Boeing 787
Posted on 05/23/2011 6:36:43 AM PDT by libh8er
What happened on board the Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic en route from Rio to Paris? According to information obtained by SPIEGEL from the analysis of flight recorder data, pilot Marc Dubois appears not to have been in the cockpit at the time the deadly accident started to unfold.
The fate of Air France Flight 447 was sealed in just four minutes. That short time span began with the first warning message on one of the Airbus A330 aircraft's monitors and ended with the plane crashing into the Atlantic between Brazil and Africa, killing all 228 people on board.
Since last week, investigators from France's BEA civil aviation safety bureau have been analyzing the flight data and voice recordings extracted from the cockpit of the Air France flight that crashed on June 1, 2009 while traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. What they have learned from the recordings seems to suggest both technical and human failure.
Sources close to the investigative team have revealed that the recordings indicate that Marc Dubois, the aircraft's 58-year-old pilot, was not in the cockpit at the time the trouble began. It is reportedly audible that Dubois rushed back into the cockpit. "He called instructions to the two co-pilots on how to save the aircraft," the source with inside knowledge of the investigation told SPIEGEL.
But their attempts to save the plane were ultimately in vain.
At the beginning of May, underwater robots were able to retrieve the flight recorders from the wreckage almost four kilometers (2.5 miles) below the surface of the Sargasso Sea. Two weekends ago, investigators succeeded in extracting data from the black boxes. Within 24 hours, reports were circulating suggesting that the crash seemed more likely the result of pilot error than a manufacturing flaw by Airbus.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
Boeing 787
Nothing to disagree with in your conclusions from my aspect !! The price of progress - especially in aviation - is blood. Hopefully, when/if all the flight data is recovered we can analyze what went wrong. >PS
Fying a heavy at max, or near max, altitude isn’t something you do by “hand”, in most instances. IMO airspeed is the critical datum, as it - along with presssure/temperature -
determines where on the mach curve you lie.
Now “jest guessin’” mind you, but I suspect both pilots’ “flight directors” are driven by the aircraft’s computers - which derive their data from the suspect probe systems. That leaves only a “standby attitude gyro” - if it existed - as a source of attitude information to hand fly a heavy aircraft in its critical mach range in turbulence.
What kills aircraft and pilots/crew/passengers is a “cascade” of failures piling one atop another too fast for the cockpit crew to counter. I seriously suspect the AF 447 flight crew faced a disorienting “pinball explosion” of visual and audio alarms competing for attention while experiencing conflicting physical sensations. How would you react if suddenly, in the dark, you became weightless and surrounded by clipboards, flight bags, lost pencils/pens and various floor debris ? What if the cockpit lights failed at the same instant ? When “sh*t happens” it ain’t usually pretty..... >PS
You may be right about the 1.21 gigawatts......
Latest info I have re the flight recorders has them reporting the aircraft entering a stall and the crew performing exactly the wrong techniques/actions to effect recovery. At one time they report a 35’ nose up attitude and crew commanding more !!
Perhaps we need to be asking why an experienced crew would display so much cockpit confusion as to fumble the “handoff” from left to right seat control sticks. Or why they would command a “pitch up” while reducing power when the aircraft already had a large positive deck angle ? IOW why did the crew fail to follow time-tested, (and aircraft - approved) stall recovery procedures ? >PS
Not for nuthin, but as I tell my kids: “Just because the phone rings, you are not required to answer it.”
Sometimes I just sit and ignore it. Just to drive them crazy.
Its fun....try it.
The best was I heard it described, is that they are not “pilots” as much as they are “systems engineers.”
That said, it must have been a scary four minutes.
Four minutes sounds a bit short for a glide duration from 35000’.
Glide implies there is lift (from the wings) involved. They were not gliding, which is unpowered flight.
They were 100% stalled; falling at essentially terminal velocity for a ‘flat’ aircraft.
~10000 fpm = about ~115 mph down.
Hitting at that speed is why so much of the structure of the aircraft and the bodies was identifiable. This as opposed to the Value Jet plane that augured in to the Everglades at over 500 KIAS, nose first. They found only splintered aluminum , gold jewelry, teeth and so on.
One small point of disagreement, WRT a deep stall.
The pilots, per the report, generally provided input to the controls to keep the nose up. I infer from that THEY kept the plane stalled, as opposed to a disrupted airflow over the stabilator keeping the plane in a true deep stall.
Sure it looks like one, and indeed it may have been one. but it also could have been ‘caused’ by continued ‘stick back’ input from the crew.
I don’t recall suggesting anything about a “deep stall” condition, but the information I’ve read implies that condition. It also implies the crew’s actions were counter to their line training and type training, indeed everything they would have been taught from their first flight. This implies a great deal of confusion on the flight deck. The cause(s) of this ought to be , (and most probably are), the subject of intensive study.
I’m unfamiliar with the Airbus, but swept wing T-tail jets can enter a high angle of attack condition where the wing blanks airflow over the elevators. Its possible in such a condition the crew wouldn’t have gotten the expected response to control inputs leading them to erroneous conclusions as to the nature of the failure they were experiencing. It occurs to me any configuration change resulting in a “pitch down” such as deploying the landing gear and/or flaps might have corrected this possible condition.
Would the Airbus integrated/electronic flight control/management system permit such actions ? >PS
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