Posted on 07/31/2011 9:31:55 AM PDT by lbryce
"What do you think? What do you think? What should we do?"
The 37-year-old Air France co-pilot with over 6,000 flying hours was running out of ideas as a stall alarm bellowed through the Airbus cockpit for the sixth time in exactly two minutes.
His junior colleague with two years on the job was already in despair as he battled to control the jet's speed and prevent it rocking left to right in pitch darkness over the Atlantic, on only his second Rio de Janeiro-Paris trip as an A330 pilot.
"I don't have control of the plane. I don't have control of the plane at all," the younger pilot, 32, said.
The captain was not present and it was proving hard to get him back to the cockpit, where his more than 11,000 hours of flying experience were badly needed.
"So is he coming?" the senior co-pilot muttered, according to a transcript released on Friday. Light expletives were edited out of the text here and elsewhere, according to people familiar with the probe into the mid-Atlantic crash on June 1, 2009.
The 58-year-old captain and former demonstration pilot had left 10 minutes earlier for a routine rest. In his absence the plane had begun falling at more than 200 km (125 miles) an hour.
"Hey what are you --," he said on entering the cockpit.
"What's happening? I don't know, I don't know what's happening," replied the senior co-pilot, sitting on the left.
With the benefit of black boxes hauled up 4,000 metres (13,000 feet) from the ocean floor just two months ago, investigators now say the aircraft had stopped flying properly and entered a hazardous stall, as its 3,900 square feet (362 sq metres) of wings gasped for air.
(Excerpt) Read more at in.reuters.com ...
It is hard to understand why pilots would continue pulling back on the stick when the stall warning was going off; almost the first lesson in flying is to lower the nose when the stall warning sounds. However, it’s possible they didn’t trust the stall warning. They may have thought it was a false alarm.
When the pitot tube is blocked, the airspeed indicator starts acting like an altimeter; the higher the aircraft goes, the faster the airspeed reads; in reality the opposite is happening. The aircraft is slowing, and will stall if the nose isn’t lowered.
They were flying in bad weather at night, so probably had no visual reference outside the cockpit and had to rely solely on instruments. The way out of the problem is to fly pitch and power; use the artificial horizon to level the wings and keep the nose down, and a power setting known to give a safe airspeed.
I have to believe that the pilots were fooled by the avionics to think the situation was different than what it actually was.
That you are still around is a testament to the safety of flying.
I blame Airbus for putting the pilots in that position, I blame the airline for not having properly trained pilots (as mentioned in a previous article), as well as flying a two-engine plane transatlantic (I know that wasn’t the issue here, but it’s still not the best idea), and I blame the pilots for not keeping their cool.
Regarding Airbus, I just don’t trust them.
In fact, I don’t trusts socialist countries to manufacture anything more complicated than a cigar.
Yep, not to mention the possibility of malicious code, intentional or not.
10K feet per minute (1.9 mi per minute) is about 115 mph
Yeah, I always worry that I might insert some unintentionally malicious code in my apps.
Implicit in my comment...
Are you sure it’s not a testament to not getting on a plane more than once every 2 years?
If it ain’t a Boeing, I’m not going.
If it ain’t a Boeing, I’m not going.
Yeah, probably. Although I watched an F15 yesterday perform an actual descent rate of over 200 knots (but not for very long).
Absolutely. As the speed approached zero the warnings would stop. (The logic being the speed was impossible.) As the plane gathered speed but was still below stall, the warnings would start again. That's very confusing to pilots who don't know what they're doing. And probably confusing to pilots who do know what they're doing.
“When the pitot tube is blocked, the airspeed indicator starts acting like an altimeter; the higher the aircraft goes, the faster the airspeed reads; in reality the opposite is happening. The aircraft is slowing, and will stall if the nose isn’t lowered.”
When the front of the pitot tube is blocked, the airspeed reads zero. When the entire pitot tube is iced over (both the front and the drain hole), then the airspeed acts like an altimeter and increases in a climb and decreases in a descent.
Please, he took a scheduled break before the crisis hit (SOP).
You know with all the confusion about climbing or descending — a simple altitude-indicating GPS would clarify that, as well as give horizontal speed and vertical speed with a simple calculation. No, I’m not saying Airbus pilots should carry a Garmin but then again?
The work of genuis is often times hard for mere mortals to descern... lol
As the airspeed approached zero, the warnings would stop. The logic or illogic in the software was that the speed was invalid. Combine that with poorly trained pilots with almost no experience actually flying an airplane in a difficult situation.
I think obscurity has kept me out of a great deal of trouble over the years...
I used to be like you. When we landed safely, I always felt as if I had somehow ‘cheated’ death. When you arrive safely at your destination in an automobile, do you feel as if you dodged a bullet? It stems from your false sense of ‘control’ in a car. Do you have ‘control’ over other drivers speeding toward you in the opposite direction, separated by a painted line on the road? When I finally realized the silliness of my fear, I was cured. It is a tough phobia to overcome, however.
Doesn't seem like it...and
a wall of ice particles that blocked the aircraft speed sensors.
My Air Force instrument systems guess: Pitot tube heater failure led to eractic airspeed inputs that confused the hell out of the computers and the pilots.
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