Air france pilots getting the blame

[dicko]

Actually it was a failure of the #1 radio altimeter, which defaulted to zero feet. When that happened, #1 radio altimeter flag displayed, the auto-throttles which were engaged at the time took the zero to mean they were on the ground, so they retarted to idle. (autoland logic) during this time the trim wheel was spinning like crazy trying to trim nose up to stay in the air, that alone should have been a huge clue something was wrong, not to mention the airspeed indicator bleeding off with the stall bars rising.

Apperently there was a jumpseater in the cockpit and the crew was engaged in a pretty deep discussion, (ah`la or something)

The biggest clue would have been the throttles moving all the way back to the stop and the trim wheel spinning like crazy for 20 to 30 seconds while the nose pitched up to 8 to 10 degrees, if not more before they dropped out of the sky!

Actually ...... You just said the same thing I did. The RA read -8 feet which caused the AT to default to 'Retard'. This occurs at 27 feet.

The AT remained at idle for 100 seconds.

 

[graseby]

Back in the old days, we had 2 CAs, 1 F/O and 2 F/Es on the 747 classic.

 

[Dumb Pilot]

In the Schiphol accident like it is the case in many accidents, it wasn't just the failure of the captain's RA and the relationship with the A/T that caused the accident but it was a set of circumstances that masked the failure into what the A/C would have been doing normally that caused the crew not to notice what the FMA was telling them; first they were vectored for their intercept to a point where they were intercepting the G/S from above and the timing of the FMA going to RETARD mode coincided with them wanting to come down fast to make this approach so they not only would have expected to A/T to be at idle but most likely the A/T was already at idle when the mode changed to RETARD so the situation was insidious, it was a training flight with the captain training a new F/O not only in the A/C but also into Schiphol airport and also because of the very busy ATC interaction with the crew they were behind in briefing and getting the A/C configured for this approach, all of us that have trained understand that it it actually worst than single pilot when you have to be dragging somebody along, the safety pilot was commanded by the captain to brief the cabin with an announcement at the very worst time because he took the third set of eyes out of the equation at a critical juncture.

What I'm trying to point out is that this paid hobby of ours has a very heavy hand and that a chain of circumstances can make even good stick and rudder guys lose track for a moment and that is all it takes, if you are the type of pilot that thinks that very insidious chain of events will never distract you and that your superior stick and rudder skills are beyond failure, please post your monthly roster over here so that I can avoid your flights.

 

[dustrpilot]

Yep that is the one I was I referring to. If I remember correctly after they encountered the wind shear the FO (who was flying) pushed the throttles up and attempted a go around but didn't disconnect the auto throttles and the engines rolled back without the crew realizing it.
It has been a while but I think there is an animation of the entire event on the FAA website.

I don't think it was auto throttles (I can't remember if it had them) that caused it. If I recall correctly it was lack of knowledge and training in the aviation community in how to deal with wind shear. The FO was indeed flying, and at the moment he realized he needed to go around his call was for go around thrust ( I think his exact words were "TO/GA") and a pitch for V2. I believe it was from this accident that built the wind shear recovery that is used today, max thrust and be prepared to firewall them and pitch to shaker.
Unfortunately in aviation lessons are learned with blood. Hopefully something can be learned from this one as well.

 

[OrionFE]

Back in the old days, we had 2 CAs, 1 F/O and 2 F/Es on the 747 classic.

We still do that these days, it is a Heavy Crew (26 hour crew duty day). A full Double Crew is 30 hour Crew Duty day.

 

[DeucesWild]

People keep talking about autothrottles, thunderstorms, CA vs FO, automation, ect. when in reality we need to be asking ourselves a very basic question, "Why is it that when things start going bad in a cockpit, some people insist on pulling the stick back, when the correct response is to push the stick forward?"

This appears to be similar to the Colgan accident, but at altitude. Once the aircraft stalls, the yoke/stick MUST be moved forward.

For as long as people have been flying airplanes, pilots have been dying because they insist on pulling when they should be pushing.

It seems so basic, but airlines are going to have to reevaluate and reinforce how they train not only stall avoidance, but stall RECOVERY. In this accident, it appears that the aircraft stalled with little or no fault of the crew, but the crew failed to correctly RECOVER from the stall once it occurred.

 

[Hair-on-Fire]

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.

++1 .. ... ...

 

[AvroJockey]

I would also say that Airbus' attempt to take the pilot out of the cockpit has caused many crashes. The crew seemed to have a lack of stick-and-rudder skills...something flying an Airbus can easily cause.

 

[densoo]

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.

Since there's always a pilot present at an aircraft accident, there's always something he could or should have done. Too bad there's no stat for all the times when, because of the pilot's presence, there's not a smoking hole.

 

[Turtle21]

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.

Airbus has a lot of creature comforts but I gotta say I agree that they went overboard on putting Hal in charge (Think Space Odyssey movie). Playing mother may I with your auto pilot is BS.