Air france pilots getting the blame

[flythere]

Agreed.

Jonjuan may be right about their failure to fly the plane, and I don't have enough Airbus knowledge to comment on the ability to fly AOA (does it even HAVE an AOA indicator in plain view?), but I will always believe that an autothrottle similar to the Boeing would have gone a long way towards maintaining proper power setting in this scenario, and believe the final accident analysis will mirror that thought.

YMMV. Sad.

I doubt the French agency investigation the crash of a French built airplane will place any sort of blame or responsibility on Airbus.

The Airbus Philosophy is to prevent the 70% of CFIT accidents, by taking the pilot out of the loop. In their mind, if they can take the human element out of the equation, they can prevent a lot of accidents.

IMO, the design of their automation systems mirror that philosophy, the controls don't move when the autopilot is engaged and the auto-thrust system vs auto-throttle system!

In the mind of Airbus designers, the pilot is the weakest link in the equation. If they can remove as much human intervention as possible, then they can prevent accidents!!

Just a differnce in design philosophy between Airbus and Boeing!!

 

[ableone]

Most Airbi do not have an AoA indicator. (I think the 380 might)

The quick/dirty procedure in the bus is to disconnect the autothrust, select climb thrust and pitch up to 5 degrees.

A similar scenario to 447 happened to a NorthWest crew and they successfully recovered the airplane.

 

[ableone]

In the mind of Airbus designers, the pilot is the weakest link in the equation. If they can remove as much human intervention as possible, then they can prevent accidents!!

Just a differnce in design philosophy between Airbus and Boeing!!

For the most part Airbus is right. Most accidents are in large part attributable to crew error. Pilots have crashed a very high number of perfectly fine Boeings.

 

[flythere]

For the most part Airbus is right. Most accidents are in large part attributable to crew error. Pilots have crashed a very high number of perfectly fine Boeings.

True!!

 

[BrickTop]

You crack me up. The range of airborne radar in autotilt at default gain setting is pretty lame in the upper flight levels. Often, stuff will paint green or not at all, until you are right up on it.

.

Because you are MISUSING YOUR RADAR. First of all upper level moisture has little reflectivity. As you approach weather at high altitudes without beam adjustment the beam is actually moving higher into to the thunderstorm giving you the perception of light moisture or a (radar top) that is often misinterpreted at topping or overflying the weather. Proper technique at higher altitude is to tilt DOWN into the heaviest and most reflective part of a thunderstorm (NOAA suggests 10-15Kft and paint ground return behind the cell for attenuation definition and distinguishing. If you don't know your beam width or degree and distance relations you likely have no idea where you even aiming your radar. I've taught radar technology, the relationships to thunderstorm anatomy and the misconceptions pilots have come to believe are proper radar usage techniques. Sadly it is astronomical how many pilots I find on a daily basis improperly using their weather radars and making blanket statements such as "this radar sucks." In reality they're simply misusing it and complaining about their own ignorance. This can go FAR beyond theses basics but I almost am convinced this crew flew into super cell thunderstorms because of partial radar misuse or perhaps non at all.

 

[Daytonaflyer]

Blaming the pilots is the easy way out, but you can't explain away the fact that they flew directly into a very intense part of a thunderstorm. It's possible that their radar failed, that has happened many times to me, and it didn't matter which direction I pointed the radar. But should that be blamed on the pilots? Definitely not.

 

[Green]

The Airbus Philosophy is to prevent the 70% of CFIT accidents, by taking the pilot out of the loop. In their mind, if they can take the human element out of the equation, they can prevent a lot of accidents.

Can you explain that statement? .

 

[Lear70]

I doubt the French agency investigation the crash of a French built airplane will place any sort of blame or responsibility on Airbus.

I wasn't really thinking they would, I was thinking more about the things WE actually take away from the event. There's several accidents where the NTSB has said one thing, and you keep that in mind as well, but where they've ignored more than one other issue from a bad design standpoint, and I believe for many of us, this accident will fall in that category.

We may never know why they flew through the tops of a (likely) disapating supercell thunderstorm, but when you are overwhelmed with a huge number of warning messages AND likely severe turbulence AND malfunctioning airspeed indicators, it's a bad time to have the engines roll back and have all those other distractions going on and no tactile cue that it's happening.

I'll stick with the Boeing methodology for that. Throttles that always move and an immediate, easy way to disconnect them that doesn't impact any other system (including the autopilot being on). I like technology, anything that helps make my job easier, especially when things go south, is great. But like a previous poster said, it's awfully hard to ignore throttles coming back to idle from a cruise or takeoff/go around power setting. Quick easy push back up, click click disconnect, figure out why later after the plane is safely stabilized.

In the mind of Airbus designers, the pilot is the weakest link in the equation. If they can remove as much human intervention as possible, then they can prevent accidents!!

Just a differnce in design philosophy between Airbus and Boeing!!

And over there, they're probably right. I have zero appreciation for the ab-initio training system they have, and obviously neither does Airbus. When you know you have weak stick-and-rudder pilots, I guess the easiest thing to do is take them out of the loop.

 

[flythere]

Can you explain that statement? .

http://www.airbus.com/fileadmin/media_gallery/files/safety_library_items/AirbusSafetyLib_-FLT_OPS-SOP-SEQ01.pdf
http://www.nlr.nl/id~4532/lang~en.pdf
http://www.humanfactors.illinois.edu/Reports&PapersPDFs/isap03/von.pdf

There’s lots of case studies out there, just do a google search, here are a couple I’ve found. IMO Airbus realized early on that if they wanted to sell as many airplanes as they can, they have to market them to a broad range of customers, even less developed less educated countries. For that reason coupled with the human factor element, they’ve decided to design their airplanes with as little human interaction as possible, thereby reducing the chances of a human fouling something up.

When Airbus approaches a 3rd world airline and wants to sell them an A320, I’ll bet they tout the simplicity of the airplane! Don’t worry that some of your pilots only have a high school equivalent education level, we’ve done all the hard work in programming the computers, if there’s a problem the airplane will take care of its self, (for the most part) Just follow this simple checklist and land the airplane! Don’t worry about those pesky systems questions, you know, what psi does this pump shut off at, and what temp does this valve close? Don’t worry, if the system fails, know that the valve will close itself, all you have to do is run this checklist and land the airplane!

Boeing has begun following that idea, and for the most part their newer airplanes are very easy to manage. I think when these airplanes do so much for the pilot’s, we lose our edge! If all I need to know about the system is to run a checklist, then I’ve lost my interest to study the airplane and ultimately learn as much as I can, why did the valve close? Why did the temp rise? Did we lose pressure, which caused the temp to rise?

These are the questions which force you into the books and learn and ultimately become a better, safer aviator. So back to my point at the top, when the automation is controlling an Airbus, there are no control inputs, so the pilots aren’t seeing/feeling what’s going on, which requires a much more heightened awareness. On the Boeing, when the automation is working, you can still sense through tactile feel what the airplane is doing.

I think for now, Boeing still want's to keep the pilots in the loop!

The Airbus of the future will have one pilot's seat and a dog parked next to the seat. The dog is there to bite the pilot if he/she tries to touch something!

Just my 2 cent worth!

 

[FR8mastr]

All I can say is wow! Airbus sure builds a great airplane... all of the accidents and incidents and not one of them has ever been the fault of the aircraft. Hell the aircraft has not even been a contributing factor. Plane flies into the trees, test pilots fault. Tail falls off, pilots fault. Plane goes missed on its own, stalls, pilots fault (several times). I am not saying pilots don't screw the pooch, we do. What I am saying is that must be one amazing aircraft.

Or maybe if Airbus ever admitted that taking away almost all feedback available to the pilots, against the precedent set by every previous airliner, might have been a little to extreme, they would open themselves up to massive liability for designing such a system.

Naahh, it's the pilots fault.