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.
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