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 ...
was the co-pilot named Ach-med or somepin???
From the documentary, even flying blind they could have maintained level flight by using the established procedure of 85% engine power and 5% flaps. With all their systems shutting down, that seems like the thing to have done.
Those planes you fly don’t have a fancy dancy computer flying the plane for you.
“Feel good solutions are what most “laws” created by the FAA are all about anyway.”
Technical error in sentence corrected:
Feel good solutions are what most “laws” created by all levels of government are all about anyway.
Needle, ball, airspeed, compass, and Mark I eyeballs ;-)
With the flying we do, generally in the Champ, the eyeball is more useful than the altimeter. Oh, and the seat of your pants provides a LOT of clues as well.
I love flying direct control light aircraft — you are one with the airframe.
The plane took off at maximum weight and technically didn't have enough fuel in reserve. That's why they flew straight into the bad weather that other aircraft were flying around.
Except for the very high rate of descent the aircraft was under control. They were in turbulent weather, though, and there probably was a feeling of weightlessness.
Bullshit. The plane had enough fuel to land short of its destination based on a reclear flight plan which I fly every month. Every pilot who is issued such a plan knows that if there is insufficient fuel to reach their final destination they are to land at their reclear destination and refuel. I’m getting sick and tired of seeing this bogus explanation being trotted out.
Killed by their plane’s computer.
Just d@mn.
Exactly right.
That’s why I used the word “technically,” a-hole.
IIRC, the area they were in is notorious for violent thunder storms.
I am not sure where you are getting your information... an out of control airplane can use up 35,000 feet of altitude in seconds not minutes. If they lost all of their engines but were still under control they could easily glide for 4 minutes, but that is not the scenario here.
“That’s why they flew straight into the bad weather that other aircraft were flying around.”
Your words. That states the crew deliberately flew into the storm due to a lack of fuel. There is nothing “technical” in that wording. Stop while you’re ahead.
I learned to fly in a 7-AC Champ back in 1960. It was built in 1946. Sure would love to have that plane now. It belonged to a flying club in SW Alabama. I paid $3.00 an hour, wet, for it and $6.00 an hour dual. Its fuel gauge was a piece of wire with a float in the tank sticking out through a hole in the fuel cap.
With a sufficient head wind you could practically hover the thing.
It had no radio, no electrical system and maybe five instruments on the panel. And a heater that did little more than make your left foot very hot.
Propping it off when you were along was always fun.
Yup, sure would love to have little flying machine now.
“BS. They should have been flying to plane instead of dorking around with computer reboots.”
Can you fly those planes without the computer?
Suppose there is a specific set of conditions, a one-in-a-million confluence of factors that causes all three flight computers to reset, or stall, or simply shut down? An attitude of X, sensor input of Y and trim condition Z that uncovers a flaw in the programming? With a fly-by-wire system, you can, and often do, have a basically unstable and unbalanced flight attitude, that the computer can maintain in a "safe" manner, but that Yeager himself couldn't handle if he was directly in control, rather than one step removed.
Flying a Champ, or a 152 or a Piper Tomahawk, you can feel when the aircraft is out of balance, because the actual pressures on the control surfaces are transmitted back to the yoke and pedals by the control cables. A balanced standard turn feels good, in a Piper. If you are ham handed, the airplane will bite back. If the Air France pilot fed in a gross control correction, however, the computer wouldn't let that aircraft obey if that input was outside parameters.
A thought: I've had a couple of flight sim joysticks go bad, and it's unsettling that it could happen to the real thing...
seconds?
The graphic in post 10 shows 4 minutes. Any fall from 35,000 feet takes time. Unless you are in a powered decent the 4 minute time frame is fairly conservative.
The possibility that they would have to stop and refuel (something airline bosses don't like) gave them the motivation to do what they did.
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