German Wings A320 crashed

Having the stall warning on the AoA biased with airspeed is not an usual way to eliminate nuisance false warnings, but certainly not ideal either. False warnings cause someone to ignore them very quickly, which is part of what appeared happened on AF447 at the outset of the event. I disagree that the fact the warning's came back on when they lowered the nose slightly had anything to do with their subsequent actions as they were already treating it as a false indication.

A larger issue is the acceleration forces felt by the crew coupled with the need to have pointed the nose 10-20 degrees below the horizon while already in a very rapid decent to actually recover.
 
kryan11 said:
This. We require pilots to have 1500 hours and then allow their skills to degrade in the cockpit button pushing.
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While your statement has some merit, it was not part of either AF447 or the Asiana accident. Might make some feel better to think so, though!
 
dustoff17 said:
The pilots exceeded a combination of pitch and airspeed that the engineers never dreamed would happen, therefore they programmed into system a condition that resulted in the pilots maintaining the stall all the way to the ocean. Seems like my comment was pretty accurate.
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That would not be my understanding of the event in question.
 
PeanuckleCRJ said:
Wrong... wrong wrong wrong. The fact is that the pilots were trained to be button pushers instead of actual pilots.

They proceeded to pitch to 17 degrees nose up at FL350. You had a cruise pilot that was trained to be a button pusher. DL(or NW) had the exact same malfunction in China, but they went "huh... this isn't right" and held 2.5 nose up and around 88% power and they were fine. We teach the same to every pilot that comes through the program.

That Asiana 777 had the same issues- the CA was a button pusher. No one spoke up and let him drag the thing in when he had no clue what the plane was doing.
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He is wrong, but not for the reasons you state. You are incorrect on the "button pusher" explanation for both AF447 and Asiana
 
Trip7 said:
Why do the loudest Anti-Airbus rhetoric almost always come from pilots that have ZERO time in the plane? It's like the Tea Party movement just the pilot version.
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Because those of us who consider Airbus design philosophy to be dangerous would never bid it.
 
Reading WSJ article it states ATC noticed the plane's descent, made repeated calls and received no answer. Also the plane didn't deviate for course as it lost altitude. Very strange. Sounds like either a hypoxic event or intentional command.
 
Seggy said:
Now, with that said, I would have no hesitation to put my family on an Airbus, but it looks like their design logic is becoming more and more flawed as it is exposed over time.
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Wondering what makes you say their logic is becoming "more and more" flawed? Agree there is a software issue with having to shut off two of the ADR's. No flame just a question. Seems like all manufacturers have used with each plane. Boeing: Batteries, corrosion, airframe issues etc. Airbus saftey issues don't seem warrant that comment.
 
AAPalmTree said:
Wondering what makes you say their logic is becoming "more and more" flawed? Agree there is a software issue with having to shut off two of the ADR's. No flame just a question. Seems like all manufacturers have used with each plane. Boeing: Batteries, corrosion, airframe issues etc. Airbus saftey issues don't seem warrant that comment.
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Especially since this GermanWings doesn't quite have all the tell-tale signs of an uncontrolled stall. Seems much more like a possible hxpoxic/smoke event with the plane following it's course in a constant descent.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
Depending on an airline's training regimen, couldn't it be a little bit true?
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With that angle, everything is a "little true".

I'm just "winding my clock". I enjoy the speculation and take part in some of it, but at the end of the day, we're all going to speculate for about a week, forget about it and in about six months we'll read the preliminary and think "Huh, interesting".

We're still missing a Malaysian 777, the Russians shot a plane out of the sky and this too shall pass for a period of time until the investigators can get started.
 
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Baronman said:
Especially since this GermanWings doesn't quite have all the tell-tale signs of an uncontrolled stall. Seems much more like a possible hxpoxic/smoke event with the plane following it's course in a constant descent.
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+1 Air France descended at 3x the rate of the Germanwings plane.
 
Derg said:
That would not be my understanding of the event in question.
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These are a couple of excerpts from the accident report. [I bolded]

(2h11m42)………..At around 2 h 11 min 42, the Captain re-entered the cockpit. During the following seconds, all of the recorded speeds became invalid and the stall warning stopped, after having sounded continuously for 54 seconds....
(2h12m02)………….Around fifteen seconds later, the PF made pitch-down inputs. In the following moments, the angle of attack decreased, the speeds became valid again and the stall warning triggered again......

-- after this, the pilot(s) pitched back up and maintained that high angle all the way to water--


From the design section of the same report. [I placed the underline]
In alternate or direct law, the normal law high angle of attack protection is lost but the stall warning is available. It consists of a “STALL, STALL” aural warning, followed by a characteristic cricket sound and the illumination of the Master Warning light. It is triggered by the FWC when the highest of the valid angle of attack values exceeds the threshold set for the flight conditions at that time. If the CAS measurements for the three ADR are lower than 60 kt, the angle of attack values of the three ADR are invalid and the stall warning is then inoperative. This results from a logic stating that the airflow must be sufficient to ensure a valid measurement by the angle of attack sensors, especially to prevent spurious warnings.
 
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The BEA press conference provided more questions than answers. They've heard the CVR from TOD to impact, are not ready to comment and nothing is ruled out.
 
Trip7 said:
The BEA press conference provided more questions than answers. They've heard the CVR from TOD to impact, are not ready to comment and nothing is ruled out.
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My first thought is "flight controls," (due to some computational biases I have) but we all know how accurate those can be. Eagerly awaiting some real news.
 
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