Regional Pilots Kill 228 People by Pulling up After Stall Warning

[777forever]

There's a big difference between 40 degrees AOA and 40 degrees nose up.

My bad. Staring at 16 degrees nose up

 

[Axel]

There's a big difference between 40 degrees AOA and 40 degrees nose up.

Yup. AOA was 40-ish with the pitch attitude around 15 all the way to the water

The airplane was close to the edge of its envelope when the event began. An airspeed indication discrepancy precipitated the event and the airspeed indicators are now indicating a ridiculously low value with no accompanying stall warning. TOGA thrust and 15deg pitch and the airplane is falling out of the sky in the middle of the night, over the middle of the ocean, in the middle of the weather.

That would have overwhelmed a lot of pilots.

 

[dojetdriver]

Strange for a professional pilot to be staring at 40 degrees nose up and still pulling back on the stick

It's not the first time it's happened you know.......

Yup. AOA was 40-ish with the pitch attitude around 15 all the way to the water

The airplane was close to the edge of its envelope when the event began. An airspeed indication discrepancy precipitated the event and the airspeed indicators are now indicating a ridiculously low value with no accompanying stall warning. TOGA thrust and 15deg pitch and the airplane is falling out of the sky in the middle of the night, over the middle of the ocean, in the middle of the weather.

That would have overwhelmed a lot of pilots.

Yep, the failures were pretty fast and furious;

02:10Z:
Autothrust off
Autopilot off
FBW alternate law
Rudder Travel Limiter Fault
TCAS fault
Flight Envelope Computation warning

02:11Z:
Failure of all three ADIRUs
Failure of gyros of ISIS (attitude information lost)

02:12Z:
ADIRUs Air Data disagree

02:13Z:
Flight Management, Guidance and Envelope Computer fault
PRIM 1 fault
SEC 1 fault
02:14Z:
Cabin Pressure Controller fault (cabin vertical speed)

 

[filejw]

Think about it!
It's not how much time he had at the time of the crash but how much he had when hired. If he was hired with only 250 hours TT, most of his time is in cruise, crossing the pond, on autopilot, eating French Toast, and French Fries. How long do you think it takes for a international pilot to accumulate 3250 hours? Four years maybe!?!?
IMHO he was more dangerous as time goes on than when he was first hired.

This is assuming he was hired with the absolute minimums.

Not really, AF is like any other legacy. He most likely started in the rt seat on a 320 or something like it on inter European routes with very short sectors

 

[Baronman]

Actually, it should be more important to monitor the pilots from foreign countries that fly into the US. It is very common to have 250 hour FOs at carriers in India and Mexico. If we have to hire pilots with X number of hours, we should also have some system that monitor the quality of pilots and mx from foreign carriers that fly into here. We may be safer with better pilots, but without cabotage protections, we will be a a severe financial disadvantage to foreign carriers with code sharing or other rights to carry US passengers. I think it is important to have some better limits on 121 pilots, but we need to look at the overall picture of what could happen if we do not put other safeguards into effect.

Eric Pogo

Please...gimme a break. If you think XJT pilots are anything special, shall we go over old ASAP and FOQA data?

 

[Axel]

It's not the first time it's happened you know...

http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentReports/joimdo45pyrqzo2eb5bp3abh/F05282011120000.pdf

Stall warning inop. Tried to hold the nose up at full thrust as they fell all the way out of the sky.

 

[LHRCrewDog]

Baronman and Filejw:

My whole post was about 777forevers comment (most likely sarcastic) that all 121 FOs need 10000 hours. I guess I should have put that in quotes for you veterans here on FI.

When I first read the last sentence in the OP, I thought this thread was going a different direction.

 

[Captain Morgan]

In an Airbus, the thrust levers do not move. I could see how this could happen. About 2 years ago, a Northwest A330 had a similar problem. The thrust rolled back and the airspeed indications dropped to 0. The pilots recognized what was going on quickly, turned off the autothrottles, and set the thrust to pretty close to normal settings. A few minutes later, the airspeed indications came back and they were right on speed. The NWA crew was extremely confused as to what was going on, but they kept the aircraft under control. If the pitot tube was blocked, the airspeed indicator probably started acting like an altimeter (private pilot stuff). The guy starts pulling back, the airspeed goes up, he pulls back more, aircraft stalls. Bad piloting might have been part of the problem, but an unusual acting aircraft started the whole thing.

To the naive regional poster who started this post, karma's a bitch. I hope it never comes back to bite you. I truly mean that.

True stuff! If you had an Unreliable Airspeed condition, the aircraft doesn't know where it is or what it's doing. The pilot must recognize the problem first. If they don't know what's going on, they can't take the appropriate action. To compound things, the conditions they were in weren't helpful either. Before we throw them under the bus, we should wait to figure out all the details.

 

[wmuflyguy]

Briefing doesn't mean crap...I want to know how they ended up in this cell.

Use that experience of yours and think of the likely scenario's. I can think of a number of plausible ones.

We will never know exactly how they ended up in it.

 

[jonjuan]

Use that experience of yours and think of the likely scenario's. I can think of a number of plausible ones.

We will never know exactly how they ended up in it.

The Nova episode on AF447 hypothesizes why they may have flown into the storm.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/crash-flight-447.html

 

[General Lee]

Congress has to act on this now! 10,000 hrs to be a 121 FO. Anyone with less than 15,000 hrs is on the low time pilot observation program!

Hi, you're an idiot. First of all, Airbus has had this problem before, with the pitot tubes. A DL A330 had a failure flying from HKG to NRT, but it was day VFR and they landed safely, even though the indications were all screwed up. This Air France plane was flying at night, around thunderstorms in the ITCZ. If the pitot tubes had problems, and showed a high speed problem, then most pilots would decrease the thrust or pitch up, and unfortunately it did stall, even though they thought is might overspeed. You need to worry more about your own upgrade on the RJ and not about coming up with jokes that aren't funny.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[bri5150]

Hi, you're an idiot. First of all, Airbus has had this problem before, with the pitot tubes. A DL A330 had a failure flying from HKG to NRT, but it was day VFR and they landed safely, even with the indications were all screwed up. This Air France plane was flying at night, around thunderstorms in the ITCZ. If the pitot tubes had problems, and showed almost a high speed problem, then most pilots would decrease the thrust or pitch up, and unfortunately it did stall, even though they thought is might overspeed. You're a genius, and probably never will reach a Major, let alone upgrade on your RJ.


Bye Bye---General Lee

General, switch your sarcasm filter back on. I am pretty sure he was joking.

 

[General Lee]

General, switch your sarcasm filter back on. I am pretty sure he was joking.

He's trying to compare the problems between the Colgan crash and the Air France crash, and equate them. Our Regional airlines in the US do need better training oversight, and higher minimums to hire, rather than hiring 200 hour wonders from Riddle. The Air France crew probably didn't know what they were dealing with, and if the pitot tubes were the problem, it could have distracted them and maybe they did fly into bad weather. But, those crashes were caused by different problems, and should not be equated by this guy. And, I didn't really think it was that funny.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[dojetdriver]

Sigh.........the old glass houses thing.

Anybody wanna bet how long it takes for the other username to chime in?

 

[General Lee]

Sigh.........the old glass houses thing.

Anybody wanna bet how long it takes for the other username to chime in?

You're cool! The original poster has it all wrong, and needs to know it. Riddle guys right out of college don't need to be flying jets yet. You can't compare that to getting bad info from pitot tubes flying at night near thunderstorms. But you knew that! I think it's more likely you live in a glass apartment.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[kf4amu]

You're cool! The original poster has it all wrong, and needs to know it. Riddle guys right out of college don't need to be flying jets yet. You can't compare that to getting bad info from pitot tubes flying at night near thunderstorms. But you knew that! I think it's more likely you live in a glass apartment.


Bye Bye---General Lee

Well this PF had 3000 hours...it can be reasonably assumed he was hired at very low time as well and had not developed the airmanship and intuition that highly experienced pilots get prior to flying automated aircraft in straight lines for 10-12 hours at a time.

That's the commonality, it doesnt matter regional vs major when it comes to lack of experience. Flight time does not equal experience, but you only get experience from flight time.

 

[dojetdriver]

You're cool! The original poster has it all wrong, and needs to know it. Riddle guys right out of college don't need to be flying jets yet. You can't compare that to getting bad info from pitot tubes flying at night near thunderstorms. But you knew that! I think it's more likely you live in a glass apartment.


Bye Bye---General Lee

Well, I guess I'd agree with the first part of that. Should 767 pilots be allowed to fly int ATL in VFR conditions and allowed to land?

I'll bet the General gets himself a set of these when he upgrades;

That's the commonality, it doesnt matter regional vs major when it comes to lack of experience. Flight time does not equal experience, but you only get experience from flight time.

Excellent point. But sadly it's been proven that at the end of the day, it can happen to ANYBODY. The highly experienced/high flight time pilots can kill people with the same speed and efficiency that the inexperienced/low time ones can. To prove the point, pick your favorites where there were people killed, LIT, Columbia etc. Or pick you favorite where they were just plain lucky DAL at ATL, CAL at EWR, UAL at SFO, etc.

 

[General Lee]

Well this PF had 3000 hours...it can be reasonably assumed he was hired at very low time as well and had not developed the airmanship and intuition that highly experienced pilots get prior to flying automated aircraft in straight lines for 10-12 hours at a time.

That's the commonality, it doesnt matter regional vs major when it comes to lack of experience. Flight time does not equal experience, but you only get experience from flight time.

Are you talking about the Air France pilot? The Captain was on break, it was a long flight, and the two FOs were flying. That is common practice at all INTL airlines. What was the experience of the other FO? The PF was probably the younger pilot, but there are usually more senior FOs in the other seat. The floating FO sits in the Capt's seat when he is on break, and the FO's during his break. There still was someone else there that had more experience most likely, that could hold the FO position on the trip. The Capt and original FO probably were senior, they were laying over in Rio de Janero.

I would think the hiring practices at AF are probably strict than most US Regionals. There are plenty of French Regional airlines too, so the hiring pool was probably experienced wanting a shot at the national airline (AF). 3000 hours for Air France could have involved Military time, or Regional time. He could have been hired at AF with 1000 hours, but had 2000 hours on the A320 before going to the A330.


And, if the pitot tubes were the problem, it would have been tough to recover in the dark, with thunderstorms around. As I stated, a DL A330 had the same problem and landed safely, but the difference was it was day and VFR. Your comments about lack of experience don't matter here, and even great pilots would have had a tough time with this problem if it popped up at night in the weather. It was a combination of problems, not just one, and it was unfortunate.



Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[General Lee]

Well, I guess I'd agree with the first part of that. Should 767 pilots be allowed to fly int ATL in VFR conditions and allowed to land?

I'll bet the General gets himself a set of these when he upgrades;

Excellent point. But sadly it's been proven that at the end of the day, it can happen to ANYBODY. The highly experienced/high flight time pilots can kill people with the same speed and efficiency that the inexperienced/low time ones can. To prove the point, pick your favorites where there were people killed, LIT, Columbia etc. Or pick you favorite where they were just plain lucky DAL at ATL, CAL at EWR, UAL at SFO, etc.

After all of the recent RJ crashes, I wouldn't be bragging. There is a reason Congress is looking into changing hiring practices and min hiring qualifications. As far as this particular crash, you're right, it could have happened to anyone, and some people can react better, but if you are flying at night and in thunderstorms while this problem occurred, it makes it a lot more difficult.


Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[General Lee]

So the Captain was in the cockpit after it started

Two co-pilots facing faulty instrument readings and a stall fought to regain control of an Air France flight before the plane slammed into the Atlantic in a 3 1/2 minute fall, killing all 228 people aboard, accident investigators said Friday.

A preliminary report into the crash of Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris also revealed the captain was on a routine rest break when the trouble began on June 1, 2009 and he never retook the controls. The new information came from data gleaned from the Airbus 330's black boxes, which were recovered in early May.

But the report does not answer the key question: what caused the crash and who the third voice is?

Asked whether faulty sensors, other mechanical issues or the crew's actions were responsible for the disaster, air accident investigation agency director Jean-Paul Troadec said: "It's a combination of all of this."
Friday's report by the French air accident investigation agency BEA was a factual description of the chain of events beginning with takeoff in Rio de Janeiro until recordings fell dead nearly four hours later.

Some families of victims who said they were given information in a meeting with the agency said it was possible their loved ones went to their deaths unaware of what was happening because there was apparently no contact between the cockpit and cabin crew in the 3 1/2 minutes.


'They did not suffer'

"It seems they did not feel more movements and turbulence than you generally feel in storms," said Jean-Baptiste Audousset, president of a victims' solidarity association. "So, we think that until impact they did not realize the situation, which for the family is what they want to hear — they did not suffer."

The report revealed that the plane's captain, Marc Dubois, was out of the cockpit on a routine rest break when the problems began.
The data flight recorder and cockpit recorder were dredged from the ocean in April, along with some bodies, in the latest effort by investigators to explain the disaster. Both of the boxes were readable.

They show inconsistent speed readings, two co-pilots working methodically to right the plane manually and a resting captain returning to the cockpit amid what moments later became an irretrievably catastrophic situation. The data also showed that the plane went into an aerodynamic stall — a loss of lift brought on by too little speed. Investigators only provided partial quotes from the voice recorder in Friday's report.


The report confirmed that two sets of instruments on the plane were giving conflicting speed readings. On the voice recorder, one co-pilot is heard to say "so we've lost the speeds" about four minutes before the crash.

Experts have suggested external monitoring instruments iced over. Air France has now replaced the monitors, called Pitot tubes, on all its Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft. The plane was passing through ominous weather in mid-Atlantic, about three and a half hours after taking off, when the problems began.

Co-pilots in control

More than eight minutes before the crash the co-pilot at the controls, one of three members of the flight crew, advised the cabin crew "you should watch out" for turbulence ahead. He said the plane could not climb out of the cloud layer where the turbulence was happening because it was not cold enough.

Turbulence caused the pilots to make a slight change of course, but was not excessive as the plane tried to negotiate a normal path — passing through a heavy layer of clouds. Four minutes later, the plane's autopilot and auto-thrust shut off, the stall alarm sounded twice and the co-pilot at the controls, 32-year-old Pierre-Cedric Bonin, took over manual control.

A second co-pilot, David Robert, 37, was also in the cockpit.
Pilots on long-haul flights often take turns resting to remain alert. Dubois returned to the cockpit about a minute and a half after the problems started but did not take back the controls.

Just over two minutes before the crash, Bonin is heard to say "I don't have any more indications." Robert says "We have no valid indications."
The interim report by accident investigation agency BEA did not analyze the data or cockpit conversations or assign blame. A full report on the crash is not due until next year.

More questions than answers

Air France said in a statement that, based on the report, it appears "the initial problem was the failure of the speed probes which led to the disconnection of the autopilot" and loss of pilot protection systems.
The airline defended the captain, saying he "quickly interrupted his rest period to regain the cockpit."


Independent aviation analyst Chris Yates said the report appears "to raise more questions than it answers." "It would seem to me, reading between the lines, that the cockpit crew weren't confident of the information that was being presented to them on the data displays. Maybe — and it's only a maybe — they took some action that led to the stall warning, and the plane stalling and then being unable to correct it."

The flight recorders were found along with bodies in early May in the latest in a series of meticulous searches using small submarines and robots to comb the ocean depths.



Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[kf4amu]

Are you talking about the Air France pilot? The Captain was on break, it was a long flight, and the two FOs were flying. That is common practice at all INTL airlines. What was the experience of the other FO? The PF was probably the younger pilot, but there are usually more senior FOs in the other seat. The floating FO sits in the Capt's seat when he is on break, and the FO's during his break. There still was someone else there that had more experience most likely, that could hold the FO position on the trip. The Capt and original FO probably were senior, they were laying over in Rio de Janero.

I would think the hiring practices at AF are probably strict than most US Regionals. There are plenty of French Regional airlines too, so the hiring pool was probably experienced wanting a shot at the national airline (AF). 3000 hours for Air France could have involved Military time, or Regional time. He could have been hired at AF with 1000 hours, but had 2000 hours on the A320 before going to the A330.


And, if the pitot tubes were the problem, it would have been tough to recover in the dark, with thunderstorms around. As I stated, a DL A330 had the same problem and landed safely, but the difference was it was day and VFR. Your comments about lack of experience don't matter here, and even great pilots would have had a tough time with this problem if it popped up at night in the weather. It was a combination of problems, not just one, and it was unfortunate.



Bye Bye---General Lee

You said a lot of qualifiers, and I won't argue any of them. But they are all "ifs". A 3000 hr major airline pilot "may" have had great training and experience. Who knows.

And so what if he was the least experienced. At some point he becomes a captain with lots of flight time but not much experience. In this case he was PF, and this reinforces the importance of EVERYONE involved in flying, not just the Captain or the FO who was so senior that they could lay over in Rio.

I think if he came from a regional it's even worse. Regional or not, it's a 121 airline. One level of safety? Take what this pilot learned from his Air France experience AND the regional, subtract it from his experience bank, and then ask yourself if he is qualified to fly for an airline. 3000 hours doesnt appear to be very strict for a Major airline.

I look at my job as routinely boring but rarely tough. The job involves being ready for the tough parts, not the easy ones. I worry that many pilots are only able to handle the routinely boring flights since that's all we are trained for. The last time I was tested on blocked pitot tubes was 10 years ago. The last time I was required to perform a stall was 5 years ago. Both maneuvers were responsible for recent accidents, and failure to recognize and react appropriately were factors. Had I ever been an instructor, teaching students on these 2 specific subjects, I'd be much more likely to recognize them and react appropriately if they happened to me, instead of panicking.

However, due to the state of the airline industry, I was hired with very little experience. I quickly recognized that flying for hours and hours at a regional airline does not teach me very much airmanship, and I know that people like myself are the norm rather than the exception.

This needs to change. Quickly.

Higher pay will attract better qualified candidates of course, but that will never happen unless the FAA mandates higher qualifications.

 

[Leroy Smith]

The companion piece is also fascinating

http://www.flightglobal.com/article...ous-flaws-in-pilot-training-for-handling.html[

Despite the sometimes fickle nature of the automation, she observes, pilots frequently abdicate too much responsibility to automated systems. The reasons for this, she found, include: a perceived lack of trust in pilot performance by the airline; policies that encourage use of automated systems rather than manual operations; and insufficient training, experience or judgment, the result of which is that "pilots may not be prepared to handle non-routine situations".
Abbott has discovered particular vulnerabilities in automated systems and their man/machine interfaces. These include: mode confusion, and a pilot tendency to use information from automated systems instead of raw data. Another problem she identified is that much of the information supplied to pilots is, itself, automated - what she calls "information automation". Abbot also found that there was no consistency among operators in their policies for the use of automated systems.
Pilot knowledge was found seriously lacking in many areas relating to automated systems, including: understanding of flight director, autopilot, autothrottle/autothrust, and flight management system/computer systems and their limitations; operating procedures, mode transitions and behaviour; and unusual attitude recognition and recovery.
/QUOTE]

I dont know if there is an easy answer. It gets harder and harder to overcome our recipe flying conditioning that is beaten into us to a greater degree every year by an liability adverse yet cost-cutting industry, and a regulatory body that is becoming irrelevant with its SOP nit-picking myopia that causes it to ignore some of the big issues.

I can only hope that if it happens to me, I will be able to use the SOP as needed, but shake off all the "did I do this checklist/callout/profile/ ect exactly the way the LCA, company, FAA or whoever wants it done" and remember to bust any SOP, limitation or clearance needed to allow me to miss everything hard and imovable by an inch or more and find a place to put down without hurting anyone.

I hope that my pre- 121 experience kicks in and helps me rise above the habits and routines that 121 has put in me.

 

[dojetdriver]

After all of the recent RJ crashes, I wouldn't be bragging..........


Bye Bye---General Lee

Show me where I was bragging? The only thing the legacy incidents can brag about is they were lucky, NOT good.

 

[bailout]

For you non Airbus types, the correct escape manuever for a stall "under normal law" is to pull the sidestick full aft at full power. Yes you read that right. Yes, he did this as this is how they are trained. Problem was, he did not recognize that at that point the plane was in "alternate law". (with so many failures in such a short amount of time who knows if any of us could have reacted correctly in time) This is much different than the Colgan crash in a 'normal' type of airplane. Keep in mind, Airbus thinks its computers are smarter than its pilots. In "normal law" you can crank the stick all the way back and all the way to one side and the plane will go to a max of 60 degrees bank and @ 20 degrees nose up and no matter how hard you yank on it, the computers will over ride you.

 

[ultrarunner]

The companion piece is also fascinating

http://www.flightglobal.com/article...ous-flaws-in-pilot-training-for-handling.html

And the FAA is approving the training manuals.

 

[glasspilot]

For you non Airbus types, the correct escape manuever for a stall "under normal law" is to pull the sidestick full aft at full power. Yes you read that right. Yes, he did this as this is how they are trained. Problem was, he did not recognize that at that point the plane was in "alternate law". (with so many failures in such a short amount of time who knows if any of us could have reacted correctly in time) This is much different than the Colgan crash in a 'normal' type of airplane. Keep in mind, Airbus thinks its computers are smarter than its pilots. In "normal law" you can crank the stick all the way back and all the way to one side and the plane will go to a max of 60 degrees bank and @ 20 degrees nose up and no matter how hard you yank on it, the computers will over ride you.

HQ does an Airbus display to the pilots what law is in effect? Is there an aural tone involved too?

 

[Abernathy]

Problem was, he did not recognize that at that point the plane was in "alternate law".

Wasn't he quoted as saying "Alternate Law" during the recording early on?

 

[SLUF4]

For you non Airbus types, the correct escape manuever for a stall "under normal law" is to pull the sidestick full aft at full power. Yes you read that right. Yes, he did this as this is how they are trained. Problem was, he did not recognize that at that point the plane was in "alternate law". (with so many failures in such a short amount of time who knows if any of us could have reacted correctly in time) This is much different than the Colgan crash in a 'normal' type of airplane. Keep in mind, Airbus thinks its computers are smarter than its pilots. In "normal law" you can crank the stick all the way back and all the way to one side and the plane will go to a max of 60 degrees bank and @ 20 degrees nose up and no matter how hard you yank on it, the computers will over ride you.

My Airbus manual says this for stall recovery:
To recover from a stall, angle of attack must be reduced below the stalling angle.
Nose down pitch control must be applied and maintained until the wings are
unstalled. Application of forward control stick (as much as full forward may be
required) should provide sufficient elevator control to produce a nose-down pitch
rate.

Are you talking about the stall demo in normal law to show the protections available? I'm talking about a full stall in alternate law here like they were in

 

[GRAAB HIRBOUBI]

I haven't read this whole thread so I'm sorry but how does this AF accident get turned into a slam the low life regional pilot issue?

This is an unfortunate accident to say the least. I am just as baffled as anyone about the Colgan crew for not flying the Dash-8 at least the same way as they would a C-150 but twisting this A330 into a trash the regional pilot thread is absurd.

Besides even if they were from a regional background, weren't they saved from themselves by being allowed to get a job at mainline?

 

[777forever]

For you non Airbus types, the correct escape manuever for a stall "under normal law" is to pull the sidestick full aft at full power. Yes you read that right. Yes, he did this as this is how they are trained. Problem was, he did not recognize that at that point the plane was in "alternate law". (with so many failures in such a short amount of time who knows if any of us could have reacted correctly in time) This is much different than the Colgan crash in a 'normal' type of airplane. Keep in mind, Airbus thinks its computers are smarter than its pilots. In "normal law" you can crank the stick all the way back and all the way to one side and the plane will go to a max of 60 degrees bank and @ 20 degrees nose up and no matter how hard you yank on it, the computers will over ride you.

Sorry I have to call BS on this one. Show me some official documentation and I'll gladly eat my words