Yes, but the pilots may have 'lost vital speed speed data' because they flew the aircraft into a meteorological phenomena that was always going to cause that, regardless of the equipment the aircraft had.If anyone imagines that solely this one make of pitot tube and static port is the only one that would give erroneous readings in a thunderstorm, and all other makes would somehow perform flawlessly and allow one to chug through a cumulonimbus cloud without any danger, then they know nothing about either thunderstorms or pitot tubes. So this statement alone does not exonerate the pilots, nor does it condemn them either until we know more about why they flew through that storm.If an aircraft is trimmed properly and has the correct throttle settings, you could remove all the airspeed info from panel and it would still fly as expected, providing it wasn't being tossed around in a cumulonimbus cloud, at which point, all bets are off, which is why you shouldn't fly through a thunderstorm.Al

My point exactly. Which is were the question as to why they flew through a TS comes into mind. That has, of course, already been covered in this thread before the CVR/FDR were even found.

How do you recover from a stall if, at the same time as loss of forward airspeed, you're experiencing updrafts of 70 or 80 metres/sec in a storm cell? Wouldn't you have to go into a very steep dive (and pray) to recover laminar flow in those conditions? I'm no expert in these matters -- I just wondered :((Kind of a thought experiment..)

If an aircraft is trimmed properly and has the correct throttle settings, you could remove all the airspeed info from panel and it would still fly as expected, providing it wasn't being tossed around in a cumulonimbus cloud, at which point, all bets are off, which is why you shouldn't fly through a thunderstorm.Al

That's not correct: Proper elevator trim (and wing dihedral) only provide stability within certain limited ranges of pitch, yaw and roll. For example, a spinning aircraft will often not recover without positive pilot intervention.Now consider that if you're flying near the coffin corner as AF447 was, and you hit the core of a TS you could, for example, first enter the downdraft at -4,000 FPM or -40KN, then immediately enter the adjacent updraft also at +My link40KN, for a total change in VS of +80KN.If you're flying at 500 KTAS, a +80 KN VS represents an instantaneous increase of arctan (80/500) = 9º in your AOA and bingo! There's your stall.Mind, all theories about aircraft stability ought to be tested while flying through rotor cloud. Hang on to your hat while you do!Raindance: My thoughts exactly!Cheers,- jahman.

Yes, and if you actually read the bit of my post that you quoted, you will see that's what I said, so why are you bothering to explain this?Since I'm a frequent glider pilot, I hardly need to have vertical air movement explained to me, it is the entire basis of gliding. Incidentally, I've often flown in rotor updrafts (aka wave lift), it gives you great lift if you go on the windward side, and you don't need to hang on to your hat, it is actually incredibly smooth since the entire air mass is moving.Al

Somewhat off-topic, but we are talking weather. I got this pic of mammatus clouds over Portugal a couple of weeks ago. Never saw these in real life before.EDIT: cock-up on format front..

Yeah, not seen those often. That's a cool pic.Al

I have to say: This has actually been a constructive discussion, guys. Congrats to us. :(

There still seems to be a misconception that flying thru a level 5 thunderstorm is safe and routine. Management will try to say it's safe,but it is not.

Pilots do not intentionally fly aircraft into major storms unless you work for NASA.This accident like others shows how automation is striping the pilot of "stick time" and just flying the plane.Automation is great when it works, but unfortunately many pilots today don't get much hand flying experience.And when you're forced to hand fly, it's generally under conditions you don't want to be hand flying in.The main event that caused this accident was the loss of airspeed caused by pitot tube failure (icing?).We all know many accidents are the result of many little events coming together to create the main event.Events- Flying at night over the ocean, eye sight or vision outside the cockpit next to nil. Seeing a line of thunderstorms ahead will be greatly restricted so you must rely on "automation" or wx radar.- Senior Captain was not in the cockpit at time of emergency. - Did their wx radar tick them? Radar can't see everything. A line of smaller thunderstorms can block the radars ability to see a more hazardous line of thunderstorms behind the first line. Once they passed the first line, it could've been too late to avoid the more intense second line of storms.- Severe icing at FL350. Rare, but for pitot tubes to fail due to icing at that flight level, one must ask the question. If icing was so severe that pitot heat failed, what did the wings look like? Did the aircraft stall due to icing? Was wing anti-ice turned on? Did the pilots know they had ice? - A history of Pitot tubes failure on the A330. Faultily or not?After the automation failed (autopilot/auto thrust shut down)Events- Pilots ability/experience to hand fly at night, in heavy icing, in a major thunderstorm. What down drafts did these thunderstorms produce?Mother Nature is unbeatable many times.- Alarms sounding, lights flashing, more alarms and failures, which checklist to follow? Should you be following a checklist at such a time? - Pilots are trained and told time and time again, trust your instruments. At what point did the pilots say, I can't trust airspeed information, and if airspeed information is wrong, I can't trust my altimeter? Alot of information to absorb and analyze while alarms sound, let alone flying in a thunderstorm. After the airspeed failure, pilot in command should apply climb thrust with 5 degree nose up attitude and fly the plane.Easy for me to say, while I sit in warm cozy chair on a sunny afternoon and criticize the actions dead pilots. Humans make mistakes and they make more mistakes when they're in-experienced. That's the whole purpose of automation, making less mistakes, but is automation causing humans to become in-experienced?RJ

There still seems to be a misconception that flying thru a level 5 thunderstorm is safe and routine.

By whom? As far as I can see, nobody in this thread has stated that.Al

Yes, and if you actually read the bit of my post that you quoted, you will see that's what I said, so why are you bothering to explain this?Since I'm a frequent glider pilot, I hardly need to have vertical air movement explained to me, it is the entire basis of gliding. Incidentally, I've often flown in rotor updrafts (aka wave lift), it gives you great lift if you go on the windward side, and you don't need to hang on to your hat, it is actually incredibly smooth since the entire air mass is moving.Al

Yes, Al, you're quite right. Sorry about that!An yes, once you go to laminar flow everything's smooth, but then again at that point you're not in the rotor.(By rotor I mean the bit where at one point you see the towplane in your windscreen, the next second you don't, then you see it again, all the while not mooving the controls that much because the controls don't really control.What FL did you get to?Cheers,- jahman.

"Automation is great when it works, but unfortunately many pilots today don't get much hand flying experience.And when you're forced to hand fly, it's generally under conditions you don't want to be hand flying in."I seem to recall from a while back reading a comment made about Aeroflot's safety record, OK despite alleged sub-standard maintenance schedules. The observation basically stated that they had very good pilots, capable of handling nasty, unexpected surprises. Presumably those pilots were ex-military with loads of training & hands-on experience.There's a lot to be said for automated flying -- much of today's civil-aviation piloting time involves management of the plane's systems rather than actual flying the thing -- and maybe in twenty or thirty years time pilotless planes will be carrying passengers instead of just attacking military targets, but I don't know that I'd like to be a passenger on one of those...but who knows? People routinely ride driverless trains in London.

What FL did you get to?Cheers,- jahman.

In wave lift, the best I've ever managed is to just over 18,000 feet from a winch launch that was up to about 1100 feet (that release height was actually nearer to 2200 feet if you include how far the airfield was above sea level), so the height gain was less than 16,000 feet. That's crap by worldwide standards, but it's pretty good for Europe.Mind you, even a moron could have made it up high in that lift, it was a standing wave, all you had to do was point it into the wind and up you went whilst barely making any ground speed at all, in fact, I think I was actually going backwards a bit at one point.

Offical BEA report:http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.af.447/point.enquete.af447.27mai2011.en.pdfRJ

Kind of makes you wonder what they were thinking with all those stick back control inputs. The only thing I can think of is that without visual references and perhaps no artificial horizon, they might have thought they were steeply nose down based on the descent rate without realising they were already at a very high angle of attack, made even worse by the slow speed and high rate of descent. Of course when the crew said they were getting near 10,000 feet, they probably realised they were running out of room, and sticking the nose down at that height would have been something they probably didn't want to do.It's very odd. Kind of weird that they were told to maintain 35,000, but went up a lot higher too.Al