Posted on 12/07/2011 9:55:38 AM PST by ventanax5
For more than two years, the disappearance of Air France Flight 447 over the mid-Atlantic in the early hours of June 1, 2009, remained one of aviation's great mysteries. How could a technologically state-of-the art airliner simply vanish?
With the wreckage and flight-data recorders lost beneath 2 miles of ocean, experts were forced to speculate using the only data available: a cryptic set of communications beamed automatically from the aircraft to the airline's maintenance center in France. As PM found in our cover story about the crash, published two years ago this month, the data implied that the plane had fallen afoul of a technical problem—the icing up of air-speed sensors—which in conjunction with severe weather led to a complex "error chain" that ended in a crash and the loss of 228 lives.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
Vertigo effects dodn’t automatically cause a falling sensation every time, and Boeing airplanes don’t turn bad pilots into good ones!
JC
No, I didn’t read the whole article, but I had previously read the accident investigation report and put more redibility in that. I also doubt that autopilot control could have fixed this problem as critical inputs apparently were lost already. Electronic systems work great when 100%, but never should be always trusted over the judgment of a well-trained pilot.
JC
I didn’t challenge your JFK Jr assertion, but having previously been an instruments instructor, I can tell you that usually the first thing that goes wrong is a turning sensation from the inner ear that initially leads to loss of control if not discovered and fixed by training pilots to force themselves to follow their instruments. Most can do that but it takes training and continual reinforcement through hands-on practice. Watching an autopilot isn’t hands-on practice!
JC
“redibility” = credibility
That’s how I learned. My instructor put me under the hood, set the plane in extreme attitudes and had me recover. One of those times he brought the plane to a stall and had me recover. After I did, it took me about two seconds to realize that he set the trim way nose up. Flying by wire might lead a pilot to forget to check the trim settings. Especially if buggy software “tried” to trim the plane all by itself.
True and True.
Attitude controls speed. The slight nose up helps prevent overspeed and level flight.
I don’t know the details, just passing long what was related to me.
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