Air France Flight 447 update

[Hawkerflyer]

AP- Pilots of the Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris that plunged into the Atlantic lost vital speed data just before the aircraft crashed, France's Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) said Friday.
The aircraft climbed to 38,000 ft when "the stall warning was triggered and the airplane stalled," the report says.
The investigation raises the question of why the pilots responded to the stall by pulling the nose up instead of pushing it down to recover, says CNN's aviation expert Richard Quest.
The speed displayed on the left primary flight display were "inconsistent" with those on the integrated standby instrument system (ISIS), the report says.nce Flight 447
The aircraft experienced some "rolling" before stalling and then descending rapidly into the ocean. The descent lasted 3 minutes and 30 seconds and the engines remained operational, said the report. It plunged at 10,912 feet (3,300 meters) per minute.
At the time of the descent, the two co-pilots and captain were in the aircraft cockpit.
Quest said: "For whatever reason the aircraft speed sensors failed and the A330 went into a high altitude stall. The pilot's actions were unable to recover the aircraft and some might say, made the bad situation worse.
"The actual falling from the sky will have been horrific. This plane fell out of the sky."
All 228 people aboard the Airbus A330 Flight 447 were killed on June 1, 2009.
The pilots lost contact with air traffic controllers while flying across an area of the Atlantic Ocean known for constant bands of severe turbulence.
Air crash investigators at the Paris-based BEA have been working on the theory that the speed sensors, known as pitot tubes or probes, malfunctioned because of ice at high altitude.
Since the accident, Air France has replaced the pitots on its Airbus fleet with a newer model.
The report quotes some of the pilot's conversation -- who were not named -- and reveals that they were aware of the upcoming turbulence and storm.
Four hours and six minutes into the flight, one of the co-pilots, referred to as PF, called the cabin crew, telling them that: "In two minutes we should enter an area where it'll move about a bit more than at the moment, you should watch out... I'll call you back as soon as we're out of it."
The report said that four hours and 10 minutes into the flight: "The autopilot [and] then [the] auto-thrust disengaged," and co-pilot PF said: "I have the controls." The report said the stall warning sounded twice in a row.
At four hours and 10 minutes into the flight the other co-pilot, referred to as PNF said: "So, we've lost the speeds." A second later the stall warnings sounded again the report said.
At about this time, "The speed displayed on the left side increased sharply," the report said. The aircraft was then at an altitude of about 37,500 ft.
The report said that at this time co-pilot PNF tried several times to call the captain back to the cockpit.
The aircraft then climbed to 38,000 ft and at around four hours 11 minutes and 40 seconds into the flight, the captain re-entered the cockpit. During the following seconds all of the recorded speeds became invalid and the stall warning stopped, the report said.
Co-pilot PF said "I don't have any more indications", and the co-pilot PNF said "we have no valid indications."
About a minute later co-pilot the PF said "We're going to arrive at level one hundred." This is a height of 10,000ft. About fifteen seconds later, the data recorder indicate "simultaneous inputs by both pilots on the sidesticks."
The recordings stopped at four hours 14 minutes and 28 seconds into the flight. A full investigation into the crash is expected next year.
Airbus, manufacturers of the A330, said: "The BEA's work constitutes a significant step towards the identification of the complete chain of events that led to the tragic accident. Airbus is committed to continuing to provide support to the BEA investigation with the objective of identifying all potential lessons to be learnt," according to the Press Association.
Earlier this week French air crash investigators said they would be able to identify two bodies recovered this month from the crash site. The recovery team is now working on retrieving all the bodies, French officials have said.
In early May search teams found the crucial "data recorders" from the wreck site, estimated to lie at a depth of between 2,000 to 4,000 meters (6,562 to 13,124 feet).

[sanjet]

Wow I can't imagine the $hit those guys went through in the final minutes. Having the plane stall for 3 minutes fighting to get out of it with some systems failed and near thunderstorms...

[VicMackey]

and you don't want to think of what it was like in the back...

just horrific.

[vortac]

It heartwarming to know there was an inexperienced second officer at the controls, at night, in turbulence, no autopilot, handflying, possibly false airspeed indications, who has never actually hand flown the actual aircraft except twice a year in the simulator.

[Highflyinpilot]

Makes me sick to my stomach knowing that the passengers and flight crew experienced this I could not imagine being in that situation. Very sad.

[scopiton]

It heartwarming to know there was an inexperienced second officer at the controls, at night, in turbulence, no autopilot, handflying, possibly false airspeed indications, who has never actually hand flown the actual aircraft except twice a year in the simulator.

do you have the file of this pilot front of you to write such a thing ?
how many hours did he have ?

[.......]

@vortac and scopiton:

http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090 ... 0601e1.pdf

p.14

[Mig29]

*58-year-old flight captain Marc Dubois had joined Air France in 1988 and had approximately 11,000 flight hours, including 1,700 hours on the Airbus A330;
*The two first officers, 37-year-old David Robert and 32-year-old Pierre-Cedric Bonin, had over 9,000 flight hours between them.


Hard to say how bad was the stall and in what kind of conditions where they flying to be able to get out of this "deep" stall. A 11,000'/min is pretty much a free fall situation reaching terminal velocity of about 200km/hm, which is what appears this A330 did in it's last moments of the flight. All I know is that those three and a half minutes were way too long for everyone on board to endure...

[winds_in_flight_wtf]

Horrific indeed. On a side note, I am surprised one of few power-tripping moderators have yet to lock this thread, and claim the "af 447 thread" already started (on its 150th page) . Happened a week or so ago.

[Buzz Lightyear]

Air France doesn't have S/Os, only F/Os who do fly the line and act as relief pilots from time to time.

[vortac]

Air France doesn't have S/Os, only F/Os who do fly the line and act as relief pilots from time to time.

In that case I retract my comments regarding the lack of hands on flying experience by the relief pilot in this case.

[Panama Jack]

I do know that these FBW Airbuses tend to degrade basic pilot flying skills, however, I find it rather disturbing to read the preliminary data recordings that suggest that the pilot flying was mostly pulling back on the stick while the aircraft would have been screaming at him "STALL STALL STALL."

[Mig29]

I read that as well P.Jack......Reading from the report the a/c was oscillating up to 40 degrees pitch!! And it remained in the pitch up attitude until it's impact. I don't know what to say....


http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.af. ... 011.en.pdf

[BEFAN5]

Second case of poor pilot response leading to a disaster in the last few years (Buffalo being the first).

Think it is time to start focusing on basic hand and feet flying when all these airbus/boeing guys are going in for this recurrent training. Airbus apparently has a set procedure for power setting and nose attitude to recover form a loss of speed indication situation. (or so the passionate eye documentary says)

This is scary shit to think pilots with thousands of hours don't have the knowledge of a private pilot to let the nose down.

Automation has gone too far. I don't like the idea that there are pilots out there flying around airliners who couldn't fly an ILS to 200 feet without their autopilot.

[ogc]

I read that as well P.Jack......Reading from the report the a/c was oscillating up to 40 degrees pitch!! And it remained in the pitch up attitude until it's impact. I don't know what to say....


http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.af. ... 011.en.pdf

I think you might have misread that a little...

The Angle of attack was up to 40 degrees and never got lower than 35 degrees.

The pitch up angle was never above 16 degrees.

The plane was having "roll oscillations" of up to 40 degrees.

[TG]

All those remarks stating that AF447's pilots should have got away from the stall made me think about Ayrton Senna.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayrton_Senna
And why he didn't turn his F1 racing car's wheels when he was heading straight to the wall.
"Come on! A Formula one driver should know that HE must turn his driving wheel before a curb!"
Unbeknown to him he had a control column failure. When he realized that something was wrong, even if it was a left turn, a video showed him trying to turn his wheels left/right/ left.
The main difference, he probably realized in less then a second what was wrong with his car and couldn't do anything about it due to his position.

So instead of burning witches right away, give them a break until the full accident report is out.

Nobodies here knows what kind of contradicting information the 3 were receiving in the cockpit.
How much warnings, red flags, faults and ringing bells were going on, what was actually in working order and what was not, mechanical failure ? Computers logic failures ? Throw rough turbulence and icing into it, etc...

They ended up having 200sec to deal with it. This report will have three years more or less.



My only speculation--->
They were receiving so many physical and visual contradicting information that they didn't gasp being in this nasty stall until the FL100 call


edited because I sucks with my syntax. And spelling!

[Changes in Latitudes]

Exactly TG. We have zero information regarding exactly what information was being displayed to the flight crew, this is preliminary stuff and to sit in your cozy chair thinking "just lower the nose, add some power and she'll fly right out of it" is a bit premature. You can guarantee that cockpit was a disaster that night and those guys had some sort of reason for what they did. Sit tight.

[Panama Jack]

I have done my share of "oh-dark-thirty" in the morning long-haul flying, over the ocean, other crew member doing his "controlled rest" while I am trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes thinking "Man, if we had one of those nasty simulator emergencies like a Emergency Electrical Configuration I don't know that I would have the wherewithall to pull it off properly."

I also am very much aware, in taking a good, honest look at my own flying skills that they have degraded as a result of not much basic flying, overreliance on automation, an emphasis on systems management over flying and simulator training events that emphasize troubleshooting system abnormalities and calculating the correct landing distance factors over basic flying skills or colleagues whose stress level seems to go up a noticable notch when suggesting a "Visual Approach." We see it, when a crew member cannot pull off a basic, raw data, hand flown approach with finess during their 6 month training. Even Upset Training tends to be scripted, and questionable in realism at best. I feel that this is the reality of many jet transport pilots who are not involved in other areas of aviation.

Regardless of the complexity of what the crew members faced, I think there is a general wake-up call about the degradation of basic pilot skills in our industry. Yes, I am sure a hellish scenario on the flight deck and probably with contradicting information, however, what causes a pilot to keep pulling back on a stick when the FWC is generating STALL warnings? I am not trying to fault the dead here and I am usually very cautious before making comments on accidents before a probably cause is published, but I am saying there is a systemic problem of current, highly-experienced pilots having forgotten basics (ie. an aircraft can stall at any attitude or speed, yet the recovery is basically the same).

[Hawkerflyer]

I do know that these FBW Airbuses tend to degrade basic pilot flying skills, however, I find it rather disturbing to read the preliminary data recordings that suggest that the pilot flying was mostly pulling back on the stick while the aircraft would have been screaming at him "STALL STALL STALL."

Sounds like the deck was stacked against these folks. I wonder if windshear was at play here? That coupled with faulty air data could pose an interesting situation.

[Changes in Latitudes]

what causes a pilot to keep pulling back on a stick when the FWC is generating STALL warnings?

You're asking a question that investigators are still trying to gather data on. It's a valid question, but, you cannot draw any conclusions as to the current status of pilot skills or training based on this scenario as it stands. You may well be quite correct, but I will hold my thoughts until the scenario presents itself. I am sure if you put them in the sim, asked them to demonstrate a stall while in cruise, they would have calmly dealt with the situation. I would like to know what every display and instrument was giving them at the time of the occurrence, I am willing to bet there was some kind of reason for them to think to "pull".

[Brantford Beech Boy]

I would like to know what every display and instrument was giving them at the time of the occurrence, I am willing to bet there was some kind of reason for them to think to "pull".

agreed. no sense in laying the blame until all the facts are in.....

also, surprised no one has mentioned Aeroperu 603 or even better, Birgenair 301....did we learn nothing from these?

BBB

[Siddley Hawker]

It may seem like a dumb question, but how can anyone certify an aircraft to fly in known ice if the pitot heat is inadequate to keep the heads free of ice?

[Conquest Driver]

This sounds like they may have gotten into a deep stall or flat spin.

[FICU]

agreed. no sense in laying the blame until all the facts are in.....

also, surprised no one has mentioned Aeroperu 603 or even better, Birgenair 301....did we learn nothing from these?

One of our first flying lessons... attitude plus power equals performance.

[rigpiggy]

I was just about to mention that with an iced up pitot in the descent, you may have erroneous indications ie: the overspeed going off and therefore expect a mach stall, and using incorrect recovery