Air France Flight 447 Crashed Due to ‘Pilot and Technical Failings’
Air France Flight 447 Tail Section That was Retrieved from the Atlantic Ocean
Air France Flight 447 crashed in to the Atlantic Ocean due to technical and human error, according to the final report by French aviation authority, BEA.
The BEA says the doomed flight, which killed all 216 passengers and 12 crew aboard on June 1st, 2009, fell victim to technical faults on the Airbus A330 aircraft as well as ‘inappropriate action by the pilots‘.
‘The BEA said that the disaster began with the malfunctioning of speed sensors known as Pitots during a period of turbulence.
One of the mistakes of the crew was to point the nose of the aircraft upwards after it stalled, instead of down.
“The crew was in a state of almost total loss of control of the situation,” BEA chief investigator Alain Bouillard told journalists on Thursday at the release of the final report.’
Because of the malfunction of the planes’ pitots, pilots of Air France 447 thought the plane was in a dive, when in reality, the A330 was actually climbing.
When the pilots pulled the nose of the aircraft up even further, the plane essentially lost all lift and ability to fly.
As a result, the plane descended at a rate of roughly 11,000 feet per minute until it crashed in to the ocean.
More on Air France Flight 447 HERE and HERE
Category: Airnation
Apparently the faulty pitot tubes had been installed on other Airbus models as well (A340, A330) and this “super cooled water” icing problem had already surfaced before this crash. The airlines were in the process of replacing the tubes, but unfortunately this plane didn’t get the new tubes in time. Even with the faulty pitot tubes, the pilots just screwed up in their corrections. All they needed to do was keep the nose up a few degrees and keep the power setting to 85% and the plane would have maintained steady flight until they were out of the storm- this is standard procedure in events where airspeeds aren’t in agreement. When the incident first occurred, the crew got so many “warnings” from the plane’s computer, it was probably hard to tell that they simply lost their pitot tubes. Automation might have made things worse in this event. Nevertheless, all of the defective pitot tubes have now been replaced and the A330 remains one of the safest airliners around!
Tragic as it was it was one of those things where a series of unlikely events lined up to create a horrible outcome. They will learn from it and flying will be that much safer.
Life can dangerous. So can flying.
The FAA has been giving AIRBUS a free ride for years. Airbus has design problems with the aircraft’s tail. An Airworthiness Directive was only issued by FAA last year, requiring Inspections and repairs costing 40 MILLION dollars. Did they fix the problem?
( http://articles.businessinsider.com/2009-06-19/wall_street/30054350_1_tail-fin-rudder-problems-vertical-stabilizer)
FAA FACT SHEET Airbus safety issues:
http://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/news_story.cfm?newsId=6264
There was resistance with in the FAA to issue a hard AD against the tail design on Airbus. WHY?
It should be understood that all Airbus Aircraft have the same tail design. Carbon fiber and Aluminum construction. Is there a problem with the airbus tail design?
SEE Aircraft Construction:
http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Safety_Issues/FAA_Inaction/A300-tail.html
I say again all Airbus models have the same design
One point I would like to make here. All jet aircraft are difficult to hand fly above 25,000 feet.
Fly by wire systems such as Airbus, using the “side stick” under ideal conditions is difficult at best to control at altitude. Add in night conditions and a melt down of the aircraft’s computer systems and the flight deck would be a confusing place to be in! Pure Hell!
A controlled simulator test was conducted after the accident of 447 and the crew was able to maintain level flight with basic instrument procedures using the ATTITUDE INDICATOR IA and a specific power setting.
Yes, easily done but a controlled situation and the crew knew what to expect.
Lastly the three “pitot systems” used by Airbus were defective and were not changed yet on the accident aircraft. Pitot systems have been known to fail. But it is unusual for all three systems to fail. Why would this system suddenly ice up now? A lot of questions with no answers.
FAA knew the Airbus had problems. They did not address them until the crash of Flight 447.
All I will say here is the government officials responsible, did nothing and hundreds of innocent people have lost their lives.
My opinion is the Airbus tail design has problems.
I believe a Congressional Investigation is warranted into why the FAA has treated Airbus differently?
Richard Wyeroski, former FAA Safety Inspector
FAA WHISTLEBLOWERS ALLIANCE MEMBER
Wow! So they haven’t done squat basically? That’s some unsettling stuff Ed.
So did you work for the FAA?
Sorry, I meant Richard. I was reading Ed’s posts too.
Ok, I see that you did. My eyes are tired. LOL Incredible #$%@ anyway.
The accident was caused by the co-pilot induced stalled glide condition and remained in that condition until impact. To recover from stall is to set engine to idle to reduce nose up side effect and try full nose down input. If no success roll the aircraft to above 60° bank angle and rudder input to lower the nose in a steep engaged turn. Pilots lack of familiarity and training along with system malfunction contributed to this terrible accident. Also the following contributed to the accident
(1)the absence of proper immediate actions to correct the stalled glide
(2) Insufficient and inappropriate situation awareness disabling the co-pilots and the captain to become aware of what was happening regarding the performance and behaviour of the aircraft
(3)lack of effective communication between the co-pilots and the captain which limited the decision making processes, the ability to choose appropriate alternatives and establish priorities in the actions to counter the stalled glide
During most of its long descent into the Atlantic Ocean, Airbus A330-203 was in a stalled glide. Far from a deep stall, this seems to have been a conventional stall in which the Airbus A330-203 displayed exemplary behavior. The aircraft responded to roll inputs, maintained the commanded pitch attitude, and neither departed nor spun. The only thing the Airbus A330-203 failed to do well was to make clear to its cockpit crew what was going on.Its pitch attitude was about 15 degrees nose up and its flight path was around 25 degrees downward, giving an angle of attack of 35 degrees or more. Its vertical speed was about 100 knots, and its true airspeed was about 250 knots. It remained in this unusual attitude not because it could not recover, but because the co-pilots did not comprehend in darkness, the actual attitude of the aircraft. The co-pilots held the nose up. If the co-pilots had pushed the stick forward, held it there, and manually retrimmed the stabilizer, the airplane would have recovered from the stall and flown normally.
Air France complained that the copilots did not have enough time to analyze the situation. Gravitational stalled glide does not allow timeouts, to thoroughly discuss the situation to find out what went wrong. The co-pilots – 37 year old David Robert and 32 year old Pierre-Cédric Bonin missed the cardinal rule that first they must fly the airplane, and after start analyzing the situation, since a falling airplane is not going to wait for them. If they did not understand the instruments, then instead of pondering on it they should have come to the quick conclusion that they did not understand those instruments, and apply the unreliable airspeed procedure clearly prescribed for that situation, which is a blind, given thrust and pitch setting for the given configuration, and let the airplane fly itself, and only after get to analyzing what went wrong, and by the time they finished, the root-cause (pitot icing) would have probably cured itself. It was the safe solution to the problem, but not applied.
The Airbus A330 performed exactly as it was designed and described when the stall warning cut out at the end of valid values, except the co-pilots did not know it. Unfortunately, it happens too often with catastrophic results that pilots are not familiar with the systems of their own airplane, such as in the case of American Airlines 587 over Queens, which was clearly the airline’s fault.
Air France also argued that the stall warning system in the A330 is too “confusing”. Every modern airplane is quite a confusing piece of machinery. It is full of buttons, levers, all kinds of red, yellow, green lights with buzzers, and a host of other indicators and controls inside, which can look very confusing indeed, but it is the pilot’s duty to reign on them, or not to be pilot.
Airbus A330-203 is a new generation, highly automated piece of equipment with drastically simplified controls, displays, and instrumentation compared to older models. Still, pilots with the same human capabilities as the ones on Air France flight 447 could very well stay in full control in those planes, and many times acted heroically saving situations much graver than where the plight of Air France flight 447 started, such as United Airlines flight UA232 at Sioux City, or Air Canada flight AC143, the Gimli Glider. If those pilots could perform well in those older, much more complicated aircraft in tougher situations, then there is no excuse for the co-pilots of AF flight 447 to be confused in a generally much simpler and easier-to-fly aircraft.
The Airbus A320 is a digital fly-by-wire aircraft as the flight control surfaces are moved by electrical and hydraulic actuators controlled by a digital computer. The computer interprets pilot commands via input from a side-stick, making adjustments on its own to keep the plane stable and on course, which is particularly useful after engine failure by allowing the pilots to concentrate on engine restart and landing planning. Some say the Airbus A330 is a “video-game” airplane due to its side-stick control, which does not match up in real hard situations. But who can say that after the successful ditching of US Airways flight 1549 on the Hudson River? It was an Airbus A320 with the same side-stick control, and it matched up with the hardest situation very well with an experienced 57 year old Captain Chesley Sullenberger at the command. The Airbus A330 is not a video-game airplane, it is the airlines that make it a video-game by cutting corners, taking advantage of its superior automated capabilities thinking that it flies by itself, and no training and no knowledge of even the basics of the principles of flying is required in them for their pilots, as was demonstrated by the co-pilots of flight 447, who seemed to be incapable to react even on a basic level to the phenomenon of the aerodynamic stall. The co-pilots had not applied the unreliable airspeed procedure. The co-pilots apparently did not notice that the plane had reached its maximum permissible altitude. The co-pilots did not read out the available data like vertical velocity, altitude, etc. The stall warning sounded continuously for 54 seconds. The absence of any training, at high altitude, in manual airplane handling and in the procedure for ”Vol avec IAS douteuse” (Flight with questionable Indicated Airspeed) caused this terrible accident. Evidently, it might not be what Airbus had on its mind designing the aircraft. They might have meant the best of the both, an airplane with superior controls, matched with seasoned pilots with superior education in the principles of flying and the handling of hard situations, best of the best, as airlines are prone to boast of their flying personnel, to represent quality improvement in flying safety by this pairing. Now, if this piece of equipment falls in the hands of the airlines who use it as a video game to save training costs, telling only their pilots that “if the red light on the right side blinks, just pull the stick back as hard as you can, and let the system do the rest”, they can get away with it as long as everything is normal, the airplane is good enough for that, but in unforeseeable situations, such as the flight 447 en-route to Paris on that night, without any independent knowledge of flying in general, the video-gaming with the aircraft may ultimately come to a fatal end.
However, beyond the reasoning and explanations there is still some eeriness about the crash, taking in consideration that Air France flight 447′s pilots just sat there in daze squeezing the control stick, barely being able to do more than commenting on how the airplane was falling out of the sky until crashing into the Atlantic Ocean, the arrival of the 58-year-old flight captain Marc Dubois in the cockpit not making much a difference either. The question might arise whether weren’t the pilots in a mentally incapacitating state of shock and disbelief? Whether do or can Air France test pilots of how well they can keep their mental stability under the duress of a catastrophic situation? None of it seems to be the fault of the Airbus A330, which needs only good, trained pilots to give superior performance for the good of the flying public. Very similarly 3 decades ago Captain Madan Kukar’s mistaken perception of the Air India Flight 855 situation resulted in causing the Boeing 747-237 to rapidly lose altitude and the airplane hit the Arabian Sea at 35 degree nose-down angle.
Practicing recovery from “Loss of Control” situations and improve flight crew training for high altitude stalls (simulator training usually has low altitude stalls which are significantly different due to energy status of the aircraft) should become the mandatory part of recurrent training.
Well said! I have to take issue with one statement though, that “None of it seems to be the fault of the Airbus A330″.
Airbus had been aware of the faulty pitot tubes installed on many models, yet they didn’t come up with any immediate fixes for those planes not retrofitted with new tubes. The A330′s system was never programmed to handle the situation of a triple pitot tube failure- and considering the fact that they were aware of the potential flaws in the tubes, they should have done something about it. At the time, technology was available that could have offered the A330 other methods of detecting airspeed by use of GPS, etc. When Airbus became aware of the flawed pitot tubes, they should have taken action.
When the incident occurred, the A330 gave the crew so many confusing readings, and none of which illustrated the true nature of their emergency. Although the crew should have recognized the stall, the A330′s systems induced it by not giving the crew the data they needed to make a decision. With so many contradictory warnings going off (which the crew deemed a computer glitch) i can’t blame the pilots for deciding to ignore the stall warning. We can play the Monday morning quarterback all day long, but the fact is: the crew was receiving incorrect data and they simply got confused. You can’t say the A330 has “no” blame…
Hi All:
I suppose I should say that I have absolutely no love for the FAA. I had said that the FAA was slow on issuing Airworthiness Directives (AD’s) on Airbus. The Pitot systems (3) were having problems for quite a while and slowly Airbus was changing this system. (to slow)
The Simulator test, where an experienced Airbus crew was hit with the same situation as flight 447. The Captain, using his Electronic Attitude Indicator AI and with power set at a known power setting for airspeed (power controls airspeed) the aircraft was easily recovered!
The difference was, the crew knew it was coming and the accident aircraft cockpit was a bad place! Check out example of the attitude indicator.
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/france-flight-447-jet-crashed-20-16504891
All pilots are taught “basic Instrument Flying” However, a question arises? was the AI functioning properly?
The problem of flying for any length of time, long distances and with a jet aircraft at high altitude, is very difficult.
Jet aircraft, especially fly by wire electronic cockpits are very difficult to control.
The questions should be is why, in my opinion, does it seem that Airbus was treated differently by the FAA.
One answer would be is the FAA has no authorization over a foreign aircraft manufacturer.
Or, there is something wrong with the system ?
As a former FAA Inspector, I know many other inspectors and managers former and current in the FAA. We have had discussions that Airbus was being given a pass by the “FORMER FAA MANAGEMENT”in 800 Independence Avenue. WHY?
A careful reading of the new book “ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS”, by William McGee, will give one and idea how things are done in the Airline Industry and the FAA. It is disgusting to read that this corruption is going on to make money!
All I could say is the probable cause (since know one really knows so the call it “PROBABLE”) is loss of control at night with majors electronic problems…. Something smells here!
Richard Wyeroski
Richard, doesn’t the FAA sort of let manufacturers “regulate themselves” to some degree? I know this was the case with Boeing and their “faulty” 737 parts supplier Ducommun…
Chris:
Ad’s are designed to keep an aircraft, engine or component airworthy. When a problem is detected by a failure of some sort the FAA is notified of the problem by the manufacturer in a service letter or bulletin.
The FAA determines whether an AD is warranted. This could cost the manufacturer money or ground an aircraft.
In the case of Airbus, it has been said that the FAA was in Airbuses pocket.
Many people I know were aware of this and DOT/FAA Management was changed back in 2009 for corruption and failure to protect the flying public.
The SouthWest Air Lines April 2008 Congressional hearings were just the tip of the ice burg on this!
http://articles.cnn.com/2008-04-01/us/faa.oberstar_1_faa-inspectors-boeing-737s-cracks?_s=PM:US
SO FAA management, the Acting FAA Administrator and the DOT Secretary all left office!
However the problems just don’t simply go away that easy.
Thanks,
Rich
Flying is not inherently dangerous, but like the sea is terribly unforgiving of stupidity or mistakes
Hi All:
Sorry I forgot the “SMOKING GUN” again just my opinion. I have provided a link to a letter sent the the FAA Chief Counsel’s Office.
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/agc/pol_adjudication/agc200/interpretations/data/interps/2011/Sabatini.pdf
The individual who asks for this interpretation on electronic instrumentation, was the former Associate Administrator for Safety in the FAA. He now works for Air France as a consultant and is on the board of the Flight Safety Foundation. Which looked into the crash of 447
I believe I have it right? however as an investigative reporter (my new career) is there a problem with Airbus? was it only the pitot system.
Thanks,
Richard Wyeroski
Once the airplane is stalled, it will lose altitude about 150 feet per second. The pilots have to unstall to stop severe altitude loss by manually reposition the All Flying Horizontal Stabilizer (Trimmable Horizontal Stabilizer – THS) nose down. If close to the ground, reducing altitude loss would be of up most importance during the recovery. A stall at high altitude would allow a generous degree of nose down pitch and altitude loss during the recovery. Air France and other airlines need a serious review of basic aerodynamic facts and amend their stall recovery procedure.
Nalliah
The FAA has people that are in the pocket of Airbus. I believe there is a tail design problem and it needs to be investigated.(IE AA crash 587.)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6589-compounded-errors-caused-new-york-crash.html
The NTSB was never involved in any way, that I know of, with the Air France 447 crash. Taking two years (2) is a long time to find the so called “BLACK BOX”
My point is, there is a problem and the FAA, in my opinion, has not done enough to look into it.
Airbus has lobbied the FAA big time after the 447 crash!
I still believe the a Congressional investigation into the FAA’s cozy relationship with Airbus is warranted
Thanks,
Richard Wyeroski
Richard !
The lack of academic understanding of aerodynamics by pilots, incomplete aero models in Full Flight Simulator, and in-appropriate use of Full Flight Simulator for upset training, and lack of realistic training environments for typical Loss of Control In-Flight events, cause these terrible Loss of Control In-Flight accidents which are the leading cause of death and loss of airplanes worldwide.
Any airplane rudder is subject to considerable forces that determine its position via a force or torque balance equation. In extreme cases these forces can cause loss of rudder control or even destruction of the rudder. The same principles also apply to ships but it is more important for airplanes since airplanes have lower engineering margins than ships. The maximum achievable angle of a rudder in flight – blowdown limit – is achieved when the force from the air equals the maximum available hydraulic pressure.
Sometimes pilots may intentionally operate the rudder and ailerons in opposite directions to overcome crosswinds and keep the fuselage in line with the runway, or to more rapidly lose altitude by increasing drag, or both. The brave pilots of Air Canada Flight 143 used a similar technique to land the plane as it was too high above the glideslope.
Problems began for American Airlines flight 587 – a regularly scheduled passenger flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City to Las Américas International Airport in the Dominican Republic – when the Airbus A300-605R encountered wake turbulence left behind by a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 jumbo jet that had taken off immediately before – a common occurrence in busy airports like John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.
Most of the pilots know that they cannot use the airplane’s rudder – normally used only while taxiing on the ground – above the maneuvering speed, in this case 250 knots. In fact, pushing the rudder first to one extreme and then the other, as in American Airlines flight 587′s case, exposed it to stresses that were twice the design limits.
After the co-pilot Sten Molin who was at the command made his initial rudder pedal input, he made a series of alternating full rudder inputs to keep the plane upright. This led to increasing sideslip angles. The resulting hazardous sideslip angle led to extremely high aerodynamic loads that resulted in separation of the vertical stabilizer. If the co-pilot Sten Molin who was at the command had stopped making these inputs at any time before the vertical stabilizer separation, the natural stability of the airplane would have returned the sideslip angle to near 0°, and the accident would have been avoided. When the vertical stabilizer separation began, the aerodynamic loads were about twice the loads defined by the design envelope. The vertical stabilizer’s structural performance was consistent with design specifications and exceeded certification requirements. The strength of the air flowing against the moving rudder stressed the airplane’s vertical stabilizer and eventually snapped it off entirely, causing the airplane to lose control and crash into Belle Harbor in Queens NY.
The Airbus A300 has a tail made of lightweight composite materials and some had suggested this accident might point to risks in the use of such lightweight composite materials. But National Transportation Safety Board materials engineer Dr Matthew R. Fox who conducted detailed tests on the remains of the rudder, said he knew of no other airplane whose rudder could have withstood the forces the tragic flight was exposed to.
The enormous stress on the rudder was due to the the co-pilot Sten Molin’s unnecessary and excessive rudder inputs, and not the wake turbulence caused by the Japan Airlines Boeing 747 jumbo jet. If the co-pilot Sten Molin had stopped making additional inputs, the airplane would have stabilized.
Most American Airlines pilots believed that the tail fin could withstand any rudder movement at maneuvering speed. The crash was mostly American Airlines’ fault because American Airlines did not train its pilots properly about the characteristics of the rudder. Airplane tail fins are designed to withstand full rudder deflection in one direction at maneuvering speed. They are not usually designed to withstand an abrupt shift in rudder from one direction to the other.
The Air France did not include any high-altitude stall recovery procedures in its training program for the pilot. This resulted in the confusion shown by the co-pilots of flight 447, their failure to follow appropriate checklists and their inappropriate responses.
Apparently pilots of Air France flight 447 didn’t learn anything from the crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407 caused by the pilots’ inability to respond properly to the stall warnings.
The standard training – simply completing an outdated syllabus – is not providing modern pilots with the talent and skills required to manage modern fly by wire cockpit challenges. The newly-trained pilots are relying too much on automation, unlike older pilots trained on less sophisticated systems who tend to question sources of information and be better prepared for malfunctions of any system.
The composite tailfin had nothing to do with AF447 tragedy.
No-one will ever know what was going through the mind of the Pilot in Charge of the AF447 Airbus A330 that night when the Autopilot dropped out due to invalid speed sensor readings and he rightly took manual control of the aircraft. It looks like the aircraft had SHOWN a descent of some 300ft before the AP disconnected (maybe not real, due to sensors getting blocked, etc).
All we know is he pulled up. Then maybe tried to level out, then seemed to pull up strongly, for a long time. Why – that is the question. Pulling up, at cruising altitude, in that situation, is the wrong thing to do. Not all of us armchair experts can believe the PIC an idiot, so why did he pull up? Was it his instruments? HIS INSTRUMENT readings were not recorded on the black box! Certainly, the instruments had intermittent readings. Soon, confusion set in.
Probably, in about a minute, the A330 climbed and stalled. It did give a stall warning! That warning was seemingly ignored by the pilots. Why? So perplexing. Sure, some technical things about the A330 can be questioned as well, but predominantly, the pilot pulled up into a stall. From 35,000 to over 38,000ft. Incredible. After that, it turned into a rock, nose high, stalled, and hardly any pilot could have saved it.
There was a procedure for unreliable air speed. It was somewhat ambiguous! The Pilot flew gliders! I cannot believe he was stupid! I have to conclude that the circumstances conspired against him. We cannot see what he saw, at night, on his set of instruments.
AF (and other) pilots were not well trained for high altitude stalls, especially in A330. It was considered it could never happen.
Well now we know better. There are better procedures. Training is widened. AF447 is a big learning. For Airbus. For Air France. For all who fly the A330. For all who fly.
Greatest sympathies to all who lost loved ones during the loss of the aircraft and all on board.
A mistake is one thing, but systemic failure by airlines is another. CRM (cockpit resource management) failures are mainly due to unskilled pilots who can’t find their way around the controls of an airplane but accepted as suitably trained to fly airplanes full of passengers. CRM failures are a major cause of air disasters causing deaths and loss of airframes
Recently problems aboard flight JQ57 began when the co-pilot switched off the autopilot on the Airbus A320 to make preparations to land in Singapore. Somewhere between 2,500 ft and 2,000 ft, the captain’s mobile phone started beeping with incoming text messages. The co-pilot looked over and saw the captain preoccupied with his mobile phone. It’s pretty widely accepted that you shouldn’t even text and drive a car. At 1,000 ft, the co-pilot scanned the instruments and felt something was not quite right but could not spot what it was. At this stage the captain still did not realize the landing gear had not been lowered, and neither pilot went through their landing checklist. At 720 feet, a cockpit alert flashed and sounded to warn that the landing gear still hadn’t been lowered. At 650 feet, the captain moved the undercarriage lever instinctively but then a too low ground-warning alarm sounded as the airplane sunk through 500 ft, indicating the landing gear was not fully extended and locked. The co-pilot was confused by the captain’s action in lowering the wheels, as he was getting ready to abort the landing and re-ascend. They didn’t speak to each other about their intentions. At 392 feet, they aborted the landing and powered up the thrust to re-ascend. At this time the pilots had lost track of their altitude, thinking they were much higher, at about 800 feet. A further piloting error occurred, with the wrong flap setting during the ascent. During the 2 minutes of descent, from 2,800 ft to 1,000 ft, where the pilots failed to take any necessary actions, including putting the landing gear down.
You are not supposed to drive a car while impaired. Last week a female captain was ordered off a Qantas Boeing 767-300 jet as it started taxiing towards the runway to take off from Sydney. She was suspended for attempting to fly while under the influence of alcohol.
Stall warning was shouting STALL STALL STALL for 54 seconds; All the attitude indicators were showing the nose high above the horizon; The climb rate first diminished and then turned as a sink rate and then in a fall rate with the nose still pointing up and the stall warning was still sounding – The both co-pilots of Air France flight 447 did nothing
It was not an airplane specific matter, or a high altitude specific matter; Those who understand what occurred know that these Air France co-pilots would have stalled it even if it was an Airbus 380, a Boeing 747 or a MD-80.
The pilots of Air France flight 447 failed at flying since Air France did not provide any training at all to fly in high altitude manual flight. Air France did not train them to deal with loss of autoflight at cruise, unreliable air speed, stall/upset/unusual attitudes recovery and CRM when flying with another co-pilot.
The Air France flight 447 was not in heavy turbulence. There was no reason for the co-pilot to pull up into a sustained climb while the stall warning is going off continuously. There was no reason for the co-pilot to put the airplane at cruise altitude in a 12° pitch, 7,000 fpm climb, when they had all three attitude indicators working properly (the absolute primary flight instrument), all 3 altimeters working properly, and all the vertical speed indicators working properly.
There was no reason for the co-pilot to pull up hard when the stall warning triggers, and he kept pulling up hard. The stall warning sounded uninterruptedly for 54 seconds. Several seconds before the stall warning the left airspeed become valid. 15 seconds after the stall warning the standby speed became valid and agreeing with the left speed. The right-side instruments are not recorded by the flight recorder so may be the co-pilots had one good reading and two good readings earlier than that. But in the worst case, from 15 seconds after the stall warning triggered to 54 seconds after the stall warning triggered, both co-pilots had all the instruments (except, maybe, the right speed) and they were not in an unreliable airspeed situation anymore, yet the co-pilot was kept pulling up.
Nalliah:
I am not an advocate for fly by wire and have studied problems with this system, as well as the side stick with relation to pilot technique.
There is controversy about the limitations of a computer being in between the pilot inputs and the control system.
That being said, there were two accidents that come to mind that, had these aircraft been fly by wire, the results would have been a loss of the aircraft and all aboard
The Sioux City crash of United Flight 232 and the Aloha Airlines Flight 243. My point is, had this been Airbus, the computer system would not have allowed the pilot inputs needed to bring the aircraft down.
There are limitations to fly by wire. The cockpit of 447 was a place of pure hell with alarms, night conditions turbulence and the fast approaching thunderstorm. The loss of an auto pilot at high altitude in this situation is an emergency .
No one really knows what happened to flight 447. Airbus has a strong lobby with the FAA. The NTSB was not involved with the investigation of Flight 447 in any way.
Airbus was and has been treated differently by the FAA. I believe this warrants an investigation.
The question about Airbus “TAIL” problems is not new. Did the tail come off and did the aircraft crash because of structural failure?
This also warrants and investigation!
SPAIN, The United Kingdom, France and Germany have a lot to lose “if” there are design errors with Airbus.
Richard Wyeroski
(please see links:)
http://www.airdisaster.com/special/special-ua232.shtml
United Flight 232
http://www.aloha.net/~icarus/
Aloha Flight 243
Richard,
Sorry about the delay in posting your comment. When there’s links posted in the comment it goes in to the moderation queue. :)
Rich,
At the present date, i have to agree with you about the “issues” and “limitations” with fly-by-wire aircraft. There are SO many more incidents besides the ones you listed here that would have ended much worse if the planes had fly-by-wire systems.
I’m not an airline pilot, but i have to share my concern that there seems to be a “disconnect” between the pilot and the plane when it comes to these fly-by-wire controls in the cockpit. Unlike some other aircraft, Airbus uses that little “joystick” rather than a control yoke to control pitch and roll- and it merely controls a computer which moves the control surfaces. How can a pilot “feel” what the plane is doing by touching the stick? I know with a mechanical yoke, you can pretty much FEEL what the airplane is doing just by keeping both hands on the yoke. You can feel the resistance, as if you’re “one” with the plane. In poor flying conditions, if you don’t hold on tight enough the yoke can pretty much rip out of your hands! THAT’S a warning the plane is in trouble.
And the same goes for the throttles. In these fly-by-wire aircraft (i’m singling out Airbus here) the auto-throttle doesn’t always move the throttles back and forth!! So you can’t just look at the position of the throttles to know the setting like you can on a Boeing. It seems to me, a pilot should be able to LOOK at his throttles to know what they’re set to, not having to always look at the gauges, etc for affirmation. There have been numerous incidences caused by the lack of “reality” in the throttles and control “stick”.
Am i the only one that feels this way? I completely see the “potential” and possible added safety of fly-by-wire, but at present i don’t think it’s been perfected yet. I think Boeing has utilized fly-by-wire in a more “realistic” fashion than Airbus in the sense that there is still some “feel” within the controls, but there’s still that element of “disconnect” between pilot and plane. The pilot should have full control, and be able to do ANYTHING the plane is capable of, even if it means bending the airplane. Consider China Airlines 006… that crew mistakenly stalled their 747 but managed to level it off and land safely. The horizontal stabilizer was torn and panels were broken off, rivets popped… but they still got it leveled off. I can’t imagine them doing that in a fly-by-wire plane… The plane would probably override their inputs in an effort to keep the stabilizer in one piece!
Kenneth:
I realize you have to control bad information. You have a great site and you are helping to expose the problems. We all want to educate the flying public and save lives!
Thanks for the privilege in allowing me to post here.
Regards,
Rich
No….thank you. The privilege is all mine.
And keep posting whatever links are relevant….I’ll get em up. :)
Kenneth;
It is refreshing for the most part to have a site open for legitimate and mostly knowledgeable discourse. On a lighter note, you probable have more intellectual discussion on this site than the FAA and NTSB provides in their responsibility to enhance aviation safety. There are many areas within the FAA that should bring the legislators to their feet screaming in disbelief so I must presume that either don’t know and the FAA is keeping these issues a secret or they just don’t care and are busy politicking for re-election.
In any case, keep up the good work. We are waiting for the new site to get started as well. Any idea of the timeline for that?
Ed Jeszka
Retired FAA Aviation Safety Inspector
Thanks Ed. As a long-time fan of airliners, I wanted to create something that focused on that. We look forward to growing this and making a positive impact. Having your input on here is a great resource and I appreciate that…as I do everyone who is posting on our site.
We are working on the Social Hangar right now. We’re having a few modifications being built so there will be a significant photo and video section. We’re kinds waiting on that.
I would say HOPEFULLY 2 weeksish :) before I will invite the people on our daily enews list to join up and do some testing on it. We’re excited to get it up ASAP. :)
Ken
Do these modern type airliners not have any (“old school” vacuum, mechanical) back up gages ? ( a VSI, pressure altimeter, etc.)
I just remember when I was an active pilot long ago, we had what we called “Partial Panel” training, and backed everything up that was new at the time when electricity, or hydraulics, etc. failed, or ??
Dave:
Yes they do, however things have changed a little. Everything is backed with electric an battery powered attitude instrument and a separate static system for Airspeed and Altimeter.
However this crash was a complete failure of all computer systems and I believe an investigation is warranted with a possible failure of the tail structure.
In addition there was an is problems with software
A technical mess for sure.
Some FAA types and former FAA management people are trying to hide the problems. I believe this will come out in time, and then hang on to your hat!
Rich
Thank you Rich.
I hope it is figured out, and those guilty will receive their due. And yes, the FAA is another inept government program as are all of them that I’m aware. (FDA, USDA, DOE, blah blah….ad infinitum)
Dave
Dave:
Unfortunately, the NTSB has now officially come out with a recommendation that the Airbus “300″ series aircraft be equipped with a system alerting the pilot that he is “USING TO MUCH RUDDER” This recommendation is a band-aid to the “REAL” Problems with the airbus tail design and composite construction.
Initially back in 2001 the then DOT Secretary Marion Blakey, made the astounding statement for all the world to hear, that “an aircraft rudder can not take side loads.”
The whole recommendation smells of politics and the FAA’s cozy relationship with Airbus!
Rich Wyeroski