What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447

[Ratt]

everybody says their is no way they would ever become disoriented, i've had guys take me up in clouds turn me over and i had no fucking clue what direction we were pointed. In a big yacht like that thing with fly by wire controls there must be 0 feedback to let them know they are literally falling out of the air.

Giant air yacht or no, falling 10,000 feet per minute should yield an unmistakable sensation to trained pilots.

[onemeangixxer7502]

Giant air yacht or no, falling 10,000 feet per minute should yield an unmistakable sensation to trained pilots.

LOL with no reference to the horizon you have no idea which way you're going. I assure you.

[GhostTX]

How many read that thinking "damnit push the nose down"?

Good read.

Here.

Based on erroneous readings (because of the iced-up pitot/static system), he thought thought they were descending. Or, he was just a n00b that didn't know what he was doing.

It's insane that this could happen. The plane is losing speed, nose is up and engines at full bore and you're still pulling up?

I'm thinking panic and just focusing on the one malfunctioning unit.

Sounds like pilots needs mandatory SHTF simulations every quarter or so. IMO, they're too dependent on the autopilot for "routine" flying.

[Special K]

Stranger things have happened.....
Brand New Boeing 737, engine failure... pilots turn off the other engine. Passengers reported wondering why the good engine was cut.... no one said anything at the time! The Kegworth Air Disaster occurred on 8 January 1989, when British Midland Flight 92, a Boeing 737–400, crashed onto the embankment of the M1 motorway near Kegworth, Leicestershire, in England. The aircraft was attempting to conduct an emergency landing at East Midlands Airport. Of the 126 people aboard, 47 died and 74, including seven members of the flight crew, sustained serious injuries.

Causes Shutting down the wrong engineThe Captain, Kevin Hunt, believed the right engine was malfunctioning due to the smell of smoke in the cabin because in previous Boeing 737 variants bleed air for cabin air conditioning was taken from the right engine. However, starting with the Boeing 737–400 variant, Boeing redesigned the system to use bleed air from both engines. Several cabin staff and passengers noticed that the left engine had a stream of unburnt fuel igniting in the jet exhaust, but this information was not passed to the pilots because cabin staff assumed the pilots were aware that the left engine was malfunctioning.

or better yet, another Airbus incident...
03/23/1994 - Aeroflot Airbus A310-304 Mezhduretshensk, Russia
The aircraft crashed after a captain allowed his child to manipulate the controls of the plane. The pilot's 11 year old daughter and 16 year old son were taking turns in the pilot's seat. While the boy was flying, he inadvertently disengaged the autopilot linkage to the ailerons and put the airliner in a bank of 90 degrees which caused the nose to drop sharply. The co-pilot pulled back on the yoke to obtain level flight but the plane stalled. With his seat pulled all the way back, the co-pilot in the right hand seat could not properly control the aircraft. After several stalls and rapid pull-ups the plane went into a spiral descent. In the end, the co-pilot initiated a 4.8g pull-up and nearly regained a stable flight path but the aircraft struck the ground in an almost level attitude killing all 75 aboard.

[motoman]

I agree with all of the above but if you are cruising at 37k why would you pull up?

Friends don't let friends fly inverted?

[Strychnine]

Yah when you get the bends and all sorts of shit when you lose reference to the horizon.

Vertigo?

he could have easily gone off ground speed indicator on the gps

Groundspeed is just that. Physics doesn't care about ground speed, it cares about airflow over the wings. 300mph groundspeed with a 120mph tailwind = 180mph air speed. When a pilot is trying to rely on "known pitch and power" settings to maintain flight... you see how groundspeed could F you, right? High altitude and high speed make for narrower performance windows also which makes the need for acurrate data more important.

[Strychnine]

Giant air yacht or no, falling 10,000 feet per minute should yield an unmistakable sensation to trained pilots.

http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/The_Disorient_Express.html

Details on an Air Force pilot w/ spatial-d that bellyflopped an F-15... his rate of descent was 30,000 ft/min. He hit the water at 630 mph.

There was no distress call, no attempt to eject, and no apparent aircraft malfunction. Young, 34, had 2,300 hours of flight time, more than 750 hours of it in F-15s.

"As Young went from climb to descent in his final maneuver, he would have been susceptible to a somatogravic illusion making his dive angle seem much shallower than it actually was. He may, in fact, have thought he was inverted. The fact that his rate of descent increased significantly in the final seconds indicates that Young “may have even believed he was climbing in the final moments, although he was actually still descending,” the investigators’ report said."

Unrelated, since these guys were definitely not noobs, but this is a crazy stat:

Once called pilot vertigo or aviator’s vertigo, spatial disorientation is a persistent killer. Federal Aviation Administration statistics show that the condition is at least partly responsible for about 15 percent of general aviation accidents, most of which occur in clouds or at night, and 90 percent of which are fatal. According to a 2004 study, the average life expectancy of a non-instrument-rated pilot who flies into clouds or instrument conditions is 178 seconds.

[onemeangixxer7502]

Vertigo?



Groundspeed is just that. Physics doesn't care about ground speed, it cares about airflow over the wings. 300mph groundspeed with a 120mph tailwind = 180mph air speed. When a pilot is trying to rely on "known pitch and power" settings to maintain flight... you see how groundspeed could F you, right? High altitude and high speed make for narrower performance windows also which makes the need for acurrate data more important.

I know the difference, its still a direct indicator whether your accelerating or decelerating. THe VSI is a direct indicator as well. It's just another indication as to what the aircraft is doing. Also indicated airspeed is just that what is indicated on the gauge. Ive been sitting on the ground and seen it tell me I'm doing 40 kts.I've been in heavy winds more the less moving backwards and indicated 50-60kts

[broke again]

http://www.airspacemag.com/military-...t_Express.html

Details on an Air Force pilot w/ spatial-d that bellyflopped an F-15... his rate of descent was 30,000 ft/min. He hit the water at 630 mph.







Unrelated, since these guys were definitely not noobs, but this is a crazy stat:

that is a very interesting read and pretty much sums up how an incident like that could occur. It also stated in a high performance aircraft SD can occur just as easily in the day time and "no amount of expertise, training or experience immunizes against sd"

Just a tragic accident that you hope is not repeated.

[Strychnine]

I know the difference, its still a direct indicator whether your accelerating or decelerating. THe VSI is a direct indicator as well. It's just another indication as to what the aircraft is doing. Also indicated airspeed is just that what is indicated on the gauge. Ive been sitting on the ground and seen it tell me I'm doing 40 kts.I've been in heavy winds more the less moving backwards and indicated 50-60kts

Good call. Using it to verify other readings and help understand that shit was haywire would have been good. Woops.


From another board:

Every amateur pilot flying a single-engine Cessna knows it. Hell, every kid flying a remote-control airplane knows it: when your aircraft stalls, you open full throttle and pitch the nose down to minimize the angle-of-attack. Yes, pitch the nose down.

But you are no amateur pilot. You have never flown an RC-airplane. No; you are a professional Air France Airbus-A330 pilot! Which basically means, you have never touched the controls of an aircraft since pilot school. Your job as an A330 pilot is to punch in the vectors you get from air traffic control into the autopilot, and flirt with the flight attendants. That's why they need three of you there: Moe punches in vectors, Larry flirts, while Curly takes a nap.

Sure, blame the fucking pitot tubes. (Yes, it is, in fact, a special kind of pitot tube designed to fuck you up). Confused about your airspeed? Oh, let me see––was Bitching Betty blaring a stall warning throughout the cockpit not clear enough for you? Was the fact that the stick shaker was rattling the yoke continuously not enough to tell you that maybe pitching the nose up was not the brightest idea in the world?

Apparently not. Moe declared he was "in control", Larry was leafing through the manual to find out what a "yoke" is, and Curly––well, he was fast asleep, as dictated by the French pilots' union rule-book, while the aircraft was plunging––nose up––into the ocean, killing 228 people. Well, 225 people and three poorly-trained monkeys.

In two more years of investigations they'll probably come back with the recommendation that all audible warnings must now be bilingual. "Stall! Décrochage! Terrain! Le terrain! Au revoir, imbécile!"

[Grape]

http://www.airspacemag.com/military-...t_Express.html

Details on an Air Force pilot w/ spatial-d that bellyflopped an F-15... his rate of descent was 30,000 ft/min. He hit the water at 630 mph.

if you can't see, 630 going straight down feels just like 630 going forward or backwards for that matter.

[onemeangixxer7502]

Vertigo?



Groundspeed is just that. Physics doesn't care about ground speed, it cares about airflow over the wings. 300mph groundspeed with a 120mph tailwind = 180mph air speed. When a pilot is trying to rely on "known pitch and power" settings to maintain flight... you see how groundspeed could F you, right? High altitude and high speed make for narrower performance windows also which makes the need for acurrate data more important.

Good call. Using it to verify other readings and help understand that shit was haywire would have been good. Woops.



From another board:

Its pretty stupid they didn't know what stall meant, or even that the voice saying it wasn't in french. I think it was just a im scared and don't know WTF is going on. Although I don't fly planes or anywhere near 37,000msl. I've had students do the exact opposite of what they're trained to do when they're scared or surprised....

[Strychnine]

You'd think that someone would have noticed the altimiter spinning wildly and said, "hey, whatever the fuck we're doing isn't working... plan B!"

[onemeangixxer7502]

You'd think that someone would have noticed the altimiter spinning wildly and said, "hey, whatever the fuck we're doing isn't working... plan B!"

I've heard it talked about and seen it one or two times. usually a subordinate is less likely to question the decision of a superior or more experienced crew member. Case and point

[Strychnine]

Apache

Wow. I'd punch him in his dick repeatedly for that one.



On the plane note, apparently Airbus just loves their electronics... to the point of ridiculousness.

It reminds me of another Airbus indecent a decade or so ago where the pilots wanted to do a flyby and the planes computers wanted to put the plane in a landing config and flew the plane into the ground.

I taught a course with some pilots where we used that video.

The pilots told me a pilot joke.....

"What's the difference between an Airbus and a chainsaw?"

Answer: About 5,000 trees per minute.