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Air France Crash - Report out today

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DUBLINFLYER

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 6, 2006
Posts
395
THE pilot of the Air France jet which plunged into the Atlantic in 2009 killing 228 people – including three Irish doctors - pushed the nose upward instead of downward during a stall because of false data from sensors, the father of a victim says.
Robert Soulas was briefed by French air accident investigators about their final report into the Airbus A330 crash.

He says investigators said the flight director system indicated "erroneous information" that the plane was diving downward, "and therefore to compensate, the pilot had a tendency to pull on the throttle to make it rise up".

Investigators had known the pilot nosed upward during the stall instead of down, which would have been the normal manoeuvre for stall recovery. But they did not know why.

The full report is due to be released later today, but a source told AFP that human error contributed to the crash in June 2009.

The judicial report – due to be presented to victims' families next week – has concluded that pilot error and malfunctioning speed sensors were responsible, the source said.
The ill-fated Airbus A330 aircraft flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in June 2009 disappeared after it ran into stormy weather with strong turbulence around four hours into the flight.

The women graduated together from the same class as doctors in surgery from Trinity College on June 15, 2007.

It took days before debris from the crash was located in the remote equatorial Atlantic Ocean area, and far longer until the wreckage was recovered.

The black boxes were finally located by robot submarines after a search spanning 23 months and costing about $40m.

A second report by the French aviation safety authority, BEA, is due to present its final report on the crash on Thursday. The paper is eagerly awaited amid a row between Airbus and Air France on who ultimately bears responsibility.

The source said the separate 356-page judicial report found that speed sensors froze up and failed, but also that the "captain had failed in his duties" and "prevented the co-pilot from reacting".

The aircraft had entered a zone of turbulence two hours into the flight when the autopilot suddenly disengaged, the BEA had said earlier.

Investigators revealed last year that Captain Marc Dubois was on a break as his two less experienced co-pilots ignored and failed to discuss repeated stall warnings during the three and a half minutes it took the Airbus A330 to plunge into the ocean.

All 228 people on board – including crew – died after the Airbus hurtled into the Atlantic at a speed of 180 feet a second in the worst disaster in Air France's history.

French magistrates are investigating Air France and Airbus for alleged manslaughter in connection with the crash, notably because of the malfunctioning speed sensors, known as Pitots.

The airline replaced the Pitots, manufactured by French company Thales, on its Airbus planes with a newer model after the crash.

Victims' families have previously alleged that the involvement of big French corporations such as Airbus and Air France was influencing the affair.

- INDEPENDENT.IE REPORTERS
 
Excuse the ignorance, I've never flown an Airbus product...

In the event where you're not sure just WTF the auto-throttles are doing, is there a way to disengage them and nail them to the stops (max forward power) regardless of what FiFi wants to do with them?

Kind of like a "through the gate" for aircraft so-equipped...?
 
If you pull on the stick until it coughs at that infamous corner and maintain the stick there for the duration, I don't think max power will do you any good. I think I read on the FDR transcripts that max power was applied
 
I think it was, too, but not until later in the event if memory serves. I'd have to go over it again, but that was the question, if I'm in an Airbus and I shove the thrust levers / throttles / whatever up to the max detent and leave them there, does FiFi set whatever power she thinks is appropriate, or will it go to max and stay there?

More a curiosity question than anything else, as I agree with you, putting the aircraft into a stall and leaving the nose yanked back isn't going to do anything but make the ground get bigger at an alarming rate.

There but for the grace of God go I. :(
 
if I'm in an Airbus and I shove the thrust levers / throttles / whatever up to the max detent and leave them there, does FiFi set whatever power she thinks is appropriate, or will it go to max and stay there?

It will go to max power. On the Airbus you can always disconnect auto-thrust and use them just like throttles unless there was a specific failure related to the thrust levers or engines.
 
If you are in a deep stall and holding full aft elevator applying Max thrust isn't going to do Jack Sh#t....Flying 101, in a fully developed stall you absolutely have to reduce the angle of attack (lower the nose). I think airline pilots are rarely trained to recover from anything beyond a stall buffet these days. So we get used to just powering our way through and most training programs emphasize maintaining altitude throughout the recovery. In a deep stall trying to maintain altitude will just make the problem worse
 
Something else to consider. An engine at FL380 produces only a fraction of the thrust it would produce at sea level. So thrust alone wouldn't be nearly enough to reduce the angle of attack below the critical angle
 
If you are in a deep stall and holding full aft elevator applying Max thrust isn't going to do Jack Sh#t....Flying 101, in a fully developed stall you absolutely have to reduce the angle of attack (lower the nose). I think airline pilots are rarely trained to recover from anything beyond a stall buffet these days. So we get used to just powering our way through and most training programs emphasize maintaining altitude throughout the recovery. In a deep stall trying to maintain altitude will just make the problem worse

Yep. It's more like recovery from "slow flight" in a Cessna. Maybe this and Buffalo should have us doing real stalls. I don't know. Seems like the recovery from the shaker is what you need to do close to the ground, and recover from deep stall to train for what can happen at altitude.
 
I noticed this quote from the final report over at PPrune:

Page 206
4.2.1 Recommendations on Operations
Training for Manual Aircraft Handling
Examination of their last training records and check rides
made it clear that the copilots had not been trained for manual aeroplane handling
of approach to stall and stall recovery at high altitude.

Might as well put that on each passenger's tombstone.
 
Okay...as usual the media has no clue whatsoever.

The final report may not be out offically, but the reason for the crash is well known as of several months ago.

In short, it was an Airbus and the inputs from the control sticks are unlike "normal" aircraft in that one pilot can be doing something that gives no visual input to the other.

The F/O, it was revealed by the CVR, was applying full aft stick ( abating any chance at stall recovery ) all the way to the water. Unbeknownst to the Captain or the ACM.

Had it been a conventional aircraft, the other Crewmembers would have seen the copilot with the yoke pulled back to his gut and quickly corrected the situation many thousands of feet above the water/impact.

Read the transcripts for yourself...it's pretty messed up.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/tec...really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877


YKW
 
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