Hi,

It seems they have recovered cockpit seats and door: do they think there was only one people there? Reengaging AP too early (would originated the december 2009 "advice" about not doing that before assuming speed semsors are right) > rough pitch (up or down), cockpit door slamed and only one people (even nobody!) left in?
CVR had told that, now ...

I pray that a full decade old, US driven security paranoid dogma had nothing to do with this.

Much simpler cause(s)?
 

Squawk_ident,

Another shock to (Air) France less than 48 hours the one at week end?

What we will do now with the elaborated models we imagined during these almost two years? :8 Indeed was a good exercise.

Simple cause?
 

And surfacing less than two weeks after the other "deep sea dive"?

We don´t deserve!

hi,

Le Figaro - France : AF 447 : Airbus semble tre mis hors de cause

In fact the investigation is already over.
I understand why so many countries are envious of France to have an investigation office so performant.
In fact .. with the BEA .. there is never any unpleasant surprises (for some .. of course)
Again fame and efficacy of the BEA are shown :)

Next ................... :(

I do hope that we yet establish the various layers of swiss cheese that may have played a part.

I don't like blame related leaks in an investigation, they sound so self serving

For the BEA to rush out with findings one day after hearing the CVR suggests that the cause is basic and fundamental, and there is concern about AF training and/or procedures that require immediate attention. (Assuming Figaro is pretty much correct with its news.)

Hi,

Now .. that the rush is over for the BEA .. I have a question for them ....
600 days since they examine the black boxes of Yemenia (remember ... it's so old) .. and no results .... :ooh:
Amazing when you see the BEA performance about AF447 :sad:

PJ2

I cannot agree with you that the photo in #1464 posted by lomapaseo is the engine without Fan Blades and rotor. In it, we see the remnants of those blades which were completely shorn off, the ones still attached are out of view. Note the Stator ring aspect at the 2:00 and see it matches the engine in the later pic posted by JP133600. I think the leading edge damage on the remaining blades is not so much due to shrapnel, as hydraulic "machining"..... At 2500rpm and one hundred knots down, perhaps a total velocity of 200knots, the hydraulics are.....destructive of titanium, and most certainly CFRP. (Let's see, at ten foot diameter, 2500 rpm, the Blades themselves have a tip velocity of ~~83,000 fpm, 1000+ mph,+

lomapaseo... I tend to concur. What makes me a bit suspect is that only one news source has published this. If it was more substantiated, I would think many news agencies would be on top of it.

This entire worldview of the computer flying an airplane is a catastrophe. I will never fly on any Airbus product for the remainder of my life. I want my life in the hands of pilots, not mediocre IT personnel.

Wouldn't you have to put this question to the investigation authority of the Comores?

The author of the Le Figaro article - Fabrice Amedeo, has demonstrated a number of times that he has some sources close to the investigation. It has previously been commented on in Part 1 of this thread.

When the smoke clears, there may well be some substance to what has been reported, but until then I wouldn't want to draw any conclusions.

Hi jcjeant,
Please, refrain from commenting about this investigation's fairness simply based on Le Figaro's Newsline. There is absolutely nothing in this article showing that "Airbus" may be discharged for anything about this crash.

Europe 1, citing Le Figaro "sources" is now titling "Airbus is out of cause" when the Figaro only titled that "Airbus might be out of cause".
From the article reading, you'll find that it is only a rumor as the CVR was not even cited. The FDR can't reveal that so fast and all by itself.

For my part, I'm discarding this information until tomorrow.
If something very new was revealed about the flight (charging pilots/AF), I would expect that it would be find in the CVR reading instead of the FDR. In fact, The BEA can't remotedly say anything like that at this point of their investigation. Maybe the journalist simply misunderstood a source saying that "nothing wrong was found about this aircraft's behavior so far", badly deducing that FDR data were fully analysed!
This is again a very bad reporting from Le Figaro anyway! (and not the first one from this journalist).

Figaro/Dassault
 

Saturn V

Mac

Takata
I too noticed that the DFDR was cited as the source of the Le Figaro information.

Takata is 100% on target. I would like to know what the crew had to say before forming a judgement.

Wx Radar Factor
 

Thanks for all the good comments.

It is not my opinion that the last generation of radars are unsafe, rather that the airlines give only lip service to radar training. UAL used to have an excellent radar training program in Denver, but it is long gone. I have heard of no other airline that does an adequate job. That's the main basis for my believing the new multi-scan radar provides a better margin of safety.

At this point, is it more economical to upgrade the radar and provide a basic understanding of it, or to provide extensive training to all pilots in optimum use of the old prior generation radar?

To be fair, once the wreckage was found, the recovery seems to have been impressively open and efficient. Looks like we could have had the answer a few weeks after the crash if the search had worked the way its supposed to. It also seems like the current black box system works. On the other hand, the pingers and/or the procedure for searching for them, definitely needs work.

If it is anything like Le Figaro is suggesting, then I am suprised already. I was expecting some kind of technical cause, probably compounded by Wx and/or crew mishandling the situation. The way the article puts it (unless my French is a lot worse than I think), this was primarily a crew/SOP screw-up, with technical issues possibly just incidental. I agree with SaturnV that it must be a really basic and fundamental issue for them to conclude that so quickly (if Le Figaro is right).

I don't think that outcome would be a pleasant suprise for anyone (I'd suggest not even AB).

I can't figure out how this could all fit with the evidence we've had so far though - unless the LOC came first and then caused the ADR issues ? But the automatics were in until ADR issue kicked them out - so who / what lost control ? I await the next BEA release with interest (and it has to be said, with a slight suspicion that Le Figaro might be completely wrong).

Which mean strictly nothing as EADS and Dassault are far from being very "close friends" (Rafale/Eurofighter and loads of divergent intersts). Also, note that Airbus do not comment this "news", as usual.

So they are saying that the autopilot dropped out due to a too lively ride??

I got slammed for suggesting that 4 days after the deal. The weather overwhelmed the a/p, and the weather discreped the pitots, and the ADR's fubared along with the others?? TCAS, WindShear (was there "actual" w/s)??

So the last ACARS was loss of altitude faster than the CPS could deal with it??
Probably at altitude? The descent was then as we thought, steep, fast, and quick??

Machaca's last pic of the a/c heading at 018.8 T could easily be spot on spot.

If the pilots kept wings level, there may have been no rotation, only one last steep descent.??

wish I spoke francais

Le Figaro journalist
 

Author

:rolleyes:

I'm no fan of excessive reliance on automation, but I bet a lot of crusty old guys weren't too keen on non-recip engines (to be fair, the early failure rates were a bit obscene) and VORs, either.

A Chicken Little-like Luddite's view isn't doing anyone any favors.

If ACARS ended at altitude, I think it may be time to reinvigorate the proposition the a/c lost some parts, on the way down, even just post the last vertical speed message.

If this flight punched into the demon, fbw, or cables and pistons, no one survives. FBW, MeatPilot, Boing, or Bus, All are Moot.

Hi Bearfoil,
Humm Bear... don't make a fool of yourself as you perfectly know that Airbus [please, note the right spelling] didn't say a word about it and, a fortiori, didn't claim anything. Those reporter "sources" are always the famous "close to the investigation" noise.

Other engine picts:

http://takata1940.free.fr/8197.jpg

http://takata1940.free.fr/8217.jpg

http://takata1940.free.fr/8277.jpg

takata

It was a sincere question, if AB is saying nothing, then this so-called source is premature?? Asking a question is not allowed?? hmmmm..........

TurbineD

In takata's third picture, are the two "plates" at 11o'clock and 1o'clock the pylon mounts?? If so, then the engine lifted back into the pylon, and the plates punched through the Stator??

What the heck can they possibly find in the FDR traces that would lead them in this direction?? :eek:

Bear,

I think you misunderstood PJ2's post regarding the engines. What he said was the engine photographed on the sea bed was fan rotorless. This was the 2nd engine brought onto the recovery ship. Read his post again. also, don't you think some of the nacelle inlet pieces might have entered the fan causing the damage to the LE of the fan blades? Just a thought.

hedge36, it's becoming clear what happened here - problems developed for which there were no stick-and-rudder guys aboard, and indeed there is no stick-and-ruddering to be done with this flying cybernetic organism. I guarantee that what happened is, the pilots flew the airplane into the ocean while dicking around with the flight manager. They had little time to react, and they pissed it away trying to reconnect the AP or some such IT task better left to H1Bs. I'll eat my ailerons if that's not what happened. The airplane, the philosophy of "computers are cheaper than pilots", is a disaster.

What you need is an airplane with high wing loading that will not turn into a falling leaf if the computer that flies it, decides to fart to the north instead of to the south.

Have followed this accident from the beginning
 

For some reason yet unknown this crew appeared to fly into a radar shadow and then into a monster updraft scenario. A pilot friend of mine tells me it is almost indescribable flying into such a nightmarish event. I was schocked at the crash location being just about 5 miles from the LOC. I tend to think that violent storm just took that plane and flung it into the ocean. I have rehearsed this with a legacy pilot and the terror of those last minutes much have been heart rending. My juvenile guess is that the constraints and pressures placed on pilots today to fly on the edge was a factor in this flight crew making a fatal decision. My sympathies lie with the crew and the incredible job they do day in and day out.

Thanks to all on this thread that have answered so many of my questions.

deSitter USAF generals I'm sure would agree with you with respect to the the F-22.

Was the procedure to be that a representative of the French judicial police, and representatives from the UK, Brazil, Germany and maybe the U.S. would listen to the CVR along with the BEA?

If so, it would be as some of the comments in Le Figaro exclaim, 'Extraordinaire!' to have the BEA come out with findings so quickly. And to presumably do so with the concurrence of the French magistrates conducting the criminal investigation.

Under French judicial procedures, if a party under investigation is determined not to be at fault or involved, must the court quickly remove that party as a subject of the investigation? Perhaps that is a reason for the speedy release of the findings.

TurbineD

I think I read PJ2's post correctly. Nacelle ingestion is remote for that damage. I think the ingestion would be at forward speed only, no time to contact the Wheel. The engine Fan Blades are moving at roughly 1200 mph relative to the water, the Fan Blades were likely "still" by the time the first fragment ambled back into the Fan. The Fan had stopped, the Blades were still, and any fragments in front would be hitting the Blades at 1/15 the speed of the initial contact. In other words, I think the blades incurred leading edge damage before they hit the debris. Instant stop v. 60 mph aft, covering 18 inches?? I think it possible that the Nacelle debris was not ingested at all, but expelled forward, in the ram created by the incredible displacement of water by the Fan "Disc". Disc in the sense of an energetic and dynamic "wall". What is also possible is that the disintegrating Fan Blades created a metallic and composite 'Slurry' creating an hydraulic cutting medium in the adjacent chaotic spool down.

Sorry then. I wrongly supposed that you had first read the news (who say what from who), the comments about it (bad, look at my post above), before adding some fuel or credancy about those informed tabloid's scoop.

Anyway, I posted those engine picture for you to look at as I'm not that a bad boy. [Note also: AB mean nothing; AI (Airbus Industry) meant something; now it is Airbus SAS, an EADS company]

[Bolding mine]

Is this a hint there was only one pilot in the cockpit?

As an A330 fully loaded glided without engine for more 90 Nautic Miles before landing safely in the Azores (It would be a world record in its category), Those aircraft capabilities, as their "flying" capability is concerned, should be more than proved (with or without computer help) after tens of millions of hours flown.
Beside, do you know a single large transport aircraft which is built without a flight computer today? More likely, the biggest issue is that you don't have a clue about what you are talking about.

jcjeant
Your anti-french bias leads you, again, astray.
And it's bloody annoying.
Get a life.
Secondfly, your silly comments about the Yemenia missing report is also way out of base as the BEA was subject to the necessities of the Comorrean authorities.
Same thing about the Ethiopian jet that crashed out of Beyrut. The publication - or not - is the Libanese government responsibility. Not the BEA

And this leak has nothing to do with the BEA, nor the NTSB representative....or any of a few others allowed in the investigation.

RR_NDB,
That piece of video is a self-serving operation by a sensationalist journalist of the Fig trying to sell his book.
Among the pearls of this interview is "a serious breach of safety against all rules as an AF 380 took off from JFK to CDG with only two pilots at the controls !!!"
I rest my case.

This said, we have two possibilities here :
1/- The article has managed some serious sources, or
3/- There is nothing of material substance behind that announcement.

What is astonishingt is how quick someone, apparently au fait of the investigation has come to a conclusion that completely exonerates Airbus (which I find really difficult to understand as the ACARS were bringing a dark picture of a situation that caused a major stressful situation in that flight deck ) and at the same time putting the blame on Air France and the pilots for causing the accident.
The first possibility is frightful : we are talking about a major safety breach here and way beyond my theory of a less-than-optimum operating flight deck crew.
The only thought that comes to my mind is, that close to the crew change-over, that there was only one pilot up front when the chips went down.
In this speculation, the flight deck door is locked, without any possibility for the other pilots to regain their seat as the one left on his own was too busy .
Why am I thinking about that possibility ?
It was a theory, one among others, said a long time ago when it was learned that one of the pilots was travelling with hids wife in J.

Bear,

My answer is no from what I can see. There are some other features of the fan by-pass area that may have folded back and that is what you are seeing and calling plates. I can't tell for sure but I think I see one of the yoke to platform links (rods).

Also, we actually don't know what the N1 speed was in the end.

Does the FDR record flight deck seat occupancy parameters, effectively ruling out incapacitated pilot(s)?

without computer
 

Beside, do you know a single large transport aircraft which is built without a flight computer today? More likely, the biggest issue is that you don't have a clue about what you are talking about.

So? What difference does that make for actually being in charge of an airplane? Stick and rudder guys fly the 777 and are amazed. The 777 behaves like a big airplane, it doesn't turn real nifty but just try to knock it out of the air.

Would any crew in their right mind change shifts with the forward-looking weather radar display looking like a Christmas tree?