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Air France flight recorder found!
Air France crash 'flight recorder' part found - CNN.com
Hopefully they can read it and get some answers! |
Originally Posted by love2av8
(Post 986595)
Air France crash 'flight recorder' part found - CNN.com
Hopefully they can read it and get some answers! "The find - which comes more than three weeks after search teams found the tail section of the aircraft -- does not include the "memory unit" which holds the recorded data that could eventually help investigators determine the cause of the crash." |
Originally Posted by FlyBoyd
(Post 986610)
Not so fast my friend...from the article.
"The find - which comes more than three weeks after search teams found the tail section of the aircraft -- does not include the "memory unit" which holds the recorded data that could eventually help investigators determine the cause of the crash." |
Same here ...
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CNN standard.
"Air France Flight Recorder part found." |
Hey, when they first "broke" the news, CNN was calling it the "fight recorder."
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Air France 447 Recorder Found
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Looks they found the memory module too...
Crucial 'memory unit' from 2009 Air France crash recovered - CNN.com |
Now let's remember history, for those that forget history are likely to suffer from their memory lapse.
The recorder memory unit is now in the hands of the same goofballs that recovered the FDR and CVR from the crash of the A320 in Basel in 1988. The same goofballs that were videoed taking a FDR from the crash sight with clear dents in the outer box, then presenting an FDR that had an undamaged case to the court deciding guilt. Air France and Airbus were litigants in that case. The government goofballs protected them in the court case from the 1988 case. Any chance that these same French goofballs will act any differently in 2011??? Expect nothing that shows that either Air Frog or Scarebus are at fault for faulty guidance or construction. The dead pilots are an easy way to evade culpability. |
In their defense, they are taking a lot of precautions to ensure the integrity of the data. The NTSB has been present for all parts of the data uploading.
It looks like the data is good -- there will be some interesting news in the coming weeks. Air France Recorder Data Retrieved |
Originally Posted by cardiomd
(Post 994621)
In their defense, they are taking a lot of precautions to ensure the integrity of the data. The NTSB has been present for all parts of the data uploading.
It looks like the data is good -- there will be some interesting news in the coming weeks. Air France Recorder Data Retrieved USMCFLYR |
Originally Posted by USMCFLYR
(Post 994665)
Do you know at who's request or invitation?
USMCFLYR Unfortunately no, I don't have any contacts close enough on the "inside" and the news reports I've seen have been woefully inadequate. I'd guess there are a lot of agreements re: USA involvement in the finding of the wreck that translate into analysis (e.g. we won't help unless you let us verify analysis of the data.) There is widespread suspicion of the independence of analysis as somebody noted above, so I'd bet they are trying to at least appear transparent to avoid further scandal. Interestingly, Le Figaro reports already that Airbus is "held harmless" (for those that can read French) Le Figaro - Flash Actu : INFO LE FIGARO - AF 447 : Airbus mis hors de cause par les boites noires Likely confirmation of prevailing theory of pitots iced -> reversion to alternate / ?direct law -> crew a bit slow to get to the standard pitch&throttle settings -> stalled as they were already flying near Q-corner -> could not recover from significant upset while faced with innumerable alarms and faults. If so, there will be many arguments regarding "blame" on the pilots and "culpability" of the company. The company is clearly suffering from bad image as documents such as this float around: Air Caraibes Airbus A330 memo (warns about pitot icing incident clusters) which occurred relatively frequently. Most of the guys avoided stalling, likely AF447 didn't. :( I hope this does not spiral into a terrible finger-pointing endeavor (e.g. look, these other people made it just fine with iced pitots) and instead leads to some significant safety, training, corporate, and cultural improvements. |
The NTSB web site says they are participating as the US is the state of manufacture of the GE engines.
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Originally Posted by Twin Wasp
(Post 994733)
The NTSB web site says they are participating as the US is the state of manufacture of the GE engines.
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Originally Posted by Twin Wasp
(Post 994733)
The NTSB web site says they are participating as the US is the state of manufacture of the GE engines.
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I think you have to be invited to the investigation.
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Originally Posted by trent890
(Post 995112)
I wonder to what extent that reasoning could be used on other non-US accidents. Even if the AF447 aircraft had Rolls-Royce engines, the placard on the outside of the FDR chassis clearly says "Honeywell". Could the NTSB participate in an accident investigation for the sole reason of being the state of manufacture of the very same recorders that potentially hold the answers to solving the cause of an accident?
But once they determine that a certain sub-component is under suspicion, that mfg. should be invited to the party. The US NTSB often seems to be invited in an advisory capacity because they have the highest levels of expertise and experience in the world, and better forensic technology than many countries. |
Pilot of doomed Air France jet 'not in cockpit' during critical phase: report - NYPOST.com
LE BOURGET, France -- The pilot of the doomed Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean killing all 228 people on board was not in the cockpit when the first warning signals sounded, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported Monday. According to sources cited by the news magazine, France's BEA civil aviation safety bureau concluded that pilot Marc Dubois was not on the flight deck when the emergency first began. On flight recordings recovered from the Airbus jet, which crashed on June 1, 2009, while heading from France to Brazil, the 58-year-old can be heard rushing back to the pilot's seat. The source added, "He called instructions to the two co-pilots on how to save the aircraft." The recordings also show that there was only four minutes from those first warning alerts from the aircraft's monitoring equipment to the plane smashing into the ocean. But according to the report, pilot error alone was not solely to blame for the crash, with serious questions raised over how automatic systems on the aircraft reacted to the emergency. The recorders show the flight team worked hard -- successfully at first -- to avoid the serious storm front which froze the speed sensors and left them unable to gauge how fast they were going, leading to a "deep stall." The report says one theory is that the plane's computers, and not the pilots, reacted incorrectly to the stall, sealing the plane's fate. Airbus has refused to comment on the plane's flight characteristics while the investigation is ongoing. Information was downloaded over the weekend from the plane's black boxes, which were recovered after spending nearly two years submerged in more than 12,000 feet (3,650 meters) of water. |
On flight recordings recovered from the Airbus jet, which crashed on June 1, 2009, while heading from France to Brazil, the 58-year-old can be heard rushing back to the pilot's seat. MEDIA :mad: USMCFLYR |
Originally Posted by USMCFLYR
(Post 997344)
Are we still working on where the plane left from and the destination :confused:
MEDIA :mad: USMCFLYR ABC also has a tidbit, again rehashed from the German report. Air France 447: Air Speed Sensors Eyed in Crash - ABC News Der Spiegel reported that the black boxes showed the Air France plane climbed sharply after the speed-sensor failure and Captain Dubois returned to the cockpit shortly before the crash. From another part of the plane, the caption had communicated with the cockpit on actions to save the aircraft, the newspaper said. |
I've only flown airplanes with direct connection to the flight surfaces (cables) but I flew the A330 sim in OKC while at USAF AIS and found the transition difficult. My question is: would a stall be less noticeable on a side-controller aircraft compared with a yoke-controlled aircraft? Does the Airbus actually fly itself in a "controlled" stall? I would think that the nose would fall at the moment of stall, airspeed would increase until the stall was recovered, and if the pilots maintained back pressure then the aircraft would climb until another stall occurred.
Just trying to understand how the Airbus handles stalling. |
Faulty readings ahead of 2009 Air France crash
May 27, 7:19 PM (ET) By ELAINE GANLEY and JILL LAWLESS PARIS (AP) - Confronted with faulty instrument readings and alarms going off in the cockpit, the pilots of an Air France jetliner struggled to tame the aircraft as it went into an aerodynamic stall, rolled, and finally plunged 38,000 feet into the Atlantic Ocean in just 3 1/2 minutes. But the passengers on that doomed Rio de Janeiro-to-Paris flight were probably asleep or nodding off and didn't realize what was going on as the aircraft fell nose-up toward the sea, the director of the French accident investigating bureau said after releasing preliminary black-box data on the June 1, 2009, disaster. All 228 people aboard the Airbus A330 died. The brief, highly technical report by the BEA contains only selective remarks from the cockpit recorder, offers no analysis and assigns no blame. It also does not answer the key question: What caused the crash? http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-...wsAndReference http://speed.pointroll.com/PointRoll...&PRPID=1316295 But several experts familiar with the report said the co-pilot at the controls, at 32 the youngest of the three-man cockpit crew, Cedric Bonin, may have responded incorrectly to the emergency by pointing the nose upward, perhaps because he was confused by the incorrect readings. The plane's external speed sensors, called Pitot tubes, have long been considered a likely culprit in the disaster, with experts suggesting they may have been iced over. And the BEA investigators found that two sets of instruments on the plane gave different speed readings, with the discrepancies lasting less than a minute. Since the accident, Air France has replaced the speed monitors on all its Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft. An official at Airbus said the aircraft's nose should have been pointed slightly downward to enable the plane to regain lift after it had gone into an aerodynamic stall. "This is part of the general pilot training for any aircraft," said the official. He was not authorized to speak on that subject and asked not to be identified by name. Other aviation experts concurred. In an aerodynamic stall, a plane most often loses lift because it is traveling too slowly, and begins to fall out of the sky. Pointing the nose downward enables the aircraft to pick up speed, gain lift and pull out of the stall. Pulling the nose up is "an inappropriate way to respond" to an aerodynamic stall, said Paul Hayes, director of air safety for aviation consulting firm Ascend Worldwide Ltd. "He either misidentified what was happening or became confused." He cautioned that Friday's report was brief and that it was still unclear how the series of events started. The flight data recorder and cockpit recorder were dredged from the ocean in early May, along with some bodies. They showed, in addition to inconsistent speed readings, two co-pilots working methodically to right the plane manually after autopilot stopped. Captain Marc Dubois returned from a routine rest to the cockpit amid what moments later became an irretrievably catastrophic situation. After the plane went into a stall, warnings sounded, the autopilot and autothrust shut off as designed, and the co-pilot not at the controls "tried several times to call the captain back," the BEA report said. The captain returned one minute and 10 seconds later, when the plane had climbed to 38,000 feet. "During the following seconds, all of the recorded speeds became invalid and the stall warning stopped," the report said, but added that the plane never came out of its aerodynamic stall. "The airplane was subject to roll oscillations that sometimes reached 40 degrees," the report said. The engines never stopped operating and "always responded to crew commands," the BEA said. "The pilots never panicked," BEA director Jean-Paul Troadec said on RTL radio, adding that they maintained professionalism throughout. The passengers, he suggested, probably fell to their deaths without knowing they were doomed. Dinner had been served and "you can imagine that most passengers were already asleep or nodding off," Troadec said. He said the cabin crew never contacted the cockpit to see what might be wrong. "It seems they didn't feel more movements and turbulence than you generally feel in storms, so we think that till impact they did not realize the situation," said Jean-Baptiste Audousset, president of a victims' solidarity association, "which for the family is what they want to hear, they did not suffer." He was among a group of representatives of families who met with BEA officials to be briefed on their findings. At least one expert disagreed with the theory of a soft descent. Data from the flight recorders shows the plane was falling almost 11,000 feet per minute (124 mph, or 200 kilometers per hour), its nose slightly tilted upward. "Eleven-thousand feet a minute is a huge rate of descent," said Ronan Hubert, who runs the Aircraft Crashes Record Office in Geneva. "I would say some of the people on board would have lost consciousness." The crew had feared turbulence, and more than eight minutes before the crash the co-pilot at the controls advised the cabin crew "you should watch out" for turbulence ahead. He said the plane could not climb out of the cloud layer where the turbulence was happening because it was not cold enough. Turbulence caused the pilots to make a slight change of course, but was not excessive as the plane tried to pass through the clouds. Four minutes later, the plane's autopilot and autothrust shut off, the stall alarm sounded twice and the co-pilot at the controls took over manual control. A second co-pilot, David Robert, 37, was also in the cockpit. Pilots on long-haul flights often take turns resting to remain alert. After Dubois returned to the cockpit, he did not take back the controls. Just over two minutes before the crash, Bonin is heard to say, "I don't have any more indications." Robert says: "We have no valid indications." Michael Barr, who teaches aviation safety at the University of Southern California, said the atmosphere in the darkened cockpit would have been chaotic: lights flashing, loud alarms, frequent messages. He compared the pilots to emergency-room doctors struggling with a sudden influx of seriously injured patients: They were bombarded with problems that they had to quickly prioritize. On top of that, they were completely dependent on the information the plane's computers gave them. "You have to rely on your instruments," Barr said. "That's why when the instruments aren't telling you the truth, you have a hard time deciding what to do. Which ones are right and which ones are wrong?" Air France said in a statement that, based on the report, it appears "the initial problem was the failure of the speed probes which led to the disconnection of the autopilot" and loss of pilot protection systems. The airline defended the captain, saying he "quickly interrupted his rest period to regain the cockpit." Independent aviation analyst Chris Yates said the report appears "to raise more questions than it answers." "It would seem to me, reading between the lines, that the cockpit crew weren't confident of the information that was being presented to them on the data displays," Yates said. "Maybe - and it's only a maybe - they took some action that led to the stall warning, and the plane stalling and then being unable to correct it." A new, but not final, report with some analysis is to be issued in July. --- Cecile Brisson and Frank Jordans and APTN in Paris, Joan Lowy in Washington and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report. |
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