Sorry but:
Or you don't understand .. or you are blind ..

They published a picture of a module .. and this with the legend FDR
This module on the picture have a plate with a SN
This SN is not 11469
And after they give the specifications (N°) of the FDR module (they have not the chassis)
The serial N° is 11469

So I conclude this is not serious
This no rereading (verification) before the report release (no peers reviewed .. as it must be from a serious agency)

The Goodrich probe or the Thales probe? :E

I note the semi-histrionic language, but I feel the pilot's union has a defensible point about the stall warning as possible factor influencing cockpit decisions during attempts at remedy/recovery.

Thank you for the clarification, so the "do you have your commercial license" is a procedural question and not a reflection of of the captains perception of his skills as an aviator. This leads me to a couple of follow up questions:

1) I always thought that routes like this one normally drew from a relatively small cadre of pilots with the seniority to bid on that route successfully, further that the crew origination was in Paris so this would be the return leg. I'd assume the captain would be aware of his crews credentials based on prior experience or would "interview" and review credentials for anyone he'd never flown with before flying with them....especially on a flight that called for him to be away from the flight deck at some point.

2) My second assumption is that in the event of any unusual circumstances the senior officer on the flight deck is in command in the captains absence regardless of who is "designated" as the "PF" (given both are in reality just monitoring systems). Once the AP kicked off and the 1st fault display occurred the senior FO had a clear cut responsibility to take control of the aircraft the moment he felt the need to correct the actions of the PF. Had he simply said "my aircraft" more then likely this would be no different then any other similar incident relating to A330/340 issues.

To me this is a clear cut failure in the command and control culture for the airline in question. I am also amazed that the captain did not immediately take his seat back. Regardless of any other circumstances for the aircraft to hit the water with the captain having never taken control of the aircraft speaks volumes about very serious cultural issues (again my opinion).

When you view this incident in the frightening context of its current representation it drives home the reality that we are on the cusp of some significant precipice. For a major "flag" carrier to have flight crew trained to such a low standard that they were incapable of handling what should have been a "minor emergency" is appalling. I can not fathom a company culture that would allow a more seasoned FO who actually knew what to do sitting by while he literally watched an obviously overwhelmed pilot kill not only himself but the souls for which he had responsibility in the captains absence.

While it might be possible to rationalize this accident within the context of a regional airline like Colgan, a "third world" airline like Libya (Afriqiyah) or a national flag carrier where significant cultural issues impede cockpit CRM (Turkish Airlines) how do you do so with a flagship western carrier?

To me it's a very clear wake up call that the obvious benefits and economies of automation have led us to a point of not only diminished returns but significant risk. When even major western carriers have reached a point where 5,000 hr FO's no longer have the fundamental skill set (and cockpit culture) to handle readily foreseeable contingencies.

Hi,

Probe in the context is "investigation" !

From Le Figaro's inside source: Unpublished CVR

An article hinting at some of the dirt yet to be thrown, but possibly also explaining the sudden withdrawal of cooperation ... :uhoh:

For the benefit of non-francophones, the quoted speech translates as "We're not going to let ourselves be messed about by some CNs [i.e. reason for not deviating] ... that'll be [pretty rough] when I go for my rest ... Right, I'm off."

According to the article this section of the recording was excluded from the interim report because "it didn't add to the explanation of what caused the accident". I suspect the criminal investigation will think otherwise. The inside source also reports that Air France is dragging its heels with regard to providing the BEA with full details of the crew's training. You'd almost wonder if someone in the BEA lost a relative in the crash and has decided there's no honour in protecting AirFrance just because it's French ... :sad:

Hi,

If this is true .. it looks like the beginning of a funeral march for Air France as to the quality of its pilots and for the BEA about it's transparency ....

Regarding the question about a license... does that mean you can be pilot in a major carrier WITHOUT the license??

In my profession you cannot even touch a patient under your own responsibility and without supervision without proper certification!

Not quite. Manual pitch trim should have been available in both cases.

Or I am not seeing the reports as an opportunity to find fault no matter how contrived or twisted.

As you obviously do not know what a FDR looks like or is comprised of, let me educate you.

There is a chassis, a CSMU and a ULB. The CSMU is mounted on the chassis and the ULB on the CSMU. Each has it's own part and serial number.

The entire assembly is called FDR.

BEA shows the recovered part of the FDR, which is the CSMU. They also list the FDR from which it came by maker, model, part and serial number.

It is only in your biased layman's mind that there are any inconsistencies.

Boo to the BEA
 

I am sorry, but I do think the BEA has lost a tremendous amount of credibility here in the withholding such information, IF THIS IS TRUE.

IF TRUE, the failure to deviate is very relevant to the accident (one of the Swiss Cheese holes), otherwise why publish the deviation map of the other flights. Many in all the threads have asked a fundamental question of "why did they not deviate?" To me this is as fundamental as "why the zoom climb?" in the understanding of this accident.

IT MAY NOT BE TRUE. I remember some reporting about the Captain rushing into the cockpit and saying "this is a stall." I have yet to see that.

So PF is a bad pilot he pulled up.
Now CAP is bad pilot he did not deviate and flunked a check ride or sorts.
Next watch out PNF.

I haven't seen anything that suggests any lack of integrity with the BEA investigation. On the other hand, I have seen a lot of desperate attempts to avoid pinning any responsibility on Air France and SNPL. I was given an insight today into just how deep the animosity and frustration runs regarding the stance adopted by Air France and SNPL. The rot started with the BS over the "conspiracy" at Habsheim and doesn't seem to have dissipated. :ugh:

Hi,

Well ... with the question about license from the captain in mind .. seem's that is possible .. at least on AF aircrafts ...
It's also possible to have a false license (as shown in the past and not particular to Air France)

I suppose it's the medical sector
It's not the first time that press reports shown a plumber touching a patient in a hospital .. and even practising for weeks before it was discovered :8

Hi all,

Took a day's "sabbatical", getting too involved...

As did the PNF in this case, judging by the CVR.

If he'd called "I have control" and pressed the priority button, of course he could have. The issue for the Birgenair F/O, as it was for the AF447 PNF was that he wasn't assured enough of his assessment of the situation to take positive control and hold it.

As are the Airbus systems, so why trust one system and not the other?

I'm saying the stall warnings were triggered by the flightpath, not the input - so to say the situation regarding stall warning needs addressing is true, but to argue that the stall warning significantly and repeatedly stopped the PF from doing the right thing (nose down) because the warnings were triggered *as a result* of his nose-down input is untrue.

But in fact there have been plenty of alternative bicycle designs that riders have adjusted to (I see them every time I'm in town), so I don't see the correlation.

Well yes - for a start there's systems complexity, which is the engineering axiom that for every feature you introduce, what comes with that feature are additional potential points of failure. This was the first FBW airliner - it follows that you'd want to keep the systems as simple as possible. These requirements had been drawn up since 1982 *with input from pilots*, who didn't think that going from yoke to sidestick would be a big deal. Indeed, if it was as big a deal as some make it out to be, why have there been no hull-losses caused by the lack of interconnected sidesticks, and why is there clear evidence that at least one airliner with "classic" controls suffered the same fate?

What bugs me about the whole Airbus FBW deal and how a specific subset of the piloting community perceives it is that it started with the press. It was the press that started asking questions like "How long until we have a pilotless airliner"? It was the press that was used to spread misinformation such as "The A320 thought it was landing and overrode the pilot". Over the years I've looked into it I've seen statements from otherwise sane men and skilled pilots that include rubbishing the A320 versus the B737 by comparing the Citroen 2CV with the Ford F-100. I've read assertions that Airbus make "plastic planes" that will disintegrate at the first sign of trouble despite the fact that the first A320 to crash mushed into a forest and remained intact, an A320 landed on the Hudson and everybody got out, and that the only airliner to survive a missile strike and land safely via engine power despite the loss of all hydraulics was an A300. I've seen accusations that Airbus are the only manufacturer to try to influence the outcome of accident investigations despite the infamous DC-10 "Gentlemen's agreement" and Boeing's efforts to pin UA535 and USAir427 on pilot error in the '90s. All of this has been borne from a prejudice that seems to stem from the idea that Airbus have been trying to sideline pilots - including by introducing the 2-person cockpit (not true - the first 2-crew aircraft were the BAC 1-11, DC-9 and Jurassic 737), by introducing complex computer systems that pilots were unable to understand (again, not true - the first accident caused by overreliance on a sophisticated autopilot was EAL401 - an L-1011, and another famous one was AA965 at Cali - a B757) and by designing and building an aircraft that was a "beancounter" and engineering dream, but froze out pilots in the design process (see before - pilots were involved in the A320's requirements-gathering phase). I've also seen plenty of references to Bernard Ziegler, and some of the less-than-clever (with hindsight) things he said, but very few references to Gordon Corps, who was a pilot's pilot and very much enthusiastic about the A320's potential.

All of these misconceptions could have been avoided by doing a little reading and finding out what the actual state of affairs was, but instead the easy option of bashing Airbus for apparently being anti-pilot, anti-safety and (God forbid) French seems to still have a surprising hold amongst some pilots, and all of it came from the same lazy reporting that is so frequently decried on these forums when the press gets something wrong.

I know some on here probably see me as an apologist for Airbus and for technology, but I can assure you I am completely neutral - I just can't abide prejudice that stems from being misinformed.

If you follow the general trend of the inputs over time, you'll see that the THS was just doing as it was designed to do - compensate for the pilot's inputs and hold trim accordingly. The problem is that if you compare the amount of flight surface movement commanded by the FMC to maintain altitude and heading in turbulence with the amount that was commanded from the PF's sidestick following FMC disconnect, you see a glaring difference. The THS did what it did because the PF was inexperienced at high-altitude manual flying and was overcontrolling.

Hi. This may seem like a rather simple question from a normal girl interested in all thing aviation after lots of flying over the globe... so forgive me but why did the pilots not actually 'feel' they were descending rapidly? would it not be obvious that they were stalled and falling out of the sky? No g forces?? Thankyou :)

You get the distinct impression that they did feel that they were falling but thought it was nose down.

> would it not be obvious that they were stalled and falling out of the sky? Good question; that's why I asked above if the pilots could distinguish a stall from a "high speed stall" because I was wondering the same kind of thing. In the dark, in storm turbulence, I wondered if there was any way they could tell which kind of stall, assuming they believed the alarms; as I recall the moves required for recovery would be different.

When they were falling with constant descent rate, about 10.000 ft/min, they cannot find it by their senses. They could discovere it by the instruments (altimeter, variometer) in combination with their nose up attitude (by artifical horizon). If they had an AoA meter, the could discovere it seeing extreme angle of attack.

At least ....
At the speed with which they came down .. they would certainly have some effect at the eardrums due to pressure difference ... (hurt feeling)
Even at reasonable rate of descent you feel this (even if cabin pressurised)

What makes you think they weren't feeling the rapid descent?
Commercial pilots are trained to fly by instruments and not to obey their perceived motion. In zero visibility it is even more dangerous.

This comes down to scan, and basic IF skills. IF one is programmed to be protected, and the warnings are not fitting the picture, you either revert to basic skills or try to figure out what "it" is doing all the way down to sea level.

What it looks like to my humble bit of experience anyway.

I was non Airbus trained in the industry, then type rated on it .... perhaps the best way.

A couple of questions:

1. Given that the BEA Interim Report seems to be pointing a finer at EASA and Air France:

and that AF have introduced additional training cf:

Is there anyone out there who can draw a direct comparison between the training the AF crew had and their own experience? In other words, was the AF crew trainíng 'par for the course' compared to other operators or sub par?

2. Which of the 2 co-pilots was PF?

Well in this scenario your artificial horizon may not have worked quite as you have expected.

With a 15 degree nose up attitude with a very high rate of decent, but no change in accel/decel you would have felt your * erse against seatback = climb. Unfortunately it was decent.

There you go.

My airline never said pull up to 7,000 FPM climb if I lose my airspeed in the clouds. Something like hold cruise pitch and power.

Of course we already knew this before we got hired having flown several dozen types of aircraft single pilot in most cases and quite a few jets with lots of time.

The new way of training airline pilots in automatic airplanes makes them systems operaters, not real hands on pilots. I think we will see more of these accidents as the old guys retire and the systems operaters take over the cockpit.

No doubt "more of these", but also - less of those - . . . for now . . that's progress . . (and I don't like it!).

It's you who previously threw out the probability of a 777 backdrive failure rendering it no better than a joystick.

The 777 backdrive provides continuous feedback to the PNF of the commands by the PF and AP. And it is in the peripheral vision at all times, even while the PNF is attending the ECAM. The PNF doesn't have to focus on the EFIS to interpret the commands.

And you're wrong to equate a high ranking Capt on Birgenair to the AF 447 PNF copilot. The 447 PNF seemed to be less aware of PF actions, because there was no yoke!

@DW

I think we will never know. None of us can get inside the PF's head to know exactly what he was thinking. It's possible that the stall warning had zero influence on his behavior. OTOH, it's possible that it did. I agree with you that the stall warning did not "significantly and repeatedly stop" the PF from doing the right thing. OTOH, a more robust design might have been just the little nudge he needed in the right direction. On that point we will never know.

Hi,

That's possible
What we know for sure .. is that possible that a high technology plane with the latest flight security systems (redundancy .. protections and limitations ... or like some tell ... fool proof) can go from a eventless flight at 35000 feet .. to the ground in 4 minutes .. just because a indication speed lost forced the pilots ( from a major European airline) to manually fly the plane (even with some aids still working)
That's a "premiere" .. and hopefully not the first of a serie ......

Ultimately, it's all irrelevant.

Airbus,and I suspect Boeing, never expected a pilot to put their plane through this.

The long chain, and Swiss chess, started when this pilot was accepted for flight training.

@jcjeant

Medical license.. Try to get a license in NyC. They stop short of asking for your kindergarten reports... Especially if you are FMG you need to provide everything and thy contact your Med School to see if it is legit. But I agree, it can happen in our field too...

And even more drastically .. it begins with his birth ... :eek:
The problem is to detect incapacities (if any) by testing .. or more hypothetically .. at birth :confused:

In a media report / briefing there was some talk of the passengers knowing/not knowing of the decent over 4 minutes.. I was unable to find any reference to this comment in print anywhere. Could someone point me in that direction. Additional query would be if the sensation of rocking and falling would feel like bad turbulence or would there have been a sensation of weightlessness / Incapacitation etc.

Not a lawyer!!!

Quoting Neptunus Rex:-

I don't think so, Neptunus. Don't forget, 'autotrim' was still operating; and I don't think Airbus pilots have the option of turning it off? So if they'd wound the trimwheel forward to reduce the huge (13-degree) 'up' angle the systems appear to have imposed, the autotrim would presumably just have wound it back to 'Square Thirteen' again?

Quoting RWA:

The systems only imposed the 13 degree up angle because the pilot asked for it by backwards pressure on the SS that increased the pitch angle to the point where the aircraft stalled - the system was doing exactly what the pilot requested. Even then, if he'd moved the SS forwards again to try to reduce the pitch angle (and consequently the AOA), as you'd expect any pilot to do when in a stall, the system would've moved the THS accordingly.

I don't think so
If pilot had moved the trim .. he take authority over the auto trim and the trim will stay where the pilot put it ... and the trim will not return in primitive position
AFAIK

Remember the Westland Lysander ??
This old plane had already "auto flaps" !
They deployed or retracted regarding of the aircraft speed ...
They had a big effect on the flight attitude of the plane (don't forget to trim !!)
If the pilot dont know that .. it was the crash as result .. at landing or take off
If you don't know the plane you fly .. the result can be a catastrophe .. Lysander or A330 .. same results

Quote from grimmrad:

No - all of the pilots had licences - the list of qualifications each pilot held is in the BEA report. The captain was asking whether the licence he held "qualified [him] to act as relief" (quote from from the BEA report).

Indeed .. and it's a odd question of the captain when replaced in the context :sad:
(this copilot made also with same captain the flight Paris - Rio ... and captain don't know the qualifications of his crew :confused: ... show at least the no professionalism of the guy ... or bad Air France rules )
Go figure the logic .....
By the way .. it's not a part of the CVR transcript ... it's reported by BEA
Waiting for the full CVR transcript ....

Still unanswered
 

OK, I've gone and read details in the Tech Log thread, but there still seem to be some questions the BEA hasn't answered, or hasn't tried to answer. (Or if so, I've missed them.)

Why the initial climb?

As for the pilots not recognizing they were in a stall, I think that is because they knew some instruments were not working --- but did not know which were working --- so they were totally confused about what was true and what wasn't. I know someone said earlier pilots were supposed to know which instruments were fed by what, but that's not the same as knowing in a real life situation which instruments can actually be relied upon. I wonder how many pilots would really know. I don't think any amount of training would solve this problem. Obviously technical solutions are limited. Put an indicator next to the instrument indicating its value is valid or not, then how do you know if that indicator is working correctly!
But I certainly don't see this as pilot error.

From the transcript, the conversation suggests they clearly didn't know the seriousness of their situation.

Why WAS the THS stuck up? Down inputs were recorded or mentioned. The BEA emphasizes the plane was fully functional and responsive, so why was the THS stuck up and remained stuck up?

It wasn't stuck up.

jcjeant said:
Well said master! :D

Will edit once more... Reminder: "Speed = Life"... On doubt... Always Speed! Why?
Coz the wings fly... (And speed is AoA, no engines involved).

Check Technical Log forum
It's explained (many time by takata and some others) with drawings of the system logic and also graphs extracted from BEA report N*3
Make your searches .. be informed.
BTW the THS is not stuck (blocked)