What really happened aboard Air France 447

[DaTT]

Marked....can't wait for the Mayday episode.

 

[LTC8K6]

Good read. Incredible the mistakes that were made.

The thing that confuses me is pulling back on the stick while your altitude is dropping. From the pitch and your rate of ascent it should have been obvious you are actually in danger of stalling or are stalling. Also wouldn't they have felt the acceleration as the plane began falling and realized what is happening? It just sounds all too weird.

They wouldn't have felt anything at all in this situation that would have told them what was going on, until it was too late to recover.

 

[LTC8K6]

Half of the accident reports I read about in commercial airlines seem to go back to faulty/iced pitot tubes. Why are they still using this technology? It obviously doesn't work.

The pitot tubes are heated. Occasionally, icing is so bad, the tubes are momentarily overwhelmed with ice formation.

There aren't that many incidents related to iced over tubes. The conditions that can produce icing at a rate that will overwhelm the heaters is a rare thing.

There is a certain type of icing that forms crystals of a size that tends to clog ports, but does not tend to ice over the wings.

There have actually been a few incidents related to covers left on the tubes and wasp nests in the tubes, and one notable incident where the ports were taped over during maintenance, and the tape was never removed.

It's worth noting that other airliners have gone through nearly the exact same scenario as 447, and came through it fine.

In one case, iirc, the pilots basically did just as was suggested earlier, and simply waited for the airspeeds to return to normal. They were experienced, knew that this was almost certainly heavy icing of the probes, and knew that the condition typically does not last long.

 

[slayer202]

wow. quite a read

 

[ichy]

That has to be the most awful control scheme possible.

I'm never getting on an Airbus.

What a ridiculous statement. You realize that up until this accident there had NEVER been a passenger fatality on an A330?

 

[ichy]

Sounds to me like this was caused by too little training for these types of situations and too little experience in hand-flying the plane. Maybe pilots should be required to turn off the autopilot a little more frequently so they get more actual stick time?

 

[Genx87]

It just amazes me in times of crisis we will drop all our training and react in an irrational manner. When stalling the plane pushing the nose forward is required. But a typical irrational reaction would be to pull back to climb. It is also a major defect in Airbus design that neither pilot can feel the others input. Bonin is yanking the stick all the way back and the other copilot is pushing it forward and all they got was a middle ground without any information that is how the system was flying at the time.

 

[Number1]

Colossal multitude of mistakes. I still can't understand why he would pull back on the yoke when the stall warning was blaring...especially at almost 40,000 feet.

If you would have bothered to read the article you might have found out. In normal law the FC computer will not allow a pilot to stall the plane. The pilot probably never realized the FC computer had place the plane in alternate law after disconnecting the auto pilot thus removing many flight input restrictions.

Incompetent pilots for sure but this is why the article writer thinks the pilot kept pulling on the yoke.

 

[Kntx]

Wow. Air France. I think they've crashed every type they fly.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

What amazes me is that the pilots did not notice that they were stalling, meaning they did not feel the turbulence during stalls...

 

[ichy]

Wow. Air France. I think they've crashed every type they fly.

I think you're an idiot.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Wow. Air France. I think they've crashed every type they fly.

They have at least 6-7 different models.

Can you point to crashes relating to each model type or are you blowing smoke out your ass?

 

[Pheran]

Maybe I missed the reasoning, but why they chose to fly into the storm was their first and last fatal mistake.

It said they had the radar on the wrong setting for a while:

In the meantime Robert has been examining the radar system and has found that it has not been set up in the correct mode. Changing the settings, he scrutinizes the radar map and realizes that they are headed directly toward an area of intense activity.

 

[bobdole369]

There aren't that many incidents related to iced over tubes. The conditions that can produce icing at a rate that will overwhelm the heaters is a rare thing.

Noting that they were flying in the ITCZ - a persistent region of tropical thunderstorms. These aren't afternoon seabreeze storms, nor are they hurricanes, but somewhere in between. Really odd stuff happens here like the paradoxical warm upper atmosphere temp and crazy ass icing. The article notes storms reach the stratosphere - the calm winds usually up there without any real steering allow the storms to build up well past where they normally stop.

 

[freegeeks]

Wow. Air France. I think they've crashed every type they fly.

World's top 10 safest airlines

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/worlds-top-10-safest-airlines-named-20110830-1jj3k.html

World's 10 safest airlines (in alphabetical order)

Air France-KLM
AMR Corporation (American Airlines, American Eagles)
British Airways
Continental Airlines
Delta Airlines
Japan Airlines
Lufthansa
Southwest Airlines
United Airlines
US Airways

 

[Kntx]

They have at least 6-7 different models.

Can you point to crashes relating to each model type or are you blowing smoke out your ass?

They recently have crashed a 330 a 340, and a while back they crashed a 320 at an airshow.

 

[Kntx]

World's top 10 safest airlines

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/worlds-top-10-safest-airlines-named-20110830-1jj3k.html

World's 10 safest airlines (in alphabetical order)

Air France-KLM
AMR Corporation (American Airlines, American Eagles)
British Airways
Continental Airlines
Delta Airlines
Japan Airlines
Lufthansa
Southwest Airlines
United Airlines
US Airways

You think Air France is #1 after reading that article? Southwest rated #9 on that list has never killed a passenger.

 

[slayer202]

You think Air France is #1 after reading that article? Southwest rated #9 on that list has never killed a passenger.

neither has my airline. wanna book a flight?

 

[Scouzer]

You think Air France is #1 after reading that article? Southwest rated #9 on that list has never killed a passenger.

If you think this incident highlights a problem that only exists with Air France, you are mistaken. This is equally likely to happen on any first world airline.

 

[MotF Bane]

What alternatives are there?

GPS?

 

[Mike Gayner]

GPS?

GPS doesn't (can't) measure airspeed.

 

[JulesMaximus]

If you would have bothered to read the article you might have found out. In normal law the FC computer will not allow a pilot to stall the plane. The pilot probably never realized the FC computer had place the plane in alternate law after disconnecting the auto pilot thus removing many flight input restrictions.

Incompetent pilots for sure but this is why the article writer thinks the pilot kept pulling on the yoke.

I did read the article number zero. The pilots should have been trained in how to handle the aircraft in alternate law at altitude. They went into their low altitude emergency go around procedures which was yet another mistake they made. Never ignore stall warnings.

 

[Kntx]

If you think this incident highlights a problem that only exists with Air France, you are mistaken. This is equally likely to happen on any first world airline.

Part of the report specifically addressed the safety culture at Air France as being a factor in the accident.

 

[MotF Bane]

GPS doesn't (can't) measure airspeed.

GPS provides location, change in location per unit time provides speed.

 

[alfa147x]

Did they have elevation reading? Could the plane calculate air speed by taking that and gps data?