Air France 447 Reported Missing

[Miguel AB]

BEA investigators able to download the data: interim report expected this summer.

16 May 2011 briefing

Following operations to open, extract, clean and dry the memory cards from the flight recorders, BEA Safety Investigators were able to download the data over the weekend.

These operations were filmed and recorded in their entirety. This was done in the presence of two German investigators from BFU, an American investigator from NTSB, two British investigators from AAIB and two Brazilian investigators from CENIPA, as well as an officer from the French judicial police and a court expert.

These downloads gathered all of the data from the Flight Data recorder (FDR), as well as the whole recording of the last two hours of the flight from the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR).

In the framework of the safety investigation directed by the BEA, all of this data will now be subjected to detailed in-depth analysis.

This work will take several weeks, after which a further interim report will be written and then published during the summer.

[matrix]

Some information is coming out. Sounds like a very difficult situation they were in.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... TopStories

[YCL Boy]

27 May 2011 briefing,

http://www.bea.aero/en/enquetes/flight. ... 011.en.php

New findings:
At this stage of the investigation, as an addition to the BEA interim reports of 2 July and 17 December 2009, the following New facts have been established:
ˆ The composition of the crew was in accordance with the operator’s procedures.
ˆ At the time of the event, the weight and balance of the airplane were within the operational limits.
ˆ At the time of the event, the two co-pilots were seated in the cockpit and the Captain was resting. The latter returned to the cockpit about 1 min 30 after the disengagement of the autopilot.
ˆ There was an inconsistency between the speeds displayed on the left side and the integrated standby instrument system (ISIS). This lasted for less than one minute.
ˆ After the autopilot disengagement:
„the airplane climbed to 38,000 ft,
„ the stall warning was triggered and the airplane stalled,
„ the inputs made by the PF were mainly nose-up,
„the descent lasted 3 min 30, during which the airplane remained stalled. The angle of attack increased and remained above 35 degrees,
„ the engines were operating and always responded to crew commands.
ˆ The last recorded values were a pitch attitude of 16.2 degrees nose-up, a roll angle of 5.3 degrees left and a vertical speed of -10,912 ft/min.

[Troubleshot]

[azimuthaviation]

Deja Vu of Birgenair 301

[Salt]

Is it typical of Airbus designs not to have Angle of Attack information presented to the pilots?

[golden hawk]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... sleep.html

Air France Brazil plane crash pilot 'had only had one hour's sleep

By Henry Samuel, Paris
8:49PM GMT 21 Mar 2013

The captain of an Air France plane which crashed into the sea with the loss of all 228 people on board had only slept one hour the previous night after a romantic jaunt in Brazil with his girlfriend, it has emerged.

A damning report also found that his co-pilots appeared dangerously tired.

Five Britons were among the dead when AF447 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean as it travelled from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to Paris in June 2009.

The revelations may help shed light on why the pilots took what air accident investigators describe as "inappropriate" action when the Airbus 330 flew into turbulence during a tropical thunderstorm.

Debris from the mid-Atlantic crash of Air France flight 447

Le Figaro said exhaustion after a weekend's romantic break in Rio lay behind the crash.
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27 May 2011

Co-pilots Pierre-Cedric Bonin, 32, and David Robert, 37, were unable to bring the plane under control as it rolled from side to side.

Black box recorders showed that Captain Marc Dubois, 58, had been asleep when the trouble started and took more than a minute to return to the cockpit when they alerted him.

Analysis of the flight recorders has established that airspeed sensors had malfunctioned – probably because they had frozen up.

But a report commissioned by French magistrates investigating the crash said the captain had been recorded as grumbling shortly after take off: "I didn't sleep enough last night. One hour is not enough."

Le Figaro also published a previously unseen email sent by a friend of Captain Dubois' after the crash showing that he had taken Veronique Gaignard, his girlfriend, who was an off-duty flight attendant, to Rio.

"I can tell you that he was happy because he told me that he was leaving (for Rio) with Veronique and he was so happy that she was there and accompanying him," the mail reads.

Le Figaro said Captain Dubois and Ms Gaignard had driven to see friends an hour from Rio and flown by helicopter over the bay during the weekend.

When he reached the cockpit after being roused, Captain Dubois used words that suggested he was not fully awake, according to French press reports.

"Go down," he told a co-pilot. "No go up. You go up. It's not possible."

The pilots ignored normal procedures and raised, rather than lowered, the plane's nose when it lost lift or, in technical parlance, "stalled".

An aerodynamic stall is a loss of lift, and not a stall of the engines, which investigators said had operated and responded throughout.

The terrifying result was a three-and-a-half minute plunge before hitting the ocean.

The French aviation safety authority, the BEA has already released a report which concurs with a 365-page judicial inquiry that the "captain had failed in his duties" and "prevented the co-pilot from reacting appropriately". French judges have launched a criminal inquiry into Air France and Airbus for alleged manslaughter.

[Doc]

I dont give a rat's ass how much sleep he got. The families of the passengers should OWN Air France!!!!!!

[Chuck Ellsworth]

It is difficult to believe that three pilots allowed an airplane as big as an A330 to get out of control in cruise flight and they were unable to recover.

Makes one wonder how many other crews there are flying these things who are that inept should something go wrong.

[Meatservo]

...or even aeroplanes which are NOT as big as an A330!

[Doc]

It is difficult to believe that three pilots allowed an airplane as big as an A330 to get out of control in cruise flight and they were unable to recover.

Makes one wonder how many other crews there are flying these things who are that inept should something go wrong.

This one has to be the biggest "head shaker" in aviation accident history?