Yes, I understand this. But in that situation the PNF or the Captain should still be observing what the PF is doing. There should have been open dialogue between the 3 and the Captain should have taken a leadership role. From what we read this was not the case. Furthermore they are all AB pilots and understand this and should be able to work around it with that knowledge....

Razoray,

given your opinion as the "probable cause", the "why" is part of the contributing factors. So far, we had a lot of keywords for those factors, e.g.:

- CRM
- Man-machine-interface (stick vs. yoke, aural warnings, ...)
- (poor / mediocre / too much sim) Training
- Psycho factors
- Weather
- Darkness
- Software issues
- ...

Assessing and prioritizing them is the challenge. Some forum members tackled a lot of those keywords. Adding them to their opinion in a structured way would very much add to the value of this thread.

What a sick concept really when pilots need to work things around ...

Sidestick is a sure way to waste valuable information in a multi crew operation.

There are some interesting comments on the CVR that address what the PF might have been doing. Can they be related to this design flaw?

"What's HE doing now?" LOI leads to LOC. And sustains it?

mmmm. I knew there would eventually be a "gem" if I carried on reading the AF447 threads.
Pilots recognize they are causing the stall if the control column/ stick is in their gut and they are pulling it, perhaps the Nintendo side stick does not give the same info?

Would any real pilot sit with the stick in their gut for 3 min and not think they are stalled?

Should Airbus fit a "stick shaker" which activates at a given angle of attack?

Anyone so pig$hit thick as not to be able to recognise and recover from a stall shouldn't be flying. Whether hi-tech Airbus, lo-tech Bubba Boeing or whatever.

I can't believe this thread is still crawling along. A mix of ignorant speculation and hillbilly rhetoric, it is surely time to close it.

Please!

BEagle. Maybe you are correct. Maybe the AF crew was "pig$hit thicke". Maybe they should't have been there.............

But they were there; and now they and 225 other people are dead.

If this accident were as easy to understand as you want to believe, then anyone with like selection, training and background needs to be grounded immediately.


All of these AF447 threads have " jumped the shark", but that isn't grounds to close them. If you don't like it, stop reading.

Sounds like a plan, it's about time we move forward with something other than rhetoric on how to redesign an aircraft

I have an even better plan: Put everyone in a sim and expose them to the same scenario. If they survive, they can continue to fly, if they don't, they don't. We call it check.

:D
I suspect some airlines will suffer pilots shortage

I have a feeling the airlines with that big yoke in their gut would end up with a lot more pilots left than the airlines with that little sidestick. Since I have been called a caveman for suggesting this in the past I will let you guys decide.

Automated stall recovery?
 

Frequent SLF here, flying most of the time aboard A330/340's, better informed than average but that's it. I very seldom post. Feel free to ignore or delete if inappropriate.
I have two questions. It's not humanely possible to read each and every post on AF447 here (although I've already read a large part of them over the past years) so I've tried searching but failed to find answers.

1) when reliable airspeed information was recovered, did the flight control system switch back to normal mode with all the protections available or not? (I presume not). Is this by design?

2) would some kind of automated high altitude stall recovery be conceivable on such a plane? at least forcing a stick push action?
I find it so disturbing that the AB has so many protections to prevent incursions outside of the flight envelope and that none of this automation could no anything while the PF was holding the stick full aft for long minutes and the plane was stalled.

Sorry for the naive questions. This is *not* a attempt at restarting a new FBW pro-con war and I would be very frustrated if it did.

Another Issue
 

'The Captain returned from a break'. Quite possibly he may have been sleeping in a legal in flight rest period. if woken from sleep, sleep inertia may well have made his decision making skills somewhat erratic for anything up to twenty minutes after he awoke. On the assumption that he was alerted of the situation immediately by the cruise crew, he had only three and one half minutes to regain his composure. Posiibly not long enough to provide a valid input to the situation. Just a random thought.

I don't think the sidestick was invisible to the LHS PNF or PM.
OK you have to look across the flight deck, unlike having a yoke in your gut, but even with the lights down you can see RHS sidestick from the LHS in a 319/320. I am prepared to be corrected by a 330 capt but I don't believe that the two cockpits are that different.
Chances are that the cockpit lighting would have been up somewhat if lightning was around.

No and yes.

If you trust a computer (and the data it's fed with) enough to do an automatic recovery you could just as well let it take action before the actual stall occurs. Then you have what an Airbus gives you in normal law.
There are devices like stick shakers (literally rattling the yoke to alert the pilot by other means than just the aural stall warning) and stick pushers (required on some a/c with unfavourable stall characteristics, automatically pushing the controls ND to initiate recovery). Both systems help but are no sure fire solution. There have been incidents where the action of the stick shaker has been mistaken for mach buffet (a sign of the aircraft being too fast) thus provoking exactly the wrong actions. Even stick pushers have been overridden right into the ground. As they say, invent something foolproof and nature will come up with a better fool.

I agree; 'humanely' is the correct spelling.


Let's face it, this looks to have been one massive screw up by not just one, but all three 'pilots'. I've observed co-pilot manual flying skills and the application of straightforward common sense/airmanship deteriorate over the last thirty years. I've no idea what the 'old school' AF447 Captain's excuse would be, but I doubt it could be even slightly convincing.


Sidesticks in the present configuration(s) are clearly an extremely bad idea, most especially given the potential for the inputs of unbelievable incompetents to be concealed or too subtly annunciated.

The 'sidestick v. Yoke' issue is surely a factor in this accident.

Maybe not the only factor, but a factor nonetheless that shouldn't be discounted.

The captain would surely have instinctively summed up the problem instantly, had he seen both yokes full aft.

I think most pilots would. Especially if he saw that yoke kept full aft for minute after minute.

I'm not an Airbus pilot, but who actually benefits from the use of sidesticks?

I don't see any benefit for the pilots, except when using that table.

Explain to me why a pilot should have a table in front of him instead of the controls.

- it's SO much easier to eat your meal?

Humour aside, a s/s offers a much more attractive way to get digital info from the controls than that large thing thrashing around between your legs.

For combat a/c, having a s/s with an armrest to support the limb means that high g manoeuvring becomes far easier too.

BOAC. Yep. I know that it makes it easy to input digital stuff. That's a benefit for a manufacturer, but not to a pilot.

What are the benefits of a SS for a pilot?

The other obvious drawback is that yokes move together. With SS, opposing unputs are possible (I know they have a way of summing them or for one SS to take priority, but how can either of these features benefit the pilot???)

I know the F-16 has a SS, but most F-16 are single seaters and in the two seaters (mostly) one pilot is an IP.

The yoke (OK, why not take digital input from a yoke?) has the benefit of being in clear view and both are linked mechanically.

These features might have helped or even saved 447.

Come again?
Did it also mess up the FDR traces of elevator position to compensate?

How many lightning strikes did you experience?