The report into the findings of the crash said that the readings being gathered by the automated flight director — which uses cross hairs superimposed over an artificial horizon to indicate the required positioning of the plane — would have resulted in repeated calls for the plane’s nose to be lifted.

 

If a glass of water had been left on the flight deck perhaps this would have enabled the pilots to know the attitude of the aircraft and thus prompt them to lower the nose.

 

If this be so maybe a water container should be a standard component in an easily seen position on the flight deck.

 

A silly suggestion?

 

Cliff

The report into the findings of the crash said that the readings being gathered by the automated flight director — which uses cross hairs superimposed over an artificial horizon to indicate the required positioning of the plane — would have resulted in repeated calls for the plane’s nose to be lifted.

 

If a glass of water had been left on the flight deck perhaps this would have enabled the pilots to know the attitude of the aircraft and thus prompt them to lower the nose.

 

If this be so maybe a water container should be a standard component in an easily seen position on the flight deck.

 

A silly suggestion?

 

Cliff

 

Yes it is a silly suggestion:

 

Bob Hover pouring tea upside down

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp2Uc9XvmjY&sns=em

 

They didn't realize that the aircraft was stalled and when the nose is down that far with an EFIS aircraft it gives you red chevrons. What they should've done was push the nose further down below the critical angle of attack and recovered.

Hee hee, fantastic!

It is my understanding the flight crew selected the thrust levers to the TOGA detent, which would have caused SRS mode to appear on the FMA. Unfortunately SRS is designed for low altitude go-around manuveres, not high altitude stall evasion. The crew should have reverted to raw data by either looking through the FD or referring to the ISIS.

 

The idea of having a water container would not work as that would be effected by acceleration and not just act like a horizon. In the case of AF447, the artificial horizon was still operative, so that was not a cause.

 

Rónán O Cadhain.

The rate of descent tape must have been a blur of numbers at 11,000fpm. Too many numbers to look at in a stressful situation. But even a glance at that would have shown that "What we're doing isn't working". I rather think the PF froze. The more experienced PNF should have, had he had an inkling of what to do contrary to what the PF "was" doing, firmly asserted "I have control!"

I note also that the BEA criticise the Captain for having his break when he did. For the sake of another 15 minutes they "may have" got through the problem had he been present.

Regardless of what happened and what all the data says you will never know what was actually going on inside their heads.

I note also that the BEA criticise the Captain for having his break when he did. For the sake of another 15 minutes they "may have" got through the problem had he been present.

 

He couldn't have known though, although there were some storm-clouds about, they didn't even ask the CC to stop the in-flight service. As far as the captain was concerned, there was nothing overly out of the ordinary at the time he took his rest break.

 

Infact, I would go as far as to say that, if I were presented with the same situation, I'd probably still go ahead and take my rest break, knowing that I trusted the crew to fly the plane, and call me if something out of the ordinary did arise.

 

Ró.

So, here's a question then Ró. Is everyone on your crew typically knowledgeable about how to interpret the radar returns, or are some better at it than others?

 

Al

So, here's a question then Ró. Is everyone on your crew typically knowledgeable about how to interpret the radar returns, or are some better at it than others?

 

Al

 

It is a skill, there's no doubt about that, but, certainly on our transatlantic fleet, [where rest breaks would be taken], most of the first officers there have been flying at least 8+ years with us, and so have plenty of time to both work the radar themselves, and observer other pilots working it and pick up techniques, skills and ideas about how it should be used.

 

Ró.

Ró, still haven't had a chance to read the final report, why would SRS mode appear? I don't get it, selecting TOGA above accel height shouldn't do that as far as I'm aware.

 

Brilliant video Chris :)

 

Cheers

Ró, still haven't had a chance to read the final report, why would SRS mode appear? I don't get it, selecting TOGA above accel height shouldn't do that as far as I'm aware.

 

Cheers

 

I haven't read thing fully yet either, only the first bit of it, still working through. I know it's translated from french, but it made a statement that seemed to indicate that when they put the levers in TOGA, the flight director commanded a nose up attitude of between 10 and 12.5 degrees which would be in line with the pitch settings you associate with SRS. Again though, I havn't gotten to the nitty gritty section of the report, only the simplified section intended for those less knowledgeable... I'm gonna keep on reading and if it clarifies it better later on I'll post up the more correct answer.

 

Ró.

I'm not sure the glass of water would have changed anything. From my understanding of the report sure they lost speed information but there is nothing in the report except if I misread that indicates that they had lost their attitude information and altitude informations so if they had on their screen the water would not have changed anything. Except if they felt the information given on the PDF were wrong of course.

 

As for the FD bars giving a high positive direction, I think it came from the mode change, if I got it correctly the mode changed during the incident from ALT CRZ to V/S mode which was a positive value above 1400fpm for most of the incident so the vertical bar was probably linked to this mode and indicating the required pitch to achieve the requested vertical speed.

 

Well seeing there are Airbus pilots here I'm sure they'll know that better than I do, but that is what I understand have made the bars go up like this.

Bob Hover pouring tea upside down

 

+1 Brilliant

 

Cheers Chris

Never ever ever ever ever ever ever use the word "jet" on AVSIM.

Never ever ever ever ever ever ever use the word "jet" on AVSIM.

"Crash of the Air France Turbo-Fan in 2009"???