Air France jet crashed nose-up after 4 minute ordeal

Reuters/Yahoo ^

[nuconvert]

PARIS (Reuters) – Pilots wrestled with the controls of an Air France airliner for more than four minutes before it plunged into the Atlantic with its nose up, killing all 228 people on board, French investigators said Friday.

The 2009 emergency began with a stall warning two and a half hours into the Rio-Paris flight and nine minutes after the captain had left the cockpit for a routine rest period.

The Airbus A330 jet climbed to 38,000 feet and then began a dramatic three and a half minute descent, rolling from left to right, with the youngest of three pilots handing control to the second most senior pilot one minute before the crash.

[null and void]

Four minutes? That’s a very long time to recover from a stall, unless the computer is fighting your every move...

[phormer phrog phlyer]

This sounds similar to a B-727 accident a number of years ago. I can’t recall the airline it was a repositioning flight for a football charter. The pitot heat was missed on the checklist and they were getting incorrect airspeed indications. They ended up stalling then crashing, all were killed.

[edpc]

There's still a lot of conflicting information, but there are indications the air speed indicators were not performing properly. Difficult to get a proper handle on the aircraft if what you're seeing is not true. Story also says the most experienced pilot was not at the controls when the problems began. The inexperience of the others may have made a bad situation worse.

There's been a lot of supposition about what caused the initial problems. We may never really know, much the same way TWA 800 story is still surrounded in mystery and speculation.

[TSgt]

Air France Flight 447: Pilot Errors?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc6iDSOeIng

[Jack Hydrazine]

Take a look at the Air France 296 crash.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX4_Ho992TQ

The computer locked the pilots out of the controls and had a 10+ degree positive nose pitch while flying down the runway and crashed into the trees at the end.

I think AF447 flight computer shut down and locked the pilots out controlling the aircraft. Airbus should be sued for this.

[bill1952]

The airspeed & other mechanical indicators are not the primary indicators.
These steam gauges are secondary to the big MFD display and that is largely driven by GPS input

[Francis McClobber]

The steam gages might be secondary to the HUD or the glass displays in the cockpit, but the pitot static system is vital to controlled flight. The flight control computers get their airspeed information from the pitot system. GPS can only tell the pilot groundspeed, not airspeed.

There are three instruments that are vital to maintaing controlled flight in the clag: airspeed, altimeter and VSI (vertical speed indicator). All three are driven by the pitot static system. It fails in the goo and the aircraft crashes.

[Red Badger]

I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave....................

[Francis McClobber]

Nice hatchet job on the dead pilots by ABC news. Before they jump to conclusions, they should let the investigators conduct their investigation.

Almost all crashes involve some kind of pilot error, but some circumstances are very tough to overcome - even if the pilot is Chuck Yaeger.

[TSgt]

I’m curious what Chuck Yaeger is up to these days?

I want his autograph!

[Francis McClobber]

Not sure, but when I was in flight school, everyone wanted to be like him for sure!

[Article10]

I think Ole Chuck checked out...

[bill1952]

Honestly, ground speed & wind direction are all that I need to keep from falling out of the sky, absent a spin, of course, although it would be far less confusing to have instruments that were indicating the same things.

Four minutes is a very long time to recover from upset, let alone a stall.
I am very curious about this one.

[Ragnar54]

Air France uses "pilot error" to explain a lot. In explaining how another Airbus had a rudder problem leading to a crash in 2001:

The most deadly event was the 2001 crash of American Airlines Flight 587, in which 265 people died when the plane's vertical stabilizer tore off soon after takeoff. Investigators blamed that crash on "over use" of the rudder pedal by the co-pilot.

[vis a vis]

No, he is still with us. Turned 88 in February.

[r9etb]

Nice hatchet job on the dead pilots by ABC news. Before they jump to conclusions, they should let the investigators conduct their investigation.

Perhaps. And it's likely that even the command pilot would have been unable to save the situation.

But I think there's probably a great deal of truth to the theory that an inexperienced pilot faced with an extreme situation like this one, would be far more likely to make a wrong move that makes the situation worse.

And I have to wonder about the command pilot's decision to leave the cockpit, too. The plane ran into difficulties only minutes after he left; that being the case, one has to think that he missed or ignored indications of rough weather ahead, even though they should have been visible from the cockpit windows.

[Verginius Rufus]

Same age as Henry Kissinger, who is 88 years old today.

[UB355]

If I remember watching the National Geographic piece on this they maintain that there were two storm cells. The first the aircraft was approaching prevented the radar from “seeing” the second larger cell that lay ahead.

[UB355]

If I remember watching the National Geographic piece on this they maintain that there were two storm cells. The first the aircraft was approaching prevented the radar from “seeing” the second larger cell that lay ahead.