Air France AF447 crash into the Atlantic: Airbus A330 aircraft parts found

Join this forum to discuss the latest news that happened in the world of commercial aviation.

Moderator: Latest news team

Post Reply
regi
Posts: 5140
Joined: 02 Sep 2004, 00:00
Location: Bruges

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by regi »

So this could lead to another crash caused by pilots who get confused by faulty measuring devices and stick to one kind of procedure, mentally blocked .
It remembers me about some other crashes, where pilots were sticking on their faulty instruments.
Pilots have to depend too much on electronics and measuring devices coupled on computers.
I don't say they should take a sextant, a compass, or basic altitude meter.
But...in several cases these non-electronic devices could have saved lives.
I do realize that in many cases, there is no time to do a analogue test.

andorra-airport
Posts: 1193
Joined: 19 Oct 2008, 16:21

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by andorra-airport »

Interesting article in Der Spiegel, http://www.spiegel.de/international/eur ... 27,00.html

In short:
France's BEA civil aviation safety bureau concluded that pilot Marc Dubois was not on the flight deck when the emergency first began.

On flight recordings recovered , the 58-year-old can be heard rushing back to the pilot's seat.

The recordings also show that there was only four minutes from those first warning alerts from the aircraft's monitoring equipment to the plane smashing into the ocean.

But according to the report, pilot error alone was not solely to blame for the crash, with serious questions raised over how automatic systems on the aircraft reacted to the emergency.

The recorders show the flight team worked hard -- successfully at first -- to avoid the serious storm front which froze the speed sensors and left them unable to gauge how fast they were going, leading to a "deep stall."

The report says one theory is that the plane's computers, and not the pilots, reacted incorrectly to the stall, sealing the plane's fate.

Airbus has refused to comment on the plane's flight characteristics while the investigation is ongoing.

User avatar
galaxy
Posts: 722
Joined: 25 Mar 2006, 00:00
Location: Universe
Contact:

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by galaxy »

Interesting article too,only in French :
Parce que figurez-vous que, alors que certains titres font leurs choux gras de l’absence du commandant de bord dans la cabine de pilotage, celle-ci n’a strictement rien d’extraordinaire pour qui connaît ne serait-ce qu’un peu l’aviation.
Full article :
http://www.pagtour.net/actualite/af447- ... -vraiment/

SpottairBRU
Posts: 319
Joined: 08 Jun 2010, 13:05
Contact:

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by SpottairBRU »

The "Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyse" (BEA) has published a notice with an update on the investigation.

It can be found here: http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.af. ... 011.en.pdf
Fabien
Flown: AA5 / A300-310-318-319-320-321-330-340-380 / ATR42 / B717-737-747-757-777 / Bae146 / C130H / CRJ700-900 / Dash8-Q400 / E145-195 / Fokker 50 / HS748 / MD81 / RJ85-100 / Robin DR400

regi
Posts: 5140
Joined: 02 Sep 2004, 00:00
Location: Bruges

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by regi »

SpottairBRU wrote:The "Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyse" (BEA) has published a notice with an update on the investigation.

It can be found here: http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.af. ... 011.en.pdf
It is in English and well readable. So go ahead.
Has Airbus been too soon to state it was not an Airbus related problem?

Do I understand it right that the airplane has fallen from the sky for a good 3 minutes with its nose up, and engines on, but making no speed? Should the pilot have better gone into a dive to make speed and get lift again?

( no, I don't play a flight simulator :| )

User avatar
Treeper
Posts: 267
Joined: 13 Feb 2011, 21:56
Location: 13,8nm from BRU
Contact:

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by Treeper »

the new report is also on avherald via http://avherald.com/h?article=41a81ef1/0068&opt=0 .
regi wrote:
SpottairBRU wrote:The "Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyse" (BEA) has published a notice with an update on the investigation.

It can be found here: http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.af. ... 011.en.pdf
It is in English and well readable. So go ahead.
Has Airbus been too soon to state it was not an Airbus related problem?

Do I understand it right that the airplane has fallen from the sky for a good 3 minutes with its nose up, and engines on, but making no speed? Should the pilot have better gone into a dive to make speed and get lift again?

( no, I don't play a flight simulator :| )
I think it would be logical to make nose down inputs (in stead of 3min nose up till 40°, and putting thrust to idle...), as you should regain speed. but in that position on that moment with all the warning lights and sounds, who knows what's logical. it seems that they were trying to solve the situation. but we'll probably have to wait for the final result to comment the actions of the pilots, I guess.

TCAS_climb
Posts: 413
Joined: 04 Jan 2004, 00:00

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by TCAS_climb »

Without going too far into the intricacies of advanced aerodynamics, yes you can put an aircraft in a very high nose-up attitude with full power and still be going down at thousands of feet per minute. Some would call this a superstall.

Airbus didn't say that it wasn't their fault, they just said that there was no new indication that the airplane was at fault. But let's not forget their previous 'mea culpa' on the Pitot tubes manufactured by Thales.

All this will get very ugly in court. AF, Airbus and the DGAC have probably already realized that they painted a huge red and white target on their butts. This is going to hurt... Unless a miracle happens. The kind of miracle that usually happens in banana republics.

RC20
Posts: 547
Joined: 09 Dec 2005, 00:00

Re: Air France 447 Flight Data Recorder located, but..

Post by RC20 »

Pretty sure anyone that has read this has followed the incredibly disturbing details of the crash of this flight.

Pilot in Command issues (pilot in the left seat actually had more hours on the type than the PIC did, and he is calling for the PIC back to cockpit instead of stopping the stall, not to mention watching the PF keep it in a stall). The guy in the left seats job is to either fly the aircraft, or take it over if the guy in the right is screwing up.

Even when the PIC was back, he did not diagnose the stall and tell them to get the nose down (some dispute on that as well as a reported program issue with the trim that has to play out but seems unlikely). So again a huge bust.

Turbulence is now reported to be pretty mild, so not in a super storm being tossed about.

Airbus and Boeing are now beating on the airlines to teach nose down as the response to stall (not clear if that's at higher altitudes or in all cases).

And AV week reprots that if in the same type, you can go 10 years between a stall training session, let alone one at higher altifuteds.

Huge gap in capaiblity and even competance. Simply stunning to have a 10,000 to 11,000 fpm decetn going on with nose far abvoe normal (and the Artifical Horizing does nto use the pitots for data, let alone the fact that the pitots had cleared and were workign agin by the tiem they started going down).

THe industry is incedibly deficient. No the pitots should not have iced up, but it should not have gone anywhere close to this far.

B.Inventive
Posts: 79
Joined: 19 Nov 2010, 19:08

Re: Air France 447 Flight Data Recorder located, but..

Post by B.Inventive »

Anyone who doesn't know the correct stall recovery method for his aircraft, is a serious liability issue for the company.

it's simple: put your nose down!! (in general this is always true, be it at high altitude or low altitude ... )

User avatar
galaxy
Posts: 722
Joined: 25 Mar 2006, 00:00
Location: Universe
Contact:

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by galaxy »

Interesting article :
Pitch and Power: Lessons from Air France Flight 447

By: Robert P. MarkAviation International News >> June 2011
Accidents, Safety

When the French BEA released a partial cockpit voice recorder (CVR) transcript of the Air France Flight 447 accident in late May, pundits wasted no time unleashing pointed analysis implicating the A330’s crew. The Airbus crashed into the South Atlantic, killing all 228 people aboard. Indeed, the edited details of the BEA seemed to offer few other possibilities. To some experts, however, the report actually raised more questions than it answered, leaving many to wonder about the BEA’s motivation in choosing the items it publicized.

Certainly the most telling element of the report was data indicating that not only did the pilot flying lose control of the airplane shortly after the autopilot and autothrottles disconnected on their own at 35,000 feet, but that while the aircraft was falling at some 11,000 fpm, he kept the sidestick pulled back, holding the 452,000-pound aircraft in a full stall. Air France received a series of automated messages before the crash that suggest the aircraft began shedding automation due to the loss of valid airspeed indications related to on-going icing issues with the Airbus’s Thales-made pitot tubes.

The brief BEA transcript reported that everything appeared normal in the flight until the moment the crew prepared to deviate around some forecast thunderstorms about four hours into the flight. Capt. Marc Dubois, the senior pilot aboard, had just left the cockpit for a required rest break and most likely transferred command of the aircraft to David Robert, who had 4,500 hours of experience in the A330. Pierre-Cédric Bonin, the most junior of the trio, had logged fewer than 3,000 hours total flying experience.

Just seconds after Air France Flight 447 began to deviate around the storms, the autopilot and autothrottles shut down as the aircraft rolled to the right. The pilot flying–believed to be Bonin–reacted by pulling back on the sidestick and raising the nose of the aircraft. The stall warning sounded twice as indicated airspeed on the captain’s primary flight display dropped quickly from 275 knots to 60 knots. The standby display showed the same numbers. About 10 seconds after equipment began failing, the microphone of the pilot not flying recorded, “We’ve lost airspeeds,” then “alternate law […]” most likely a reference to the system of Airbus control laws that determines which portions of the aircraft’s operating envelope the computers protect at any given moment.

For example, under the normal law of ordinary flight, computers prevent the pilot from exceeding the critical angle of attack (AOA); they also guarantee high speed, pitch attitude, yaw, load factor and bank angle limitations protection. If the aircraft slips into the realm of alternate law, however, many of the A330’s protections disappear, leaving only low- and high-speed stability, load-factor limitation and yaw damping. This is why–if the crew did maintain significant backpressure on the sidestick as the FDR indicates–the aircraft could indeed have stalled once the critical angle of attack was exceeded.

An A330 check airman who requested anonymity told AIN, “In the event of dual [or triple] ADR [air data reference] failures [which seems to apply in this case], there is no low-speed stability either. The nose attitude is referenced to indicated airspeed [IAS] instead of angle of attack [AOA].” He added, “There would also have been an ECAM message stating ‘alternate law, protections lost,’ as well as an alerting chime. Some green indications on the PFD would have switched to amber as an additional warning. There would also have been additional messages about the air data loss,” he said. Imagine the task the pilots faced of just trying to decide which set of failures and backups to focus on first as the airplane was being tossed around in the night sky.

According to the BEA report, about 50 seconds after the first stall warning sounded, the Airbus began a climb at a rate of 7,000 fpm and then rolled some to the left and right as the recorded speed increased to 215 knots. As the stall warning sounded again, thrust was set to takeoff as the pitch attitude increased to nearly 16 degrees, where it remained until the aircraft struck the water.

Some 90 seconds after the automation began to click off, and as the captain re-entered the cockpit, all recorded speeds became invalid and the stall warnings stopped. At this point, angle of attack exceeded 40 degrees and the vertical speed was about 10,000 fpm down as the pilot flying made inputs to hold the nose of the aircraft up.

Shortly thereafter, the pilot flying pulled the thrust levers back to idle and reduced the angle of attack slightly, although the recording shows it never dropped beneath 35 degrees. At one point, both pilots were trying to add control inputs. Four minutes and 23 seconds after the autopilot disengaged, the A330 hit the water at a groundspeed of just 107 knots and a pitch attitude of more than 16 degrees nose up.

Make the Airplane Fly

The most troubling unanswered questions center around why the crew was unable to recognize that the airplane was not flying, but rather falling like a rock from 35,000 feet. If they did understand what was happening, why were they unable to take the required action to make the Airbus fly again? In the 2009 Colgan crash at Buffalo, neither member of that crew had ever experienced a stick shaker/pusher combination as the aircraft stalled, nor had they ever demonstrated a stall recovery from that altitude.

Although some media critics expressed shock at the skill of all these pilots, most airlines and corporate flight departments flying large transport aircraft don’t train much past that standard either because it’s not required. In fact, few large-aircraft crews have ever experienced a complete stall in the aircraft they regularly fly. During initial and recurrent training, the standard has always been to recognize the approaching stall and recover before the aircraft stops flying.

Stall recovery in training, as G550 pilot Steve Thorpe confirmed, is actually pretty routine. “You go up to 15,000 feet and perform the stall series. The recovery is full power, don’t lower the nose and you should be able to power out of the stall with minimum altitude loss,” he told AIN. How then, does a crew that has never actually stalled an A330, or a G550 or a Global Express, learn to recognize when their aircraft is actually stalled and recover if they’ve never tried it in training?

Robert Barnes, president of the International Association of Flight Training Professionals in Scottsdale, Ariz., suggests that it’s time to stop blaming pilots outright for failing to do the right thing in a highly unusual situation. “We should start asking ourselves if we are adequately preparing them for their jobs. Do they really have the knowledge, skills and competence required to fly an airplane or are they simply being trained to manage systems?

“I’m concerned that we’re no longer teaching people how to control the airplane at the most basic levels so they develop an instinctive understanding of how an airplane flies. Some of this could be due to aircraft or simulator limitations, but it could also be due to the classic business case needs analysis that concludes, for example, since there’s a low probability an airplane will roll into an unusual attitude, it’s not cost effective to train for it.”

Barnes adds that the very expression “unusual attitude” implies an unplanned, atypical event. “I’ve certainly had my share of surprises in airplanes that didn’t fit within standard operating procedures, and I’m sure most pilots who are nearing retirement age can say the same thing. How did we ever survive?” he wondered.

He suggests a knowledge of basic skills was invaluable to pilots who have successfully dealt with unusual emergency situations. He pointed to the 1989 United Airlines DC-10 crash at Sioux City in which the crew used differential power to control the aircraft after the uncontained failure of the number-two engine had disabled all hydraulic systems. “Or take Captain Sully, a glider pilot who used basic piloting and energy management skills to land his stricken Airbus in the Hudson River. There are many similar situations in which a basic understanding of aircraft control made it possible for the crew to respond in an appropriate way. In the old days, we called this airmanship.”

Did the Air France crew simply fail to fly the airplane, as some claim, or were they the victims of a training system that taught them to rely too heavily on computers right up to the moment the impossible overload occurred, like the HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001? No one questions whether or not the Air France crew met the certification requirements in place at the time they received their type ratings. But does the type-rating requirement on an Airbus, or any other large aircraft, go far enough into the actual handling characteristics of the aircraft–especially at high altitude–and especially when multiple computer failures occur?

Flight Safety Foundation president and CEO Bill Voss believes “Maybe the solution isn’t that terribly hard because this isn’t just an Airbus issue. I think we’ve failed to make the quantum leap in training required by the complexity of the airplanes we fly today. We still train like we fly DC-3s. We need to train for high-altitude failures. The new basics of flying an airplane demand that the [pilot flying] triage the airplane to keep it in the air when the automated systems start clicking off.”

Thorpe mentioned a quote by airline pilot Paul Kolisch in a Wall Street Journal article that spoke to the benefits of stall training today–or perhaps the lack of them–in swept-wing airplanes. “It’s a lot like synchronized swimming,” Kolisch said. “It requires a great deal of skill and execution, but in no way teaches you to swim across a river.” Thorpe mentioned a new FAA requirement that stalls be performed closer to the ground in the simulator for more realism.

If we’re going to perform stalls close to the ground because of the Colgan Q400 accident and perhaps high-altitude stalls and recoveries because of the Air France A330 accident, or work harder on complacency issues brought to light in the Turkish 737 accident in Amsterdam, we should also be wondering what other portions of the aircraft’s flight envelope or other computer gremlins yet unnamed are still waiting to jump out and bite us.

No doubt automation has made flying easier, especially when it comes to delivering the smooth ride passengers expect in jets. But has passenger comfort that demands the precision of these automated systems taken our eyes off the ball of the basic airmanship component? Were the Air France pilots simply overwhelmed with more flashing lights and chimes than they could grasp as a stormy night flight came unraveled? Few pilots hand fly their aircraft in training or on the line. Can we really afford that insulation from actual stick-and-rudder flying any longer? Many companies–airlines included–don’t want to spend the time and money to train pilots for those one-in-a-million calamities that could appear in obscure corners of the envelope. Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate that philosophy.
http://www.ainonline.com/ain-air-transp ... 447-30323/

regi
Posts: 5140
Joined: 02 Sep 2004, 00:00
Location: Bruges

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by regi »

interesting article indeed, and I think Smoke Jumper is ready to reply. ;)
I can follow the reasoning. Today airline pilots are not trained for very exceptional circumstances. ( because it costs too much in training )
But can we demand that the pilot of a modern airplane has special skills?
Maybe these exceptional circumstances can be put into the computers, who recognize it from a previous incident. A bit the same as the modern chess computers are thaught.

Just an example: must we train every pilot of a large passenger plane to avoid a SAM rocket?

Crosswind
Posts: 188
Joined: 25 Nov 2008, 13:25

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by Crosswind »

At this time, we can only extrapolate about what has happened during the last moments of the AF447.

About pilot formation. Indeed we could improve lots of things, actually. As usual it's a question of momentum: economic vs safety. This momentum accepts a little pourcentage of failures, and failures means deaths.

It's not a quesiton of SAM's avoidance (a liner cannot, simply, avoid SAM's), but a question of 3D perception, flying skills, training, theoretical knowledge.

Nevertheless, safety is still at a high level. the aim is to improve that level...

User avatar
earthman
Posts: 2221
Joined: 24 Nov 2004, 00:00
Location: AMS

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by earthman »

I am not a pilot but my first idea when getting a stall warning, especially at high altitude, is to push the nose down in order to pick up some speed.

What am I missing here?

User avatar
Treeper
Posts: 267
Joined: 13 Feb 2011, 21:56
Location: 13,8nm from BRU
Contact:

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by Treeper »

regi wrote: But can we demand that the pilot of a modern airplane has special skills?
no, but IMHO we can demand pilots have basic skills. I mean, don't get me wrong, they get enough training, I'm sure, but somehow the focus is no longer on (the basic skills of) flying, but more on how to control and monitor the plane's computers...

Crosswind
Posts: 188
Joined: 25 Nov 2008, 13:25

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by Crosswind »

It's not as simple as you think. If you push in the stick for a faulty stall warning in cruise, you will quickly fall into a so called high speed stall.

Actually, we don't know what happened exactly. It's most probably a mix of faults. Airbus, Air France and pilots. anyway, what we know is that they recognised a faulty speed indication. Therefore and in accordance to a published procedure, the pilot in function pulled to put the 330 in a climb. Unfortunately, this action was excessive, and a too high body attitude bleeded off the aircraft speed... Stall, deep stall, and death for everybody in less than ' minutes.

There are still a LOT of questions. An Airbus can be a very special aircraft once things goes wrong. At the end of this month we should have more informations.

User avatar
earthman
Posts: 2221
Joined: 24 Nov 2004, 00:00
Location: AMS

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by earthman »

Crosswind wrote:It's not as simple as you think. If you push in the stick for a faulty stall warning in cruise, you will quickly fall into a so called high speed stall.
But isn't a quickly dropping altitude a good secondary indication of a stall?

Crosswind
Posts: 188
Joined: 25 Nov 2008, 13:25

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by Crosswind »

Yes it is. But!

But the stabilizer trim was set nearly for a full nose up flight equilibrium. That means that to recover the aircraft from a stall with a trim set so full nose up was maybe... Impossible!

On an airbus unlike a 737 for example, in a normal utilisation you don't have to trim yourself. Computers does it for you. At the contrary in certain circumstances, an Airbus pilot must trim (degraded flight mode).

Nothing says that they were in this or that mode, or that they were aware of a degraded mode, or that they were'nt confused with lots of alarms and conflictual informations while falling. We are even not sure they still had a valid ECAM info.

In panic while in a deep stall, it's possible that they tried to push on the stick, without effect (trim full nose up). Then, they would have try something else, and something else again, and again, beeing totally lost at the end...

User avatar
earthman
Posts: 2221
Joined: 24 Nov 2004, 00:00
Location: AMS

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by earthman »

So basically you have a plane where normally you don't have to do anything, and suddenly the computer says 'screw this, I need a vacation, you guys figure it out yourselves'.

Fabulous.

What we need is better flight computers.

andorra-airport
Posts: 1193
Joined: 19 Oct 2008, 16:21

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by andorra-airport »

earthman wrote: What we need is better flight computers.
You mean like A.I. ? The computer tells you what the problem is and what the solution can be... (or even doing that already by himself)

Well, as long as for example the "Fly-By-Wire" Airbus A320’s flight management computer navigation database needs a FLOPPY(!!!!) every month, I guess that road is still far far away.

sn-remember
Posts: 848
Joined: 13 Sep 2004, 00:00
Location: Jodoigne/Geldenaken
Contact:

Re: AF 447 crash : aircraft parts found

Post by sn-remember »

earthman wrote:So basically you have a plane where normally you don't have to do anything, and suddenly the computer says 'screw this, I need a vacation, you guys figure it out yourselves'.

Fabulous.

What we need is better flight computers.
I tend to agree !
I am not a pilot either but a computer scientist (used to be) ...
It's a long time I feel it not "healthy" to shut the computer down while in a troubled flight situation.
It's indeed IMHO (not a formula here) the "major flaw" of the FBW philosophy.
I would think it possible to still offer a "degraded mode" computer based assistance in such emergency cases.
Yes kind of Ai if you like, I would call it "fuzzy logic".
But I am in no way an expert on these matters.
I suppose some brilliant minds in Toulouse got the opportunity to study this question long ago and preferred to let the pilot struggle alone.
So the only alternative seems indeed to enhance the pilot training for emergency cases .. since it's the main manual piloting scenario left as I understand ...

Post Reply