galaxy flyer

The question isn't what they forgot; it's did they ever learn to handle a high level stall?

GF

Jughead

I had an answer to your question, but for obvious reasons and out of respect, it was redacted.

The CVR transcript is painful to read.

USMCFLYR

Faulty data misled pilot in Brazil-France crash - Boston.com

Recent article after the final release.

USMCFLYR

Std Deviation

Dekker's point of reference is "the system did you wrong." vs. the other school of thought that the error origin is based within the individual (Tony Kern theory). These are two very different opinions regarding errors and accidents. Ultimately I think it's a little of both.

jungle

Just a guess, but I would make a large bet that Airbus, like Boeing, has a procedure for loss of airspeed indication.
The fundamentals are the same for all aircraft. The more difficult you make it sound, the less credibility you have-it isn't rocket science and it isn't hard.

The facts clearly point to a crew flying a perfectly good aircraft into the water.

xjtguy

Or put another way, a crew flying a perfectly good airplane let it fly THEM into the water.

rickair7777

Actually, no the airplane didn't stall itself, the PF did. And then he kept it that way. Hard to argue that guy wasn't a poor pilot, even though an instrument failure caused the initial confusion. He had time to experiment with the power and pitch to attempt to figure out which instruments to trust but he was too scared to try.

A design feature of the aircraft prevented the PM from realizing what the PF was doing and he waited way too long to take control in a rapid descent. The captain came back too late to sort out the problem.

A malfunction, some design quirks, a weak PF, and a slow PM.

xjtguy

Yeah, and the PF let the plane take them all the way to the water. I was simply rewording what Jungle wrote.

Or if you wanna be so uptight, anal retentive and take EVERYTHING so literally, they let a plane stall them into the water, better?

Phantom Flyer

Gentlemen:

Some interesting comments on AF447. I'll throw my own opinions out for the group. I've flown the Airbus 319/320 but not the A330-200, so I speak some French but I'm not fluent.

In my view, the NTSB needs to direct a thorough and complete investigation of the A-3330-200 pitot static system. There have been a half dozen incidents where there were significant degradations or failures of portions or all of this system to warrant an unbiased look at the system engineering.

Secondly, all airlines have cut training in the interest of improving the bottom line. In the interest of safety, pilots need a lot more training in the classroom, the sim and if possible during IOE in high altitude meteorology, high altitude aircraft performance and the upset scenarios. We also need to get back to teaching situational awareness and basic flying skill sets when operating with less that full systems, i.e., stand-by power scenarios. Unfortunately, the Air France crew was not up to speed in those areas and 228 people paid for the discrepancies with their lives.

Lastly, where was the decision making in not deviating around a known area of intense weather ? I'm not an expert by any means but I did make over 100 crossings of the inter-tropical convergence zone between JFK and deep South America and can never remember a smooth ride. TRW activity was the norm and just about every carrier was sharing information about buildups, ride conditions and what was being painted on radar. I wasn't there but why didn't AF447 deviate when several others did so safely.

It's easy to point fingers and hindsight is always 20/20 but the trends in training issues are very disturbing. Air France and Airbus are probably going to absorb a very high cost in litigation and settlements, as they should.

Y'all be careful out there.

G'Day Mates

Dougdrvr

Probably a gross over simplification, and not being a Bus driver, it certainly looks, to me , like a case of the "children of the magenta line" that grew up with Alpha floor protection.