I deeply regret this decision. What, other than grief, might it produce?

Hi,

For some this will be relief and for some other will be grief indeed ...

jcjeant, where was a decision announced to recover all the possible bodies?

Crash du vol AF 447 Rio Paris: l'identification des corps est possible - Société - Nouvelobs.com

I thought the two judges in Paris had suspended further recoveries beyond those two.

takata --

I too must ask you the question: Where does that information come from? I have seen nothing to indicate that fact has been established.

Important (major) factor ("single")?
 

Takata,

Unless clear and important facts recorded in the CVR channels allowed an analysis that explained why they entered the "complex" scenario (UAS and so on).

Always comes to my mind that after the Selcal tested ok, just 3 seconds later the crew no longer replied 4 callsfrom ACC-AO.


Reminder:

01:35:43 “ AFR 447 -AIR FRANCE FOUR FOUR SEVEN, thank you.
01:35:46 “ ACC-AO -Welcome, maintaing flight level three five zero,
say your estimate TASIL?
01:35:53 “ ACC-AO -Say your estimate TASIL?
01:35:59 “ ACC-AO -AIR FRANCE FOUR FOUR SEVEN estimate TASIL?
01:36:14 “ ACC-AO -AIR FRANCE FOUR FOUR SEVEN say your estimate
TASIL?

Source: BEA #1 report

I took into account also the fact:

At 2 h 01, the crew tried, without success for the third time, to connect to
the Dakar ATC ADS-C system. And the flight was not transferred between the Brazilian and ACC DAKAR.

Considering that some 6 weeks ago there was a general pessimism that the debris would never be found, then when the debris was found pessimism that the recorders would never be found, then when the recorders were found gloom that they would be unreadable. So now, after a remarkable turn-around can't someone just say what a great effort by all involved in getting to this stage ?

If it turns out that in addition to the acars reported failures the laser ring gyros also gave up independently (rather than some data combining algorithm surrendering owing to loss of air data), then I shall eat my wife's cooking.

Yessir, a great effort and admirable tenacity, in the face of escalating costs and many hours of finding nothing.

A few pages back I confessed to being a doubting Thomas, and tipping a cap to those who pressed on and finally found 447.

Glad they did. :ok: :D :D :D :D

In re your wife's cooking ... is there something you'd like to share with us? :eek:

Mr O, LW50,
 

I'm fully with you on that one !
These BEA guys and the experts involved have done a hell of a job to locate and recover the essential items of the wreckage.

It's easy now for all our armchairs experts to say that they should have found the wreckage on day 1 just after the A/C has disappeared :
- in extreme weather,
- in the middle of an ocean,
- in 3000-4000 meters of water !!!!

BEA made choices that were reasonable at that time and resources involved have included the French, the Brazilian and even the US NAVY if I do remember (meaning the US Govt was part of the conspiracy not to recover the boxes :ugh:).
Being failed by the pingers (and that need to be investigated), they made elaborate guesses and assumptions to go on. When they failed to find the wreckage during the pingers' life, they gathered a bunch of international experts (Russian, American, etc.), reviewed all available data and finally DID THE JOB.

So please let's stop all the bulls..t regarding the BEA being only a governemental agency full of incompetent bureaucrats with an hidden agenda ! (of course, that last one is not for you M. O and LW 50).

Mr Optimistic
Well put Sir!

The trouble with the species, is that once stage one of a battle has been achieved, the whole drama involved in the achievement is consigned to the waste bin of history, and miraculously the species heads fearlessly into the next cauldron of tension, terror and "what ifs?"

Advance .. Sir Lancelot.:ok:

Ile de Sein has left Dakar
 

The "Ile de Sein" latest recorded position on 18MAY 0223z is 14.26158 / -17.737961 on course 230°
Looks like she is going back to the site after crew relief. Left Dakar at about 2215z
Carte en temps réel des navires - AIS - trafic maritime et positions 2:23:38 AM

PJ2 once kindly returned a comment to this question:
.......There are no procedures established to move the CG forward to "guard against stall" - in fact, no airplane which would require such an intervention should be flying as a commercial transport.......
http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/39510...ml#post6400653

not shure, but it look as if needs a longer time to pump all the fuel of the trim tank forward 15-20 min

the volume of the trim tank is 6230 l (4890 kg)

Hi to all in PPRUNE.

It took me almost 5 weeks to catch up with all the posts in the AF447 thread, witch I found after seeking the internet for some valuable and trustworthy forum on the AF447, ever since the ´black boxes´ were found.And I do have a personal reasons to be here, and speak up. I had a relative no board. My 47yo aunt, SONIA, was on her way to Paris to meet her french boyfriend. Never made it to her french date. Her body was never recovered, so we suspect she must be underwater strapped to her seat. And it would be a relief to get a confirmation on that. I shall say to TAKATA em SATURNV that all information, regardless of its nature, should be posted and thoroughly discussed. So please guys, keep questioning, but most important and most of all, keep answering.Along this past 5 weeks I learned a great deal of technical information, in several fields of expertise, which I never suspected existed. And let me say that I carry this information to my family and other families regarding the AF447 event; trust me it´s been most helpful to all of us!

I speak from RIO DE JANEIRO, am a 41yo medical doctor specialized in anesthesiology. So you can count on me on medical opinions if they occur. So... a big THANKS to you all pilots, engineers, pilots-to-be, lawyers, and etc... this forum is a bliss among the anguish developed ever since the AF447 disappeared in the cold night.We are all waiting for the right answers, not to blame anyone, its passed that, but to understand what happened, and dismiss, once and for all, our suspended griefs.

PS: Even though my aunt perished, I´m relieved because my mother, who is terrified of flying, but has in fact flown worldwide, was scheduled to scort my aunt to Paris, but, due to her total lack of personal organization forgot to check her passport, which had expired in APR 2009. And, at the time, was devastated to loose the opportunity to spend her vacations in PARIS. Lost the chance to get on board. Destiny playing its cards! Go figure.

NandoCarioca
Rio de Janeiro
Brasil

Hi,

French TV network TF1 during the primetime edition 20H (local time)
Le 20 heures du 18 mai 2011 - Vidéo du journal televise : Le journal de 20h - TF1
Time in the video:
21Min 40sec

jcjeant,

from tf1
Vol AF447: le BEA disculpe l'Airbus pour l'instant... - France - TF1 News

A translation:

At the press briefing on Thursday, May 12, the Deputy Prosecutor of the Tribunal de Grande Instance (the Judicial District Court) in Paris and the heads of the Institute of Criminal Research of the National Gendarmerie (IRCGN) and the Gendarmerie Air Transport (GTA) announced that they should know by this [current] week if DNA analysis could be used on the [tissue] samples from the two bodies, and [lead to] identification of these bodies. The laboratory assigned to analyze the samples has just announced its findings. The extraction of DNA for obtaining a profile was achieved, confirming that identification [of the bodies] is possible using DNA analysis.

For Lonewolf 50 & wes wall:

I can only speak to the West side of the Atlantic, but some large transport aircraft simulators now come with an IOS touch screen page labeled “Unusual Attitudes”. There are about 12 icons available to select for example: “250 knots, 60 degree bank, 45 degree nose hi”, “180 knots, 45 degree bank, 30 degrees nose lo”, and so on over a fairly full range of pitch, bank & speed.

When selected, the simulator is placed in the chosen attitude with the associated speed and then automatically frozen (flight freeze). The trainee and the instructor then have time to discuss recovery options before releasing flight freeze. Evidently, airline pilot representation organizations had a big say in using exclusively this methodology for training, as opposed to a dynamic entry. The days of 'close your eyes and give me 30 degrees of bank to the left, and now reverse it' are gone.

The obvious drawback here is that what precipitated the problem is not addressed, nor are the dynamics leading to the preset conditions from which a recovery is to be initiated. It is specifically Unusual Attitude “recovery’ oriented and not Upset & Recovery oriented. As you say, Upset avoidance is stressed.

Some simulators have two additional icons which dynamically produce either a nose hi or nose lo unusual attitude but the reason for the occurrence is left to the instructor to create, i.e. Wake, Mountain Wave, CAT, CB etc. Use your imagination. These are extra frills and cannot be incorporated in the formal pass/fail syllabus.

The obvious limitation of these types of scenarios in the A330 is that in Normal Law from the 67,30,-15 limits the aircraft recovers itself. Once again you have people questioning, how could it even get there? Why do we need this?

I have seen an IOS page that allows the simulator operator to put the Airbus in any pitch attitude or bank, but it must be put in Direct Law to get there and the simulator motion must be off. Most of the Flight package data is predicted data because the aircraft just can’t get there. No motion leaves a lot to be desired. It’s possible there’ll be more flight data available now, maybe not.

In some heavy aircraft, Flaps 1 is a recommended selection in some hi altitude stall situations, the Bus has the auto-slats, but in other than Normal Law maybe there are other options. I've instructed "approach to stalls" in both the B727 aircraft and B727 simulator as well as a few other simulators and training in this regard is far more flexible and productive in a simulator with probably a 100% carryover to the aircraft.

Accurate Stall/Upset simulation is a hot item as we speak.

All this is academic discussion in reply to questions about Upset/Unusual Attitude training, not intended to apply to AF447.

To answer a couple of points:
The A300-60QRH advises to move the trim tank fuel forward in the event of severe turbulence.
The normal cg target for a A330 200 is 36.8 at 230T with a linear shift to 39 at 168T
Ten to fifteen minutes sounds about right to move the fuel completely forward but I will check and repost the actual rate tomorrow.

But not the A330 ?

Air France crash probe points to pilot error
 

This may have been posted before...Wall Street Journal...:ugh:


Air France crash probe points to pilot error - NYPOST.com

NandoCarioca,

Thank you for your post and your personal sharing. All of us who post to this site are saddened by your personal loss of your Aunt, the grief that is immense and for all the other 227 souls lost on that dreadful night. Each of us, based on our expertise and experiences have the goal you have identified, that is, to aid in the finding of the true root cause or causes to prevent such a catastrophe from occurring in the future. It is important to place the cause as the first priority and not the blame, in reverse, the cause may be masked to again be repeated in the future. And so, we go forward to analyze and debate what we may know or not know towards the goal. But in the end, everyone hopes this will never be repeated. So, keep reading as things progress and more data emerges. Your contributions will be a most welcome addition going forward.

Turbine D,

Very nicely said. My sentiments as well.

What Turbine said
 

Salute!

Amen, Turbine.

To our Brazilian friend, I echo Turbine's feelings and goals, as all of us here do.

Cargoflyer

+1 :ugh:

Hi,

Air France crash probe points to pilot error - NYPOST.com

The original article (Wallstreet Journal) offer a better analysis....
Airbus: No Major Malfunctions in Air France Crash - WSJ.com

Human touch
 

NandoCarioca,

A multidisciplinary group of aviation professionals and enthusiasts are here trying to contribute. The Synergy indeed is very high.

Most of pertinent postings are being commented and your presence is an special one. With a human touch, the ultimate reason of our interest in air safety discussing the issues each one in his field consider important.

This is the direct result of the synergy here and your motivation.
I am sure the "search of the truth" is the same in the "investigation team" and may be this forum helped to show the aviation professionals are highly motivated to do the best flying or not. You could observe how many experienced retired professionals are answering questions sharing their knowledge.

You are welcome.

For sure this facts bring to her something important for her mind.

Thank you for the human touch to a group of technicians. This make us remember our ultimate goal.

As we know here, the newspaper headline above results from reading between the lines and cannot yet be relied upon.

Let me pose a hypothetical question to those here.

Suppose it was true that the pilots blundered into a storm for whatever reason, and suppose that the aircraft load limits were not exceeded by the storm encounter.
Now suppose that some aspect of the flight control system's ability to control the aircraft while in the storm was exceeded and that led to the loss of control and crash.

Yes there are several suppositions here but as of this moment, these suppositions seem to be still potentially viable. I did post such a flight control possibility several months ago but did not pose the following question at that time.

Would you give the aircraft's control design a pass or a fail if that was the link that "broke" first in the above situation?

Machinbird

Fail.

If after flying a serviceable aircraft into a cb, and it does not ultimately exceed the airframe load limits, but does confuse the flight control system, that cannot be manually, at the pilots discretion, completely disconnected, to the point that the flight control system commands certain maneuvers that exceed airframe load limits and/or irretrievably exceeds the flight envelope, then yes FAIL.

Excuse the run-on.

Machinbird,

"System ability", relates to Software (algorithms, etc) an the Hardware of a "relaxed stability a/c" (Computational capabilities, Redundancy, fuel transfer for CG, ctrl. surfaces, etc).

After a System degradation for any reason, you need to insert a third element in the System: The pilot(s).

Your question, as i understood is about System ability to cope with conditions before the degradation.*

Software and the algorithms are "evolving entities". The designers are always looking for improving. Trying to attain the "State of the art".

The in depth analysis of the FDR data together Airbus SAS designers could answer your question. It´s a complex issue.

And the leaks we are observing may be are in preparation to deviate for a subjective discussion with this complexity.

In order to understand precisely your question could you remember the post #? I would like to confirm what i understood.

(*) After the degradation even CRM is "inside the loop". A highly unpredictable "System (a/c) performance"

I wondered about this very question in my last post. I think it's more complicated than a simple pass or fail answer. This is a question that deserves some nuanced thinking about the fundamental design philosophy with regards to automation.

Having said that, if you put a gun to my head, I'd say its a pass. The time to prevent this tragic accident was before entering the storm.

If flying into a cb is verboten, which of course it is, but to the point that a loss of aircraft is likely because of a flight control system that doesn't appreciate severe turbulence then several things need to happen:

The wx radar has to be on the MEL and a diversion required if it fails.
Pilot training has to be ensured on the make & model of wx radar.

If it really is critical and will cause a loss, there should be some type of wx radar redundancy, especially for long haul aircraft.

If I understand this statement as meaning that human in the loop leads to unpredictability, I agree with you. However, unpredictability doesn't always imply unreliability. It may be possible to design more reliable systems by having humans in the loop well before degradation or even continually. The challenge will be to come up with an interface.

Once you are beyond basic handling skills, in normal operation you find that the system in the plane that demands the most interpretive skills is the conventional Wx radar.

This can maybe appears in the next BEA report ...
 

The people who wrote that article should be utterly ashamed of themselves. There was no "co-pilot" on the plane. All three were full up qualified pilots. Having a "co-pilot" at the controls in no way "guarantees" that it will have problems. Securvol makes the Le Figaro article seem sensible by comparison.

There may have been only one person at the controls at the moment of upset. Supposing that person was one of the licensed flight crew he was a pilot, fully type qualified with a not inconsiderable amount of experience total and in type. Not enough information has been released to say more.

edit: I feel filthy after reading that.

RR_NDB
The link to the prior post is here in the first section of this thread. http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/39510...ml#post6211506
Specifically the part regarding hydraulic supply saturation & rate limiting.
I would also like to correct a statement I made there, in that the maximum control phase loss resulting from rate limiting appears to be 90 degrees of phase loss.*
HN39 has since posted that a pitch up during cruise at altitude would not break the airframe (at least under positive g) since the wing would stall first.
Note* If the control signal is not perfectly in phase with the aircraft, it may still be possible to generate an out of phase control surface output.

I posed the question specifically because there may need to be a software change to extend the capability of the aircraft to handle turbulence (provided hydraulic saturation/rate limiting is proven). At this point, without hard information, all of this is still speculation as it relates to AF447.
My personal opinion is that if the control system cannot realize the full potential of the rest of the airframe, then it is a fail.

A FAIL case?
 

Machinbird,

The "Something Wicked" F117 (Vega 31) shot down during the Kosovo war can be considered as a result of a "control design fail"?

The intensity of the missile proximity fuse detonation made the system fail.

And what´s the threshold?

What´s the threshold of a WX condition to an a/c?

SThis discussion has another problem: The System faced an UAS (like other 37 cases since 2003). The System simply cannot afford loose some very basic inputs, like air speed.

We learned that Airbus SAS is working in (two?) solutions for this:

1) Use other references (during short period) to avoid System instabilities.
2) Use other methods for air speed measurement.
x)

Additional comment: "Complex Systems" force pilots to respect "Complex WX" using "simple methods": A diligently operated WX radar (scanning manually, at different antenna elevations) to better "characterize" what lies ahead.

PS2

On the evolution of a System look the page 13 of the A330 mfr at 2004:

"A total approach to dependability"

Right on the mark. It is also a way to clean up very dirty electronics, except for all kinds of disk drives that contain moving elements.

Pop out the clock battery. Wash it down well. Ideally use deionized water. But tap water can work. Then bake it out for a while at a modest temperature (120F or so.) Once it is completely dry power it up and go. Completely dry may take quite awhile at elevated temperatures even in very dry climates.

My sell phone survived a dunking in the mud via that kind of treatment.

Hi,

More news !

Black hole :eek:

Google Vertaling

Original link:
L?AF 447 n?a pas foncé dans le trou noir - Europe1.fr - France

Unpredictability
 

I put unpredictable because most of the design effort was put to avoid the extremes.

After the "threshold" there are a lot of extra issues. And the interface is crucial.

One thing is clear: The System manager (PF) ideally should be capable to "avoid" (WX radar use, Comm. resources use, etc.) and to properly "administrate the crisis" after a System degradation.

But the optimization of the advanced designs "comes at a price" when unexpected (or unexpectable") situations arise.

The NYU risk Engineering professor introduced the "Black Swan" concept about "the highly improbable" events. I posted earlier a mention on him.

May be this case after BEA analysis may fit.

RR_NDB
OK, cute, but not relevant to AF447.

Not sure quite what you are implying. Why have an aircraft that could handle the worst weather it might encounter enroute except the flight control system can't hack it (but could if it was told how to)?
UAS is an assumed causal factor by BEA but not yet proven. Depending on what came first in the loss of AF447, it might still be the result of a departure, not the cause. But I will absolutely agree that they need a better system to provide airspeed. The control design is too dependent on it as presently structured.

Lonewolf_50, are you familiar with how a l@ser ring inertial reference works? Your remarks suggest you are unfamiliar with it and are extrapolating from physical gyroscopes. I'm sitting here puzzling over many aspects of your comment.

First, how do you cause a l@ser ring Intertial Reference Unit, IRU, to tumble. There is no moving part to tumble. My understanding is that the three rings are bolted down relative to the plane. The planes changes heading, pitch, and yaw are digitally processed to get the actual heading, pitch, and yaw relative to their state when the IRUs were initialized. Then you play with accelerometers (and to a degree the laser signals) to determine your position from integrating your direction of movement relative to the plane and its absolute heading. Then, since its most useful to know "up" relative to the surface under you rather than the tarmac on the airport you left the absolute reading is translated in coordinates to match your current position.

Once calibration is lost you probably cannot regain it in a trustworthy manner until you are on the ground.

And where in the BEA reports does it declare the IRUs themselves all went
unreliable at the same time. This exhausts my imagination trying to figure out how thus could happen short of a total power cut.

RR_NDB asks why not better fidelity on the CVR for the headset microphones.

I'd suggest that by the time you get through the first stages of audio processing past the microphone the signal is already bandwidth limited to what the CVR records. It's all that's needed to figure out what they said and more.

They're not planning to feed the signals to a top forties jock on FM.