New Wreckage found in AF447 crash

I take issue with AF pilots not being experienced.

Their English proficiency may be atrocious but their professional abilities are on par with any of the best.

Smells like another BEA/EADS cover up
 
With all due respect, according to your profile you are a student pilot with 10 hours. I think it's safe to say you have no freaking idea how you would respond, nor is it likely you would know how to respond to an airbus in this situation.

Why is it that all the student pilots and guys with no experience are the first to make comments like this?
I am not saying I would of done any better. When I first read the article it said that the pilot was pulling up in a stall.. This seemed silly to me. So I asked the question does a stall warning go off and if it did, why would the pilot pull up?

And the answer to that question was a whole bunch of people saying I have no clue how to fly an airbus and I shouldn't undermind the pilots because they had alot going on.

/thread
 
Did you just call me Professor flying? Dude I was simply asking a question. And it is flying 101 to realize that your stalled.. And its flying 101 to know to recover from a stall you do not pull up.

NOT necessarily!! And this goes to the Flying 101 comment too:
I was demonstrating a new jet to a customer, he was flying and wanted to see a "full stall". We pulled back power, slowed down, got ALL the stall indications (including the stall warning) and he kept pulling back. He asked me, "When is it going to stall?". I said, "Look at the VSI, we're in a full stall". We were 3,800fpm descent, nose high, stable, level attitude, and stalling.

Too many of us associate a stall with some either drastic or seemingly crazy attitude or movement of the plane. NOT true.

As for this case, I have not flown an Airbus, but did stay in a Holiday Express so take what I have to say with a grain.

It seems to me (just from what I've read) that there were a butt-load of warnings, bells, and whistles going off at the same time. Managing multiple indication or emergencies at once was probably a bit overwhelming. They knew the autopilot disconnected because they were flying. Which makes me want to ask:

Did they know that auto-thrust disconnected? We rely so much on the automation of our systems that we forget what they do for us. They may have easily thought that the system was going to do what it has always done! They were managing all the stuff going forgot about thrust.

I would think that if one pitot tube iced up, it's highly possible that all three iced up. They may have spent the final moments not even knowing they were slowing down or descending at 10,000fpm! What was thier indication? If the pitot tube is blocked, what would you use to determine your rate? A cloud? The rapidly approaching ocean? Oh, yeah, at night, IMC, turbulence, etc.....

Just a thought.............
 
Did they know that auto-thrust disconnected? We rely so much on the automation of our systems that we forget what they do for us. They may have easily thought that the system was going to do what it has always done! They were managing all the stuff going forgot about thrust. .....


There were a couple of places in the official report where it talks about thrust being moved to TO/GA and then to idle, apparently they were aware of the manual thrust control situation, or at least it would appear.
 
I can visualize a situation where a pilot determines that he has a very high descent rate and assumes an unusual attitude. The typical unusual attitude recovery for high descent rate - reduce thrust to idle and slowly pull the nose up to prevent over-speed and exceeding Vne. A swept wing jet picks up speed very quickly in a nose-low attitude and you can tear the aircraft apart by letting speed build too high. Might it be a fair assumption that the pilot looked at the confusing mess that was being displayed and locked on to the very real concern that he was going down hill fast and might very well be accelerating towards and even through Mach 1?

It all boils down to trying to sort out the conflicting information when you are in that situation. What instruments and data to believe? How do you figure out what is truth and what is fiction?
 
I have nothing but the utmost respect for being mentally overloaded.

That being said, what's wrong with a procedure in such a case being.. turn off all automation, hands on the throttle, hands on the yoke, let's fly the airplane?

I've always said that EVERY EP checklist should be started with big capital letters

1.) FLY THE AIRPLANE
 
I have nothing but the utmost respect for being mentally overloaded.

That being said, what's wrong with a procedure in such a case being.. turn off all automation, hands on the throttle, hands on the yoke, let's fly the airplane?

I've always said that EVERY EP checklist should be started with big capital letters

1.) FLY THE AIRPLANE

This is a naive statement. Forget this particular accident. What would YOU do if you have your airspeed 25 knots or more OVER the max limit (Mmo, but you can just consider it the "red line" for this purpose), while, at the same time in severe turbulence, AND getting a stall warning, buffet that could just as easily be high speed as low speed, while all your indications are alternatively going blank and coming on with more conflicting indications with conflicting airspeed indications. Oh, and let's not forget that you are in the upper part of a thunderstorm that is topping out at FL600 and a descent will definitely put you in a MORE severe part of the storm.

Is it still so easy to just "fly the airplane"?
 
I can visualize a situation where a pilot determines that he has a very high descent rate and assumes an unusual attitude. The typical unusual attitude recovery for high descent rate - reduce thrust to idle and slowly pull the nose up to prevent over-speed and exceeding Vne. A swept wing jet picks up speed very quickly in a nose-low attitude and you can tear the aircraft apart by letting speed build too high. Might it be a fair assumption that the pilot looked at the confusing mess that was being displayed and locked on to the very real concern that he was going down hill fast and might very well be accelerating towards and even through Mach 1?

It all boils down to trying to sort out the conflicting information when you are in that situation. What instruments and data to believe? How do you figure out what is truth and what is fiction?

Exactly.
 
Unfortunately, this is a scenario where "just" being a pilot is not adequate to understand the full scenario and issues that are faced. Even someone who has flown large aircraft with "steam gauges". Yes, basic stick and rudder skills have a place, and may well have had a place in this accident, but the complexity of the situation is not something that has any frame of reference a person flying a light airplane can use for analogy. There are just too many differences, from high and low speed buffet, mismatched warnings and indications, alternate, normal and direct law of flight control systems, and high altitude weather issues, plus several more. As a consequence the statements from those in the media with their "experts" and from many here come across as a bit like someone who knows 1st Aid second guessing a surgeon. They might get it right, but really cannot fully assess the situation.
 
I can visualize a situation where a pilot determines that he has a very high descent rate and assumes an unusual attitude. The typical unusual attitude recovery for high descent rate - reduce thrust to idle and slowly pull the nose up to prevent over-speed and exceeding Vne. A swept wing jet picks up speed very quickly in a nose-low attitude and you can tear the aircraft apart by letting speed build too high. Might it be a fair assumption that the pilot looked at the confusing mess that was being displayed and locked on to the very real concern that he was going down hill fast and might very well be accelerating towards and even through Mach 1?

It all boils down to trying to sort out the conflicting information when you are in that situation. What instruments and data to believe? How do you figure out what is truth and what is fiction?

You made me think of something else. I think we can agree that everything was working up until it got into heavy icing. IF, while at a high altitude (35,000') the pitot tubes were all blocked and the auto-throttle disconnected, it would have slowed the plane to a point that it began a slow descent.
In a descent with a blocked pitot tube wouldn't the trapped air in the system indicate an increase in airspeed? The pilot would see this and further reduce the throttle, pull the nose up to slow the plane. You would HAVE less actual airspeed resulting in greater descent rate but INDICATING a higher airspeed, right? And so it progresses............every time the pilot reduced power and pulled up the nose, the plane INDICATED that it was going faster when in fact it was dropping like a forklift thrown from a bomber.
 
This is a naive statement. Forget this particular accident. What would YOU do if you have your airspeed 25 knots or more OVER the max limit (Mmo, but you can just consider it the "red line" for this purpose), while, at the same time in severe turbulence, AND getting a stall warning, buffet that could just as easily be high speed as low speed, while all your indications are alternatively going blank and coming on with more conflicting indications with conflicting airspeed indications. Oh, and let's not forget that you are in the upper part of a thunderstorm that is topping out at FL600 and a descent will definitely put you in a MORE severe part of the storm.

Is it still so easy to just "fly the airplane"?

I'm with you on this one. There are too many factors associated with AF447 to make a black and white statement. It's easy to play Monday morning QB, but the true test is to cosider the indications the pilots were getting and the conditions they were flying in at the time.
 
This is a ridiculous statement. I'm pretty sure they were at the controls "flying" the plane when it hit!

Some planes don't WANT to be flown just like some drugs won't take "NO" for an answer!!

I know "fly the airplane" goes without saying, but a lot of people get caught up in the emergency and forget to fly the airplane. A perfect example is Eastern 401
 
Bunch of amateurs! I'm a line captain for Delta Virtual and I would never have stalled the airplane!
 
It seems clear to me that the airplane systems screwed up and were the main cause for the crash, not the pilots, or even less the fact that a "baby" pilot of 32 years old was at the controls.

No matter what really happened, they will never blame the manufacturer of the aircraft. If they did, the manufacturer would see a reduction in its sales, employees would lose their jobs, and no one wants that. Especially in this case with a company like Airbus and employees all over the world.

The media, as always, is pretty quick to blame the pilots. They can easily be blamed as it will only impact their family, and possibly result in additional training on the A330. I also suspect the French government pulling the strings and allowing specific information to be leaked from the black boxes to the media for them to point the finger at the crew.
 
Multiple cascading failures at night in IMC and turbulence. Just glad I wasn't at the controls so you could all crucify me after the fact.
 
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