How Pilots Wrestled In Vain to Save Air France Jet

Reuters ^ | Tim Hepher

[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.

[Errant]

Something just isn't adding up here. Why would they hold the stick back all the way to impact, except for a brief nose down with apparent recovery.

The captain had some indication of wings being unlevel since he told the youngest pilot to get his wings level.

It seems the plane was stalling but does an airbus loose 10,000' a minute in a partial stall? This started at 38,000 feet which should be above most weather.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

All I know is that there is a conflict of interest with France having a vested interest in Airbus coming out of this with reputation intact. And of course the pilots are no longer with us so can’t speak on their own behalf.

[wardaddy]

It seems to me they were unable to stop the descent....that is not indicative purely of instrument failure but also of controls not responding

Some here think they could have flown these monsters simply with cable assist like a wounded B 17...

I don’t know....i think we have some pond crossing pilots here.. Maybe they know

Its a court battle now over liability so we can expect fussilades from both sides

[SkyDancer]

Here’s an interesting discussion - http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/267468-difference-between-airbus-boeing-controls.html

[A_perfect_lady]

You know, it’s funny, I actually didn’t have any traumatic episodes like you and your husband did. I just slowly developed a distaste for flying that then developed into a real trepidation. Everytime the plane leaves the ground, I think “man was not meant to do this.” And let me tell you, when I’m in a jet 7 miles up and suddenly it slows down, even just a little, I am absolutely sure we are about to drop like a rock. I stare out the window wondering if I’d black out from altitude loss, or be awake and terrified when I hit with a *splat*. So I, too, have a drink before I get on. And another every time the little cart goes by. And then a couple more after I land.

[CodeToad]

“Wrestled”? Maybe that was their problem, they fought the plane instead of flying it. I cannot imagine they did not know that their nose was high and their altitude was falling. Seems like the perfect time to pitch down, set throttles to an expected airspeed power setting and continue level flight.

[lbryce]

Yeah. None of the passengers died....they were re-assigned (their seats)

[A_perfect_lady]

When you arrive safely at your destination in an automobile, do you feel as if you dodged a bullet?

YES. I live in Los Angeles. I don't even like crossing streets on foot, I'm always convinced some horrible interaction between an Asian lady in a Toyota and an Armenian teenager in a borrowed Miata is going to end up with me crushed against the side of Bristol Farms. Flying is just like ... a little worse.

[expatpat]

You are forgetting two things:
(a) the flight control computer was flying the plane, with erroneous input data, and they weren't fighting the plane, they were fighting the FCS which was doing a lousy job,
(b) pitching down at cruise power can you guarantee a crash much more quickly than a stall. You go above the NTE speed and your wings or empennage may come off.

[Moonman62]

The latest report from the BEA can be found here:

http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.af.447/note29juillet2011.en.pdf

[RckyRaCoCo]

I take it, as part of the recorded information, it does not include what their WX radar was showing at the time. Early on in the investigation wasn’t it determined(satellite wx data)they may have flown into an area of very nasty weather?

[jughandle]

Thats what I was told too, but a while ago I encountered ice/freezing rain in my Arrow. As it hit the airframe, the pitot tube froze over. The airspeed and vertical speed indicators jumped around a bit then froze in place, showing airspeed near yellow and a high rate of descent..If I didn’t watch it actually happen, I may have momentarily belived the aircraft was in a steep descent.

[jughandle]

Thats what I was told too, but a while ago I encountered ice/freezing rain in my Arrow. As it hit the airframe, the pitot tube froze over. The airspeed and vertical speed indicators jumped around a bit then froze in place, showing airspeed near yellow and a high rate of descent..If I didn’t watch it actually happen, I may have momentarily belived the aircraft was in a steep descent.

[az_gila]

Flying without visual on instruments that are not working is virtually impossible. The only thing that could possibly have saved them is the experienced captain’s intuition. He should have been at the controls as soon as he entered the cockpit.

---

The Artificial Horizon was working wasn't it? That should have kept them flying level.

[expatpat]

They have GPS navigation. The confusion was not re climbing or descending, they knew they were descending. The confusion was over the airspeed. Were they descending because the nose was down (and the speed thence rising), or were they descending because they were in a stall situation (low speed)?

The flight control computer thought they were stalling, but that was because the airspeed data was erroneous (they might have been stalling, as it thought, or they might have been diving, but how can you tell without some kind of speed information - no noise from the wires you'd hear in a biplane!)

[expatpat]

True, the HSI (artificial horizon) would have settled the question if it could be trusted. The gyros can go bad, so you can't automatically assume the HSI isn't lying, especially if the VSI is going nuts, as I understand it was. Plus, the FCS was apparently trying to fly the plane out of a stall, and fighting the pilots.

[Errant]

Thanks, seems airbus has a number of peculiarities with their flight control system.

[steve86]

expatpat: "The confusion was not re climbing or descending, they knew they were descending"

transcript: "What's the altitude?" "What do you mean what altitude?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm descending right?"

Steve86: Sounds like confusion over descent/ascent to me. Then once they got that out of the way the reason for the descent needed to be determined.

expatpat: "but how can you tell without some kind of speed information"

Steve86: Well, one way is to monitor the speed and altitude information available from the GPS system.

[expatpat]

After reading the BEA report you URLed, I’m even more confused. The flight-control computer apparently switched to ‘alternate law’ software when they first lost the airspeed, and it’s not clear what algorithms that uses. However, it would still need good data from the ADS to fly the plane. I can’t help wondering if the low speed readings caused the FCS to go into landing mode, which would explain the nose-up inputs. It’s hard to see the pilots putting it into such a nose-up attitude (unless the HSI was bad).

[expatpat]

Your transcript quote does not mean climbing/descending confusion to me. The first question was about the altitude itself, not rate-of-change (remember, the plane was required to maintain a specific altitude). The second question might have been trying to distinguish between pressure altitude on the altimeter and GPS altitude from satellites, that's not clear. The third sentence shows they knew they were descending.

The ground speed given by GPS differs from the airspeed, due to the winds, and these can be very strong up there at 35,000. However, it might have provided some rough guidance if they had any decent wx info on winds at their altitude.