CONF iture (re #841),

With the benefit of hindsight I mostly agree, if there are no other reasons that necessitate the speed constraint.

While I agree with your observation regarding the captain, are you proposing that a cockpit should be designed around this particular situation?

Was it not the real captain who set the radar up?

Almost certainly a contributory factor that degraded the Captain's perception.


Yes, I think you would. The fact that the Captain could not see where the SS was being held is surely another contributory factor that degraded his ability to perceive the situation.

http://www.pprune.org/data:image/png...BJRU5ErkJggg==

We are in danger of going around in yet another 'Oozlum bird' circle, here, but once again - ignoring sidesticks, stall warnings, who is doing what and to whom etc, surely the sight of a nose high attitude (x 3?) and (3?) altimeters unwinding rapidly towards the sea is enough?

Basics?

Pardon my Airbus ignorance, but is there no warning for dual input received anywhere?

Yes - it is:

"Dual Input" sounds and two SIDESTICK PRIORITY lights at the glare shield come on

Couldn't agree more.

Among the 3 in the front office, there must have been an active case of denial. Something along the lines of, "We can't be stalled, the computers must have gone bonkers."

None of them even voiced the suspicion of stall!

No one seems to put much emphasis into the fact that they drove the aircraft directly into an area of severe weather, most non Airbus people convinced that "if only it was a Boeing, with control feedback", etc., etc.

But if we look back at some other aircraft accidents such as the 757 with one blocked pitot tube, this crew did exactly the same thing, other accidents with multiple alarms, completely confused crews.

In the AF accident, multiple alarms and warnings, along with severe weather, brain overload.

I wanted to add my experience of doing things in the airplane that you are not trained to do, and have never come up before.

I recently finished a training course on a glass, automated jet (NOT as new as the Airbus in question). While online, we had a directed go around, while in a non-standard configuration, quite far from the runway, after we had captured the localizer and glideslope.

ATC told us to do a left climbing turn to a heading and an altitude. While this situation would seem "easy", and it would have been in a DC-9 or a C-172, it was quite different in our automated cockpit. We never have trained for this, or seen it in the sim or online (and the capt had lots of online experience).

While we ended up doing what ATC required, there was quite a bit of confusion, and we had to cobble together a number of things before we had the automation turned back on again and everything was back to normal. It took us some debriefing time afterwards to figure out what would be the best course of action if the same thing happened again.

Note: This was a MUCH simpler situation than the A-330 crew experienced, but because we had no training of any kind for this manuever, and no one had ever seen it or thought about doing it, it was awkward, and a lot more complicated than it had to be. If we had seen this in the sim even once, it would have been 10 times easier.

I think in the future, setting up the sims and training to recover from a fully stalled situation is imperative. My understanding is that most simulators today cannot replicate a fully stalled situation.

AFAIK not always; it is (or at least used to be) a customer option.
Didn't it play a role in the Hamburg A320 tip strike incident? I thought LH didn't have them activated.

Cliff said:
I agree, but the sims people have told us here in the thread that it's not possible due to a lack of real-world test data, IOW, no-one is willing to actually fly that.

This particular situation is nothing else than one additional example how the sidestick concept as implemented by Airbus deprives a PNF or/and observers from a very valuable source of information.

Such sidestick concept

• for single crew operation : anytime
• for multi-crew operation : loss of information of great value

Why losing information of great value should be ignored ?

Why the BEA is unable to even discuss the point when the AAIB has openly acknowledged such loss ?

For one very basic reason : they did NOT.
Please read again BEA report #2 :IMHO, this is very precisely the type of weather AF 447 went through with the very same crew reaction : speed reduced ; slight turn to the left (west) of the airway.
Please read BEA's #3 report : @ captplaystation and many others : if each time there is this kind of weather on your route, you MUST not, as a captain, take your rest :
1) what do we train/pay F/O's for ?
2) won't the captain be exhausted at approach/landing time ?

+1
Completely confused crews have (will ?) always been deadly.
Convective weather has nothing to do with crew confusion, icing conditions have a lot to do with blocked pitot tubes.

Another case of blocked tubes without "driving the aircraft directly into an area of severe weather" : See NTSB report # DCA09IA064 for more details.

I am confused.
W.i.t.h. Is nose forward?
Surely they mean release the back pressure, and un stall.
Or: Nose down and regain positive control,
or; pitch to level flight attitude and apply standard cruise epr/rpm/power.
Me thinks a lot of comments come from the armchair experts who have not yet soloed even in a pa 18.
The accident was tragic but something is missing in the translation.
Here is hoping that a lesson has been learnt so that it will not happen again in that manner.

From experience, on a high speed descent the master caution has illuminated to reduce v/s to let the cabin catch-up, then why didn't the Air France A330 caution appear if not earlier, in concurrence with their 10000fpm ROD? Surely the crew would have felt pressure in their ears?

GerardC, given that the area of weather concerned was probably the only significant one en-route & given the possibility for very severe weather in that area I think it shows lack of imagination to have chosen that moment to leave, having discussed the possibility of turbulence before leaving the flightdeck if I recall.
Some companies produce a schedule of suggested rest allocation to allow each crew.member their allocated due, however this may always be modified at Commanders discretion, & does not nullify his primary responsibility/authority to act to achieve the optimum safety levels.
One would have to suggest that going for his rest just prior to entering the ITCZ weather is neither acting as a Commander, nor utilising much imagination.
What quality of rest did he anyhow hope to achieve back in the bunk whilst getting bounced around, I can't personally imagine feeling very relaxed/rested, or maybe I am just a dinosaur that has seen too many inept attempts to control the aircraft in severe weather & decided I want to be personally involved in weather penetration.( &would, even more so, if I was flying a type with a known history of pitot icing problems)
I am all for CRM, & according trust commensurate with experience, however the one with the 4 stripes should never forget where the buck stops & what he is paid for. . . making Command Decisions. I find no argument to classify this choice to be absent at that moment as one of the better options available.
Easy to be wise after the event I know, but I would wager that a fair percentage of Capt's would hesitate to leave just prior to weather, penetration, in preference to biding their time a little.

Hope you guys don't mind me butting in here, but I wonder if the Capt new they were in a degraded law. Is there any explicit statement on the CRM to show that he did know ? Would have expected him to have gone over the loss of protections with the crew as a reminder if nothing else.

It strikes me from reading the CVR transcript that all 3 of them were in "Forrest Gump" mode, flying an A330 in a degraded mode was like a box of chocolates, & no-one really knew what they were getting.
At no point in the so far published inter flight-deck communications do I recall reading someone explicitly stating loss of valid airspeed info / Stall/rate of climb/ the magnitude of the altitude bust/the rate of descent/ the recovery action being taken. . . . . . horrible/unbelievable to say, they sounded completely confounded/dumbfounded & were apparently completely unable to assimilate what was happening/what was needed.
I don't doubt the contribution of the "wonder-plane" to this situation, but these guys were just totally overwhelmed by their situation & this is something Air France /Airbus / & those responsible for setting the syllabus for initial & reccurrent training will have to address with some vigour.
It is not acceptable/valid to suggest that these were 3 guys who showed a below average performance, the logical, & very disturbing conclusion, is that the "average" performance they demonstrated would appear to be the new norm, & THAT is the bullet the industry must bite if there is to be any good legacy achieved by those wasted lives.

from catplaystation....

I think it shows lack of imagination to have chosen that moment to leave, having discussed the possibility of turbulence before leaving the flightdeck if I recall.


.....absolutely with you 100%.

I don't use staff travel much now days...once in 10 years actually.... but if I did, I would MUCH prefer the Captain to be on the flight deck whilst crossing the ITCZ. Any F/O's upset by my remark, please remember that I spent many years observing men far greater than I will ever be negotiating this part of the World from that RHS position; your turn will come too.

It would have been one small voice among a cacophony of buzzers, alarms, chimes, and other computerized admonishments that were bombarding the crew over that period of a few minutes.

While I am unsure of the mention of this within the few pages of compressed data recordings and voluminous (and unrelated as to cause) ancillary data provided by the BEA, there was a leaked maintenance message sent via ACARS circa 02:14 regarding cabin rate.

Earlier suppositions were this advisory alarm was precipitated by a loss of ADR data to the pressurization system, but with the FDR information released, we now know that aircraft descent rate was the more likely trigger.

And unfortunately .. also same pain feeling for the passengers and cabin crew ..
Sure the last minute was not a sweet ride for them

Their last two minutes should have ignored all bells and warnings and confusion and looked at their attitude and descent rate and figured out they were in a simple stall, easily recoverable by a student pilot.

Alternate Law is displayed on the PFD by 2 gold crosses. Ditto Direct Law.

Blubbers, I really believe that they knew how to recover from a stall however I don't think they recognized they were stalled due to training, . The required recover would have had to be very positive.

In response To Mr Optimistic's query, there is no indication whatsoever in Otelli's account that the captain at any time realised they were in some form of degraded law. He seemed totally nonplussed by the situation for the entire 2 min 46 sec that he was in the cockpit during the descent.
After the first 30 sec, during which 12 stall warnings sounded, Otelli writes: De son côté, le commandant semble étrangement absent [For his part, the captain seems strangely absent]. Less than 2 sec before impact, the last recorded words on the CVR are the captain's: Ten degrees pitch up.

Rockhound

They would also have ALT LAW PROT LOST displayed on the upper ECAM as well as the Amber crosses. I would be surprised if the captain was not aware they were in alt law considering the unreliable speed and concern with roll.

Regards

Forget about the freakin LAWS for a bit. Maybe normal law is not a cover for piss poor pilot skills intentionally but that's what is occurring. Why else is it needed anyway? It did not save anyone in this case did it? I am sure it is a good system but it is being abused. Flying is flying and aerodynamics and physics are finite. Power was at point X, pitch information was accurate, the decent rate and altitude were correctly displayed. How hard is it to determine just from this information that the airplane really is not flying anymore and someone should do something positive to unscrew the present situation? For months now (the length of these threads) some people are still flying the darn computer system. What happened to the pilots? The ones here in this forum? Did we forget the basics? We are arguing (discussing) minutia like it is a crystal ball that is supposed to save us. Forget for a moment about the weather. Yes they should have, maybe did, maybe did not divert. Who cares? Not me, that is not the real problem in my opinion. Who cares about the laws? I don't. That is not the root of the problem either. Get real guys. It is the cookie cutter approach the schools have now and the lack of experience that should be in the cockpit to polish the young are all retired and getting ready to retire. The situation is not going to improve unless the bean counters realize the situation and is willing to spend money for proper training across the board. Anything else is just BS.

It is indeed difficult to envisage what other situation they could imagine involving a 15º nose-up attitude / low indicated IAS / TOGA thrust / massive rate of descent that they could have believed to be the case, rather than coming to the conclusion that the aircraft was stalled.
Given how many times the aircraft announced "Stall" "Stall" (even if it had now fallen silent. . . useful that ; NOT) I am at a loss to fathom why nobody could at least figure out (and announce) that they had stalled.

There is no other upset that would display the same symptoms, at that moment they had lost Situational Awareness, completely & utterly.

Errr the flight control laws do have importance in the 330. ( and the others too).

The aircraft cannot stall in Normal Law, and pulling back on the side stick will therefore not cause a stall. Although there is nothing to stop you crashing the plane in Normal Law. The fact that Stall Warnings were being issued should have woken the crew up to the situation, although ECAM might have been confusing matters by issuing DISREGARD STALL WRNG at given moments.

This aircraft needs to be understood and flown correctly, and I agree that the bean counters share some blame in the whole sorry situation that is commercial aviation today, with too many under-trained Captains and FO's tooling around the skies. (to say nothing of SO's and Cruise Pilots)

Ultimately blame the passengers and market forces. Cheap flying still prevails.

Never having been a pilot of something heavy I was surprised how smoothly the stall entry was and how easily the pilot was able to hold to nose up to very high AOA.

I have commented at length on PPRuNe about the sorry state of affairs with the 300 hour total time copilot making Captain in 10 years or less after flying 1 or 2 long-haul legs a month on the autopilot. Companies choosing cadets on every hiring profile point except aviation aptitude, problem solving, and experience.

Captains who have had maybe 100 hours hand flying in their lives.

Captains whose idea of a single engine divert is flying 500 miles past several perfectly good alternates and then over 500 miles of open sea.

Captains whose chance of successfully diverting to KEF or any of the Siberian winter alternates during icy windy weather is nil.

Companies who promote incredibly inexperienced 2 year Captains to be Instructor and Examiner Pilots.

Sure, there are some good and even great pilots flying for these long-haul highly rated companies but the up and coming group is sadly lacking in everything except a well developed sense of entitlement.

I am out and glad of it. Had a great and well paid career. But, what I saw in the last few years of flying really turned my stomach. For some reason, the insurance companies don't care and the public, as usual, is clueless.

Go on guys - turn on the flame throwers.

Plectron - I agree entirely.

Plectron, how right you are!

An ex-UK mil colleague who flies the 757 as an F/O told me that, shortly after the AF447 event, they attempted a similar exercise in the simulator. Despite the brief, the captain was unable to recognise and recover from the stall....until my colleague gave him a less-than-fluffy wake-up call.

He reckons that at least 50% of the non ex-mil pilots on their fleet are equally as poor.

The AF447 event was probably just the tip of a frightening iceberg, involving selection, training and SOPs. AF have had some spectacularly bad accidents in recent years (Concorde, A330, A340) - is there a clue here?

When you read that QRH and FCOM changes such as 'check that any fuel imbalance is not caused by a fuel leak before opening the cross-feed valve' have been made necessary after idiotic crew performance, you have to wonder at the level of corporate knowledge on some flight decks these days.

Re beancounters and false economies.

I was a beancounter, mostly in the car industry but I started on that road in aerospace, when I saw stupid financial decisions being made and then learned enough about cost accounting to find out some of what was going wrong.

When taught how to do it properly in a company where it was well developed, three things became apparent that are relevant here:

1. The financial effects of a decision should be based on the smallest unit affected. That could be anything from an individual machine (or aeroplane, or even instrument) to the entire company.

2. Like computers, garbage in results in garbage out. We did the best we could to find all the effects and quantify them. But if somebody fails to tell the beancounters that an effect of economising on training is a risk of a very expensive accident, they may miss it. Shouldn’t, but may – there are less than perfect beancounters, just as there are less than perfect flight crews. (Looks to me like AF447 passengers were unlucky to be victims of both.)

3. The decisions were made not by beancounters but by management, who either believed what we told them, and acted upon it, or went their own way regardless. I saw both – but never (in the industry I was in) where safety was compromised. When considering fixing reliability or warranty issues, the safety of the user was given very high priority. For airlines, it is now apparent that training “economies” risk a hugely expensive crash. Ask AF if they now think economising on manual flying training etc. was a good decision. And who told the “beancounters” there what it could cost in terms of SAR as well as the future legal cases and compensation, if poor training etc. could result in such costs?

Just my 2p-th.

BEagle said,
There sure is, but just to keep the record straight, I doubt that any pilot, no matter how competent, could have recovered from the Concorde situation. Right?....

As to (Plectron):
Yes, quite. I realize there's a "pilot shortage," but I'd like to see, besides exponentially better training, an IQ test as a requirement. There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there aren't any old, stupid
pilots! :}

<BOOM, CRASH>

If I remember correctly, they might fly a bit longer etc, etc,.. if they did not STRICTLY follow the Engine Fire/Failure checkist.

Re the Concorde accident: didn't the FE shut down the wrong engine without any cross-check with the pilots?

Yes he did. 43 mins 4.28 secs on the CVR.

The only way to achieve this effectively, for long haul airlines at least, is to remove company seniority throughout the industry.

Require every company, as part of their AOC, to send the total time a pilot has accrued with that company to the CAA/FAA/country's authority for easy audit when a pilot ceases employment.

Only when a pilot is free to leave an airline, gain experience in a short haul operation, and return without penalty - perhaps as a direct entry Captain with their position based on their experience will this cease. Company seniority is what stops pilots being true professionals, able to sell themselves on their abilities.

Wouldn't work with the local pilots in the ever growing larger Middle Eastern airlines, Checkboard - those lads insist on being on the biggest piece of metal possible from Day 1. Years ago now, someone recognised the looming problem as discussed in the posts above in one very large Middle Eastern airline. At that airline's home port was (still is) a thriving local freight operation running a half dozen Beech 1900s - lots of sectors, lots of night work, no autopilot, so with very little effort, there was lots of stick time available for the large airline's cadets going begging before they moved onto the heavy metal, in a situation the big airline's training department could easily oversee.

It never got past the suggestion stage, for it was pointed by the people who know such things out that if they made the local cadets spend a year or two on the Beech 1900s after completing their initial training, they would have extreme difficulty in attracting anyone into their cadet scheme.