Air France Flight 447 report

[Sideroxylon]

I have on a few occasions thought about making a thread to discuss the show "Mayday". It seems I'm not the only one who thoroughly enjoys it.

Sounds like a good idea.

 

[gumboot]

This is pretty amazing on the part of the more junior pilot. Stall recovery is about as basic as it gets when it comes to flying. It's pretty scary that Air France has pilots on its aircraft who can make that basic a mistake.

There's no reason for an airliner to be brought out of the sky by a simple stall at that altitude.

 

[Skwinty]

Stall recovery is about as basic as it gets when it comes to flying.

In a basic training aircraft, yes.

It's pretty scary that Air France has pilots on its aircraft who can make that basic a mistake.

This was a 200 tonne aircraft controlled by french logic.
The pilots were not flying the aircraft as you would a Cessna 150.

The aircraft entered a deep stall at altitude in a relatively normal attitude and gravity beat the pilots.

There's no reason for an airliner to be brought out of the sky by a simple stall at that altitude.

In this case, there is more to blame than just the pilots.

 

[Daald]

I can understand the intent to minimize altitude loss when recovering from stalls, but the Air France pilot didn't even start trying to recover from it--he kept pulling back on the stick even after the stall alarm started going off. It doesn't seem rational.

I understand that. The thing I can't understand is how any pilot would pull the stick back when he hears a stall warning. It seems counter intuitive. The article I linked on stall recovery tests gives the impression that junior pilots might develop the pull the stick reflex from simulator runs and pressure not to lose altitude. It's just speculation anyway.

 

[Disraeli Ears]

I read this article yesterday and even posted it on my Facebook page - because I thought it was *that* interesting. This was a tragic event caused by over-reliance on automation and lack of communication on the part of the pilots. It's sad to think that, if Bonin had just stopped pulling on the controls, 200+ lives would have been saved.

I still don't understand why Airbus continues to use asynchronous controls. It seems like Boeing's design would be preferable to avoid situations like this (not that I think situations like that happen often, but still). Is it - how do I put this - FRENCH-ness on the part of Airbus? Or is there a good argument for why these would be preferable.

I will be flying on an Airbus to San Francisco in January! I think it will only be my second flight ever on a non-Boeing airliner.

 

[a_unique_person]

I understand that. The thing I can't understand is how any pilot would pull the stick back when he hears a stall warning. It seems counter intuitive. The article I linked on stall recovery tests gives the impression that junior pilots might develop the pull the stick reflex from simulator runs and pressure not to lose altitude. It's just speculation anyway.

Hence the settings of the engines to Take Off Go Around. He used the training for a stall near ground level at an altitude getting close to the maximum for that aircraft. If he had done what the Pilot Not Flying had said, to "do as little as possible with the controls", everything would have been OK.

 

[a_unique_person]

In a basic training aircraft, yes.



This was a 200 tonne aircraft controlled by french logic.
The pilots were not flying the aircraft as you would a Cessna 150.

The aircraft entered a deep stall at altitude in a relatively normal attitude and gravity beat the pilots.



In this case, there is more to blame than just the pilots.

What else? The aircraft was working perfectly, apart from a brief period of time when a pitot tube iced up. An iced up pitot tube is something all pilots should be able to cope with. It appears from the voice recorder, two out of three of the pilots would have.

 

[Marduk]

Wow is that interesting reading or what? It seems the bigger question is how come it took so long for an accident like this to happen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407

A Bombardier DHC8-402 Q400 operating as Flight 3407 departed late from Newark on February 12, 2009, at 9:20 p.m. EST. Shortly after the last communication by the flight crew with approach control at 10:17 p.m. (03:17, February 13 UTC), the plane stalled less than a mile northeast of the locator outer marker while on an ILS approach to Runway 23[1] and crashed into a house in the northeast Buffalo suburb of Clarence Center, about 9.3 kilometres (5.0 nmi) short of the runway threshold.

The FDR now indicated that the aircraft's speed was a dangerously slow 131 knots (243 km/h). Unfortunately, instead of following the established stall recovery procedure of adding full power and lowering the nose to prevent the stall, the captain only added about 75% power and continued applying nose-up inputs. As the aircraft came even closer to stalling the stick pusher activated ("The Q400 stick pusher applies an airplane-nose-down control column input to decrease the wing angle-of-attack [AOA] after an aerodynamic stall"). The captain overrode the pusher and continued pulling on the control yoke resulting in the upset and subsequent loss of control.

The plane struggled for about 25 seconds, during which time the crew made no emergency declaration. It rapidly lost altitude and then crashed into a private home at 6038 Long Street, about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) from the end of the runway, and nearly directly under its intended approach path, with the nose pointed away from the destination airport

 

[boooeee]

It always amazes me how many things have to go wrong for an airplane to actually crash. I suppose that should make me feel safe, but instead it just makes me wonder how many stupid mistakes pilots are making on the flights I'm on, but thanks to technology/redundancy, no one's the wiser.

 

[a_unique_person]

It always amazes me how many things have to go wrong for an airplane to actually crash. I suppose that should make me feel safe, but instead it just makes me wonder how many stupid mistakes pilots are making on the flights I'm on, but thanks to technology/redundancy, no one's the wiser.

They make a few............

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/pilot-error-blamed-for-runway-mishap-20090412-a418.html

AN ERROR in which pilots entered wrong information into a computer appears to have caused an accident involving an Emirates A340-500 at Melbourne Airport last month.
The incorrect information reduced the 258-seat plane's take-off speed. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau classified the "significant event" on March 20 as an accident.
It is investigating how the wrong speed was selected, which resulted in the take-off being attempted at below the required minimum flying speed, resulting in a tail scrape and damage to airport landing lights.

But sources at Melbourne Airport said the pilots may have entered the wrong take-off weight for the plane. This calculates the take-off speed, which is then manually fed into the computer that sets the take-off thrust setting. Virtually all airlines use only the thrust required for a safe take-off, rather than full thrust, to reduce engine wear significantly.
The maximum take-off weight for the A340-500 is 368 tonnes. The flight from Melbourne to Dubai would have required a take-off weight close to maximum. The plane took off on runway 16, which is 3657 metres long, at 10.30pm.
With the wrong speed and thrust settings, the plane did not get airborne and ended up on its tail, which scraped along the runway.
The A340-500 lifted off after it had left the end of the runway. It hit approach lights and disabled the runway's instrument landing system antenna.
The crew flew the plane safely out over Port Phillip Bay to dump fuel before returning to the airport. However, smoke in the cabin cut this operation short after 30 minutes and forced an early return for a heavy landing.
Sources at Emirates have revealed that the two pilots resigned on April 2.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel...unway-mishap-20090412-a418.html#ixzz1gAnRRLV9
​

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No crash, but pretty close to one. They simply put the wrong number into the computer.
​

 

[geni]

I read this article yesterday and even posted it on my Facebook page - because I thought it was *that* interesting. This was a tragic event caused by over-reliance on automation and lack of communication on the part of the pilots. It's sad to think that, if Bonin had just stopped pulling on the controls, 200+ lives would have been saved.

The problem appears to have been a lack of reliance on automation. If the system had been programed just to keep going and hope for the best rather than dumping the problem on the biologicals the outcome would have been rather better.

 

[a_unique_person]

The computer doesn't know which pitot is reading correctly, and which one incorrectly. That is where human judgement comes into it, along with the unreliable airspeed procedure in the documentation.

 

[geni]

The computer doesn't know which pitot is reading correctly, and which one incorrectly. That is where human judgement comes into it, along with the unreliable airspeed procedure in the documentation.

The computer doesn't have to know. All it has to work out is that the readings are unreliable (possible through increases in standard devation, sudden chages or lack of change) and start ignoring them and instead rely on calculated airspeed based on last good reading, engine output and altitude. Of course this would worry people.

 

[I Ratant]

It appears you are talking about Saudia Flight 163^WP which had a cargo fire for which the cause was not determined.

.
We heard the hibachi in the cabin as the cause at Flight Test, where we received daily updates from all the Tristar users.
An unexplained aft cargo bay fire would be a facing-saving excuse.
Wouldn't want to have anything bad about our good friends get out now.

 

[I Ratant]

In a basic training aircraft, yes.



This was a 200 tonne aircraft controlled by french logic.
The pilots were not flying the aircraft as you would a Cessna 150.

The aircraft entered a deep stall at altitude in a relatively normal attitude and gravity beat the pilots.



In this case, there is more to blame than just the pilots.

.
Real pilots know that to up, you add power.
The elevator controls the airspeed.

 

[AdMan]

The problem appears to have been a lack of reliance on automation. If the system had been programed just to keep going and hope for the best rather than dumping the problem on the biologicals the outcome would have been rather better.

I tend to agree with this. Seems to me that the system is shielding the pilots from a lot of the complexity of flying the plane, and when something suddenly goes wrong it drops everything on the pilots' laps, without giving them much of an indication of why automation was dropped (at least that is my impression of the accident).

Yes, I understand that pilots are supposed to be trained to deal with these situations, but, at least in this accident, that didn't appear to have been the case:

Just then an alarm sounds for 2.2 seconds, indicating that the autopilot is disconnecting. The cause is the fact that the plane's pitot tubes, externally mounted sensors that determine air speed, have iced over, so the human pilots will now have to fly the plane by hand.

Note, however, that the plane has suffered no mechanical malfunction. Aside from the loss of airspeed indication, everything is working fine. Otelli reports that many airline pilots (and, indeed, he himself) subsequently flew a simulation of the flight from this point and were able to do so without any trouble. But neither Bonin nor Roberts has ever received training in how to deal with an unreliable airspeed indicator at cruise altitude, or in flying the airplane by hand under such conditions.

 

[jhunter1163]

I read this article yesterday and even posted it on my Facebook page - because I thought it was *that* interesting. This was a tragic event caused by over-reliance on automation and lack of communication on the part of the pilots. It's sad to think that, if Bonin had just stopped pulling on the controls, 200+ lives would have been saved.

I still don't understand why Airbus continues to use asynchronous controls. It seems like Boeing's design would be preferable to avoid situations like this (not that I think situations like that happen often, but still). Is it - how do I put this - FRENCH-ness on the part of Airbus? Or is there a good argument for why these would be preferable.

I will be flying on an Airbus to San Francisco in January! I think it will only be my second flight ever on a non-Boeing airliner.

As they say around Seattle, "If it's not Boeing, I'm not going."

 

[LondonJohn]

As they say around Seattle, "If it's not Boeing, I'm not going."

Ah yes: that delightful combination of protectionism and jingoism for which many Americans are admired throughout the world

 

[LondonJohn]

It always amazes me how many things have to go wrong for an airplane to actually crash. I suppose that should make me feel safe, but instead it just makes me wonder how many stupid mistakes pilots are making on the flights I'm on, but thanks to technology/redundancy, no one's the wiser.

There are plenty. But then there is a huge amount of commercial aviation. If I recall correctly, there are around 100,000 commercial flights per day throughout the world, with around 1/4 of those involving flights within, to or from the USA. Worldwide, there are around 140 fatal commercial aircraft accidents per year, with around 1,000 fatalities in those accidents:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_accidents_and_incidents#Statistics

Statistically then, there are 100,000 x 360 = 36 million commercial flights per year, and around 140 fatal accidents. That's equivalent therefore to a fatal crash rate of .0004%.

Now, I might conservatively estimate that for every fatal accident, there are perhaps 10 where disaster was only narrowly averted, and a further 100 where the path to catastrophe was definitely embarked upon, but was stopped significantly short of any threat of a crash. But even then, this only adds up to 1,400 "close calls", and 14,000 "significant mistakes that didn't develop into close calls". And these numbers, as a proportion of total commercial flights, still represent a miniscule proportion (0.004% and 0.04% respectively). And in addition, statistics suggest that around half of all fatal accidents are caused by pilot error, with mechanical failure contributing some 25% of the total:

http://planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm

The takeaway from all this is that it's still relatively incredibly safe to travel by air. One thing's for absolute certain: a 2-hour (for example) aircraft journey is massively safer that a 2-hour car journey along normal urban roads and motorways (highways). By and large, pilots are very well trained and very good critical thinkers in regard to controlling an aircraft. It's only when there is the very occasional confluence of mistakes (usually exacerbated by unprofessional blustering or even panic, or by poor CRM issues), or if there's a freak weather event or a freak mechanical failure, or if there's some sort of sabotage (again, a vanishingly rare event in the context of all commercial flights).

 

[TjW]

I'm aghast. It seems as though the less-experienced pilot (I can't bring myself to call anyone with an ATR inexperienced) pilot somehow got focused on the idea of needing to climb, to the exclusion of all else. I only fly gliders, but my take would be that if you're not sure what's going on, retreating to a position of stabilized straight-and-level flight while you figure it out wouldn't be such a bad thing.