mcreadyblue: lohphat: ThunderChild: For anyone who's interested here's the full report

The conclusions are quite interesting. Basically, they seem to say this was a (relatively) minor incident that was turned into a disaster by the complete failure of the crew to figure out what was going on. It points out some flaws with the plane, but it's nowhere near as critical of Airbus as some thought it would

True the pilots failed to react...TO BOTH AIRSPEED INDICATOR SYSTEMS FAILING.

Nice redundancy there Airbus. .

People flew airplanes long before airspeed indicators were invented you know...

Not at M.90 @ FL370 they didn't.

gregory311: Just going to share this.

I work with the daughter who lived int he house Continental Flight 3407 crashed into outside of Buffalo, NY in 2009 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407) She and her mom got out, her dad didn't. Everyone on the flight died, if farkers aren't familiar with the story.

Sounds like the crew on this flight went wonky or weren't paying attention just like those on 3407. Dozens of other planes landed the night of the 3407 crash in the same circumstances, by the way, including my then boss's sister.

Pilots are not infallible, nor are they always the 'right stuff' kind of people. I know it's not the same type of airplane, but people fark up and this is what happens when they do.

/go ahead and crack jokes about Buffalo, I realize this is fark

What happened on Flight 3407 was a much, much worse happening than AF447. The pilot in command on Flight 3407 should not have been flying that day - he had failed multiple tests determining how well he could fly, and at the time of the crash was too busy flirting with his first officer to properly keep track of the plane's state. The pilots on AF447 were inexpierienced, and they panicked, but they weren't being careless.

I'm an excellent driver: a. There's only ever one handling pilot. Coupled sticks is just talking bollocks.
b. The sidestick controllers are electronic. It doesn't matter how hard you pull back on it, it only ever changes the controls by a given angle.
c. The Attifude Indicators were fully serviceable. Without an airspeed indicator, a fixed pitch angle with a known thrust setting (all available) will produce a known flight vector.
d. Following loss of Airspeed Indications, even a relaitively dumb pilot would have known other Air Data unit and Autopilot functions were suspect.
e. As for the "scarebus" farkwits on the internet without adult supervision, the AF447 crew could have avoided this entirely by reading these BOEING accident reports:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birgenair_Flight_301
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroper%C3%BA_Flight_603

So you mean that the input of the two sticks isn't averaged? Or that only one stick at a time is operational? I don't understand. The Popular Mechanics report seems to indicate that a huge contributing factor was that one pilot kept giving contrary inputs.

I just wanted to say...

I'm an excellent driver: a. There's only ever one handling pilot. Coupled sticks is just talking bollocks.

Is it? 99.99% of the time that may be the case, but as with so many human-factors accidents, it takes only once...


b. The sidestick controllers are electronic. It doesn't matter how hard you pull back on it, it only ever changes the controls by a given angle.

Right, an angle the airplane decides on and may or may not clearly tell you it's decided differently.

c. The Attifude Indicators were fully serviceable. Without an airspeed indicator, a fixed pitch angle with a known thrust setting (all available) will produce a known flight vector.

d. Following loss of Airspeed Indications, even a relaitively dumb pilot would have known other Air Data unit and Autopilot functions were suspect.

These are sadly true

e. As for the "scarebus" farkwits on the internet without adult supervision, the AF447 crew could have avoided this entirely by reading these BOEING accident reports:

"Scarebus" is an old meme around here, dickwad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birgenair_Flight_301
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroper%C3%BA_Flight_603

There are hundreds of relevant accident reports that could have helped. At least in the Birgenair flight they knew the captain was flying like an asshole (because, unlike in the AF situation, they could see it), but chose not to assert themselves, which has been the downfall of many an aircrew.

El Brujo: I was working for the company who manufactured those airspeed indicators at that time. I worked in a maintenance facility here in the states. I recall a bulletin from corporate that we were to not speak on the subject should we be asked by the media. I wonder what, if any, lawsuits transpired.

That facility is closing as of this year, although I suspect outsourcing to Asia is more likely the culprit. Fark you, Singapore.

Thales?

SFSailor: Worse still, it seems like all the passengers would have had to be terrified, too.


Would they have been? It seems like the "crash" happened relatively gradually.

Drexl's Eye: How does it get to the point where there's a discussion in the cockpit about whether they are ascending or descending? I hate flying, mostly because whenever there's a bit of turbulence and the plane drops a little, my balls feel like they're going in the opposite direction. Testicles are a pretty reliable indicator of whether the plane is going up or down.

Seat of the pants might give you a little indication of which direction the plane is accelerating relative to itself, but useless in navigating relative to the earth. Those sensations are pretty unreliable as well, because with no other visual reference, acceleration feels like a climb (and deceleration a descent) due to the somatogravic illusion.

You can also have fun with the leans - an airplane in a stable, gentle 1G turn will feel like it's going straight-and-level. Then when the pilot realizes and corrects, it feels like it is in a right-hand turn, even though it is now straight and level, often causing the pilot to lean back toward what he/she feels is "upright."

Gravity and acceleration does weird things to us - we are not evolved to interpret them in a 3D (read: in the air) environment without our eyes. You have to trust your instruments, even though your ass is telling you something wildly different.

Drexl's Eye: Charlie Freak: Drexl's Eye: How does it get to the point where there's a discussion in the cockpit about whether they are ascending or descending? I hate flying, mostly because whenever there's a bit of turbulence and the plane drops a little, my balls feel like they're going in the opposite direction. Testicles are a pretty reliable indicator of whether the plane is going up or down.

Seat of the pants might give you a little indication of which direction the plane is accelerating relative to itself, but useless in navigating relative to the earth. Those sensations are pretty unreliable as well, because with no other visual reference, acceleration feels like a climb (and deceleration a descent) due to the somatogravic illusion.

You can also have fun with the leans - an airplane in a stable, gentle 1G turn will feel like it's going straight-and-level. Then when the pilot realizes and corrects, it feels like it is in a right-hand turn, even though it is now straight and level, often causing the pilot to lean back toward what he/she feels is "upright."

Gravity and acceleration does weird things to us - we are not evolved to interpret them in a 3D (read: in the air) environment without our eyes. You have to trust your instruments, even though your ass is telling you something wildly different.

Can we infer, then, that the passengers had very little idea what was going on?

They were unstable, so I'd wager there was some indication - and the accelerations they were feeling may not have been gentle. I would have noticed the attitude reversals and engine changes, plus the whole falling out of the sky thing. You may not know exactly where the nose is pointed, but you can feel something's up.

DoBeDoBeDo: SFSailor: Also terrifying and sad: Everyone who has tried the scenario in a simulator has been fine? Wow. Think of the shame in which his family must live. Just terrible all around.

Well, sadly, anyone with 10 hours in janes fighter games or MS flight simulator knows not to pull back when the stall warning is going off.

Dude just locked up. Understandable being that "new" and having that many lives at stake.

I'd think the real issue is the senior pilot going to take a nap RIGHT before going through a tropical storm and leaving the new guy in charge.

To be fair: it's one thing to know not to do that when you have visual reference to the outside world (I've never seen a flight simulator accurately depict the loss of visual orientation that actually happens in the real world), and yet another when your inner ears are feeding you bad information and the flight instruments aren't helping. You've never seen that kind of situation in a PC flight simulator.

ThunderChild: For anyone who's interested here's the full report

The conclusions are quite interesting. Basically, they seem to say this was a (relatively) minor incident that was turned into a disaster by the complete failure of the crew to figure out what was going on. It points out some flaws with the plane, but it's nowhere near as critical of Airbus as some thought it would

There was a similar crash in the jungles of South America. The plane dove for thousands of feet, broke up in air, the passengers had their clothing torn off of them before they hit the ground.

The cause of the crash was tied to twin artificial horizons. There were three settings available--A following B, B following A, or independent A and independent B. The problem was A was giving faulty readings and B was set to follow it.

The pilots tried to correct a small bank that didn't exist but was being displayed on A and B. They kept trying to correct for inaccurate readings and eventually went into an unrecoverable dive.

PBS did a great documentary on the crash. They retraced the flight and it was very sad to watch these pilots push the plane around trying to correct for things that just weren't there.

olddinosaur: The Air Chance foulup was pretty simple: They hit turbulence, the pilot put the nose uip 15 degrees, which at 38,000 feet was enough to stall the plane, and he kept the nose up all the way down.

Mechanical malfunctions may have added to it but it was human stupidity all the way.



This. At 35-38k, you best have a VERY good reason for pulling back on that stick... even without a stall warning in your ear. I dont care if every instrument on that plane was down. This was incompetence at its finest.

DoBeDoBeDo: Charlie Freak: DoBeDoBeDo: SFSailor: Also terrifying and sad: Everyone who has tried the scenario in a simulator has been fine? Wow. Think of the shame in which his family must live. Just terrible all around.

Well, sadly, anyone with 10 hours in janes fighter games or MS flight simulator knows not to pull back when the stall warning is going off.

Dude just locked up. Understandable being that "new" and having that many lives at stake.

I'd think the real issue is the senior pilot going to take a nap RIGHT before going through a tropical storm and leaving the new guy in charge.

To be fair: it's one thing to know not to do that when you have visual reference to the outside world (I've never seen a flight simulator accurately depict the loss of visual orientation that actually happens in the real world), and yet another when your inner ears are feeding you bad information and the flight instruments aren't helping. You've never seen that kind of situation in a PC flight simulator.

No but at 30k+ feet if the stall alarm starts blaring I'd think most pilots would at least dive 5k feet or so and see what's up.

PM article indicates they weren't even cross checking ground speed. Like I said dude got spooked and just locked up. I would wage he didn't even realize he was pulling back on the stick. Some people have no ability to handle pressure situations.

Well, you definitely don't want to drop a specific number of feet - zero would be nice. Dropping 8k feet could easily turn it into an overspeed situation fast. I'd go with the usual decrease pitch attitude and increase thrust. ObscureNameHere: Charlie Freak:
Can we infer, then, that the passengers had very little idea what was going on?

They were unstable, so I'd wager there was some indication - and the accelerations they were feeling may not have been gentle. I would have noticed the attitude reversals and engine changes, plus the whole falling out of the sky thing. You may not know exactly where the nose is pointed, but you can feel something's up.

Silly / Serious Q: would a simple bubble level from a hardware store be of use in this situation?

No, it is subject to all sorts of errors - you have many different accelerations in the air. Might work as a slip/skid indicator if it's calibrated correctly, and that's about it.

The landing strip was too narrow?