Air France 447 wreckage found in Atlantic

robertxxx

And safety measures are put in place so this doesn't happen again>

A320

The data has been retrieved from the DFDR and CVR,just saw it on some news channel,they confirmed it as 'readable'. the best news yet no doubt

cyrusdvirus

A320 wrote: »

The data has been retrieved from the DFDR and CVR,just saw it on some news channel,they confirmed it as 'readable'. the best news yet no doubt

Bloody hell.

That's good to hear... And i thought it would not be the case after 2 years, at that depth and salt water.

LeakRate

Great News indeed,a good link for keeping up to date on the progress of it all,

http://www.avherald.com/h?article=41a81ef1/0053&opt=0

cyrusdvirus

This is interesting.

Initial AF447 evidence does not require operator action
By David Kaminski-Morrow

Airbus has issued an information telex to operators stating that no immediate action is required as a result of preliminary data from the Air France Airbus A330 accident.

While the telex, issued on 16 May, is not designed to establish a conclusion over the cause of the 1 June 2009 accident to flight AF447, it effectively points away from a catastrophic technical failure on board the aircraft.

Airbus declines to comment on the document. French investigation agency Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses - which would have approved the release of the telex - has cautioned against speculation over the crash, stating that any conclusions not validated by its investigators are "null and void".

But a source familiar with the inquiry states that the advisory telex to operators "does not see a need" for any specific action as a result of initial evidence from the inquiry.

Such a telex is normally a reassurance to operators that there is no evidence of an occurrence which would require an urgent maintenance check or revision of operating procedures.

It follows the download of information from the flight-data recorder and cockpit-voice recorder from AF447, retrieved at the beginning of May after an intensive two-year hunt for the A330's wreckage in the South Atlantic.

The telex would not rule out the possibility of pitot tube icing - long suspected to have been an element of the accident sequence - but precautionary directives on this, and the appropriate pilot response to unreliable airspeed information, have already been issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency.

Flight AF447 came down en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in the vicinity of storm activity, with the loss of all 228 occupants.

Link

Essentially not ruling out the Pitot Tubes, but indicating the aircraft had not suffered any catastrophic failures, and should have been 'flyable' (if that's such a word)

A320

just remember folks Airbus is probably going to try pin this on the pilots so don't listen to them,wait for an official report from the investigators

cyrusdvirus

A320 wrote: »

just remember folks Airbus is probably going to try pin this on the pilots so don't listen to them,wait for an official report from the investigators

Fair enough point.

I do remember seeing something on telly about the time of the crash about how to keep flying using the trim and throttle settings ( think it was 85% throttle and slightly nose high trim)

It could be the links Jonathon Anon posted.

in work so can't see the youtube stuff at the moment

Manic Moran

Could also mean that the initial guess was right, and any appropriate remedial measures have already been taken, there being no need to do anything more.

NTM

rebel girl 15

A320 wrote: »

just remember folks Airbus is probably going to try pin this on the pilots so don't listen to them,wait for an official report from the investigators

Already

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/pilots-to-blame-for-air-crash-that-killed-doctors-2649972.html

A320

Ah and there we have it!! its inevitable,the pilots are dead and have no say,theres a few similar A330 incidents which may be important and airbus aircraft tend to behave like a spoilt brat

castie

How can they get away with printing such utter rubbish.

roundymac

Why did'nt they fly around the weather front, that's the question I would ask. Was their weather radar malfunctioning?

cml387

castie wrote: »

How can they get away with printing such utter rubbish.

Par for the course I'm afraid with the Indo.

All speculation is just that until the BEA finish and publish the report.

BrianD

Der Spiegel reporting that the captain was not in the cockpit during a critical phase.

Full article: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,764227,00.html

cml387

This is awful nonsense.
The pilots flying the plane were fully qualified (otherwise what's the point of having them as relief?).

Stinicker

castie wrote: »

How can they get away with printing such utter rubbish.

Its the Irish Independent, that just their modus operandi.

cyrusdvirus

cml387 wrote: »

This is awful nonsense.
The pilots flying the plane were fully qualified (otherwise what's the point of having them as relief?).

Unfortunately, the greater public goes for the sensationalist option every time over the logical option.

3 fully qualified pilots on an aircraft won't sell papers.

But the captain of an airliner that plunged into the ocean, after disappearing from radar screens, while carrying 228 people, being missing from the cockpit during a critical part of the disaster will sell papers.

You and i, and the vast majority of the readers of this particular forum will understand that the captain not being in the cockpit is not a hugely significant happening, but to the greater public, that would be like Edward J Smith not being on the bridge of the Titanic when she went barrelling headlong into an iceberg.

amen

that would be like Edward J Smith not being on the bridge of the Titanic when she went barrelling headlong into an iceberg.

which he wasn't!

Tenger

BrianD wrote: »

Der Spiegel reporting that the captain was not in the cockpit during a critical phase.

This fact was suspected shortly after the loss of the aircraft. I think they recovered his body, not 100% on that though.

cml387 wrote: »

This is awful nonsense.
The pilots flying the plane were fully qualified (otherwise what's the point of having them as relief?).

I believe the 3rd pilot is there due to the length of the flight duty. It is too long for 2 pilots to be at the controls without a break. So the 3rd member of the crew allows each person to get a rest outside of the cockpit for a time. All 3 would be present for take-off and landing.

The documentary that points the finger to super-cooled water droplets hints at this, the pilot in the left seat in their recreation looked to be early 30's. They didn't mention this as it was speculation at the time.

BrianD

I actually think it's irrelevant that the Captain was not in the cockpit at the time if there was a rotating crew. He would have been on a rest break at some point or at the very least would have to visit the WC. All would have been qualified to fly the aircraft.

JonathanAnon

Tenger wrote: »

I believe the 3rd pilot is there due to the length of the flight duty. It is too long for 2 pilots to be at the controls without a break.

Are we sure that there were three pilots on board... And what is the protocol, if there are only two pilots, neither can leave the cockpit without good reason ? I have seen on ACI where the pilot left the cockpit, but that was to investigate fires or holes in the plane..

This is an interview from Fox from last week, after the first "sweep" of the black box information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7xiDL2PY9c

"Good news is it's been two years, and there hasnt been another incident with this type of aircraft.. it's probably something specific to that aircraft or flight"

cml387

"Pilots confused by alarms"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304066504576341631579541512.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_MIDDLESecondNews

ro_chez

From avherald.com

"The BEA announced to release first information from the black box recordings on May 27th in the afternoon (local time, approx. 11:00Z to 16:00Z). The Aviation Herald is going to report as soon as this information becomes available."



http://avherald.com/h?article=41a81ef1/0053&opt=0

transylman

The early notes.
http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.af.447/point.enquete.af447.27mai2011.en.pdf

cyrusdvirus

makes for fairly horrifying reading.

Does it read like the pilots lost situational awareness after losing the platform to anyone else?

cml387

Good lord.

From the beginning of the incident to end of recording is a period of four and a half minutes.

LeakRate

At 02:12:02Z the thrust levers were placed into idle

Is a significant line in that report,However with the warning messages on ECAM and events these guys were encountering,lack of reliable airspeeds,dark night with no visual reference all within the space of four mins must have been a truly awful and confusing experience.

Can any Airbus jockies maybe fill me on as to why alpha floor mode didnt put the auto-thrust into TOGA power?or was this over ridden due to the fact they were in alternate mode and placed the levers in idle themselves.


Hope this report and the eventual final report brings some sort of closure to all families effected by this and may they rest in peace

ro_chez

Odd that the pilot flying would constantly pull the nose up in a stall if they qwere aware they were even in a stall!

Manic Moran

OK, I'm trying to understand what I'm reading here.

Angle of attack of 40 degrees in a stall? It seriously worries me as an inexperienced pilot because I know that 'you don't pull up in a stall', yet I seem to keep reading about experienced pilots who do... implying I probably will as well!

Yet the record indicates that at times the pilots did push controls forward.

Is a significant line in that report

Agreed. Is it possible that for some reason they thought they were in a nose-down dive with faulty speed indicators and wanted to ensure they didn't break VNE? If they're showing wings level and the altimeter dropping like a rock, it's not too hard to imagine, but that would mean they weren't paying attention to the attitude indicators.

The pilots apparently identified a pitot system failure "We have no speeds", yet the record seems to show speed readings consistant with the other indications. (Question: Is the stall warning horn on an airliner simply triggered by a low indicated speed, or is it an entirely separate system physically on the wing like on a Cessna?). Even without an airspeed indicator, though, straight-and-level flying doesn't seem too hard. I can't help but wonder if the attitude indicator was wrong, and the airspeed indicator was correct. That could explain my throttle idle theory.

At the very end, "We have no valid indications".
How is that possible? Can the entire suite of glass and steam gauges all fail at the same time? I can't fathom that it is. The implication to me is that either they didn't pay sufficient attention to the standby instruments, or that the instruments were, in fact, reading correctly and, as gatecrash suggests, they simply lost situational awareness and were unable to correlate the readings with where they thought they should be.

NTM

cml387

AFAIK the stall indication comes from the wing airflow detection (stall is a related to AOA as well as airspeed).

This looks like a severe tubulence (rapid changes in upforce/downforce) combined with pilot overload.