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.

 

[timmay]

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.

Tell that to the Delta crew that crashed at DFW.

 

[flythere]

Tell that to the Delta crew that crashed at DFW.

are you refering to the L-1011 that hit the windshear on final? If so, I don't think that was an automation thing, if I remember right, I don't think the crew recognized the weather phenom the encountered. Micro-bursts were not that well understood at the time.

If you are refering to DFW L-1011

 

[timmay]

are you refering to the L-1011 that hit the windshear on final? If so, I don't think that was an automation thing, if I remember right, I don't think the crew recognized the weather phenom the encountered. Micro-bursts were not that well understood at the time.

If you are refering to DFW L-1011

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.

 

[flythere]

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.

just looked at the NTSB report, it made no mention of auto-throttle's. Just that the F/O was flying and his efforts to maintain control. Also, for what it's worth, wikipedia had some fairly acurate info on it as well! Searched the FAA web site, found nothing! If you find it, could you post the link?

Thanks,

 

[dicko]

Tell that to the Delta crew that crashed at DFW.

Perhaps a better example is the Turkish 737-800 crash in Amsterdam.

The auto throttles (AT) reduced thrust and the speed bled off until the jet stalled. The AT set the thrust at idle for 1 minute and 40 seconds before the stall. That's a long time unless you're in the flare or sitting on the ground.

The thrust levers moved in conjunction with the thrust setting that the computer prescribed. Unfortunately the computer believed the jet was at 27 feet. When it was in fact at 2000 feet.

The Captain intervened at 490 feet. Too late.

 

[Mike man]

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.

An interesting note about that accident is that was and still is the only time the Board did not adopt the findings of the investigative team.

The investigation found that the pilots did act prudently based on the information they had available to them at the time.

 

[flythere]

Perhaps a better example is the Turkish 737-800 crash in Amsterdam.

The auto throttles (AT) reduced thrust and the speed bled off until the jet stalled. The AT set the thrust at idle for 1 minute and 40 seconds before the stall. That's a long time unless you're in the flare or sitting on the ground.

The thrust levers moved in conjunction with the thrust setting that the computer prescribed. Unfortunately the computer believed the jet was at 27 feet. When it was in fact at 2000 feet.

The Captain intervened at 490 feet. Too late.

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!

 

[Lear70]

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!

Yup. You can't fix stupid. It's hard to miss that happening, but it has... even here.

We almost lost an airplane a few years ago because the pilots had to go around and didn't hit the TOGA switches and the autothrottles kept bouncing between the low-speed cue and ref while they tried to climb and the crew never disconnected them or shoved them through the forward stop into emergency g/a thrust.

However, for most pilots worth their salt, you're right... thrust levers come back to the stop and the trim wheel starts trimming like crazy to hold altitude... Here's your sign. In the Airbus accidents where the engines have come back to idle, you have to wonder if physically moving auto-thrust levers would have clued them in on the situation in enough time to prevent the accidents.

What a tragic loss of life.

 

[Metrojet]

We have no way of knowing the qualifications of the F/O and the IRO who were on deck at the time of the accident. If it comes out they were some new-hire 500 hour wunderkids (if memory serves, AirFrance still does ab-initio from zero to airline pilot like the rest of Europe), then sure, slam away on the fact that there wasn't a qualified CA on the flight deck.

However, if they were like most U.S. airlines where often-times the F/O is more qualified in terms of flight hours, type ratings, overall experience than the CA (it happens all the time), then it really becomes less of a factor. At some point early in your flying experience you learn to go around the big red and purple blobs on that little screen in front of you. There are few reasons obviously apparent why they didn't do so.

As for the ACARS burst messages, from memory of that thread last year, I think the vast majority of them happened in a VERY short time period, all on top of each other and I remember thinking it sounded like a double flameout followed by the aircraft coming apart shortly thereafter before the antenna lost power and/or data feed.

You have to hope, just for the sake of the families, that SOMETHING comes up that makes it a situation where the flight crew wouldn't have been able to see what was coming. If not,,,

The "SOMETHING" that came up was probably the "Airbus Stare" - where your so consumed with the electronic messages - that you forget that someone needs to still fly the airplane. -

Metrojet

 

[Abernathy]

Plane flies into the trees, test pilots fault.

That wasn't a test pilot, but the incident is a good argument against having passengers fly around in a brand new airplane doing airshow tricks.

 

[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.