Air France 447 Transcript.

Happyman42

Chilling reading
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877

sparrowcar

Still very raw to this day for me

impr0v

Good article.

Bigcheeze

As a regular on Aer Lingus transatlantic routes, I hope their A330 crews are made of better stuff.

Thoie

If you speak French, there's a long report here (PDF), including the technical details of recovery. From page 74 it discusses what was going on in the cabin during the critical period, giving a little extra information.

jimbis

Really puts you in the cockpit with them, scarey:(!

Powerful article

WalterMitty

Has an air crash investigation programme been made on this yet? The series on national geograpahic?

cson

Strikes me as incredibly odd that the Captain would cede control to the least experienced officer knowing that the aircraft was routed into a serious weather system.

Then again I have no idea how it works in practice; that scenario might play out just the same everyday without the fatal consequences.

Happyman42

cson wrote: »

Strikes me as incredibly odd that the Captain would cede control to the least experienced officer knowing that the aircraft was routed into a serious weather system.

Then again I have no idea how it works in practice; that scenario might play out just the same everyday without the fatal consequences.

Yeh, I think reading it that you would have to conclude that the Captain made the wrong decisions. Not taking the controls when he returned to the cockpit being the critical one.
Would somebody with years of experience and knowledge not know the aircraft was in trouble from back in the cabin? Would he not have thought the rate of climb odd and returned to the cockpit sooner? (maybe you wouldn't feel it in a craft that size?)
Tragic consequences for all involved, may they rest easy.

Bendihorse

Jesus. That makes for some chilling reading.

RIP to all who met their maker, especially to the Irish girls on board.

cyrusdvirus

Happyman42 wrote: »

Yeh, I think reading it that you would have to conclude that the Captain made the wrong decisions. Not taking the controls when he returned to the cockpit being the critical one.

I disagree strongly. There were 2 fully trained pilots in the seats. I don't know exactly how long it takes for a pilot to get out of a seat of an A330 shuffle around the cockpit and a second pilot get into the freshly vacated seat. When you are having an in flight emergency the last thing you want to be doing is rearranging the damn seating.


The article puts (unfair, in my opinion) emphasis on the fact that the captain left the flight deck leaving the second officer as the Pilot flying. These were 3 fully trained professionals, who, unfortunately for all on-board lost their instrument platform, lost their situational awareness, and then when their instruments returned to functionality after about 30 seconds had lost their trust in the instrument platform.

Happyman42

gatecrash wrote: »

I disagree strongly. There were 2 fully trained pilots in the seats. I don't know exactly how long it takes for a pilot to get out of a seat of an A330 shuffle around the cockpit and a second pilot get into the freshly vacated seat. When you are having an in flight emergency the last thing you want to be doing is rearranging the damn seating.


The article puts (unfair, in my opinion) emphasis on the fact that the captain left the flight deck leaving the second officer as the Pilot flying. These were 3 fully trained professionals, who, unfortunately for all on-board lost their instrument platform, lost their situational awareness, and then when their instruments returned to functionality after about 30 seconds had lost their trust in the instrument platform.

A 'fully trained professional' was pulling back on the stick throughout the situation, two other 'fully trained professionals' where unaware of this fact until it was too late....which for me indicates that they weren't 'fully' trained.

Please don't do the usual spinning which 'professionals' (doctors, lawyers etc) indulge in. I.E.: Shy away from laying the blame/responsibility where it belongs. Your death, however tragic and unfortunate doesn't absolve you of culpability. Lessons need to be learned here.

cyrusdvirus

Happyman42 wrote: »

A 'fully trained professional' was pulling back on the stick throughout the situation, two other 'fully trained professionals' where unaware of this fact until it was too late....which for me indicates that they weren't 'fully' trained.

Please don't do the usual spinning which 'professionals' (doctors, lawyers etc) indulge in. I.E.: Shy away from laying the blame/responsibility where it belongs. Your death, however tragic and unfortunate doesn't absolve you of culpability. Lessons need to be learned here.

i'm not denying that lessons need to be and should be learned, but the article singling out the captain for leaving the flight deck and you singling him out for not taking a seat at the controls are unfair.

Yes, the crew failed in a number of aspects of their responsibility. Ultimately they failed to get the passengers safely on the ground. They let the plane get away from them and there is nothing that can be done about that now. Lessons can be learned, hardware can be replaced and procedures revised.

Tea 1000

Happyman42 wrote: »

A 'fully trained professional' was pulling back on the stick throughout the situation, two other 'fully trained professionals' where unaware of this fact until it was too late....which for me indicates that they weren't 'fully' trained.

Please don't do the usual spinning which 'professionals' (doctors, lawyers etc) indulge in. I.E.: Shy away from laying the blame/responsibility where it belongs. Your death, however tragic and unfortunate doesn't absolve you of culpability. Lessons need to be learned here.

While I agree with what you're saying, that just because the situation was tragic and fatal, there still needs to be blame apportioned if indeed that it is possible to lay blame somewhere.
However, I kind of disagree that it's the captain's fault. However, I'd like to hear from any captain of an Airbus that if they arrived back into the cockpit when two fully trained pilots are flying, would the first instinct be to ask "OK, you're not pulling back on the stick, are you?"
It was really panic on behalf of the most junior crew member that caused the whole thing, and maybe operating procedure that caused the failure to notice what he was doing.
Maybe there should be a warning light when both control sticks are not being operated in the same direction. Surely any situation that results in both pilots doing opposite things should trigger a warning?

globemaster1986

A quick glance at the PFD would have shown the aircraft was pitched up (because of the back pressure on the sidestick). Sounds like they were completely disoriented

LeakRate

There is a priority button on the airbus sidestick,to allow either pilot full control,with an arrow dictating which side has priority on the glareshield,as for the captain not jumping back in the seat,airbus seats are electric motors,slow movement,there is manual override handle,however I dont think your going to be looking at that when your plane is dropping out of the sky at 10,000ft min,in the middle of a storm,at night and in the early hours of the morning,this flight did not crash just to the one f/o pulling back on the sidestick,its the swiss cheese model,all the holes sadly lined up,if the capt hadnt of left,if it hadnt off been nighttime,if the pitot heaters had of been good enough,all if's and buts now sadly!I cant even begin to imagine the horror going on in that FLT Deck at the time,look out your window,u cant see a thing,constant chimes going off with endless faults appearing on the ECAM,thoughts with the families of those Irish girls,RIP

Tea 1000

LeakRate wrote: »

There is a priority button on the airbus sidestick,to allow either pilot full control,with an arrow dictating which side has priority on the glareshield,as for the captain not jumping back in the seat,airbus seats are electric motors,slow movement,there is manual override handle,however I dont think your going to be looking at that when your plane is dropping out of the sky at 10,000ft min,in the middle of a storm,at night and in the early hours of the morning,this flight did not crash just to the one f/o pulling back on the sidestick,its the swiss cheese model,all the holes sadly lined up,if the capt hadnt of left,if it hadnt off been nighttime,if the pitot heaters had of been good enough,all if's and buts now sadly!I cant even begin to imagine the horror going on in that FLT Deck at the time,look out your window,u cant see a thing,constant chimes going off with endless faults appearing on the ECAM,thoughts with the families of those Irish girls,RIP

It's tragic alright, but I still don't think the captain leaving the cockpit should have any bearing on it. Assigning command to the more senior of the two remaining would have helped, but I think with 3 crew on board a modern airliner, the captain should be well entitled to take his break and have everything left to the control of the crew. Even in a storm.

Happyman42

LeakRate wrote: »

There is a priority button on the airbus sidestick,to allow either pilot full control,with an arrow dictating which side has priority on the glareshield,as for the captain not jumping back in the seat,airbus seats are electric motors,slow movement,there is manual override handle,however I dont think your going to be looking at that when your plane is dropping out of the sky at 10,000ft min,in the middle of a storm,at night and in the early hours of the morning,this flight did not crash just to the one f/o pulling back on the sidestick,its the swiss cheese model,all the holes sadly lined up,if the capt hadnt of left,if it hadnt off been nighttime,if the pitot heaters had of been good enough,all if's and buts now sadly!I cant even begin to imagine the horror going on in that FLT Deck at the time,look out your window,u cant see a thing,constant chimes going off with endless faults appearing on the ECAM,thoughts with the families of those Irish girls,RIP

I dunno...maybe the Captain was fatigued, would the first thing to check when you are getting stall warnings and you are dropping that fast not be 'what are they doing with the controls'?

No aircraft ever crashes itself, it's an operator/manufacturer error or series of errors.

Tenger

Happyman42 wrote: »

.........No aircraft ever crashes itself, it's an operator/manufacturer error or series of errors.

And pilot error was 1 in the chain of errors.

Put yourself in their place. Getting thrown around by a storm, no outside visual indications, it was during the body's low ebb time (window of circadian low) and they had an alarm sound going off every 1-2 minutes. I have read the list of ECAM messages and found it chilling enough without seeing a recreation of those 10 minutes.


Now investigators will fully look into the causes and the airline industry will takes step to prevent it from happening again.

Unfortunately the safety of modern air travel was caused by deaths in the past.

Bigcheeze

Tenger wrote: »

Put yourself in their place. Getting thrown around by a storm, no outside visual indications, it was during the body's low ebb time (window of circadian low) and they had an alarm sound going off every 1-2 minutes. I have read the list of ECAM messages and found it chilling enough without seeing a recreation of those 10 minutes.

Yes all that added to the difficulty but the problem with the pilots is that at no stage did they trouble-shoot the problem facing them. It was panic from start to finish. 75 stall warnings and not once do they mention getting out of a stall.

homerjay2005

can anybody sum up the cause of the accident in a few sentances or is it not that simple?

veetwin

homerjay2005 wrote: »

can anybody sum up the cause of the accident in a few sentances or is it not that simple?

This paragraph sums it up pretty well;

AF447 passed into clouds associated with a large system of thunderstorms, its speed sensors became iced over, and the autopilot disengaged. In the ensuing confusion, the pilots lost control of the airplane because they reacted incorrectly to the loss of instrumentation and then seemed unable to comprehend the nature of the problems they had caused. Neither weather nor malfunction doomed AF447, nor a complex chain of error, but a simple but persistent mistake on the part of one of the pilots.

Read more: Air France 447 Flight-Data Recorder Transcript - What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 - Popular Mechanics

Put simply they didn't know how fast they were going and they kept trying to gain altitude which meant they lost all their airspeed and fell out of the sky.

Pilots/experts please correct me if I'm wrong.

Manic Moran

I disagree strongly. There were 2 fully trained pilots in the seats. I don't know exactly how long it takes for a pilot to get out of a seat of an A330 shuffle around the cockpit and a second pilot get into the freshly vacated seat. When you are having an in flight emergency the last thing you want to be doing is rearranging the damn seating.


The article puts (unfair, in my opinion) emphasis on the fact that the captain left the flight deck leaving the second officer as the Pilot flying. These were 3 fully trained professionals, who, unfortunately for all on-board lost their instrument platform, lost their situational awareness, and then when their instruments returned to functionality after about 30 seconds had lost their trust in the instrument platform.

I will agree with this. From the military perspective when a unit is in contact it is very bad form for an arriving senior to take practical ownership of the situation. When the colonel goes to sleep, if he is called back, he does not kick the Battle Captain out of his seat. The BC always has the benefit of full knowledge, and wouldn't be in the seat in the first place if he wasn't deemed capable of controlling the battalion fight.

pclancy

So lets play devils advocate here.

Say the pilot flying had pushed the nose down 5-10 degrees and gone against his instincts, would the aircraft have gained enough speed to come out of the stall and fly again given the already massive rate of descent?

I say instinct because I feel given the aural and visual stall and ECAM warnings, the lack of "belly feeling" of a massive rate of descent, no visual cues and a distrust in the instrumentation, he was at the time flying on instinct alone becuase nothing else around him (or them) made any sense. They had never seen or felt this before.

cyrusdvirus

pclancy wrote: »

So lets play devils advocate here.

Say the pilot flying had pushed the nose down 5-10 degrees and gone against his instincts, would the aircraft have gained enough speed to come out of the stall and fly again given the already massive rate of descent?

I say instinct because I feel given the aural and visual stall and ECAM warnings, the lack of "belly feeling" of a massive rate of descent, no visual cues and a distrust in the instrumentation, he was at the time flying on instinct alone becuase nothing else around him (or them) made any sense. They had never seen or felt this before.

It does appear that way

MoeJay

I read the article. I think it's quite poor. Lots of dramatic language in something that is purported to be a factual representation of what is a tragedy.

Mr. Wise [sic] is obviously not aware of the training programme implemented by all manufacturers (not just Airbus) following this accident in relation to stalls at typical cruise altitudes. A fundamental rethink of the actions required meant that we have all been trained to react differently.

He is obviously not also aware that in the circumstances that the crew of AF447 found themselves in, the application of TOGA thrust at such high altitude meant that there could have been insufficient elevator authority to counteract the pitch-up effect caused by the engines. They probably could not have physically pushed the nose over. So the question is why didn't the crew reduce the thrust? The simple answer is the pilots were reacting exactly as they were trained. Given the high stress situation, the reliance on basic motor skills and memory items comes to the fore and the capacity for further interpretation is compromised. Therefore you react as trained.

It is quite possible that the pilots at the controls could not "understand" what was going on as they had just received a deluge of warnings, reacted as trained and the result did not meet their expectations, in a situation where it is likely the stress level prevented further analysis.

Does this mean "pilot error"? Given that the pitch couple/lack of elevator authority potential exists in many aircraft, is it a problem with the A330/Airbus design....?

Had the crew deviated off course earlier would this have happened? Was the ice accretion on the probes beyond what the probe manufacturer had thought of in design/certification? Was the storm system they encountered exceptional? Had they reduced thrust and applied nose down elevator would they have recovered the situation?

The answer is we don't actually know. What we have to say is the pilots endeavoured to recover the aircraft and those of us who are still around have to ensure that the safeguards/training/design/certification exist to minimise the risk of the same happening again.

Bearcat

I ask this simple question? On the sig weather charts on the day in question significant cb activity was forecast on the AF's route with CB's forecast to have tops above the flight level planned for flight. With a heavy crew I ask the question why the Capt decided to take his rest time during the period of this transit of cb activity in the heart of the inter tropical convergence zone where cb uplifting can give ISA's of plus 30degree c on entering cb tops plus severve icing irrespective of being at high altitudes. Other flights on the same routing deviated as necessary, with tactical use of their weather radars.

Do the man maths here......The six P's were certainly absent on this outing with the loss of human life.:mad:

drdeadlift

Bearcat wrote: »

I ask this simple question? On the sig weather charts on the day in question significant cb activity was forecast on the AF's route with CB's forecast to have tops above the flight level planned for flight. With a heavy crew I ask the question why the Capt decided to take his rest time during the period of this transit of cb activity in the heart of the inter tropical convergence zone where cb uplifting can give ISA's of plus 30degree c on entering cb tops plus severve icing irrespective of being at high altitudes. Other flights on the same routing deviated as necessary, with tactical use of their weather radars.

Do the man maths here......The six P's were certainly absent on this outing with the loss of human life.:mad:

Im sure the captain had full faith in his crew to successfully avoid any harsh weather along the route.What was going on with the wx radar,what do they mean when they say it was set up wrong?

Bearcat

i can assume your not in the game deadlift with your comments.............:(

Mr Benevolent

pclancy wrote: »

So lets play devils advocate here.

Say the pilot flying had pushed the nose down 5-10 degrees and gone against his instincts, would the aircraft have gained enough speed to come out of the stall and fly again given the already massive rate of descent?

I say instinct because I feel given the aural and visual stall and ECAM warnings, the lack of "belly feeling" of a massive rate of descent, no visual cues and a distrust in the instrumentation, he was at the time flying on instinct alone becuase nothing else around him (or them) made any sense. They had never seen or felt this before.

Simply letting go of the sidestick would have saved the situation up to 30 seconds before impact.

drdeadlift

Confab wrote: »

Simply letting go of the sidestick would have saved the situation up to 30 seconds before impact.

vertical speed of -10k feet per min hmmmm i think they were well domed t-30 sec

transylman

Seems to me the large portion of the blame lies with the young copilot, who seemingly just went into a total panic and had only one response to the situation, pulling back on the stick. Even when told to give up the controls he kept grabbing at the stick and pulling back again. Lesser blame would lie with the other copilot for failing to take control of the situation. The captain would have been the least culpapble imho.

pclancy

I wouldnt describe it as total panic, he did that he'd been trained to do and neither of the other two seemed to have any better suggestions.

cyrusdvirus

drdeadlift wrote: »

vertical speed of -10k feet per min hmmmm i think they were well domed t-30 sec

Think about it.... t-30sec was still 5000 feet..... That's a mile high. There should have been time to recover if he had realised

Bearcat

pclancy wrote: »

I wouldnt describe it as total panic, he did that he'd been trained to do and neither of the other two seemed to have any better suggestions.

With respect pC the aircraft was pitched up to over 20degrees pitch attitude at altitude.....this is not a pitch attitude the 330 goes to at these levels. Loss of speed indications pitch and power are your primary life savers as per the QRH.. 2.5/3 degrees pitch and 93%N1 will save your bacon at these levels not the pitch attitudes flown by AF. My mantra as per previous posts is what the fugh was the capt doing taking his crew rest knowing well that the aircraft was going to be traversing the inter tropical convergence zone with forecast active CBs upto FL450 during his time in the bunk?....

drdeadlift

gatecrash wrote: »

Think about it.... t-30sec was still 5000 feet..... That's a mile high. There should have been time to recover if he had realised

To regain from a -10k ft/min stall at 5kft requires you to loose altitude to gain speed.So your logic would mean he would have to loose 15k feet a min to gain airspeed(this would reduce your 30 sec to even less.They didn't have the right altitude enough airspeed and were already @ -10k ft min.Im not sure where to draw the line as in deciding where they could have made a recovery.Im glad this isn't a frequent chain of events.

Bearcat

And it all drifts back to the Swiss cheese model where all the holes lined up and this sequence began in operations before departure.

Davidth88

Thought this article was very interesting .

Basically the report from the Telegraph seems to conclude that if this was a Boeing it would not have happened.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/9231855/Air-France-Flight-447-Damn-it-were-going-to-crash.html

I am not going to offer any opinion myself , no expertise .

cyrusdvirus

i think they hinted at that before.

From what i read in the article, the fact that there is no physical link between the controls, meant that it was not openly evident what Bonin was doing.

BrianD

Davidth88 wrote: »

Thought this article was very interesting .

Basically the report from the Telegraph seems to conclude that if this was a Boeing it would not have happened.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/9231855/Air-France-Flight-447-Damn-it-were-going-to-crash.html

I am not going to offer any opinion myself , no expertise .

Yeah, I read this article at the w'end as well. Seems that that the "faux" controls that Boeings use may allow better visual cues as to what is happening in the cockpit.

andy_g

Resurecting this thread due to this being released.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbWO0gL6g

weisses

Link dead for anyone ?

sparrowcar

weisses wrote: »

Link dead for anyone ?

Yes me too since Andy put it up last night.
Andy can you try again if you get a chance?

John_Mc

What is it?

Sniipe

I wonder if its this:

or possibly this (Pitot Warning System):
http://www.trevorbaylisbrands.com/tbbnew/projects/pitotubetest.asp

andy_g

Sniipe wrote: »

I wonder if its this:

or possibly this (Pitot Warning System):
http://www.trevorbaylisbrands.com/tbbnew/projects/pitotubetest.asp

Thats the one

keith16

If you knew nothing of this crash and only had limited understanding of aviation, you could watch that animation and reasonably conclude that those in control simply had no idea how to fly a plane.

sully2010

keith16 wrote: »

If you knew nothing of this crash and only had limited understanding of aviation, you could watch that animation and reasonably conclude that those in control simply had no idea how to fly a plane.

It beggars belief really. I think its pretty clear too that this would have been recovered if the sidesticks moved together, the Captain would have felt and seen the insane inputs of the F/O. What on earth was he doing.

John_Mc

sully2010 wrote: »

It beggars belief really. I think its pretty clear too that this would have been recovered if the sidesticks moved together, the Captain would have felt and seen the insane inputs of the F/O. What on earth was he doing.

Nail on the head right there. There's something clearly wrong with the cockpit ergonomics when you've no idea what the other guy is commanding the aircraft to do.

Irish Steve

There are some fundamental misunderstandings in the last few posts.

The modern concept and normal operation is that one pilot is the Pilot Flying, and s/he is the one operating the controls of the aircraft, while the Pilot Non Flying is dealing with Air traffic control, and monitoring what the PF is doing, in terms of ensuring that there are no mistakes with things like level changes, course or speed changes, and that the flight is operating within the limits laid down in the standard operating procedures for the airline.

So, there is normally no need for both pilots to be "hands on" at the same time, and while there are and will continue to be debates about the validity or otherwise of not coupling the side sticks on Airbus, there is an option to allow either crew member to over ride the inputs that are being made by the other stick. That said, it would be a significant departure from correct operations for both crew members to be making inputs to the controls at the same time. In this incident, neither of the pilots really understood what the aircraft was doing, or why it was doing it, and that was the fundamental problem.

The captain on 447 was not on the flight deck when the incident started, at the time, he was taking a rest break, so was not in a position to be aware of what was happening at the sharp end, the flight was being operated at that stage by the two other crew members, and while the captain returned to the flight deck before they crashed, I don't think he got back into either seat.

The underlying issue with 447 is bluntly and simply that neither of the pilots on the flight deck at the time had sufficient training and experience to correctly diagnose and manage a relatively simple failure, and as a result, they made inappropriate control inputs that resulted in the aircraft literally falling from the sky in a stall, all the way down.

We can argue that the automation should not have thrown it's toys out of the pram when the problems with the pitot static system occurred, but for all sorts of reasons, (down to the way that the programmes are written and structured), the automation gave up on flying, and also stopped telling them about some of the errors as it (wrongly) presumed that the aircraft could not get into the position that it did, and it also removed some of the protections that the flight crew would have been used to operating with, and that contributed to the problems.

Having said that, the fundamental problem was that the pilots that were on the flight deck at the time had been inadequately trained in the management of the aircraft at high levels and abnormal attitudes, and did not have the skills or the experience to diagnose and correct what should have been a very simple problem to manage and control.

That is the really damning issue to come out of this accident, and it's becoming an increasing issue across many airlines, but not normally within a flag carrier airline from Western Europe. It's been seen again in recent days with the Transasia crash in Teipei, where it's now been revealed that nearly 20% of the flight crew of the airline failed oral checks of their competency to manage an engine failure event, which is another damning indictment of the state of training and recurrency training in some parts of the world.

447 should not have crashed into the Atlantic. The crew were inadequately trained, and the training and checks that they went through every 6 months did not expose the weakness in the training. That should have raised massive warning flags across the industry, and generated significant changes in training, competency checking, and the certification of the software used in the flight control systems, and the reality is that it probably has, but the average user will never get to hear about it, as Airbus in particular are seriously paranoid about letting even their partners in the project get too close to the ways that their systems work and are integrated.

I know that much from having to try and get specific information about the A320 for a project that British Aerospace (a project partner) were undertaking, we could not get full disclosure of some aspects of the way that the software worked, which made replicating it on a generic research simulator much harder to do.

In theory, there should never be another accident like 447, the airlines, and the makers, should have made changes to training, proficiency checking and software programming to ensure that this combination of events never can occur in this way again.