Interestingly, unlike NTSB's, BEA report doesn't mention crew's previous activity. IIRC, it was mentioned that captain and more senior F/O arrived from Paris on the previous day so their body clock would be synchronized to CET, which was UTC+2 at the time of the accident. If I am not mistaken, more junior F/O joined the crew in Rio, after vacationing there and his wife was in the cabin so his body clock would be nearer to midnight.

Correct, I was referring to pre-stall maneuvering .

Agreed.

There were reasons but that they were not verbalized indicate total breakdown in the cockpit. Multi-crew pilots don't think aloud and make callouts just for CVR's sake, it's the way of keeping the other guy/gal in the loop. CM2 quickly realized speed indication is faulty but made no appropriate response which would be in descending order of appropriateness: a) just keep the attitude and power where they were b) apply climb thrust and 5° ANU until pitch/power table is available c) do nothing and just wait for the aeroplane to fly herself out of the icing area d) alternatively pull inanely then push when stall warning goes off. Crews performing c) and d) not just survived but didn't damage aeroplane or hurt anyone, despite their response being waaay sub-optimal. CM1 did not acknowledge CM2 concerns or checked them for himself but rather added to cunfusion by suggesting "watch your speed".

We are probably talking semantics here but I can agree that total breakdown of situational awareness, inability to understand the aeroplane's performance and lethally paradoxical reaction to stall warning are indicative of severe confusion.

...and pitch happily exceeding targets even for "below acceleration altitude" case with CM2 strangely quiet and at the best totally vague on what he believes is going on.

I see your point and I can agree with it - folks who forgot high altitude performance part of their ATPL theory could be reminded of it as preparation of HA manual handling. As for large control inputs at HA, they are not problem per se, as long as they are not sustained in one direction or they cause divergent oscillation, both of which may end up in irrecoverable attitude.

Hell of a roller-coaster ride, eh? Result was: no injuries, no damage and in a spectacular display of ignorant coolness - no report.

I think it is at least third time I'm discussing this sentence, so I'm saying again: "system maintains 1G" is description of the end result, not of the underlying operating principle.

What kind of algorithm would system that actively chases 1G use to cope with bank? Pitch? Turbulence? Maintaining the inertially derived flightpath elegantly solves all these problems and fits well stable and quite unmaneuverable machine whose raison d'être is to carry passengers from A to B economically and safely and not to shoot down or bomb anyone in the process.

Anyway, pilots absolutely need not to be aware of all the intricacies of the FBW all the time as aeroplane's response is strictly conventional. Pushing the stick moves the nose down, pulling it left rolls the wings left and vice versa. If the aeroplane doesn't respond, you have truly messed up and better quickly figure out what is going on and how to unmess yourself.

It shouldn't. While not strictly true, difference in feel is negligible.

Still true, trim is for AoA but pilot needs not be concerned about it. If thinking that he trims for speed simplifies his job with no adverse consequences, then so be it.

None at all. Airbus is still pitch+power=performance aeroplane. You set the nose where you want it to be, apply power you want and check that performance is as expected. You don't trim her or think about gees as you move the stick, you just fly it and boy, does the 320 fly sweetly. I pity the fools who program the FMGS with circuit waypoints and let the AP fly the visual approach.

Eh? Not sure I'm following you here. Pilot flies the attitude and FBW makes his job easier by maintaining the flightpath, what you basically get is FBW automatically compensating for turbulence. There is chance for PIO if you are not expecting it but it's easy to get used to.

It did. Stony point.

Agreed - substitute "large" with "large and sustained" in my original post.

That is because no shortcoming entered into what happened starting with the autopilot disconnect and continuing until the stall. The PNF knew, from the display he was watching, the attitude of the aircraft wasn't correct and told the PF so. So what difference did it make regarding "stick invisibility" in reality? If you think, not being able to discern the attitude of the aircraft (way nose up) from the color display, what would interpretation of a separate AoA instrument add to the mix for this crew? Everything was there to prevent this accident, but they just didn't remember it...

Yes, that is what I had done. Why pull up to 11 degrees attitude knowing you are going to stall if you are a real pilot. These guys had no clue what they were doing.

What's your definition of "real pilot", bubbers?

If you mean pre-FMS/"magenta line", then as Clandestino has pointed out this has happened before to an old-school crew on a NWA B727.

As far as we can tell from the CVR, the PF never really fully appreciated the situation and at least for some of the time had (wrongly) convinced himself that they were in an overspeed situation. On any other day he may not have made that mistake, but on this occasion he did. This implies that his emotions and instinct overruled his rational thought processes, but it does not mean that he was an incompetent pilot.

You can be considered the premier pilot in your airline and still make mistakes - Tenerife proved that.

A real pilot doesn't let automation override his basic flying skills. A real pilot can recover from a stall quite easilly without the aid of a FD. A real pilot knows what his aircraft is capable of doing at high altitude and what it is not capable of doing. Real pilots usually don't end up in the newspaper because they did something incredibly stupid. I guess real pilots also remember the days when you knew how to swing a prop to start an aircraft with no battery installed. Maybe I am just getting old but the new brand of pilots flying the magenta line seem to have not learned the basic skills we all grew up with.

It is incomplete ... you forget the other two pilots
That is also the date they were having a bad day?
Three have a bad day at the same time and same place
Bonin going viral?
A challenge to the statistics?

PJ2: thanks for taking the time on that reply. Very well answered, I am. :ok:

Clandestino: body clock adjustment points noted.

Is this in all laws other than direct?

Isn't "flying attitude" the same as flying Angle of Attack?

If so, should AOA be readily available? If not, should one depend on FD?

If FD is selected OFF, (as it would be post UAS), what then? PITCH?

That might be just the wrong cue....

AoAPitch attitude equals AoA in level flight. Otherwise it does not.

Flying pitch and power causes the airplane to acquire a stable condition of airspeed, flight path angle and AoA. Flying AoA causes the airplane to enter into an oscillary motion known as a 'phugoid' .

Yes, thanks. In the case of 447, in an unusual climb, and even before, during the first STALL WARNING, AoA and PITCH were discrepant. STALL functions from the AoA vanes, could the pilot have rejected this warning as false (it was not) for that reason?

A severe updraft, or other unexpected event could disorient a crew at a very inopportune time.....Or set the stage for a mistrust of the STALL system....

For that matter, an inaccurate or even erroneous AoA reading could trigger a protection, the aircraft is not invulnerable, (uncommanded climb).

And thank you for the Phugoid reminder. I have believed from the start that the Pilots were having a time with altitude. Whatever the PF saw, and to a lesser extent the PM, what are the possibilities of a PITCH phugoid, either real, or sensate? Such that a chronic climb derived from incorrect input?

Rhetorical, if you like....

Nil. There is no such animal. The phugoid is an oscillation in airspeed and altitude at more or less constant AoA. If the control system maintains a constant flight path then the conditions for a phugoid do not exist.

The flight path was not constant.

Most people think of aircraft stability as being the behaviour of the machine left to itself, not gyrations produced by random pilot inputs. The fact that the flight path varied has nothing to do with any considerations of phugoid stability.

Not here. There are no protections in Alternate & Direct Laws. Neither QF72 nor the THY A340 zoom-climb are related to AF447.

Owain Glyndwr

Like spelling that name, Welsh?

Busy with Roll, and probably not ruddering, the PF had Yaw, Roll and Pitch excursions whilst trying to sort the original eight degree right wing low.

The Pitch was not reliable, by definition, it and gee were not consistent, nor was Vario or much of anything, right after a veryunexpected event.

I think because so much was made of the Roll Direct problem he had, people forget it was Pitch that did them in.

Forget Phugoid, my bad, call it PIO in combination with Roll PIO.

Thanks. Much obliged

Yup. I forgot to mention that it will also adjust pitch to compensate for speed or configuration changes. It looks pretty weird when one just reads descriptions in read from FCOM so I approached type rating course apprehensively but it turned out to be quite easy to adapt to Airbus ways, there 's no need to think "what is the FBW doing now" all the time (or at all). We had a lot of movement both from classic controls to Airbus and vice versa but no one ever had problems learning or unlearning the sidestick.

EDIT:

There was no "O" in pitch.

Blacks Law of disorder...


"The moment one knows everything, something else appears...."

Justice Black

Hey, Lyman!

OG, Nuts, PJ and Cland are onto something.

1) Although phugoid mode exists for normal planes, the FBW systems negate it. They are contantly attempting to maintain an attitude or gee. The bus mixes both.

2) Cland mentioned the turbulence a few posts ago. Right on! At low altitude over the desert, with all the thermals and such, our little jet felt like a 757 or something. The system reacted to the up and down quicker than we could - very smooth ride.

3) Only FBW system I know of that uses AoA for trim is the Viper when the gear is down. The 'bus uses pitch attitude a lot more than we did ( we used it ZERO!!!). Could be the Hornet and Raptor and Lightning and Tiffie have a similar control law with gear down. But I an't find any AoA bias for the 'bus unless the sucker is about to get into a stall.

We may discuss the fine points about the control laws and the implementation, but the cause of the crash was a crew problem. Some misunderstanding about the finer points about the control laws may have added to the confusion, but just that.

And thats what this pioneer in FBW jets has to say.

The flight path was not constant because of the 11 degree pull up. If they had held a constant 2 degrees nose up attitude they would have been fine holding altitude with a good altimiter.

Both pilots in the cockpit were incompetent in my opinion. The captain came up too late to save the disaster. He was taking his required break. He, in my opinion, would not have let this happen. When he saw what was happening he had never seen this before.

Lyman, entropy is everywhere... :)

Sorry, if I interrupt all the pro's here, but there is one question which I wanted to ask for ages:

When captain entered the flight deck wouldn't be an appropriate action to ask kindly Bonin to leave the seat and take over the controls? Would he save the day?

Where he was seated the captain had a a panoramic view of all the instruments
In the CVR .. one answer of the captain is
"I don't know"
I do not think it would change something if the captain had taken the place of Bonin when he arrived in the cockpit
Amazing .. but that day three experimented pilots had a bad day at the same place and the same time
A statistical challenge ?
Not so much
Statistics prove that unfortunately this happens often

Looking at all the information we have there is no serious indication any one of the three understood their real problem (i.e. being stalled) which would have been the prerequisite for any corrctive action. Therefore, although we will never know for sure, it is pretty safe to assume it wouldn't have made much of a difference at that point.
That said there is a minimal chance that when seeing the feedback (behaviour of aircraft vs input) to control inputs made by himself, or better lack thereof, he might have had a better chance to identify they were in a developped stall.
But being where we are now that is a moot point.

Probably yes, just I wonder if captain would pull the way as FO did. But considering the trimmed stabiliser in the position all the way NU it is questionable if captain would have a chance to figure out what to do.

My question is also aimed at usual practice in such cases when senior officer bypasses a junior in an emergency. I am a consultant partly involved into emergency and safety procedures and senior taking over control is one of the paramount rules in almost every industry. So I was wondering if in aviation there is a similar concept. I remember Sullenberger took over really fast after the Flight 1549 went into trouble although I understand he WAS already seated in captain's position.

The senior in the cockpit of the AF447 when AP disconnected was Robert
He had the possibility to tell "my aircraft"
Again dunno if this had made a difference ...

Assuming that he would take over, I think the answer is yes. The pilot flying apparently didn't relinquish the controls to the PNF, I have to assume that he would have done so had the Captain been in the Captains seat and asserted his control.

I will also assume that the Captain would have reverted to basic instrument flight skills once in his seat. Whether or not he had the altitude required to recover is the subject of extensive discussion on previous strings on this topic.

Would those skills have resulted in push or in pull?

Why would the captain take the RHS ???

The captain had no time to deal with the upset. He wouldn't have done what they did but came in too late to help. He was required because of rest requirements for their flight to take a break. The junior guys screwed it all up. The captain would have handled it just fine.

Now is not the time to be modest, bubbers, you have walked up a steep aisle to the door, it is open, and you stride in. You instantly grok the attitude, ten degrees NU, and you proclaim, "Mon dieu mon petit chou, you have STALLED our cherie"....

You would briskly tapout the LHS, settle in, belt up, and look at the PF's SS. "MERDE", "Have you no sense? Look at vario, ALTI, and Attitude!"

"Controls to left, Follow me through...." As you briskly force the SS forward to the stop, you sense an immediate lessening of the chaotic airstream, and you say, "The Nose Down, the wings must be unloaded..." "Take notes, paduan, this may be the only time you see such heroism."

As the Pitch lowers, speed increases, and the noise changes character, not quiter, but less chaotic, you are re-acquiring streamlines, and losing the rumble of the STALL....

You carefully meter the need for back pressure, as your lift is now sufficient to support the a/c, and level flight can be attained, carefully, not too fast, one STALL per leg is sufficient, Non?

Regaining the correct altitude, you give control back to the FO, slowly, casually, you light a Gauloises, and smell the tobacco as it wafts up your Gallic Nose.

"Call Miriam, Pierre, I would like an espresso, two twists."

Anyone who can master the short final at Tegucigalpa can most definitely recover a STALL at 30,000 feet, Non?

That was funny. Comparing a Tegucigalpa Honduras approach to crossing the Atlantic. It is quite amusing but pointless.

Both take experienced pilots, but are not what we want our 200 hr wonders to encounter. They need to build experience, not just pushing buttons, but flying the aircraft. Eventually they may be competent to fly if automation fails. Or maybe not.

As before, I would like to draw attention to the exchange between Captain DuBois, and Bonin, as regards: "Try Climb"...."But I have held aft stick for some time now."

The general conclusion is that Captain cannot see the Stick, and assumes Bonin has Nose Down, input....

It does not matter what Captain sees, because he suggests CLIMB. But he can see the AI, very nose UP. Why would he suggest CLIMB with a NOSE UP on the dial?


Because he assumes Bonin is pushing NOSEDOWN. If he thought the controls were OK, he would command BONIN to push NOSE DOWN, to lower the NOSE. Are we to believe he has not commanded NOSE DOWN until twenty seconds before impact? And not satisfied himself it is not working?

So, he commands NOSE UP? Neither PILOT is happy with the controls' effects, Captain, because he commands NOSE UP with AI full of blue, (supposedly) and Bonin, because he HAS ALREADY TRIED NOSE DOWN, and it has no effect.

He already attempted NOSE UP, as a solution to non working elevators, "But I have tried (am trying) that".

These are two desperate pilots attempting to figure out INOP or problematic controls.

Think about what they have said, as the CVR explains..... Neither pilot can figure out the Pitch, BUT THEY BOTH KNOW IT IS EXCESSIVELY HIGH.

BONIN has tried both NU AND ND, Captain wants to "TRY NU" ("Try Climbing").
At 10000 fpm descent with the gauge all blue? Don't you believe it. He is satisfied the controls are NOT WORKING.

WHY? TO GET THE NOSE DOWN WITH AN INEFFECTIVE CONTROL and unresponsive A/C....

He is thinking, STUCK elevators, or reversed input.

It is IMPOSSIBLE that these two are on different pages, they both know there is a problem, both have tried conformed, and reverse control positions....

Robert gives up too quickly on the altitude (climb) problem. Or does he? He does not take control, is he satisfied that the controls are INOP? Bonin: "We have no control of the airplane..." He obviously is satisfied the controls are ineffective. ARE THEY? Is Bonin referring to loss of control BEFORE THE CLIMB? Would he not brief the Captain on the earliest onset of problem? THE CLIMB?

Lyman, I presume that by "ineffective control" you allude to the fact that after a stall control effectiveness isn't what it is while flying.

From what I have seen of the FDR traces, at those times where the SS was moved forward, the attitude (and elevator command) changed toward more "down" but what does not seem to have happened was s sustained and patient nose down input when it was needed. Rate damping and control responsiveness in big jets has been discussed at some length in various previous threads on this topid.

I am a bit confused at your comment on ineffective controls. The SS traces showed me that Bonin tried to get the nose up, and to keep the nose up, and the nose stayed up.
In that regard, the controls were indeed effective.

I realize there are two related elements to the rate of response of nose position inputs: elevator command and THS trim both being part of the package in smoothly changing pitch attitude, and holding it.

The upshot is that the Captain would suggest "TRY CLIMBING" while the NOSE was so far up in the air.....

That was after an extended period in a very aggravated STALL. The entire conclusion of BEA depends on this.....That it would somehow seem acceptable to the pilot community that the Captain chose ONE TIME to make a suggestion, as to PITCH, and that one instance after completely rejecting what the instruments were indicating? He then relents, and says nothing more?

He heard the STALL warning upon entering the cockpit, and after. Robert? Bonin? DuBois? All three mum as to Stall, and to the need to drop the nose.

The STALL WARN quits below 60 knots, that was attained briefly, but all the way down there was forward speed in excess of 60.

The preponderance of evidence released supports a ludicrous conclusion. There is much evidence that has not been released.

I have made my call.

:ok:

As said earlier, when the captain enters the flight deck, he has clearly eared that the STALL warning has just stopped, so for him the worst is behind as the appropriate corrective actions have obviously been taken by the crew in place.
The STALL warning logic has just been playing a trick on him and his ability to rapidly and correctly apprehend the situation is greatly undermined.

To the point that they will voluntary switch off 2 FCC in an attempt to regain control ...

The Airbus sidestick concept made their life miserable as no PNF(s) is able to directly witness what kind of inputs are applied on the sidestick(s), which contributes to this elusive loss of faith in the overall flight control system.

Lyman,

I wonder if you could help me find the captain suggesting "TRY CLIMBING" in the CVR transcript?

Sorry, from memory, it was Robert, PNF who says "climb, then".

Captain says, "no, do not climb"? Then Robert, "then go down"? Then Bonin, "but i have been pulling" etc....?

My very bad...

BUT. They ALL know the NOSE is way UP. And NO ONE is thinking or saying, "PUSH FORWARD, and HOLD IT THERE"

It is not believable, and why I believe the accounts are "managed"

the accounts are "managed"
 

Here we are again !
The BEA, Airbus, Air France, the French government, etc. are engaged in delictuous activities to rob the unsuspecting public of the truth !!!!!

And of course all these organizations / countries are part of the conspiracy :ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh: