[Air France] Crash Report Shows Confused Cockpit

Wall Street Journal ^ | May 28, 2011 | ANDY PASZTOR And DANIEL MICHAELS

[lbryce]

Cruising at 35,000 feet and nearly four hours into what seemed a routine overnight flight to Paris from Rio de Janeiro, an Air France cockpit crew got a stall warning and responded by doing what even weekend pilots know to avoid: They yanked the nose of the plane up instead of pointing it down to gain essential speed.

Apparently confused by repeated stall warnings and reacting to wildly fluctuating airspeed indications, pilots of Flight 447 continued to pull back sharply on the controls—contrary to standard procedure—even as the Airbus A330 plummeted toward the Atlantic Ocean, according to information released Friday by French accident investigators. The June 2009 crash ton board,

The pilots' actions are likely to lead to a global shake-up in pilot training that reappraises the role of computer aids, as aviation-safety experts increasingly worry that many airlines scrimp on drilling manual flying techniques.

Still to be answered is how seasoned pilots for a top airline, flying one of the industry's most advanced jets, violated such a fundamental rule of airmanship.

[lbryce]

The introduction of automation has made flying dramatically safer over the years. In the U.S., for instance, fatal accident rates are at record lows. But if pilots are taught to abdicate too much responsibility to automated systems, essential piloting skills can dull and aviators become too reliant on computers in emergencies.

That's particularly troublesome if onboard flight-control computers malfunction, disconnect or, as in the case of Flight 447, give conflicting information and warnings to pilots. "Pilots are starting to serve the automation, not the automation serving the pilots," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation of Alexandria, Va., an independent advocacy group championing enhanced training. "It's almost like we have to train the pilots to know how to triage these situations."

While Boeing design philosophy is, was one in which the pilot bears final say, command of the aircraft, Airbus ushered in a new era of increasingly sophisticated software, automatic systems, the consequences of which may have led to inexplicable disasters such as flight 447.

[HiTech RedNeck]

I don’t think a Boeing has ever suffered a BSOD.

[1rudeboy]

The autopilot shut off early into the incident.

[1rudeboy]

Neither did the Airbus in this case. And if you think Boeings dont use LCD screens . . . .

[decimon]

...They yanked the nose of the plane up instead of pointing it down to gain essential speed.

I once read that an early pilot discovered this when he thought he was dead and wanted to get it over with quickly. Have no idea if that's true.

[HerrBlucher]

Wow, all those passengers dead because the pilot didn’t do what even a student pilot knows to do, let the nose down to recover from a stall. Very weird.

[jennings2004]

Lots more interesting discussion at: http://www.airliners.net.

[Publius6961]

an Air France cockpit crew got a stall warning and responded by doing what even weekend pilots know to avoid: They yanked the nose of the plane up instead of pointing it down to gain essential speed.

Spoken like a certified lunatic. Those pilots had no working instruments and zero external cues of the orientation of the aircraft. If it "felt" like they were in a dive, of course they would repond that way.

Air Force pilots with thousands of hours under their belts are trained to rely exclusively on their instruments for their craft's orientation (attitude in 3-dimensional space,) under zero visibility conditions.
Unfortunately, in an airliner, the recommended solution in zero visibility with no instruments working, ejecting, is not an option.

[Tzfat]

Wow, all those passengers dead because the pilot didn’t do what even a student pilot knows to do, let the nose down to recover from a stall. Very

What would you do if the airspeed was increasing at the same time the stall warning was sounding, and the PFD had rapid fluctuations? Nothing is as easy as it seems, afterward. On the ground.

[magellan]

Ultimately, when equipment fails, it comes down to the skills of the pilots.

[magellan]

Ultimately, when equipment fails, it comes down to the skills of the pilots.

[magellan]

Ultimately, when equipment fails, it comes down to the skills of the pilots.

[magellan]

Ultimately, when equipment fails, it comes down to the skills of the pilots.

[Blood of Tyrants]

The autopilot is designed to shut off it the pilot gives the controls a fairly hard command. I can imagine they were pulling back on the yoke because the aircraft was going down even though the computer was telling them they were stalling.

[cynwoody]

Wow, all those passengers dead because the pilot didn’t do what even a student pilot knows to do, let the nose down to recover from a stall. Very weird.

It appears it's not so easy when your airspeed indicator goes away and you have to guess at the proper throttle setting and angle of attack.

Here's a little story about a Northwest Airlines crew who dealt with a similar situation and lived to tell about it posted by Orval Fairbairn not long after the crash:

I just got this email from a retired airline pilot:

From a retired NWA buddy of mine

This from Brent Stratton, a friend and NWA pilot I flew the B-757 with
out of our Tokyo base.........Now obviously on the A-330  

Well, I'm sure you have all heard of the Air France accident. I fly the
same plane, the A330.

      Yesterday while coming up from Hong Kong to Tokyo, a 1700nm 4hr.
flight, we experienced the same problems Air France had while flying
thru bad weather.
I have a link to the failures that occurred on AF 447. My list is almost
the same.
http://www.eurocockpit.com/images/acars447.php
            
      The problem I suspect is the pitot tubes ice over and you loose
your airspeed indication along with the auto pilot, auto throttles and
rudder limit protection. The rudder limit protection keeps you from over
stressing the rudder at high speed.
      
      Synopsis;
Tuesday 23, 2009 10am enroute HKG to NRT. Entering Nara Japan airspace.

      FL390 mostly clear with occasional isolated areas of rain, clouds
tops about FL410.
Outside air temperature was -50C TAT -21C (your not supposed to get
liquid water at these temps). We did.

      As we were following other aircraft along our route. We approached
a large area of rain below us. Tilting the weather radar down we could
see the heavy rain below, displayed in red. At our altitude the radar
indicated green or light precipitation, most likely ice crystals we
thought.

      Entering the cloud tops we experienced just light to moderate
turbulence. (The winds were around 30kts at altitude.) After about 15
sec. we encountered moderate rain. We thought it odd to have rain
streaming up the windshield at this altitude and the sound of the plane
getting pelted like an aluminum garage door. It got very warm and humid
in the cockpit all of a sudden.
Five seconds later the Captains, First Officers, and standby airspeed
indicators rolled back to 60kts. The auto pilot and auto throttles
disengaged. The Master Warning and Master Caution flashed, and the
sounds of chirps and clicks letting us know these things were happening.
      Jerry Staab, the Capt. hand flew the plane on the shortest vector
out of the rain. The airspeed indicators briefly came back but failed
again. The failure lasted for THREE minutes. We flew the recommended
83%N1 power setting. When the airspeed indicators came back. we were
within 5 knots of our desired speed. Everything returned to normal
except for the computer logic controlling the plane. (We were in
alternate law for the rest of the flight.)  

      We had good conditions for the failure; daylight, we were rested,
relatively small area, and light turbulence. I think it could have been
much worse. Jerry did a great job fly and staying cool. We did our
procedures called dispatch and maintenance on the SAT COM and landed in
Narita. That's it.

[1rudeboy]

Those pilots had no working instruments and zero external cues of the orientation of the aircraft.

Investigators already concluded that except for malfunctioning airspeed probes, there were no other mechanical, electrical or system errors.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I don’t understand the problem of pitot tube icing because they have heaters in them and they will get hot enough to burn the crap out of you on the ground.

[bill1952]

What would you do if the airspeed was increasing at the same time the stall warning was sounding, and the PFD had rapid fluctuations?

Absolutely, positively put the nose down & chopped the power. - The aircraft is falling out of the sky - thats why the airspeed is increasing.

I damn near pinked my first exam for not doing that quickly enough, & although I agree with you that nothing is as it seems on the ground, they did have 4 minutes to correct and you know thats a very long time.

[JPG]

It's the same thing that happened in the Dash-400 crash in Buffalo...air speed bleed-out and a pull back on the stick to guarantee a stall. Lots of pilot facepalms in the next world.

[AlexW]

“I don’t understand the problem of pitot tube icing because they have heaters in them and they will get hot enough to burn the crap out of you on the ground.”
______________________________________

There was a thread on this accident, all day yesterday.
I questioned the idea of the pitot freezing and some CLAIM that there was no pitot heaters on those Airbus planes.
That is almost impossible to believe.
My simple planes all had heated pitot tubes.

I also pointed out that the first thing any student pilot knows is to push the stick forward in a stall, but I got a lot of mumbo jumbo about that, too. Oh well.