AIR FRANCE 447: New details suggest the Airbus design contributed to the crash.

[mgh 89]

No, it's not. It is complete disregard to the stall warning.

 

I was quoting back what another poster said, but the fact remains that while the stall warning was sounding the FO pulled the stick fully nose-up.

[vololiberista 205]

, on 09 May 2012 - 05:26 PM, said:

 

No, it's not. It is complete disregard to the stall warning.

 

 

I was quoting back what another poster said, but the fact remains that while the stall warning was sounding the FO pulled the stick fully nose-up.

 

Which is contrary to all pilot training therefore is a complete disregard of the stall warning.

vololiberista

[mgh 89]

the stall warning sounded and the pilot's response was to to pull back on the stick instead of pushing forward. Why he did it is a different matter.

[vololiberista 205]

the stall warning sounded and the pilot's response was to to pull back on the stick instead of pushing forward. Why he did it is a different matter.

You are trained until you can do something in your sleep and instinctively for that one time in your life when you need to do it. When that moment comes you not only do the wrong manoeuvre, you also break the airline regulations by not calling out the relevant emergency checklist. "Sleeping on the job" is a compliment here! The Captain "was!"

vololiberista

[Airbus Commander 563]

Alright, so someone in another thread asked for my opinion on this crash, so here goes:

 

The design of Airbus did not cause this crash. Although it may have had a

contrbution, though difficult to quantify, this contribution was minor.

 

In my 23 year flying Airliners at a comercial level, I've come across some fairly

"Ground Breaking" observations.

 

1. Aircraft all have wings. Seems simple doesn't it? You may take this for granted.

And as all aircraft have wings, all of those wings can stall, that's the

aerodynamics behind what we humans have been doing for over 100 years now.

Wings, amazing things, and quite primative really, but they can ALWAYS stall.

 

When the A330 was first introduced into Aerlingus' Fleet back in 1994, I was one

of the first First Officers to be brought over onto it, as I had reached that point

in the seniority list about that time. We were brought out on a cool morning with dew

on the grass and shown her, brand new in her Aerlingus livery, being told all about

these new technelogical advances, about the latest and greatest kit that was in these

aircraft, but do you know what I saw? Two Wings. Simple no? This thing, with all its

computers and new technology still used good old fashoined wings, wings like the aircraft I

had been flying for the past 6 years. So I knew, if this bird has wings; she can stall,

simple as.

 

In sim drills and training, we were always told, in a stall, power up, pitch down. These

principals had been with me for 6 years now, and upon seeing this shiney new aircraft,

I didn't just decide, "To hell with it", I knew, that just like any other aircraft, if I

ever found my self in a stall in this amazing new bird, power up, pitch down and I'd arrive

home, safe and sound for my dinner that evening. Just because the computers are there to

stop you stalling does not give you the right to defy logic and reason. You do not pull

back in a stall, you push forward. I really couldn't care less whether they were in

normal or alternate law. PUSH DOWN, POWER UP. It is in NO airlines training to pull back

in a stall and leave it up to the aircraft. That is not how it works. Automation is

there to help us, not do our jobs for us. We are the pilots, we are paid to fly the

airplane. Fly the airplane, not to throw our training out the window, and then let

the computers fly the plane. We are in the business of flying airplanes.

 

The pilots in AF447 were flying in a tropical storm. Their pitot tubes iced over. This

is not a situation which should result in a crash. Pitch and Power! Hasn't failed me yet...

This is drilled into us in training from the very start. Aerlingus may well be known

for it's over the top training in situations hard to imagine ever happening in real life,

but it shows. We haven't had a major accident with loss of life since 1967. Most pilots

will agree that our scenarios that we play through in the sim are over board and unlikely to ever happen but that

does not excuse the training pilots at Air France from practising only the bare minimum

for passing the check ride. You need to practice these situations, any pilot worth his salt can fly an engine failure at V1,

but it takes practice and experience to fly your aircraft out of more bizarre situations. It's these bizarre situations that

will be the death of you, not the V1 engine failure. Back in 2008 when I was getting re-rated on the A330 to take my

command on it from the A320, we were playing out a scenario in the sim, that started off VERY

similar to AF447. We were in the middle of the atlantic [though admittedly further north],

in a thunder storm. Sitting there, we were under the impression that we were meerly

practising our ETOPS procedures until the training captain decided to fail ALL 3 airspeed

indicators (nice man). We quickly recognised this and immediately jumped to the pitch and

power conclusion. Fine, problem solved till our instructor deducted 100kts off our airspeed

and we entered a stall. Sound familier? First response was as always trained to do in a stall,

pitch down, power up. Within 30 seconds we were out of it and on we went. Of course, within

minutes the instructor decided to fail an engine and we had to fight our way out of that one

too with no airspped indicators, but that's neither here nor there... These senarios are practiced, they become second

nature, or at least for us they did. That was not the case in Air France, they did not

practice high altitude stalls and it resulted in this accident.

 

The next argument that people seem to be coming up with is that the Captain should have been

on the flight deck. Now I'm sorry, but if you think that it is safe for I or any of my

collegues to sit in a seat for 10 hours straight and then attempt to land a jet, you're

ill informed. I could spend over two and a half hours in the cabin chatting away with our

passengers while my relief pilot is on duty. Does that make me a bad captain? Certainly

not. Then the arguement that the Captain should have taken his seat and flown the aircraft

himself, another nonsense idea. If I have 2 experienced senior pilots that I have trained with

sitting in the two seats up front I TRUST THEM. You have to. They had been there through the

entire situation and will as such have better situational awareness. Of course, this does not

excuse the captain in this case from meerly standing there looking pretty. You should be

scanning the instruments and working out what is going on, and then if needs be, stating the

blatently obvious "POWER UP, NOSE DOWN". It is not your job to wrestle the controls back from

the FO. It is your job to manage the situation, and you don't need a side-stick in your hands

to do that.

 

Next argument, the side stick caused it. NO IT FLIPPIN DID NOT!!! The amount of times I've heard

this being said goes beyond ridiculus. What happened here was no one took control of the

situation. The PM tried to take control when he realised what was going on, but due to LACK OF

PROPPER CRM, both pilots ended up makeing inputs into the aircraft. What should have been done

was the priority button pressed by the PNF and declare using propper technique that he was now

the pilot fly. "I have control, you have communication". We've been saying it since the first

day on the job, this situation was no different. If needed the priority button should have

been held down momentarily until the PF realised he was now the PM. You can see the other

pilots side stick and the control movement he is making if you look. As Rob mentioned earlier,

perhaps it would be nice if the cross remained visible while in manual flight, but it doesn't,

and all it takes is a glance to the right or the left to see what your other guy is doing. The

that they are not linked is just a diffrence, you have your instruments, you can see what is

happening, and if you so wish, you can disable the other pilot from making control inputs. End

Of.

 

Now I'm aware that this has all been said in hindsight, of course it has, but it has all made

reference to a times before this accident. This situation was perfectly preventable, however,

due to poor CRM, poor training and practise, and the throwing out the window of the basic

principals of aerodynamics, this accident came about, and it won't be the last.

 

As always, feel free to ask questions if nessecary....

 

Captain Rónán O Cadhain, A330, A320.

[kerosene31 349]

Great read, thanks for posting!

 

I've never flown anything except for my computer desk, but your comments on a stall make perfect sense. I still don't understand how this happens.

[vololiberista 205]

With reference to the above post by Capt.O Cadhain, as said training is the whole point. The UK and Irish airlines train their pilots until they are blue in the face with every possible and known scenario. Most likely Capt. O Cadhain would have, on the basis of his training elected not to fly through that storm at all!!

Yes, it's perfectly correct to take time out of the cockpit, but having made the decision to head for a major storm I would have stayed there for the extra half hour to see it through. You are quite correct that a Captain should put his trust in the others. But when he "is" on the flightdeck all crew should be cross-monitoring each other and working as a team. The Capt returns sees that the PF is trying to fly towards the Moon but the a/c is going as fast as it can in the completely opposite direction then all his training alarm bells should have been ringing in his head.

I believe that AF and the crew will not come out of this with a good reputation at all.

vololiberista

[Airbus Commander 563]

With reference to the above post by Capt.O Cadhain, as said training is the whole point. The UK and Irish airlines train their pilots until they are blue in the face with every possible and known scenario. Most likely Capt. O Cadhain would have, on the basis of his training not flown through that storm at all!!

Yes, it's perfectly correct to take time out of the cockpit, but having made the decision to head for a major storm I would have stayed there for the extra half hour to see it through. You are quite correct that a Captain should put his trust in the others. But when he "is" on the flightdeck all crew should be cross-monitoring each other and working as a team. The Capt returns sees that the PF is trying to fly towards the Moon but the a/c is going as fast as it can in the completely opposite direction then all his training alarm bells should have been ringing in his head.

I believe that AF and the crew will not come out of this with a good reputation at all.

vololibeirsta

 

Ah, but did they make the decision to fly into a major storm, or was that storm blocked from view on the weather radar by a lesser, much more manageable one? I know this is difficult for simmers to grasp, as they don't have accurately modeled WX radar, but there are a lot of limitations to it, and AFAIK, the large storm on the night would have been obscured from view by a lessor one.

 

Ró.

[out 769]

Ronan,

 

Sir, your above post (#80) is one of the best, most informative and interesting ones I have ever read at AVSIM or any other aviation forum.

Thank you for sharing your precious time with us to type so many wise words. All I can do is show my appreciation.

I have learned sooo much from it the more so because that I am especially interested in Airbuses and I am eager to get any information on them.

 

 

it won't be the last

 

This is the only part of your post I sincerely hope you are wrong about.

[vololiberista 205]

Ah, but did they make the decision to fly into a major storm, or was that storm blocked from view on the weather radar by a lesser, much more manageable one? I know this is difficult for simmers to grasp, as they don't have accurately modeled WX radar, but there are a lot of limitations to it, and AFAIK, the large storm on the night would have been obscured from view by a lessor one.

 

Ró.

Well, it would appear that other crews did elect to make very large diversions. Some even before take-off apparently!!

Even so, having said that, they were in a mess and they did not put into practice the prescribed actions which are all standard flying techniques. No IAS (fly attitude / thrust). Stall warnings are disregarded at one's peril!!! Nose down, fly out of it. They had initially plenty of airspace to resolve problems. Had they flown attitude / thrust initially they may never have encountered the stall warning.

It's not easy to hand fly through very rough weather but usually the correct attitude / thrust settings would be close to the "rough air speed" thus giving the pilot more room to operate the control surfaces avoiding their gust limitations.

Why some crew seem to do everything opposite to their training in an emergency (there are numerous instances) is one of the reasons for all this computer protection but it leads to a new problem in that the crew can't see the wood for the trees!!

vololiberista

[Airbus Commander 563]

Well, it would appear that other crews did elect to make very large diversions. Some even before take-off apparently!!

Even so, they were in a mess and they did not put into practice the prescribed actions which are all standard flying techniques. No IAS (fly attitude / thrust). Stall warnings are disregarded at one's peril!!! Nose down, fly out of it. They had initially plenty of airspace to resolve problems. Had they flown attitude / thrust initially they may never have encountered the stall warning.

vololiberista

Tropical storms like this are highly changeable, you just don't know what you're in for until you're in it. Trust me, been there, done that, bought the t-shirt....

 

Ró.

[Chock 17,769]

Assuming that the WX radar on AF447 was working correctly, it does indeed appear that everyone else up over the SE Atlantic that night decided to give the storms a wide berth. So again it may appear that poor training came into play, particularly with regard to interpreting precipitation returns in assuming that there is nothing behind that small front directly ahead by not altering the azimuth, tilt and PRF of the radar to make sure.

 

It's difficult to conceive that a storm which was apparently reaching upwards of 50,000 feet could be so easily completely concealed behind a very small innocuous-looking return, and I find it even harder to believe there was no mention over the radio traffic of its apparent severity in that area when everyone else appeared to be making fairly large steering alterations to go around it. There is no room for complacency with Mother Nature.

 

Al

[FLEX1978 373]

I've tried to explain this on a number of posts here, nobody knows what was visible on the ND regarding the weather, who in there right mind would fly straight into a storm. The main cell could have easily been blocked by a smaller cell yet some people seem to think they happily headed straight for the weather.

 

Ronan, I'm curios about your take on spatial disorientation playing a factor in the crews decisions. Are you familiar with the A320 gulf air flight 072 crash in Bahrain? They performed a missed approach in pitch black, after selecting TOGA the captain applied full nose down sidestick despite the GPWS going off he held it there until they hit the ocean. I knew some of the crew onboard and it took me a while to get my head round why the captain would do that and why the F/O never said a word.

 

The LVL-D sims can't prepare you for what it feels like to experience those sensations, especially in pitch black, tired and taken by surprise.

 

I'm certainly making no excuses for the crews actions, however since gf072 I have been intrigued by how spatial disorientation can cause seasoned flight crew to act against all there training.

 

 

Regards

[vololiberista 205]

Tropical storms like this are highly changeable, you just don't know what you're in for until you're in it. Trust me, been there, done that, bought the t-shirt....

 

Ró.

 

I have done flights over the Gulf and the Tropics where even the stewardess comes into the front office looking like a ghost. On one occasion many years ago we flew through clear air turbulence. We dropped out of the sky like a brick, the stick shaker and pusher doing what they were trained for. I went back into the cabin and one pax told me that he had seen the wing bend right up and let go of the lift like a ruler flapping. (I did wonder had it been a 707 would it have come off) I've never seen so many scared people. I got clearence to FL420 and told the cabin crew to give everyone a miniature brandy or whisky.

vololiberista

[Airbus Commander 563]

I have done flights over the Gulf and the Tropics where even the stewardess comes into the front office looking like a ghost. On one occasion many years ago we flew through clear air turbulence. We dropped out of the sky like a brick, the stick shaker and pusher doing what they were trained for. I went back into the cabin and one pax told me that he had seen the wing bend right up and let go of the lift like a ruler flapping. (I did wonder had it been a 707 would it have come off) I've never seen so many scared people. I got clearence to FL420 and told the cabin crew to give everyone a miniature brandy or whisky.

vololiberista

I see....

Can I view the final report from the investigation somewhere, would be good to know about for future reference...

 

I've tried to explain this on a number of posts here, nobody knows what was visible on the ND regarding the weather, who in there right mind would fly straight into a storm. The main cell could have easily been blocked by a smaller cell yet some people seem to think they happily headed straight for the weather.

 

Ronan, I'm curios about your take on spatial disorientation playing a factor in the crews decisions. Are you familiar with the A320 gulf air flight 072 crash in Bahrain? They performed a missed approach in pitch black, after selecting TOGA the captain applied full nose down sidestick despite the GPWS going off he held it there until they hit the ocean. I knew some of the crew onboard and it took me a while to get my head round why the captain would do that and why the F/O never said a word.

 

The LVL-D sims can't prepare you for what it feels like to experience those sensations, especially in pitch black, tired and taken by surprise.

 

I'm certainly making no excuses for the crews actions, however since gf072 I have been intrigued by how spatial disorientation can cause seasoned flight crew to act against all there training.

 

 

Regards

I shall look it up now and get back to you on it...

 

Ró.