AF 447 - Four years later

[BradB]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-33816_162-57587193/four-years-later-lessons-from-air-france-flight-447/

 

Enjoy

 

Brad

 

[kiwi stu]

ugly vid...i am not an airbus fan and never have been

give me a boeing with a damn yoke any day

stu

[Andrew 737]

Very intriguing video - I'm obsessed with watch Aircrash investigation, just to see what went wrong; very sad indeed

God rest those souls

Can you blame Airbus? - its all about training I suppose. Surely they couldn't have known they where losing altitude?

Sully was absolutely right in his opinion, a yoke is more obvious, there are pros and cons.

Would it have been any harder to pull off the miracle in the Hudson in a 737? One of my instructors at the Aeroclub flys Airbus and the way he explained how they work makes me think it may have been harder in a Boeing.

Personally I like a yoke. Must be easier to make an airbus Sim though; no need for FFB on the stick (at least I'm guessing not)

[DocBird]

Nice Video! Thanks for posting!

 

As a possible explanation of why the pilot in command pulled on the stick all of the time was explained to me by a real world Airbus pilot:

 

Usually the Airbus does not allow the pilot to pull it into a stall situation. This is called "protection". Therefore the pilot in command might have thought: "I have to avoid over speed. Therefore I pull up because if it is too much the aircraft will not allow a stall to happen and correct my input."

 

The protection, however, under certain circumstances does disengage itself. This is what has happened to AF 447 when there were no more valid input from the speed indicators. The pilots didn't notice that this had happened and pulled on the stick. This would explain what he meant with "I don't understand what's happening". Under normal protection levels it is impossible to happen. So the problem is more that the pilots need to be informed more obviously about the level of protection. ...

 

So the protection spoiled the good airmenship...

[Ian Routley]

So the protection spoiled the good airmenship...

Alternatively, you could argue that good airmanship does not rely on alpha-protection to limit stick inputs for safe fllght!

[DocBird]

Alternatively, you could argue that good airmanship does not rely on alpha-protection to limit stick inputs for safe fllght!

 

Yes, Ian, that was want I meant:

 

Over "protecting" the pilots in their everyday business spoils them for the situations without protection. I assume that no GA pilot would have come to the idea of pulling up even if the stall warning rings (at least not for 5 minutes and taking into account the rapidly decreasing altitude).

 

Having said that: In this case the transition from normal flight to “falling†down in the stall must have been rather smooth so that the pilots didn’t believed they were descending (falling) as rapidly as the altimeter was indicating. Moreover the stall warning was more than once stopped (whenever the speed was under 30 knots IAS) and started again after the pilot in command pushed the stick forward (whenever IAS exceeded 30 knots). This totally confused the crew so that they didn’t recognized the stall until they hit the sea.

Finally the crew should have worked down the applicable checklists which they (as far as we know) did not do for some reasons.

[Mickey]

 

Finally the crew should have worked down the applicable checklists which they (as far as we know) did not do for some reasons.

 

 

 

In such a situation where these pilots have been checklists would have not helped to get out. It requires immediate action. Comming to the point of good airmenship in an Airbus, if the air data system and computers get wrong information from the probes it is very hard to interprete the situation. There are a lot of accidents where crews pulled an airliner into a stall due to system malfunction and/or false indications. Check

 

Turkish Airlines TK1951 Boeing 737-800

 

-known false system behaviour due to radar altimeter u/s-

3!!! pilots in the cockpit

 

 

Birgen Air KT301 Boeing 757-200

 

-false airspeed indication CPT side due to a blocked pitot head and missleading EICAS Caution MSG >RUDDER RATIO< and >MACH AIRSPEED TRIM< 

3!!! pilots in the cockpit

 

 

Aero Peru Flight 603 Boeing 757-200 (only 8 months after KT301!!!)

 

-false airspeed, altitude ans vertical speed due to blocked static ports (the worst instrument failure)

 

 

Just to name a few where pilots got wrong information of vital air data systems. Once i faced the Aero Peru scenario in the sim. Good thing was we didnt crash.

 

 

There are a lot more accidents out there with similar failures and fatalities. Sometimes it can be very hard to manage such situations and if you throw in the human factor you can lead into an deadly corner. And in most cases it was actually the human factor which lead to an accident. Unfortunately that wouldnt have helped the crew of AF447 even if they had a good CRM. After the accident AF was audited by major airline associates. They came to the conclusion that AF had a bad company safety culture top down. In decembre 2011 (i guess) on the same route an Airbus 340-300 of AF got in the same situation like AF447 fortunately without the nasty instrument malfunction but with EXACTLY the same pilots reaction. Nobody got harmed....luckily

 

I wil not blame any of these pilots above couse they all did their damnest to get out of their situations. The only thing we can do is still learn out of it and to make flying safer.