Posted on 05/27/2011 6:34:47 PM PDT by Greysard
"Black box recordings from Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean two years ago, revealed new details about the plane’s final moments. But the report did not assign blame or give an explanation for the crash, which killed all 228 people aboard."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I have never had a good feeling about the Airbus....creepy.
Be sure to ‘have peace in your heart’ before boarding one.
Hey Raygun-I read your response to my hubby. He says that how many hours and how many times you’ve flown a route sounds reasonable but it’s really not. All that experience of flying that same route doesn’t help with something like a spin out or your instruments not working properly. He said that “suddenly all that experience doesn’t add up to s#$%”. Even with all the preparation/experience, things still go wrong. These pilots had zero experience in spins. He said we can thank the French engineers for designing a fail safe plane. Dang. My hubby is going to get me in trouble for saying this.....
I usually drive to where I want to go (I’m there for a long time and like to have my own vehicle). In short run situations, I opt for the larger diameter planes (including Airbus).
Hey Graysard,
Since the French designed the software that controls the airplane, one could postulate that the software performed just like the French. When things got tough it surrendered leaving the pilots to deal with the situation.... maybe the PFD displayed a white flag instead of a red flag....
I drive now, and skip the flying, as we are entering a very dangerous time in our nation.
“I have never had a good feeling about the Airbus.”
Isn’t there a saying...”If it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going”?
I think my last three intercontinental flights have been on Airbus A330s. :(
Oh well, to each his own, my prayers are with you.
The Auto Pilot and Auto Thurst both kicked off when the Pitot Tubes iced over. Since the computer no longer had a way to verify air speed both systems shut off. The warning buzzer sounded to let the copilots take over.
It is my understanding that they then thought they were in a stall or were trying to gain some altitude to go over the storm. Trying to get some clearer air. The kept pulling nose up increasing the AOA (angle of attack). That eventually put them in to a stall and it was pretty much over from there.
It is very easy to get disoriented especially in a larger aircraft and with all kinds of weather and at night. That's why you HAVE to trust your instruments. You can't fly a plane like that at that speed and altitude by the seat of your pants. As someone up thread said they should have seen the altimeter unspooling as it would have still been working and taken remedial action. The action in that circumstance, according to the manual, would have been to increase speed and push the stick forward to gain lift.
I can't understand why the pilot who had come back to the cockpit didn't sit down and take over. He had over 10,000 hours flight time. Greater than both of his co pilots combined.
You beat me to it! Thats the first thing I thought of. I have a friend who worked for Raytheo years ago installing remote control system in to F4’s to turn them in to remotley piloted targets.
“Oh well, to each his own, my prayers are with you.””
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Well, I never said that I prefer Airbus.
I have to take whatever plane the Airline flies.
In my case, the last three flights were on Qatar, one
of the top rated five airlines in the world.
By the way, there was not a single US carrier in the top five, or even top ten.
Qatar is number two, behind Asiana, which is the next airline that I will fly back to Europe.
Shortly after the crash there was a lot of speculation about the pitot system due to the auto reports sent on the aircraft’s maintenance info channel.
IIRC, the pitot/static system has had heated fixtures, just not high enough wattage for a worst case situation of severe rime ice.
Several other Airbus flights suffered loss of airspeed indication and shutdown of the auto flight functions. Those flights were able to fly through the problems using a specified pitch and engine power setting for just such an occurrence.
From the info released, the aircraft looks to have entered a deep stall, complete with 10 or more degrees of side to side wing rocking (normal for deep stall flight).
I haven’t seen any mention as to how deep a stall this aircraft can recover from.
Not rime ice, I ment to say impact icing due to super cooled water at altitude.
At least it taxis faster without the drag chute. No WSO???
Try and get a crew to take an acft with both autopilots inop.
It stalled. It’s forward speed was 100 mph. Basically, they did a flat spin (without the spin)into the ocean, landing wheels down. Pancaked, IOW’s.
And what a damn good lookin brick she is.
I agree about US airlines, and does your position make flying necessary all the time?
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