577nitro

With no disrespect for AF and their tragedy.

What? Dude you are so off base with this comment. Maybe I should say I worked there when it meant something. Because we were all about stomping Airbus into the ground, and if that's not your agenda as a Boeing employee, you need to move on. Why don't you send that sweet thought up to McNerney, see how he responds. Maybe this is why Boeing is losing ground.

vagabond

Instead of the ubiquitous speculation and bickering, might I suggest a brief pause to remember the passengers on AF 447. They were very real human beings when they boarded this flight. And now they are gone, just like that.

Lost in the Atlantic, the tragic victims of flight AF447 - Europe, World - The Independent

Many, many people all over the world read APC. They linkback, paraphrase and quote from posts. We are a community of professionals and I hope everyone here conducts himself/herself in that way. And as usual, if someone cannot help it and insists on posting flamebait and otherwise inappropriate comments, I will delete them all.

Just remember - there but for the grace of God go I.

acl65pilot

Amen.
I think that one thing that every accident brings to light is how many interesting, and amazing people fly behind us each and every day. The trust us to get them from Point A to B safely.
Go look at these people and the lives cut terribly short from this accident. If it does not give you pause, go look and the mirror and as why!

deltabound

Article here:

Air France Flight's Speed Is Probed - WSJ.com

Working theory is icing blocked the pitot tubes, pilots responded to false indication of decaying airspeed with extra power, actual TAS was way too fast for turbulent conditions and this lead to structural failure.

This is considered extremely "preliminary".

577nitro

This is either extremely scary, or completely in left field. I can not believe any professional flight crew could ever conceivably forget to turn on the pitot heat? I'm sure it's happened before....is it even possible to "NOT" have pitot heat on in the A330?

acl65pilot

I am sure they would have caught that sometime before takeoff much less an EICAS caution staring them in the face for three hrs.

I also find it very hard to swallow that all three pitot tubes iced up and they just red lined the engines.
Add to that, no ACARS messages for an over speed, or over temp on the engines, et al.

It does not add up for me, not yet.

BlueMoon

yea, even in the RJ I believe the probes were heated anytime the aircraft was WOW....regardless of whether or not the switch was in the On or the Off position. (I just looked it up, and this is the case...admittedly Airbii may be different)

tortue

According to the photos I've seen of the A330 overhead, the Probe/Window Heat button has the text "AUTO" right next to it (I believe the A320s don't have that).

If this was a problem, wouldnt this have been an issue earlier in the flight, too?

deltabound

Definitely "Preliminary". I've never flown an Airbus, but I can't imagine a modern airliner where it would even be possible to fly without pitot heat on when airborne (without a CB pulled, anyway).

I guess this particular "theory" which supposedly has some legs to it is that rapid and extreme icing at altitude blocked the pitot tubes, presumably overwhelming the anti-ice heating unbeknownst to the pilots.

The apparent (but false) indication of speed decay would be easy to identify on a nice calm day, less so when the smack is hitting your airplane in truly crummy weather. Initial response to fluctuating airspeed would be to increase power (not redline it) and this would lead to an increase in ACTUAL airspeed, over and above V/Turb, perhaps significantly. All before an encounter with severe turbulence.

The reality is we may never know what happened.

tequilatamm

Hmmm... the fact that several of you have said things like "I can't believe the Pitot Tubes were not heated" (for whatever reason... not turned on, iced up, etc.)

Maybe the pilots on this flight didn't consider that possibility, and took the airspeed slowing indications verbatim and did speed up.

If it's just not something conceivable, than any pilot may have done the same, it's a reasonable course of action.

I guess we won't know for at least awhile, but I'll bet Airbus will be doing some serious testing of the Pitot Tubes.

This ma be the same or similar article as above, about Pitot Tubes icing, but I thought I'd post it:

Air France Flight's Speed Is Probed - WSJ.com