(Reuters) – France has discovered what appears to be part of an Air France(AIRF.PA) passenger aircraft that crashed in the Atlantic almost two years ago, accident investigators said on Sunday. A deep-sea salvage vessel located pieces of a plane in the past 24 hours and French experts believe they come from the missing Airbus (EAD.PA) A330-200 passenger plane, the BEA accident investigation authority said.
By: nJayM - 20th December 2011 at 14:47
Scapegoats will not improve the forward situation
Scapegoats will not improve the forward situation for anyone least of all for those bereaved.
Thales, Pitot Tubes were the catalyst that caused the symptoms of the tragedy but not the single cause of why having 35,000 feet most of a A330 is now below the Atlantic.
Air France isn’t the only large airline that hasn’t taken every aircraft out of service immediately a requirement to effect a mod is agreed. It’s a risk analysis taken set against survival of the business. In an ideal world yes all aircraft should have been fitted with the mods asap but we all recognise that this is often not reality in a modern world of commerce.
Lack of avoidance of the huge storm was highlighted in my post http://forum.keypublishing.com/showpost.php?p=1832268&postcount=203. Flying into the monster storm unaware preceded the pitots icing up.
There are some useful statements in http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20090706X72654&key=1 e.g. “Both flight crews turned the airplanes to exit the weather area and the airspeed indications returned to normal within a short time.”
Yet still with A330s http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20090706X72654&ntsbno=DCA09IA064&akey=1 we are being told the failure was in Goodrich pitots
My argument therefore is that we or others can argue and look for technical scapegoats but it isn’t the root cause training of pilots in how to handle an aircraft when automatic systems get confused or fail. Maybe it is the old blindfold trick in training of keeping her as straight and level with just hands and feet as sensors, no eyes.
The weather sensing radar was set to low threshold missing seeing or sensing the monster storm behind the small storm.
When they flew into that monster storm would experience and training not have told any pilot to check why they were in it in the first place and check their weather sensing radar and reset to maximum sensitivity asap, arrest controls back to manual by disengaging all automatic systems and knowing they had 35,000 ft (and seconds earlier were in peaceful calm flight) get themselves out of trouble. A very very bumpy ride for a while but surely with hands on throttles the position of which would tell them roughly the rpm (not airspeed).
In a parallel example how many of us see novice drivers in snow and ice using 1st or 2nd gear and doing an ice ballet or getting stuck deeper?
Likewise how many of us drive purely on instruments or really on the gut feel of how the car, and the road surface are in harmony? I’ve had direction assist (traction control) set in a very reputable new car and yet it went into a slide but since I was driving (and not the traction control may I say) I simply flicked the switch off and used good old skid recovery and apart from brushing some snow on the passenger side it recovered safely.
FBW is good and it should get better but it is always behind the reactions (flight and fright – Adrenalin rush) and sound logic of experienced human pilots as all FBW systems are based on past or predicted events or combination of events.
I have yet to find logic in a computer that can beat a well trained human in handling machinery/equipment which is why robots still lag behind.
I have yet to meet good ‘softies’ that are equally good pilots.
Pilots please Train, Train, Train, yes expensive but cheaper than losing brand images and many many lives including the expensive ones of pilots.
By: Ship 741 - 19th December 2011 at 13:54
QF 72 final report published:
http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/3532398/ao2008070.pdf
And then there is NWA 8 and TAM 8091:
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20090706X72654&key=1
I was unaware of the NWA and TAM events until this weekend. The 330 certainly seems to be developing a history of these types of events.
By: Ship 741 - 9th December 2011 at 13:22
27vet, I agree with you. I, too, continue to wonder why the pitot tube manufacturer, and the safety regulator escape scrutiny for this crash. The problem with the pitot tubes was well known, why was it not mandatory to replace them, instead of optional?
Its well documentated that most current airline pilots are not trained in the scenario this crew encountered.
By: nJayM - 8th December 2011 at 19:57
What preceded the pitots icing up was …
Ralph,
I always bow to your freindship, skills and knowledge but what preceded the pitots icing up was the weather radar being sent to low threshold sensitivity hence unlike many other aircraft in the vicinity AF447 flew through a mild storm but not seeing the monster storm behind the mild storm, they flew straight into their deaths.
I have gone over it over and over again and it seems to have been the start of those poor souls fatal problems.
God I hope they rest in peace as they were doomed without someone like yourself or their senior captain in the left seat.
They tried, they failed and there we have it. 228 souls gone and a brand if not two Air France and Airbus in jeopardy.
Sandy has said it – training, training, expensive, expensive, not purely simulator – yes bend it shape it and even crash it but some of it has to be done for real.
By: Arabella-Cox - 8th December 2011 at 17:17
What you say Sandy is very true, but the report should include the fact that the pitot tubes icing up started the whole ball rolling.
Thanks for posting that Moggy.
By: Bmused55 - 8th December 2011 at 15:17
Damn. That transcript places the blame squarely on training, CRM and Bonin.
Feel this summary described my feelings on this incident exactly:
Today the Air France 447 transcripts yield information that may ensure that no airline pilot will ever again make the same mistakes. From now on, every airline pilot will no doubt think immediately of AF447 the instant a stall-warning alarm sounds at cruise altitude. Airlines around the world will change their training programs to enforce habits that might have saved the doomed airliner: paying closer attention to the weather and to what the planes around you are doing; explicitly clarifying who’s in charge when two co-pilots are alone in the cockpit; understanding the parameters of alternate law; and practicing hand-flying the airplane during all phases of flight.
But the crash raises the disturbing possibility that aviation may well long be plagued by a subtler menace, one that ironically springs from the never-ending quest to make flying safer. Over the decades, airliners have been built with increasingly automated flight-control functions. These have the potential to remove a great deal of uncertainty and danger from aviation. But they also remove important information from the attention of the flight crew. While the airplane’s avionics track crucial parameters such as location, speed, and heading, the human beings can pay attention to something else. But when trouble suddenly springs up and the computer decides that it can no longer cope—on a dark night, perhaps, in turbulence, far from land—the humans might find themselves with a very incomplete notion of what’s going on. They’ll wonder: What instruments are reliable, and which can’t be trusted? What’s the most pressing threat? What’s going on? Unfortunately, the vast majority of pilots will have little experience in finding the answers.
Read more: Air France 447 Flight-Data Recorder Transcript – What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 – Popular Mechanics
By: Moggy C - 8th December 2011 at 13:54
Transcript here adds a little more insight
Moggy
By: AlphaZulu - 21st October 2011 at 15:35
The conversation had previously been withheld by the investigator for obvious reasons.
No it wasn’t. Most of if had been published in the BEA’s 3rd interim report in july 2011.
The conversation itself, as published by the press (your article and others), is a selection of the conversations held in the cockpit in the last minutes of the flight. It is neither all what has been published by the BEA, neither all what has been published by Otelli in his book.
The conversation, if factual, would reveal for the first time that the flight crew of AF 447 were absolutely clueless about the flight situation.
I disagree.
1/ Not the first time.
2/ This “3rd version” (expurged) of the CVR cannot be taken as a solid ground for analysis. In fact, this expurged version seems precisely aimed to show only the clueless/confused part of the whole conversation. How dishonnest… (note : I don’t deny the crew was confused. He was. And that’s the/a main factor in AF447’s accident)
The quoted book doesn’t contain a “full” transcription of the CVR.
=> BEA is right to describe it as “a part of a literal transcription of the Cockpit Voice Recorder”.
Having read it (and the BEA’s reports), the book from Otelli is not a “revolution” in my opinion, but come with some indications. Note that the BEA is right when it wrote:
“This transcription mentions personal conversations between the crew members that have no bearing on the event, which shows a lack of respect for the memory of the late crew members.”
Indeed, a large part of the “new” elements of the transcription in the book are more or less personal and/or not related to the flight. :hmm:
Indeed, the BEA forgot (?) to publish (or delayed it until the final report?) some parts of the CVR which are, from what I understand, relevant to the flight. One example:
02:11:45.5 (PF) On perd le contrôle de l’avion, là
02:11:46.7 (PNF) On a totalement perdu le contrôle de l’avion… On comprend rien… On a tout tenté…
translation to english, google translate doesn’t do so good, so here we go for non-french readers:
(PF) We are loosing the control of the aircraft, here
(PNF) We have totally lost the control of the aircraft … We understand nothing … We tried everything
=> This is not present in the BEA’s report appendix (but strangely it is mentioned elsewhere in the text, in the “phase 3” of “chapter 2”)
=> This is what the two F/O said to their captain when he came back…
On the other hand, nothing appears in the transcription in the book from 02:10:15.9 to 02:10:27.
I.e. it’s missing the “Alternalte law Protections (lost?)” from the PNF at 02:10:22, which is present in the report from the BEA.
I think Otelli had access to a different version of the transcription (a previous draft, perhaps?) while the BEA has total access, of course, but choose not to publish it in extenso (for the moment, at last).
Overall:
– Neither of the 2 CVR transcripts that I have consulted is complete (the 2 being the one “from” the BEA and the one “from” Otelli)
– The BEA wrote that its transcription is partial. Parts deemed irrelevant are left out. We may not agree with these choices but there they are. And it’s like that in every large safety agencies … NTSB included 😉
– Conversely Otelli claims that its transcription is complete. Just by reading the book (not even comparing with the BEA’s version) is sufficient to see that this is not the case. He made choices, replacing parts with a “digest”. It is probably more fluid to read, but ultimately this is the same process (I publish this, I summarized the rest, or not, and how exactly …?) as that followed by the BEA … And when we compare the 2 versions, there are still other “problems”, ie things “relevant” missing in Otelli’s…
In short … a lot uncomfortable … My advice: be patient & methodical. Take time to check / compare information & sources. Doubt everything rather than nothing (or a single player).
Agree not to “know everything”, we are not investigators.
About this last Otelli’s book in general:
It’s intended to the general public, not to teach flight safety to professional audience. The “popularization” is OK, and that’s pretty important.
It contains a lot of data (and analysis) fairly presented, and not always published before. In this it’s definitely worth the reading (at least until the next report of the BEA).
The book shows two things:
– A crew may be more “relaxed” he ought to have been to fly in the ITCZ (prior problems)
– A crew that does “not understand” the situation, and whose actions are beyond logic or procedure … This is best shown in the book that the report of the BEA.
I regret:
– The emphasis that accompanies the events described (but this is nothing new in his latest book, it’s a rather general characteristic of Otelli’s books); when one is so quick to lecture others (be it deserved or not), one must be irreproachable! And as I noted some errors (see above, but not only), I grind :rolleyes:
– A bias, perhaps? The Airbus aircraft is undoubtedly beautiful, but “forget” to talk about the trim, it’s a shame … and spending some more time (and neutrality) on the stall warning’s stop/start would have been interesting.
– The transcription of personal conversations, uninteresting and “embarrassing” / showing little respect (see press release of BEA)
By: nJayM - 19th October 2011 at 14:31
Official report, premature book/s, the important thing is what have the pilots learnt
Official report, premature book/s, the important thing is what have the pilots learnt?
Sure the official report is not in final form yet. – Of course there will always be other technical aspects that will rear their heads up before and after – some good some bad but as long as the result is for the betterment and improvement of civil/commercial flying it is what progress is. The final report will be an end point from a BEA perspective but science and knowledge advance at great pace.
Ralph (27Vet) has already said a book based on “Lost in Translation” – Lethal and what about those bereaved. Does the author have any sensitivity.
What are pilots in high density FBW aircraft doing about improving their true flying skills when the FBW goes as “t.ts” up as it did on this occasion?
No good a licensed pilot worrying about being a System Administrator or Electronics wizard when at 35,000 feet an otherwise perfect flight gets into trouble. Take control disengage all auto controls and test the aircraft and its handling, radio a mayday as other aircraft in the area will respond, switch on landing lights it will give some chance of seeing obstructions (terrain – mountains, etc) or even wave tops.
Ralph already stated what Sully Sullenberger (Hudson fame) said about AF447 and I echoed Ralph’s post too. Sully said – AF447 will be a “seminal case” and it must for pilots.
This is not a complete Airbus failure, engineering failure, (sure pitots iced up – but weather radar was set to low threshold hence masked the massive storm) but one for Air France and other airlines to take immediate note. Please train, train and train pilots on real stuff not purely simulators. Train free from FBW for emergency drill and recovery.
Yes it’s expensive but so is the reputation of every good Airline, the manufacturer and live passengers and flight crew sell seats. A good BRAND is hard to restore when lives are lost and International Press headlines scream out words like ‘manslaughter, etc’.
My ‘plumb line’ works and would have worked. Blue tack, fishing line and a car key (as weight) along with a micro torch – quite legal in cockpit or in pocket of any pilot who wishes to fly and stay alive.
By: benhongh - 16th October 2011 at 23:30
This book is premature considering that the final report is not yet out.
There are also some errors in their translation.
Of course, anything that is not in the official report has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Nonetheless, it is still relevant especially for us who are curious enough but don’t have access to all the data.
I can see why BEA condemns this kind of disclosure. I felt pretty upset reading the conversation. Truth or not, it’ll bring trauma to those who lost their loved ones.
By: Arabella-Cox - 16th October 2011 at 06:40
There are two passages of note further down in the story:
BEA said it strongly condemned the disclosure of the full transcript
Air France said yesterday the information in the book was “non-verified, and non-verifiable”, saying it brought “no new elements”.
Manslaughter charges have been filed against Air France and Airbus as part of the criminal investigation, which could increase damages payouts if any criminal liability is established.
This book is premature considering that the final report is not yet out.
There are also some errors in their translation.
By: benhongh - 16th October 2011 at 06:32
Alleged cockpit conversation
I posted the same story in a separate thread out of confusion. I think it’s appropriate to re-post in the main thread so everyone can share.
According to multiple sources, a recently published book, Rio-Paris Crash: A Collection of Pilot Errors, by Jean-Pierre Otelli, discloses what is allegedly a disturbing conversation between the pilot and the copilot during the last minute of the tragic flight. The conversation had previously been withheld by the investigator for obvious reasons.
Here is the transcript:
”So is he coming?” Mr Robert asked after Mr Dubois left the cockpit for a break.
”Hey what are you …” Mr Dubois said when he returned.
Mr Robert: ”What’s happening? I don’t know, I don’t know what’s happening.”
Mr Bonin: ”I’ve got a problem. I don’t have vertical speed. I don’t have any indication.”
Mr Dubois: ”I don’t know, but right now we’re descending.”
Mr Robert: ”What do you think? What do you think? What should we do?”
Mr Bonin: ”I don’t have control of the plane. I don’t have control of the plane at all.”
In the final exchange, Mr Dubois says: ”Ten degrees pitch.”
Mr Robert: ”Go back up! … Go back up! … Go back up! … Go back up!”
Mr Bonin: ”But I’ve been going down at maximum level for a while.”
Mr Dubois: ”No, no, no! … Don’t go up! … No, no!”
Mr Bonin: ”Go down, then!”
Mr Robert: ”Damn it! We’re going to crash. It can’t be true!”
Mr Bonin: ”But what’s happening?”
The audio ended.
The official FDR/CVR data can be found in Appendix 1 of the BEA Report.
The conversation, if factual, would reveal for the first time that the flight crew of AF 447 were absolutely clueless about the flight situation.
By: briankeating - 16th August 2011 at 11:53
Sad
It is really sad to hear such things like this. But I am sure everything will be ok, soon!
By: Amiga500 - 14th August 2011 at 11:38
IMHO, due to this accident, there has been a subtle simmering of tension between Airbus and Air France for quite some time. Now, the Pilots union is also entering the fray.
Admittedly I’m somewhat biased towards the engineers side – but to me, it looks like the over-paid prima donnas in the cockpit f**ked up when asked to actually do their job (i.e. fly an aircraft).
By: ThreeSpool - 12th August 2011 at 20:56
Well, none of them want to admit liability. It is obvious that tensions will rise.
By: Ship 741 - 12th August 2011 at 20:27
More infighting
IMHO, due to this accident, there has been a subtle simmering of tension between Airbus and Air France for quite some time. Now, the Pilots union is also entering the fray.
By: Amiga500 - 6th August 2011 at 10:39
For what expert opinion is worth, however, I polled a number of aerodynamicists about whether AF447 would likely have responded to a nose-down command, and all of them, while saying that this was no more than a feeling or a hunch, thought that it would.
I’d agree – with the caveat that the engines must be used correctly. Given the under-wing engines are quite significantly below the aircrafts centre of mass, having the engines produce significant amounts of thrust may offset the (limited) elevator authority.
Hence why I included:
So try to go to fixed pitch rate on the nose (using gyroscopes as reference), enter into at least a 30 degree dive – in extreme situations use retarded throttles/thrust reversers as necessary to achieve this. Then the accelerometers coupled with the altimeter will tell you of your air speed. Once acceptable airspeed has been/will soon be achieved, commence pull-out.
The recommendation of advancing throttles in a potentially ‘deep-stalled’ (OK, not strictly the definition, but it’ll do for what I mean) situation is idiotic on an under-wing engined aircraft. I believe the authorities have previously re-visited and changed this.
A while back.
A potential long-term fix to this, considering the fact that pilots are very limited in stick time these days – is that they should all possess degree level education on the aerodynamics, dynamics and system interactions of aircraft… and that it should be included in the type rating.
After all – if they are only flicking an autopilot switch most of the time when actually ‘working’ – it is not unreasonable to expect them to undergo a little bit more pain (i.e. education) to get to that stage.
By: nJayM - 6th August 2011 at 01:21
These last two posts made me go back and create a short summary
These last two posts made me go back and create a short summary from this thread and IMO these are the ones that came through –
In this same thread
Post 108 nJayM
The Controversy, Technology – advocates, Technique – advocates, Conclusion
Post 117 27vet
2nd paragraph
Post 124 27vet
Quotes article from Flying Magazine
Did Flight 447 experience a deep stall?
The short answer is no. It was deeply stalled, but it was not in a deep stall.
Post 130 nJayM
Some quotes from a very concise and responsible article from Flightglobal
Post 133 nJayM
Where some of the improvements may and could come from.
Post 134 27vet
Capt Sullenberger’s comments
Post 170 nJayM
4 vids that are compelling viewing.
By: J Boyle - 5th August 2011 at 23:06
Seems to be a lot of possible factors here:
Too much information, some of it conflicting
Over reliance on software (“The ship won’t let itself do anything stupid”)
Perhaps lack of basic airmanship (and trusting the computers more than their own skills).
I’m not pointing fingers at the crerw, I wouldn’t have wanted to be in their situation.
It’s bad enough with a home computer…sometimes you just have to shut it down and reboot to get it to make sense.
But it’s different flying at 8 miles a minute in a storm with a planeload of passengers.
Hopefully, they’ll figure it out and lessons will be learned.
And just a hunch…in 30-50 years, people will look back at today’s aircraft computers and software control systems and wonder how we managed with such primitive systems. They’ll ask how we trusted hundreds of lives to them thousands of times a day.
In other words, they’ll look at us with the same shock (and horror) we look at 1920 airlines and their attempts to fly in weather.
By: Arabella-Cox - 5th August 2011 at 22:42
Thanks Mr Boyle. Good article. I said in another post long ago that planes are becoming so complicated, (controlled by enormous amounts of software) that sooner or later some latent code is going to be invoked and hey presto. This was not quite that scenario but looking at the current BEA report, there was so much (conflicting) information presented to the crew they could only be confused. In addition, I don’t know how much better the captain would have done if he was in his seat, but I know I never left the cockpit if there was any hint of bad weather up ahead no matter who the copilot was.
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April 3, 2011 at 9:53 pm