http://www.20minutes.fr/articl...-minutes-avant-crash (In French, link to the factual report of the BEA in the article)

They lost the Pitot tubes and all valid speed indications. The last valid AS was Mach 0.8. They put the aircraft into a climb, and the stall warning came on.

Despite the stall warning being on repeatedly, they tried to pull up all the way down, and trimmed full nose up.

Anyone of the big iron flyers can explain what could have happened, and why the PIC did not push the nose down at the first stalll warning?

It is my (perhaps mistaken??) understanding that the Airbus has automatic computer generated control imputs that will not allow the pilot to effectively fly the a/c if the computer tells itself that what the pilot is doing is contra-indicated. In other words, if the computers go tits up (like when the pitot tubes freeze up), the plane crashes. There is no human over-ride that allows common sense.

Any Airbus trained guys want to correct me?

The report mentions that the pilot switched the computer to "Alternate law", which overrides some computer inputs at least for the angle of attack.

Despite a couple of inputs nose down, most pilot inputs were nose up, and the AOA remained far above the stall.

Since the report indicates that airspeeds were invalid or not available, but gives the AOA, the AOA indicator must have been operational.

Is that a case of "Fly the aircraft..." gone to the extreme?

Look back at the old records (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Airlines#Incidents_and_accidents) about the Northwest B727 crash years ago with frozen over pitot tubes, the heat was left off leading to design changes referred to as the "Northwest switches". With a blocked pitot static system, you get erroneously high airspeed and altitude indications. The pulling up reaction with high airspeed indications are hard to overcome. All transport category aircraft today have pitch/power charts. If you know that it's physically impossible to climb at 5,000 fpm and 35 degrees nose up at FL330 while maintaining maximum continuous thrust, then you have to stop yourself and remember those charts.

You must put the nose on the horizon, set the proper cruise thrust and ride it out until conditions improve or you can figure out how to fix the problem.

I am not sure the level of airmanship or experience with two F/O's, one a relief or cruise Captain is high enough to figure it out while getting multiple false indications, in severe turbulence and at night.

You must always fly the airplane first...

This is a strange one, for certain. Never having flown Airbus aircraft, I'll reserve judgement, which I always try to do, anyway.

But Dave is absolutely correct. Fly the airplane. I am absolutely confused by what appears to have been some very unnatural reactions.

quote:

Originally posted by jetdrvr:
This is a strange one, for certain. Never having flown Airbus aircraft, I'll reserve judgement, which I always try to do, anyway.

But Dave is absolutely correct. Fly the airplane. I am absolutely confused by what appears to have been some very unnatural reactions.

Actually the reactions were very natural for low time pilots and it was seen all the time in the simulator with new F/O's on all the airplanes. Any time you over load a pilot with turbulance, multiple warnings and increasing airspeed or a sudden nose drop, they will haul back on the stick every time.

Not enough seat of the pants flying experience and an over reliance on the magic to help fly the airplane. Unlike a Boeing, you never really "click it off and fly it like an airplane" with the Airbus products.

If I understand it correctly, alternate laws is like Boeings control wheel steering, but it's all the time with Airbus. You always fly it through the flight control computers, never directly from stick to control surfaces.

Dumb ass frog engineer ideas on flying, we won't let you bend the airplane to prevent hitting the mountain...

BTW, Northwest had a similar incident out over the Pacific within weeks of the AF447 crash. The captain, very sharp indeed by reputation, just held pitch and power steady and relied on the standby horizon indicator and engine power settings from memory until normal airspeed functions came back online.

The Airbus is a Third World Airplane. I am afraid of getting on one of the damned things. I've ridden on 319's, 320's, 330's and 380's. The 380 is a slug. Just ask any SAA pilot who got demoted from the 747-200 into one. They hate the damned things. But management loves them because they're CHEAP!

Yeah, Dave, they put that little third horizon there for a reason. Attitude flying. Set the epr's and gimmie three degrees nose up and I'll mor'n likely keep the whale in the air. For a while, anyway.

I've never instructed in the sim; only been a victim. That's interesting about low timers yanking and banking. I think that is another definition of panic.

quote:

Originally posted by jetdrvr:
The Airbus is a Third World Airplane. I am afraid of getting on one of the damned things. I've ridden on 319's, 320's, 330's and 380's. The 380 is a slug. Just ask any SAA pilot who got demoted from the 747-200 into one. They hate the damned things. But management loves them because they're CHEAP!

Yeah, Dave, they put that little third horizon there for a reason. Attitude flying. Set the epr's and gimmie three degrees nose up and I'll mor'n likely keep the whale in the air. For a while, anyway.

I've never instructed in the sim; only been a victim. That's interesting about low timers yanking and banking. I think that is another definition of panic.

I discovered early in my career that teaching in the sim sucks, not only that but you never find any flighty attendants stuck on the end of my...ops, never mind.

I only taught in the back seat, Flight Engineers and was a SO/FE check airman, but I did see enough new guys and long time DC9 Republic guys go though the front seats. What the Republic guys lacked in international experience, they made up for in stick and rudder ability.

Your right on about the third world airplanes being cheap. Our CIA was heavily involved in pricing investigations. Airbus hurt Boeing with illegal price subsidies. The WTO finally just declared it to be true.

Is SAA operating the A380 now? I thought they had the A340's.

I recently spent two years as a captain on the A-319/320 series. What the Judge said is not entirely correct. The airplane will over ride your manual inputs if you exceed certain parameters such as 60 deg bank 30 deg pitch up or down, it will pitch the nose up if you are in an over speed situation and will automatically decrease pitch if you get near critical AOA. Also before the plane stalls it will go into a mode called Alpha Max Throttle Lock (Alpha Lock) where it automatically goes to max power no matter the throttle position. There is a procedure that you have to follow to get back the control of the throttles after putting the plane into Alpha Lock.

There is also a mode reversion called unusual attitude mode that allows direct stick to flight control if you were somehow to exceed the defined parameters of normal flight. IE you get flipped over in wake turbulence the airplane SHOULD allow you to honk on the stick and do what you need with the nose to get upright.

All of this stuff works like this, IF you are in normal flight control law. If your pitot tubes are frozen and your air data computers are getting erroneous info all bets are off.I honestly don't know what would REALLY happen. And I say that because at UAL we've had two incidents now where an airbus had a major electrical issue causing the the airplane to lose all essential and non essential AC and DC power. In both cases the airplane went black the RAT never deployed like it was supposed to and also in both cases the standby instruments that are supposed to have 30 minutes of stand alone battery power went titts up in under 5 minutes. On the first case it was a VFR day and the guys simply came around and landed visually with no adverse flight control issues. In the second case the guys were in the clouds when it happened and they did a "by feel alone" let down min IMC conditions with only a whiskey compass for directional information. No attitude indicators, no airspeed reference, nothing! Once they broke out at 600'AGL with about 1 mile vis they followed the shore of lake Pontchartrain back to MSY airport with screwed up flight controls and alternate brakes where they were able to land non comm on the short runway to the south and over ran the end into the dirt.

Now if these guys would have been an ill trained, uncomfortable third world crew I'd be willing to bet last months pay check that they would have been a smoking hole.

For you jet guys on here can you imagine going 100% black no attitude, speed, power, or heading reference during the black of night inside a big equatorial cell in the middle of the ITCZ? I'm guessing most of us would be dead men.

The airbus is either very easy to fly or it isn't. IE when all the magic is working the airplane is fairly simple BUT if you aren't well trained the thing will eat you alive as it has multiple traps that can snag you hard if you push the wrong button at the wrong time. And when the magic starts to fail the frizzy sweet little french lady becomes a nasty old whore and a bitch to operate in big a hurry.

The airplane was so over engineered in an attempt to simplify flying it by a bunch of egg headed engineers that they actually created quite the opposite. They made it one of the most complicated and user unfriendly airplanes out there. There are simply to many choices and ways to do things that it makes the airplane one of those that you need to be extremely vigilant with before you touch ANYTHING.

For instance to do something as simple as beginning a decent you have the following options.

You could

Do an open decent by pulling on the FCP ALT knob. You could do a manged decent by pushing on the FCP Alt knob you could open the V/S window and begin a vertical speed decent or you could flip the knob and begin a decent in FPA mode. However you can only begin a VNAV captured managed decent IF you are within 200 hundred nautical miles of the programed destination airport. And be careful because if you have accidentally selected FPA (Flight Path Angle) instead of V/S and select 1.5 down instead of 1500 FPM down you are going to get two entirely different outcomes. As happen to the Air Turkey airliner that smacked the mountain in Spain.

The whole Airbus design philosophy could have been fixed if they would have simply asked a panel of pilots to interject a little common sense into what the engineers thought was the perfect airplane. Turns out it is a very pilot unfriendly airplane. Pilots and engineers don't think the same.

BTW in reference to the Air France A-320 that ate the trees during the fly by. The reason that the throttles didn't maintain airspeed or go into Alpha Lock was that he was low enough that the airplane had gone into another mode called blended flight control mode. IE all that magic stuff was disabled because the airplane "thought" it was landing. So the demo pilot had set his air speed on the FCP thinking that the auto throttles would maintain his selected airspeed LIKE THEY DO ON every other AIRPLANE in the world. But ole Frenchy the Airbus instead was automatically decreasing power to slow for touch down which it "thought" was the right thing to do. AND (here's the best part) once you set the throttles into the Climb Cruise detent they don't move anymore they stay in position SO the airplane was slowly bleeding off power but the throttles stayed giving you NO indication that the power is being decreased. Unless you really understand the airplane that is a BIG TIME I GOTCHA YA.

Caveat to all that is if the pilot would have just clicked all the automatic stuff off and hand flown the throttles and hand flown the airplane non of that would have happened BUT he was demonstrating all the gee whiz stuff that he didn't really understand and was trying to do an automated fly by. Nor do many of the crews that fly the Bus REALLY understand how the magic works judging from the horrendous accident rate the thing has world wide, me thinks anyway.

quote:

Despite the stall warning being on repeatedly, they tried to pull up all the way down, and trimmed full nose up.

Phillip,

This a strange comment as there is no trim wheel or trim switch in an Airbus. The computer trims the plane. Something was very, very wrong with that airplane.

Surestrike, the horizontal stabilizer setting was changed from 3 degrees nose up to 13 degrees nose up. Never been in an Airbus cockpit, and have no idea how the Windows-based system is connected to the horizontal stabilizer, but the general idea is pretty much the same as on a SuperCub... That's why I called it "trim".

Of course, on a SuperCub it's the pilot who decides what is a good idea and what is not. One of the reasons why I'd buy one, but am not considering buying an Airbus.

quote:

Of course, on a SuperCub it's the pilot who decides what is a good idea and what is not. One of the reasons why I'd buy one, but am not considering buying an Airbus.

Phillip,

I agree..

The only point I was making was that Fi Fi trimmed herself into 13.5 deg nose up for some reason obviously in connection with the frozen tubes.

Can you IMAGINE an airplane that turns turtle and dies for something as simple as a frozen pitot tube? The little pencil necked geek engineers who designed this thing should be charged with murder!

If this doesn't say everything that needs to be said about the design and testing and professional culture and differences between between Boeing and Airbus I don't know what does.

747-800 Brake energy test.. Calm cool and collected and successful.

http://www.reuters.com/article...US403076250320110507

And the french version...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRzWp67PIMw

quote:

Originally posted by surestrike:
And the french version...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRzWp67PIMw

These guys make Aeroflot look like professionals.

After looking at the video, I am amazed.

An airplane that cost the GNP of some small countries and they have a chickenshit crash crew and a WalMart garden hose that'd barely wet the azeleas to protect it?

PPPPPPP must not be tranlatable to French.

And, I wonder where the guy with the escape stairs was? Must have been his day off.

Surestrike:
Angle of attack used to be mighty important to Naval Aviators. Max L/D was devine. We used A/o/A when bending a/c around to get max turn rates, coming aboard ship and determining best fuel efficency. The indicator was always in an IFR scan. A single glance at it will tell you if the a/c is flying or is a Coca-Cola machine.

You think the flight crew was getting no indication of angle of attack?

quote:

You think the flight crew was getting no indication of angle of attack?

Judge,

The only time you can "see" AOA on the bus is when you are approaching a high near critical AOA. You've got a thing that's referred to as the "Bumble bee" and the "Tiger tale" on your primary flight display they only pop up when you are approaching a critical angle.

The bumble bee is a black and yellow stripped region on your speed tape (a speed tape is what you old guys would call an airspeed indicator)and is a dynamic display that indicates when your AOA is getting to be an issue at the bottom of the bumble bee is the tigers tail and it's orange and black of course. Once you pull the nose past the bumble bee into the tigers tale the airplane starts to bring on automatic protections.

Initially it reduces back force capability on the stick then it overrides manual stick inputs and lowers the nose if airspeed continues to decay the airplane goes into Alpha Lock and gives max power.

You Navy guys are always asking about AOA indicators but I have to tell you that the Bus is the ONLY civilian airplane I've ever flown that has anything close to an AOA gauge on board. So to answer your question they did not have AOA indication in the terms that you are thinking of. Naval aviators are the only pilots who use AOA as a normal part of their operations.

Now lets talk a minute about the 777 which I instructed on and flew for almost ten years. The 777 has all of the same protections as the Bus. HOWEVER and this is a huge difference the pilot can override every single one of them if he wants to by simply putting the controls where he wants them.

IE if you want to overspeed the 777 it will holler at you, but you can push it through the mach if you want to. Want to stall it? once again she'll holler and scream at you but you can pull it right through the stall if you want to.

Want to do an aileron roll she'll tell you no but it does a very nice 1G aileron roll. The 777 was done exactly perfectly with it's blend of automation and pilot input. The 777 is one of the nicest flying heavy jets ever built it's solid, it's fast, it performs, and it's a joy to fly. A simple look at the stats will show us how safe the 777 has been. The Airbus well not so much...

quote:

Originally posted by f224:

quote:

Originally posted by jetdrvr:
The Airbus is a Third World Airplane. I am afraid of getting on one of the damned things. I've ridden on 319's, 320's, 330's and 380's. The 380 is a slug. Just ask any SAA pilot who got demoted from the 747-200 into one. They hate the damned things. But management loves them because they're CHEAP!

Yeah, Dave, they put that little third horizon there for a reason. Attitude flying. Set the epr's and gimmie three degrees nose up and I'll mor'n likely keep the whale in the air. For a while, anyway.

I've never instructed in the sim; only been a victim. That's interesting about low timers yanking and banking. I think that is another definition of panic.

I discovered early in my career that teaching in the sim sucks, not only that but you never find any flighty attendants stuck on the end of my...ops, never mind.

I only taught in the back seat, Flight Engineers and was a SO/FE check airman, but I did see enough new guys and long time DC9 Republic guys go though the front seats. What the Republic guys lacked in international experience, they made up for in stick and rudder ability.

Your right on about the third world airplanes being cheap. Our CIA was heavily involved in pricing investigations. Airbus hurt Boeing with illegal price subsidies. The WTO finally just declared it to be true.

Is SAA operating the A380 now? I thought they had the A340's.

I stand corrected. Hit the wrong key. They do fly A340's. A slug.

And thanks for all the clarification, Greg. Now I'm even more nervous about boarding an Airbus product.

quote:

And thanks for all the clarification, Greg. Now I'm even more nervous about boarding an Airbus product.

Unfortunately the truth is worse than the fiction on this thing...

That was painful to watch, they had a problem and let it get out of hand. I guess it is expected from the Geniuses that came up with the Chauchat. So you guys who fly the Big Iron pretty much say that the Air Bus is a piece of crap?

You either love them or hate them. I know a couple of guys who really like the Bus. But most don't seem to.

Then you've got the Bus only airlines like Virgin America and Jet Blue. Those guys just don't know any better because it's all they have.

Here is some interesting reading on the subject.



AF447 wreckage found - Page 31 - PPRuNe Forums

However it's also obvious that useful data was exactly what the AF447 pilots lacked during their deep-stall descent - because of the peculiar aspects of the pitot freeze-up during high altitude cruise..... and its effect upon the subsequent post-zoom stall.
*
One of the characteristics of an approaching or incipient stall that pilots are trained to respond and react to is "low and decreasing" airspeed (even if they have no stall warning hooter or "cricket"). However they wouldn't have had any airspeed indication during their deep-stall descent with an iced pitot x 3. Nor did they have an angle-of-attack indication..... i.e. even though the A330 is equipped with an AoA vane to feed the automation (including the stall warning system), the pilots don't warrant a gauge of any sort. So what did they have for identification of (and recovery from) a stall? The real answer is precious little - by way of overt display or training fallback.
*
They had a source of pitch attitude. However consider that most approaches to the training one-g stall is made in level flight at a speed reduction rate of circa one knot per second. Thus, at the point of the incipient stall, where pilots are taught to initiate recovery (i.e. at the stall buffet), the additional cue on an ADI or visual horizon*is a high nose attitude (typically around +15 degrees).*But in a deep stall entered ballistically at high altitude post-zoom, the attitude in pitch during descent with max power (due pitch-up effect of underslung engines) would approximate the straight and level attitude of around 3 to 5 degrees nose-up. Thus they were robbed of most all cues that could clue them that they were in fact in a stall. They wouldn't have been aware that their auto-trimmed horizontal stabilizer trim was NOW unavailable - and stuck at its maximum of 13 degrees nose-up. If nothing else, it was that THS (trimmable hoz stabilizer) that would've held them in a stalled pitch attitude..... regardless of any subsequent side-stick pitch inputs. The THS has the REAL pitch-trim authority at low speed, the elevators are virtually trim-tabs for higher speed refinements.
*
But wouldn't the stall warning be blaring you say? Not necessarily so. It's designed to be discontinuous (a rare concession to the cacophony effect of blaring aural alerts in an emergency). In the factually sparse BEA report, that aspect isn't addressed in depth. The only trigger for the aural stall warning is the AoA and that has a set threshold both to start and to cease. Once they were at around 40 degrees AoA I'd be surprised if it was to be heard on the CVR (see later shock statement of cause of non-recovery below). What about the stick-shaker? It too has cautionary thresholds and they were soon well beneath that triggering band. The A330 wasn't tested for its high altitude ballistic stall entry characteristics - so the instrumentation wasn't available or calibrated to cope. What about the VSI or IVSI/RCDI (rate of descent indicator). It's not very attention-getting and it's probably linear (i.e.in a non-circular) presentation anyway in the A330 (I prefer the round dials for visual attention-getting). It's hard to say what it would have read in a compromised pitot-static system anyway. You must also consider what effect upon the airspeed indicators a 10,000 fpm rate of descent would have on their airspeed read-outs (think rate-of-change of static pressure). The ASI's are reliant upon both a pitot and a static pressure input feed.
*
*Would there have been any tell-tale buffeting? In a word "NO". The buffet in a one-g stall is provided courtesy of the disturbed airflow over the wing hitting the tailplane. At the BEA's stated 40 degrees angle-of-attack, the disturbed airflow would not impinge upon the tailplane. They were going down in an express elevator at around that self-same 40 degrees angle (that they were presenting to the relative airflow). I was surprised to find myself agreeing with one animated depiction on TV of the stalled steep descent event. That's how it would've been in my view - and thus the airflow and airframe buffet wouldn't have been a player in alerting the pilots to their stalled status. It was probably/relatively much quieter than the ambient noise in cruise, even with the engines at TO/GA. By design, in alternate, direct or ABNORMAL Law there is no auto-trim (it discontinued after reaching 13 degs nose-up), no ALPHA FLOOR PROT or ALPHA max (i.e. no max selectable AoA), so the aircraft can be stalled once in extremis - an aspect and consideration that's alien to Airbus pilots. AF447's stall occurred beyond the imagination (also) of the A330 designers or test pilots, at the ballistic apex of a zoom climb with lotsa power set - and at or above its ceiling for its weight.
*
But there were also other complications which I'll briefly mention:
*
a. What actually happened to initiate the sequence of failure advisories and the ACARS spew? Did the auto-pilot self-disconnect after running out of its ability to hold the nose-down force gradient of a horizontal stabilizer being trimmed by the system to compensate for the aircraft being driven ever faster in real speed terms (i.e. accelerated by the auto-thrust, to offset the perceived gradual loss of airspeed from the slowly icing pitots?). If so, then when the autopilot disconnected, the pitch-up would have been involuntary. Any evidence for that? The BEA says "the airplane's pitch attitude increased progressively and the plane started to climb. The PF made nose-down control inputs and alternately, left and right roll inputs." Reflect upon the fact that the one thing the pilot has left once he's apparently lost elevator authority in a pitch-up, is to roll the airplane in order to induce a nose-drop. It's evident IMHO that the post-disconnect pitch-up was therefore involuntary and opposed by the PF. Entry to the post-zoom stall is likely to have been automated.
*
b. A few seconds after the aircraft levelled at 37,500ft at a 4 deg AoA the BEA says: "the stall warning triggered again. The thrust levers were positioned at TO/GA and the pilot maintained nose-up inputs." No real surprise there. They'd zoomed to above their ceiling and the pilot was stick-back to oppose the tendency of the nose to drop at the unknown (to him) low speed. Unfortunately, as a result, the THS continued to trim to max nose-up and the distracted pilots then allowed the aircraft to stall. There's an indication that the lower speeds may have allowed the pitot heat to clear some of the pitot ice....i.e. the ISIS speeds becoming consonant with the recorded PF speed. Report: "As the captain re-entered the cockpit the recorded speeds became invalid and the stall warning stopped" At this point these are evident indications of now having entered into the very low IAS/high AoA deep-stall condition. Distractions of trouble-shooting are the likely cause of the PF allowing the 13 degs nose-up THS (of which he was unaware) to silently promote a stall.
*
c. If the autopilot had disconnected because of ADR disagree parameters being exceeded, then the zoom may have resulted from a post-disconnect overspeed warning and a natural pilot pitch-up response. Whatever the cause of that pitch-up, the auto-trim would've been available and so it was (BEA) - and so it did auto-trim the THS into a fateful 13 degs nose-up (whence it remained).
*
d. How did the captain's arrival upon the flight-deck affect the outcome? Firstly, in a quick urgent scan he'd not have seen the PF pilot's grip upon his sidestick (think about it and compare with what the MS990 Captain saw upon re-entering his Egyptair cockpit). He would've seen no (or low?) IAS displayed and the altimeter unwinding - yet loads of power. 20 seconds after he entered the flightdeck the throttles were placed at idle. At his command? Probably. Did he misinterpret the situation as the aftermath of a high-speed loss of control and thus did he complicate the recovery issue? Probably. Are Airbus pilots generally unfamiliar with the possibility of entering a deep-stall condition at altitude? Probably. Is it never sim practised or preached or does it not rate a mention in the Pilot's Handling Notes? Probably not.
*
e. The BEA mentions that, at A/P disconnect, a sharp fall from about 275 kts to 60kts in the left primary PFD was recorded, then a few moments later on the ISIS STBY insts. Using the analogy of how hail size-growth increases exponentially in the latter part of its fall (due to an ever increasing surface area upon which moisture can coalesce), we can divine that a similar thing was happening to each of the three pitots. Thus, as soon as the pilot made his sharp nose-up side-stick input, the smooth laminar flow into the LH pitot inlet (the only one recorded) would've been disrupted by the pitot's projecting icy excrescences.... causing the 275/60 transitory hiccup. I'd further interpret this as being partial proof that the auto-pilot disconnected primarily because of the elevator (nose-) download it was carrying due to the discrepancy between the aircraft's actual speed and the system speed (for which it was being THS-trimmed). i.e. It was unlikely that they actually hit Mach Crit and pitched up because of Mach Tuck. Thus the pitch-up may have been trim-induced and not pilot-initiated. Who's to know at this stage? But what happened next (the ballistic stall entry with 13 degrees nose-up THS) surely sealed their fate. The PF was never aware of that 13 degs nose-up THS (or he may have manually trimmed it out - yet another*completely*unnatural input action for a FBW Airbus pilot).
*
f. Ultimately, what killed their chances of recovery? It's very ironic that it was likely one of the systems meant to have saved them.
i.e. The BEA Report says: "At 2 h 12 min 02, the PF said "I don’t have any more indications", and the PNF said "we have no valid indications". At that moment, the thrust levers were in the IDLE detent and the engines’ N1’s were at 55%. Around fifteen seconds later, the PF made pitch-down inputs. In the following moments, the angle of attack decreased, the speeds became valid again and the stall warning sounded again."

At the sound of the stall warning, the pilot was likely deterred from any further initiatives (even though he was on the right track with his pitch-down inputs) - and he promptly then handed over the controls to his more senior PNF. A stall warning that sounds off as you exit a deep-stall condition? Not a great idea at all....... it is likely to have the opposite of the desired effect. The overwrought pilot might easily assume that his action is initiating a stall. A Doppler-based stall warning whose pitch and volume varies (dependent upon how embedded in the stall you are) would be a much safer (and saner) proposition.

It gets back to that old saw: "For the want of a nail...." Unfortunately for AF447 it was more than just a nail. It was a whole row of rivets that allowed the operation to become unglued.

So if you place a pilot in harm's way beyond his training and experience, fail a vital sub-system that then causes a failure cascade, can you really blame him for the outcome? Perhaps you should be blaming a system that's too lazy or incompetent to extrapolate failure modes into real world scenarios and identify real threats. The hazard was all too evident from all the prior Air France, Air Caribbes, NWA and other incidents (including QANTAS). Nobody acted with sufficient urgency to address the hazards. Hubris? In large measure I'd say.
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quote:

Originally posted by surestrike:
Here is some interesting reading on the subject. ...


...So if you place a pilot in harm's way beyond his training and experience, fail a vital sub-system that then causes a failure cascade, can you really blame him for the outcome? Perhaps you should be blaming a system that's too lazy or incompetent to extrapolate failure modes into real world scenarios and identify real threats. The hazard was all too evident from all the prior Air France, Air Caribbes, NWA and other incidents (including QANTAS). Nobody acted with sufficient urgency to address the hazards. Hubris? In large measure I'd say.
Zoot Suit is offline Report Post

Exactly, when engineers try to slove problems, as they have at AirBus, by taking the pilot out of the loop. It is my contention that is a grave error and this crew paid for it with their lives.