driveby
New Member
No, I do not think it will be falsified.
New Wreckage found in AF447 crash
- Thread starter ozziecat35
- Start date
No, I do not think it will be falsified.
Bernoulli Fan
Controller
Airbus single-pilot?
Murdoughnut
Well sized member
I read the story - it suggests that the two FOs were flying, and the CA rushed in and gave them instructions. That wouldn't seem that odd if the CA was on a rest period.
coa787
Unknown Member
Ever notice that there are three (and sometimes four) pilots needed for really long flights?
Ever wonder why this is?
TheFlyingTurkey
Fetus Worshiper
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304066504576341631579541512.html?mod=e2tw
Black Boxes Point to Pilot Error
By ANDY PASZTOR And DANIEL MICHAELS
The pilots of an Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean two years ago apparently became distracted with faulty airspeed indicators and failed to properly deal with other vital systems, including adjusting engine thrust, according to people familiar with preliminary findings from the plane's recorders.
The final moments inside the cockpit of the twin-engine Airbus A330, these people said, indicate the pilots seemingly were confused by alarms they received from various automated flight-control systems as the plane passed through some turbulence typical on the route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. They also faced unexpectedly heavy icing at 35,000 feet. Such icing is renowned for making airspeed-indicators and other external sensors unreliable.
Ultimately, despite the fact that primary cockpit displays functioned normally, the crew failed to follow standard procedures to maintain or increase thrust and keep the aircraft's nose level, while trouble-shooting and waiting for the airspeed sensors and related functions to return to normal, according to these people.
Slated to be disclosed by investigators on Friday, the sequence of events captured on the recorders is expected to highlight that the jet slowed dangerously shortly after the autopilot disconnected. The pilots almost immediately faced the beginning of what became a series of automation failures or disconnects related to problems with the plane's airspeed sensors, these people said.
The crew methodically tried to respond to the warnings, according to people familiar with the probe, but apparently had difficulty sorting out the warning messages, chimes and other cues while also keeping close track of essential displays showing engine power and aircraft trajectory.
Spokesmen for Air France, a unit of Air France-KLM, and Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., have declined to comment on any details of the investigation. Airbus last week, however, issued a bulletin reassuring airlines that the preliminary readout of the recorders hasn't prompted any "immediate recommendation" regarding the safety of the global A330 fleet. French investigators, who gave the green light for that statement, also have said their preliminary findings don't highlight any major system failures or malfunctions that could have caused the fatal dive.
The Air France pilots were never trained to handle precisely such an emergency, according to safety experts and a previous report by France's Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses, which is heading up the investigation. All 228 people aboard Flight 447 died in the accident.
The senior captain, Marc Dubois, appears to have been on a routine rest break in the cabin when the fatal chain of events started, according to safety experts familiar with the details, but the cockpit-voice recorder suggests he may have rushed back to the cockpit to join the other two Flight 447 pilots.
Though Friday's announcement won't provide final conclusions or specific causes, investigators believe Air France didn't train its pilots to cope with such automation problems in conjunction with a high-altitude aerodynamic stall, an emergency when the wings lose lift and the plane quickly becomes uncontrollable. Since the crash, Airbus and a number carriers, including Air France, have emphasized such training.
According to a report issued by French investigators in November 2009, Airbus identified 32 instances involving similar model jetliners between 2003 and 2009 in which external speed probes, known as pitot tubes, suffered ice buildup at high altitude and caused "erroneous air speed indications." Over the years, the same models also suffered numerous failures of external temperature-sensors because of icing. Both issues were known to Air France.
Most of the incidents with speed sensors involved probes similar to those on the A330 that crashed. Many were on Air France planes, according to the BEA report.
Friday's update follows sniping between senior officials of Air France and Airbus, usually close corporate allies, who in this case have tried to shift the blame for the accident to each other.
Air France began addressing problems with its pitot tubes almost a year before the crash. Amid several incidents in which air crews lost speed indication at high altitude during 2008, Air France reported the icing problems to Airbus. The two companies discussed solutions and Airbus talked to its supplier.
In April 2009, roughly 45 days before the crash, Airbus proposed that Air France swap out its pitot tubes for a different model believed to be less prone to icing, according to the BEA report. Air France began the work on April 27, 2009, and it received the first batch of new pitot tubes six days before the crash. The plane that crashed hadn't yet received the new equipment.
According to the 2009 report published by investigators after the crash, experts examined 13 other incidents of airspeed-sensor malfunctions on Airbus widebody jets at cruise altitudes. During most of those global incidents—none of which resulted in a crash—both the autopilots and automated engine-thrust systems disconnected on their own, and it took many of the flight crews up to a minute to manually adjust engine thrust.
The earlier report found that pilots in nine of those 13 events received warnings of an impending stall. And in a finding that may have particular relevance to the upcoming update, accident investigators in 2009 also concluded that when airspeed-sensor malfunctions kick off automated thrust controls, "the absence of appropriate manual adjustments" to engines "can present a risk" of a mismatch between power settings and the jet's orientation in the air.
Investigators began focusing on pitot problems from the start, because Flight 447's automated maintenance system broadcast 21 separate messages related to such malfunctions during roughly the last four minutes of the fatal flight. But the final report, which may not be released until 2012, also is expected to delve deeper into how European air-safety regulators dealt with persistent reports of pitot-tube icing prior to the crash.
The previous interim report indicated that in late March 2009, less than three months before the crash, European aviation regulators decided that the string of pitot-icing problems on widebody Airbus models wasn't serious enough to require mandatory replacement of pitot tubes
Black Boxes Point to Pilot Error
By ANDY PASZTOR And DANIEL MICHAELS
The pilots of an Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean two years ago apparently became distracted with faulty airspeed indicators and failed to properly deal with other vital systems, including adjusting engine thrust, according to people familiar with preliminary findings from the plane's recorders.
The final moments inside the cockpit of the twin-engine Airbus A330, these people said, indicate the pilots seemingly were confused by alarms they received from various automated flight-control systems as the plane passed through some turbulence typical on the route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. They also faced unexpectedly heavy icing at 35,000 feet. Such icing is renowned for making airspeed-indicators and other external sensors unreliable.
Ultimately, despite the fact that primary cockpit displays functioned normally, the crew failed to follow standard procedures to maintain or increase thrust and keep the aircraft's nose level, while trouble-shooting and waiting for the airspeed sensors and related functions to return to normal, according to these people.
Slated to be disclosed by investigators on Friday, the sequence of events captured on the recorders is expected to highlight that the jet slowed dangerously shortly after the autopilot disconnected. The pilots almost immediately faced the beginning of what became a series of automation failures or disconnects related to problems with the plane's airspeed sensors, these people said.
The crew methodically tried to respond to the warnings, according to people familiar with the probe, but apparently had difficulty sorting out the warning messages, chimes and other cues while also keeping close track of essential displays showing engine power and aircraft trajectory.
Spokesmen for Air France, a unit of Air France-KLM, and Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., have declined to comment on any details of the investigation. Airbus last week, however, issued a bulletin reassuring airlines that the preliminary readout of the recorders hasn't prompted any "immediate recommendation" regarding the safety of the global A330 fleet. French investigators, who gave the green light for that statement, also have said their preliminary findings don't highlight any major system failures or malfunctions that could have caused the fatal dive.
The Air France pilots were never trained to handle precisely such an emergency, according to safety experts and a previous report by France's Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses, which is heading up the investigation. All 228 people aboard Flight 447 died in the accident.
The senior captain, Marc Dubois, appears to have been on a routine rest break in the cabin when the fatal chain of events started, according to safety experts familiar with the details, but the cockpit-voice recorder suggests he may have rushed back to the cockpit to join the other two Flight 447 pilots.
Though Friday's announcement won't provide final conclusions or specific causes, investigators believe Air France didn't train its pilots to cope with such automation problems in conjunction with a high-altitude aerodynamic stall, an emergency when the wings lose lift and the plane quickly becomes uncontrollable. Since the crash, Airbus and a number carriers, including Air France, have emphasized such training.
According to a report issued by French investigators in November 2009, Airbus identified 32 instances involving similar model jetliners between 2003 and 2009 in which external speed probes, known as pitot tubes, suffered ice buildup at high altitude and caused "erroneous air speed indications." Over the years, the same models also suffered numerous failures of external temperature-sensors because of icing. Both issues were known to Air France.
Most of the incidents with speed sensors involved probes similar to those on the A330 that crashed. Many were on Air France planes, according to the BEA report.
Friday's update follows sniping between senior officials of Air France and Airbus, usually close corporate allies, who in this case have tried to shift the blame for the accident to each other.
Air France began addressing problems with its pitot tubes almost a year before the crash. Amid several incidents in which air crews lost speed indication at high altitude during 2008, Air France reported the icing problems to Airbus. The two companies discussed solutions and Airbus talked to its supplier.
In April 2009, roughly 45 days before the crash, Airbus proposed that Air France swap out its pitot tubes for a different model believed to be less prone to icing, according to the BEA report. Air France began the work on April 27, 2009, and it received the first batch of new pitot tubes six days before the crash. The plane that crashed hadn't yet received the new equipment.
According to the 2009 report published by investigators after the crash, experts examined 13 other incidents of airspeed-sensor malfunctions on Airbus widebody jets at cruise altitudes. During most of those global incidents—none of which resulted in a crash—both the autopilots and automated engine-thrust systems disconnected on their own, and it took many of the flight crews up to a minute to manually adjust engine thrust.
The earlier report found that pilots in nine of those 13 events received warnings of an impending stall. And in a finding that may have particular relevance to the upcoming update, accident investigators in 2009 also concluded that when airspeed-sensor malfunctions kick off automated thrust controls, "the absence of appropriate manual adjustments" to engines "can present a risk" of a mismatch between power settings and the jet's orientation in the air.
Investigators began focusing on pitot problems from the start, because Flight 447's automated maintenance system broadcast 21 separate messages related to such malfunctions during roughly the last four minutes of the fatal flight. But the final report, which may not be released until 2012, also is expected to delve deeper into how European air-safety regulators dealt with persistent reports of pitot-tube icing prior to the crash.
The previous interim report indicated that in late March 2009, less than three months before the crash, European aviation regulators decided that the string of pitot-icing problems on widebody Airbus models wasn't serious enough to require mandatory replacement of pitot tubes
Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
Wow. So, in essence, they lost airspeed indication and crashed?
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
If that's the case, it's not the first time it's happened.
zmiller4
Well-Known Member
My guess is that it will work out to be a little more complex than that.
RDoug
Well-Known Member
I just got back home, but I've been following this story while we were on the road. It certainly is getting more and more intriguing as to what exactly transpired and the sequence of events. I was rather struck by the similarities between this and the Eastern Flight 401/Everglades disaster, in which the crew got so distracted with one issue that they lost sight of the far larger picture. But this certainly wasn't some burned out light bulb this time; it was a pretty severe loss of critical flight parameter information.
On a somewhat related note: Anybody else find it unconscionable that the FAA would allow FIVE YEARS to fix a known problem with unintended roll axis movements on the 757 during operations on short final? Talk about criminal negligence.
On a somewhat related note: Anybody else find it unconscionable that the FAA would allow FIVE YEARS to fix a known problem with unintended roll axis movements on the 757 during operations on short final? Talk about criminal negligence.
RDoug
Well-Known Member
A little more information: Rate of descent 10,000fpm, nose up at 15°. Sounds a bit like Buffalo—responded to a stall condition by raising the nose instead of lowering it. Sure hope that's not the case. The final report is definitely going to make for some interesting reading no matter what, though.
seagull
Well-Known Member
Center_Mid
Well-Known Member
Still confused. Stable at FL 350. Then loss of FD and autothrust. Loss of reliable airspeed indications. Varied pitch and roll inputs, and a climb to 37,500 feet. Stall warnings followed by pitch up and a 500' climb to FL 380. Probable stall. AOA "exceeded" 40 degrees and vertical speed went to -10,000 ft/min. Holy crap. While descending, the pilots idled the engines and pitched nose down slightly. AOA remained above 35 degrees until impact, when it was 16 degrees. 107 kt GS.
Is it possible that the nature of the stall somehow prevented the pilots from decreasing the AOA? Any indication they were getting erroneous attitude indications? It just seems like we're missing something here. This sort of reminds me of that NW Airlink CRJ crash in Missouri back around 2005 when the pilots climbed to the max certified altitude. Different facts I know, but I remember wondering then why a stall recovery from FL 410 didn't happen. Same here.
Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
The report rather casually comments that AOA information is "not presented to the pilots". WTF? WHY NOT? I have an AOA gauge on my twenty year old babyjet.
RDoug
Well-Known Member
Well, the Airbus isn't a T-tail, so you can rule out a deep stall, and the data doesn't indicate a flat spin, so a recovery should have been at least theoretically possible. But—nighttime; no visible horizon; questionable/erroneous instrumentation; severe convective weather with probable turbulence. Not a good scenario no matter how good the pilots.
Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
In that case, I believe they flamed out the engines then core-locked them by trying to restart them outside the envelope. I don't think there was an aerodynamic stall until much later. In this one, it sounds like they were confused by the stall warnings (and by the fact that they were not presented any AOA information at all, which I find boggling...see above.)
Trip7
Well-Known Member
From CNN:
Sadly, this looks like a mirror image of the Colgan Crash except on a larger scale. Mainline International crew, bigger plane, more altitude, and more experience. It still ended the same.
Maybe experience requirements should be raised to 15,000 hrs before you can be a ICAO 121 FO
Sadly, this looks like a mirror image of the Colgan Crash except on a larger scale. Mainline International crew, bigger plane, more altitude, and more experience. It still ended the same.
Maybe experience requirements should be raised to 15,000 hrs before you can be a ICAO 121 FO