think that highlights the importance of taking any press-filtered information with the requisite shovelful of salt.]

RWA
It was explained to you already, yet you choose to ignore that and champion your pet theory of "cover up". :ugh: