Any updates on the Airbus lost in the Atlantic?

That is a 737 -800. The windshield pattern, the nose, and the engine nacelles are 737. A real sahme to break up a nice airplane like that but marvelous that no one was hurt.

 

You're the man Bob......I don't think i've ever been on the 737-800. I did recently ride an A320 to Philly. It did seem to have an impressive rate of climb.

Geffen

 

No big thing, Geffin. Those two airplanes are very similar and I have lived too long with the Boeing stuff. I saw the first 737 take off in '66, I think, and then saw it come to .10 of an inch to being cancelled and miraculously rebound to being the most successful airliner ever. An amazing story.

 

This is terrible:



From the Air France VR:


PARIS (Reuters) - "What do you think? What do you think? What should we do?"

The 37-year-old Air France co-pilot with over 6,000 flying hours was running out of ideas as a stall alarm bellowed through the Airbus cockpit for the sixth time in exactly two minutes.

His junior colleague with two years on the job was already in despair as he battled to control the jet's speed and prevent it rocking left to right in pitch darkness over the Atlantic, on only his second Rio de Janeiro-Paris trip as an A330 pilot.

"I don't have control of the plane. I don't have control of the plane at all," the younger pilot, 32, said.

The captain was not present and it was proving hard to get him back to the cockpit, where his more than 11,000 hours of flying experience were badly needed.

"So is he coming?" the senior co-pilot muttered, according to a transcript released on Friday. Light expletives were edited out of the text here and elsewhere, according to people familiar with the probe into the mid-Atlantic crash on June 1, 2009.

The 58-year-old captain and former demonstration pilot had left 10 minutes earlier for a routine rest. In his absence the plane had begun falling at more than 200 km (125 miles) an hour.

"Hey what are you --," he said on entering the cockpit.

"What's happening? I don't know, I don't know what's happening," replied the senior co-pilot, sitting on the left.

With the benefit of black boxes hauled up 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) from the ocean floor just two months ago, investigators now say the aircraft had stopped flying properly and entered a hazardous stall, as its 3,900 square feet (362 sq meters) of wings gasped for air.

I'VE GOT A PROBLEM

The crew moved control sticks in every direction during their four-minute ordeal -- and sometimes contradicted each other as they tried to save the plane and its 228 passengers and crew.

At one point they could not decide whether they were climbing or falling after flying for minutes through a wall of ice particles that blocked the aircraft speed sensors.

In total the stall alarm went off 11 times -- the last of those only overridden by a new and even more ominous direction to "pull up" as the pilots ran out of time and space to recover.

Investigators say they are still baffled as to why the pilots ignored the triple alarm -- a synthetic "stall, stall" voice, a noise like crickets and a red warning light.

They appear to be working on the theory that the pilots recovered clumsily from one problem to do with icing, only to lurch into another one -- a stall -- that proved their doom.

Air France disputes this and says instruments went haywire.

GIVE ME CONTROL

The solution to a stall is to lower the nose to grab air.

Instead the junior pilot yanked back, thinking the plane was going too fast. Pulling up reduces speed. "I've got a problem I don't have vertical speed. I don't have any indication."

From behind, the captain was first to voice a dawning truth.

"I don't know but right now we're descending," he said.

Now the young pilot pushed forward and the stall receded.

His gesture lasted barely a second but may be pored over in courts for years as the aircraft's manufacturer Airbus will argue it shows the plane was responsive and able to recover. Air France says the plane overwhelmed properly trained pilots with a blizzard of confusing signals and misled them because of a "trap" caused by erratic warnings.

The crew have not been officially named.

As the plane hurtled lower, a pattern of professional directions started to fray, replaced by a rush of questions:

"What's the altitude?"

"What do you mean what altitude?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm descending right?"

The younger pilot appeared increasingly stressed and was subjected to some backseat driving -- yet he was left to fly.

(Captain) "Get your wings horizontal"

(First co-pilot) "Level your wings"

(Second co-pilot) "That's what I'm trying to do."

Flight 447 entered its final minute at 10,000 feet, having plummeted from 38,000.

"What the -- how is it we are going down like this?" asked the junior pilot.

"See what you can do with the commands up there, the primaries and so on," the senior co-pilot said.

By nine thousand feet, the situation must have been dire.

"Climb climb climb climb," ordered the senior co-pilot.

"But I have been pulling back on the stick all the way for a while," observed the younger pilot. In a stall, however, pilots point down to fix the stall first and only then climb to safety.

The captain interjected: "No, no, no, don't climb."

Senior co-pilot: "Ok give me control, give me control."

The plane was at 4,000 feet, its nose up quite sharply.

"Watch out you are pulling up," prodded the captain.

"Am I?" said the first co-pilot.

"Well you should, we are at 4,000," said the young pilot.

It is not possible to tell whether the crew finally alighted on what most experts call the right solution, but now they only had one choice, which was to think about avoiding water.

Both pilots pulled on their sticks as far as they could.

The computer spoke. "Sink rate. Pull up, pull up, pull up."

"Go on, the captain urged, "pull."

"We're pulling, pulling, pulling, pulling," said number 3.

The transcript showed the three men remained fully focused on trying to right the plane throughout the final four minutes. At no point did they discuss the possibility they and their passengers were about to die.

The last words that could be made out from the veteran captain were remarkably calm, reverting to cool-headed jargon.

"Ten degrees pitch," he appears to have said.

Less than half a second later, the recording stopped.



Finis.

 

Is it possible to be unaware that they are about to hit the water? I am surprised that the crew did not scream out or otherwise comment as the plane passed through 500 feet, 100 feet, 50 feet, etc. Would an altimeter warning not also be going off at this time?
Also, at some point they must have had a visual of the fast approaching water?

 

It was the middle of the night, in a storm, probably no outside visibility.

They had to know at least in the last seconds; that's what the computer 'voice' saying "Sink rate, pull up, pull up, pull up" meant.

 

Troubling to read their last communications. Truly staggering that they had no idea what was going on.

CW

 

It seems they were completely blind. 0 visibility outside and it seems they didnt trust their equipment.

 

Right, and it sounds like they really didn't have a clue. I kept thinking of the Birgenair and Aeroperu 757 accidents when I was reading that. What a shame.

 

Here are a couple of items that I came across right now.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/08/12/360432/af447s-initial-altitude-drift-went-virtually-unchallenged.html

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/08/12/360681/airbus-clashes-with-pilots-over-af447-alarm.html

 

This is an INTERESTING article by Kent Wien... who writes a column on mostly piloting.

A few syntax errors (maybe?) but, very worth a read.

http://www.gadling.com/2011/08/12/cockpit-chronicles-theres-more-behind-the-air-france-447-crash/?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-sb-bb%7Cdl2%7Csec3_lnk2%7C85980

 

So did the tail separation not happen at altitude, as was guessed?

 

Kent's article is larded with so many inaccuracies that one has to wonder if he actually read the BEA interim report?

http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601e3.en/pdf/f-cp090601e3.en.pdf

 

Kent says the (indicated) airspeed was increasing when it was actually decreasing, that the auto throttles were turned off manually 30 sec. later when they had actually been disconnected with the autopilot. Ken further adds that the plane went in alternate law – i-e without stall protection – after the climb to 37,000 ft. when the fact is it went into alternate law at T zero, when the auto pilot disengaged.

Kent also says “it's recently been reported that as the airplane slowed further, the stall warning stopped. When max power was applied and the nose was lowered at one point, the stall warning came back.”

In fact the stall warning lasted 54 seconds continuously, during which time neither of the pilots made any reference to it. In the other cases mentioned by Kent, it happened like he describes only once out of the five other times the stall alarm warning went on.

Kent: “Given the mechanical failures that started the chain of events…”

There were no mechanical failures, but the icing on a pitot probe for about 30 seconds. Had the pilot done nothing during those 30 seconds, chances are that this thread would not exist.

 

Last words of the flight crew from the CVR...

Doesn't really change anything we've probably already surmised.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/14/final-words-of-air-france_n_1011030.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-sb-bb%7Cdl6%7Csec1_lnk3%7C104395

 

Panic was the root cause of the disaster, as we've discussed... according to:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-wise/how-panic-doomed-an-airli_b_1135004.html?ref=travel&icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-sb-bb%7Cdl10%7Csec1_lnk3%7C118683

 

After reading the report referenced in the Huffington post article my thoughts went back to the early development days in the 777 program when discussions with airline customers and Boeing were focused on side-stick controls versus yoke. I recall most of the U.S. pilots were adamantly against side-sticks and the predominant comment was, " I want to see what the other guy is doing with the controls!" Also, " I want a yoke and a wheel!"
Personally, a-synchronistic controls would be frightening.

 

From my reading of the Huffington Post article, there was also a lack of experience in the left seat at the time of the incident.

CW

 

As a sticker hanging on my refrigerator at home says, "If it ain't Boeing, I'm not going!" If all Airbus jetliners have asynchronistic controls, I will never set foot on another one in my life!

 

Could this control design issue be considered a flaw and easily retro-fitted? Or, is this unresolvable once-built?

CW

 

I would say unresolvable once built.

 

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877-2 Fantastic analysis right here, too. Shocking to see how disastrous the lack of communication ended up being. The a-synchronized control design baffles me, too. Unbelievable.