The value of the article can be judged by the fact that it doesn't even mention the initial failure that triggered the incident. The flight crew ignored the lost airspeed warnings and so didn't follow the published proceedure to deal with it. That was to fly the aircraft on pitch and power. Had the crew done do so it's most unlikely the incident would ever have developed.

 

Buried in the depths of the article are the words "...pull back on the control stick. He left it there despite the stall warning that blared out some 75 times." It's hard;y surprising that the aircraft eventually crashed with handling like like that.

Do yourself a favour a favour and 'actually study' take a look at the flightpath taken by AF447 and the storm traces, intensity of the storm cells the aircraft actually passed. I am not even going to bother arguing that point with you since you are obvioulsy going on articles you have read over the past few years and nothing based on fact.

 

You continue to show a complete lack of knowledge on the subject every time you post. The aircraft was never in a deep stall, the crew also comented on the V/S and audio cues suggesting they believed all cues on the PFD may have been incorrect, they also commented on the background noise which was inconsistent with an aircraft stalling at low speed.

 

So I will say it again, look at the big picture, thank god you are not an investigator.. Perhaps they should hand it over to you. Case closed three clowns on the flightdeck just decided to pull all the way into the atlantic..

 

I think without being rude it is you who needs to "Do yourself a favour" !!

I have studied all the satellite images, all the meteorological evidence and reports from various experts. The BEA report et al.

I am perfectly entitled to my opinion and I stick by it and it is also based on many many years of actual flying experience.

Instead of shouting your mouth off. Explain to us your reasoning as to why you have the point of you that you do.

vololiberista

Sorry but I am not going to waste my time doing the homework for you. I wil leave with two points.

 

MGH - Stall warning sounded when a 'Nose down input' was applied

 

Vololiberista - Air France Flight 447 crossed through an area of tropical showers and/or weak thunderstorms with weak to moderate updrafts and a high likelihood of turbulence. The flight penetrated one cell at about 0150 UTC and then entered a cluster of cells beginning at 0158 UTC. The suspected zone of strongest cells was reached at 0208 UTC, which corresponds with the beginning of a track deviation, and another cell appeared to be reached at 0210 UTC, which corresponded with the time of autopilot disconnect. The flight was suspected to be within areas of showers and precipitation up until the time of impact, and the descent below FL250 into the critical -10 to -20 deg C zone probably involved some degree of clear icing on control surfaces, though it is uncertain whether this affected recovery of the aircraft, especially due to the short accumulation time that would be involved.

 

Tropical storm complexes identical to or stronger than this one have probably been crossed hundreds or thousands of times over the years by other flights without serious incident

The value of the article can be judged by the fact that it doesn't even mention the initial failure that triggered the incident. The flight crew ignored the lost airspeed warnings and so didn't follow the published proceedure to deal with it. That was to fly the aircraft on pitch and power. Had the crew done do so it's most unlikely the incident would ever have developed.

 

That's the rub!

I agree entirely

To fly attitude and thrust is in pretty much every manual I have read. Standard practice taught even to students. I have even had to do it myself many years ago en route to Hong Kong.

vololiberista

Vololiberista - Air France Flight 447 crossed through an area of tropical showers and/or weak thunderstorms

 

If you think that these are in any way "weak" thunderstorms then you are mistaken!

vololiberista

 

 

 

So, let's look at this monster storm you describe that countless other flights passed through without reporting any severe turbulance or major issues. You do realise that these kind of storms are pretty much the norm in this part of the world?

 

And before you start harping on about how I am condoning flying an airliner through a 'severe' thunderstorm do you have access to the wx radar returns and tilt on all the aircraft that passed through?

 

 

One last thing then I'm out of here for good. Before you start taking newspaper reports and articles written by unknowns as gospal have a read of the FDR traces, specifically the roll inputs in direct law and how it affected the pitch inputs.

 

 

Sorry but I am not going to waste my time doing the homework for you. I wil leave with two points.

 

MGH - Stall warning sounded when a 'Nose down input' was applied

 

Homework? There is no direct connection between stick position and stall warning sounding. The FDR traces on page 111 of the 3rd Interim Report shows that while the stall warning was sounding continuously between about 02:10;40 and 02:11;45 the First Officer took the aircraft from an AoA of 6 deg 30 deg to about 25 deg, and the flight path angle of of about 0 deg to about 25 deg nose-down by applying generally nose-up stick movements over that time period.

 

You might have recognised that I was quoting from the newspaper.

 

It's also worth remembering that Airbus and Air France are each trying to shift the blame to the other. Part of that involves feeding journalists with their point of view so don't put much credence in newpaper articles.

Aeroplanes will and can be rolled when in a stall. I wouldn't recommend it!! As you would end up inverted. Not much fun if you're a passenger trying to write a few final words to your loved ones!

As far as those who insist that others here have only got their information from the media. Mine is directly from the reports issued by the BEA.

This is a quote from their report and if anyone continues to imply that the a/c was not in a deep stall they need to learn about how to fly an aeroplane!!!

vololiberista

The angle of attack, when it was valid, always remained above 35 degrees.

The last recorded values were a vertical speed of -10,912 ft/min, a ground speed of 107 kt, pitch attitude of 16.2 degrees nose-up,

roll angle of 5.3 degrees left and a magnetic heading of 270 degrees.

You never cease to amaze me. Can you please explain how you can be in a deep stall and still have full elevator, aileron and rudder authority. Are you aware that BEA and pretty much any sane person who understands the data and aircraft agree they we’re not in a deep stall.

 

I’m going to leave you to it. This is beyond a joke!

You never cease to amaze me. Can you please explain how you can be in a deep stall and still have full elevator, aileron and rudder authority. Are you aware that BEA and pretty much any sane person who understands the data and aircraft agree they we’re not in a deep stall.

 

I’m going to leave you to it. This is beyond a joke!

 

May I suggest in the strongest terms that you go away and read VERY carefully the Interim Report n.3 (line by line!!!)

available here http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601e3.en/pdf/f-cp090601e3.en.pdf

Clearly you have no idea at all of high altitude stall characteristics.

WHEN you have thoroughly read and digested the report then maybe myself and others here will listen to your point of view.

vololiberista

Wow, I am fully aware of the'interim' report published nearly a year ago..

And that sums it up.. Nobody 'including anyone with a type rating' knows what it's like to be handed a aircraft in Alt2 law in that kind of situation.

 

As the article implies, I think many Airbus pilots are now getting this experience in the simulator.

Although AF447 was not technically in a deep stall in the classically understood sense of 'its elevators being blanked off from airflow by the disturbed air coming off the wings', it was undoubtedly in a deep stall in terms of the angle of attack combined with its forward speed, i.e. 35 degrees AoA @ 107 knots. That is a pretty deep stall angle by anyone's reckoning and even the superb EADS wing on the A330 isn't gonna like that, even if it is not technically a deep stall of the kind which has spelt doom for T-Tailed aircraft on numerous occasions. I suspect this occasionally loosely defined terminology and the use of the phase 'deep stall' is where much of the confusion lies, it being largely semantic in nature when you get right down to it, unless you have no elevator control, in which case it would be a more serious issue, although theoretically it is possible to rock the wings and just possibly get a T-Tail out of a deep stall, although with not much elevator authority, it might take a while and more importantly, a good deal of height.

 

But regardless of semantics and even deep stalls, a problem is that the crew of AF447 appear to have been following what was the then accepted procedure to get out of that condition; i.e. powering their way out of it with TOGA (use of TOGA is mentioned on the CVR) and concentrating on maintaining altitude; this technique - as opposed to concentrating on AoA and not worrying about busting a level or dropping a few thousand feet, which is the more typical GA type of recovery technique advocated - is what most airliner pilots are, or at least were, told to do.

 

Where the 'power your way out of it' technique is concerned, a problem is that the application of power on aircraft with pod-mounted underwing engines, will almost always cause a pitch up because of the thrust line fulcrum, which is exactly what you don't want when trying to effect a stall recovery, especially when you have basically been drilled to be fixated on maintaining altitude, and this up where the air is thin and icing may also degrade aerofoil performance. All of this is without even considering any adverse weather effects and what they might do to exacerbate problems, and as the now familiar radar tracks of all the aircraft over the South Atlantic that night show, it is pretty clear that most airliners wanted nothing to do with the centre of the storm cell which AF447 evidently passed through, as there are some pretty sharp turns being made by those jets to go around it.

 

And I don't blame those other airliner crews either: I dunno if you've ever experienced it, but I got caught in a really nasty thunderstorm once in a GA aircraft, where the updrafts and downdrafts made attempting to maintain altitude something which was pretty much beyond my control, and it is not an experience I would care to repeat ever again, so I sure as hell wouldn't want to try it in a big lumbering airliner up near coffin corner.

 

This is why there is now a move toward getting airline pilots to concentrate on reducing the pitch to effect a stall recovery, even considering reducing thrust too in order to increase elevator authority, rather than simply hoping to power your way out of the condition, and it is why I think the real issue with AF447, was a combination of inadequate training in techniques and knowledge, combined with perhaps less than ideal decision making and CRM. Technical issues almost certainly did not help either, but really, I think the crew were let down by not having enough training.

 

Al

Great input as usual Al. While I generally can't stand posting random articles of the Internet I just did a 30 second search when I got home and found 1 out of countless articles explaining my previous statement.

 

http://www.flyingmag.com/news/air-france-447-was-it-deep-stall