So if the plane was stalled, was there a stick pusher activation?

If memory serves I beleive there was a stick shaker. When a stick shaker/pusher activates you MUST act decisively. Hold the recovery until you are certain the a/c is flying properly before you do "anything" else. Even if you don't believe the warning. One of the worst instances of ignoring the stick shaker/pusher was Staines in 1972 G-ARPI a Trident a/c where not only did the stick shaker/pusher activate three times, they then turned it off!vololiberista

Guy's, just wanted to clear up a few things after reading through this thread. The Aircraft went into Alt 2 law - The basics - roll was direct law, pitch was Alternate law, no protections but autotrim was still available. Even in Normal law the FBW does nothing except command a roll rate, if you exceed 33 degrees of bank you need to keep applying pressure up to 60 degrees then it will stop you going further. If you let go the aircraft will return to 33 degrees. In Direct Law you can roll the aircraft inverted, everything you see in the FDR traces is down to pilot input. PF held enough back stick pressure to provide FULL trim nose up however never enough forward pressure long enough to get the trim moving forward again. Ironically the extreme nose up trim was what kept the aircraft stable all the way down. I highly doubt the PF would have regained control even if the nose came down and the aircraft began to spin. The PF seemed to have no experiance in flying the aircraft with roll in Direct law, if the THS was not full nose up and the aircraft had stalled and the wing dropped, unless the Captain of perhaps the PNF took over we would be talking about an A330 that spiral dived into the Atlantic. Most calculations estimate they would have needed to start recovery around FL210 at the latest. For those talking about shutting of the flight control computers, that would not have helped unless it was done immediately after the upset, it would definietly made handling the aircaft more difficult however the THS would not have moved despite the PF pulling on the sidestick all the way down. The PNF did suggest a reset of the PRIMS " “See what you can do with the commands up there, the primaries and so on" however IMHO that sounds like he believes they could have a control fault rather then in reality the inexperienced PF over controlling the aircraft. No stick shaker/pusher on any A3xx Just A STALL STALL & SPEED SPEED SPEED warning. The warnings stop under 60knots,(to avoid false warnings on the ground) and who expects a heavy jet to be flying below 60knots? Airbus have stated they will change it. Regards

"..unless the Captain of perhaps the PNF took over we would be talking about an A330 that spiral dived into the Atlantic." I'm rather surprised that the Captain didn't simply take the seat & take command of the situation when things started to look bad, rather than have them arguing with each other over what control inputs to make. It doesn't inspire confidence in airline cabin procedures. It's been said that the passengers wouldn't have had much of an idea that things were as bad as they were, but looking at that FDR readout & the rapid & erratic changes in vertical speed, it must have been a pretty hair-raising ride down.

"..unless the Captain of perhaps the PNF took over we would be talking about an A330 that spiral dived into the Atlantic." It's been said that the passengers wouldn't have had much of an idea that things were as bad as they were, but looking at that FDR readout & the rapid & erratic changes in vertical speed, it must have been a pretty hair-raising ride down.

I'm afraid the passengers knew all about it :-((Next time you take a real flight ask the pilot to put it into a stall with a sink rate of 10,000fpm. You "will" know!!vololiberista

PF held enough back stick pressure to provide FULL trim nose up however never enough forward pressure long enough to get the trim moving forward again. Ironically the extreme nose up trim was what kept the aircraft stable all the way down. Regards

In effect the a/c was going down tail first!! I agree that after FL210 recovery would have been unlikely.vololiberista

"Next time you take a real flight ask the pilot to put it into a stall with a sink rate of 10,000fpm." I think I'll leave that to my imagination (and then tell my imagination to get lost) Seriously though, one feels for all the people on that plane -- it must have been four minutes of hell.

Next time you take a real flight ask the pilot to put it into a stall with a sink rate of 10,000fpm. You "will" know!!

Korean Air B747-2B5F crashed less than a minute after take from Stansted on 22 December 1999. It hit the ground with a nose down attitude of 35.5^o and a bank angle to left left of 72.3^o at a speed of 262kts. That's a rate of descent of more than 15,000ft/min. The crew didn't know because they were discussing an inconsistency between the Attitude Director Indictors (ADIs).

True, it has nothing to do with the descent rate, only the acceleration forces felt, once the AF crew and pax were in a relatively stable descent even at 10000+ fpm in IMC at night then the cues to the actual descent rate would be minimal.However saying that, the engines at TOGA thrust, pitching and rolling, airframe vibration from the stall, first class would have seen the Captain struggling to the flight deck and heard all the warnings when the flight deck door opened... whichever way you look at it, a complete nightmare :(

"True, it has nothing to do with the descent rate, only the acceleration forces felt, once the AF crew and pax were in a relatively stable descent even at 10000+ fpm in IMC at night then the cues to the actual descent rate would be minimal." Agree that once a falling object reaches terminal velocity then there's no acceleration, therefore no force (but gravitational pull) to be felt, but the readout appears to show rapid changes in velocity during much of the descent which would certainly have been felt, as extreme turbulence I expect. They wouldn't have known how fast they were actually going down though.

I attach an extract from BEA's transcript in its Interim Report No 3 - Appendix 1 - FDR / CVR Summary TableAs I said previously, the recording ends at 2h 14 min 28,4 and the last message is timed at 2h 14 min 26.

I would preface that with "this interim report says", as the CNN clip (and book they are quoting from) means the final report will be revised to include the missing exchanges prior to impact that AF and the BEA already acknowledged existed. Cheers, - jahman.

The transcript from the book claims to report what was said in the last two minutes of the flight but doesn't report what the BEA transcript contains for the last 10 sec of the flight. If the book transcript is what it purports to be it surely should contain them - unless you believe BEA made them up?

The transcript from the book claims to report what was said in the last two minutes of the flight but doesn't report what the BEA transcript contains for the last 10 sec of the flight. If the book transcript is what it purports to be it surely should contain them - unless you believe BEA made them up?

Again (and I'm quoting myself):

... Richard Quest says AF and the BEA are "roundly condemning the publication of these last two minutes ... for being outside the legal framework" (0:56 of the video), thus validating contents and timeline of this part of the transcript (as I cited in the opening paragraph of my OP, btw...).

The french government sank the Rainbow Warrior (Greenpeace's flagship) while at harbor in New Zealand, to keep it from drawing attention to nuclear testing in the South Pacific, killing a photographer in the process, so why wouldn't they do something as innocuous as doctor a report to protect Air France and Airbus? Cheers, - jahman.

Returning from fantasy land, do you believe that BEA made up the transcripts in its Interim Report No 3?

Whatever one may say about BEA it is clear that the evidence points to pilot error and that could be quite damaging to Air France.vololiberista

Whatever one may say about BEA it is clear that the evidence points to pilot error and that could be quite damaging to Air France.vololiberista

It's also quite damaging to the pilots.

Hello everyone.I will give a general opinion based on my personal observation, over the many years of flying, and observation in flying with other pilots. Many of the Heavy iron pilots get very little actual Hand flying and I think that has to change. We all know that at one time they ALL knew how to do it, at one time or another, the problem is that if you do not keep practicing you will forget. As to the specifics of this Make and Model, and this particular accident, looking back, there are many factors, other than Pilot error that may have contributed. I have no first hand knowledge of the Systems and Procedures of this particular aircraft, but I did try to get educated by reading as much as I could, and the more I learn the less clear the picture becomes. There may be a need for some changes in the Instrumentation, in the AP software, Control surface positioning / ability to over ride etc.It all could have been avoided if they stayed out of the WX. TV