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Air France Plane Missing Over Atlantic

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On the news they said something might have been wrong with the airspeed indicators? That seems to be the most popular theory at least.
 
Forsete said:
On the news they said something might have been wrong with the airspeed indicators? That seems to be the most popular theory at least.
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Yep.
It says that in the article:

The investigation is increasingly focused on whether external instruments on the Airbus A330 may have iced over, confusing speed sensors and leading computers to set the plane's speed too fast or slow — a potentially deadly mistake.

The French agency investigating the disaster said airspeed instruments on the plane had not been replaced as the maker had recommended, but cautioned that it was too early to draw conclusions about what role that may have played in the crash.

The agency, BEA, said the plane received inconsistent airspeed readings from different instruments as it struggled in a massive thunderstorm.
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Air crash investigations is one of my favorite shows. Kinda looking forward to their take on this disaster.
 
I read last week or so about them finally finding major pieces of the plane, interested to hear what really happened finally.
 
New report today. Pilot error, basically.
French air accident investigators looking into the crash of Air France flight AF447 have identified serious pilot training shortcomings that may have contributed to the loss of the Airbus A330-200 two years ago.

Among the findings are that “the copilots had received no high altitude training for the “Unreliable [indicated air speed]” procedure and manual air craft handling” and also that there is no crew resource management “for a crew made up of two copilots in a situation with a relief Captain.”

In the case of AF447, the pilot was resting when the sequence of events began that led to the crash of the aircraft on June 1, 2009, killing all 238 persons onboard. The aircraft was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

The report also raises questions about how the pilots flying the aircraft at the time interacted. “No standard callouts regarding the differences in pitch attitude and vertical speed were made,” the report says. What is more, the report states that “neither of the pilots made any reference to the stall warning” and that “neither of the pilots formally identified the stall situation.”

In the first 90 seconds of the sequence of events, the captain was resting outside of the cockpit and returned after having been called back in by the pilot non flying (PNF). The pilot-flying was the least experienced of the three.

The third interim report, published July 29, highlights again that the aircraft stalled at high altitude and the pilots never performed the nose down inputs to recover. Normal speed readings came back on both instruments after 29 and 54 seconds respectively. At that time, the aircraft was at 38,000 ft. at a displayed speed of 185 knots. In that moment, the aircraft was not stalled and could have been fully recovered by returning to its initial cruise altitude of 35,000 ft. and with power being reduced. The pilot-flying however continued to pull back on the stick, with speed rapidly decreasing. He was not corrected by his two colleagues.

Throughout the descent, the crew maintained a nose-up attitude of the airliner. In fact, the pilot-flying made nose-up inputs and set thrust to takeoff/go around. The BEA notes that “in less than one minute after the disconnection of the autopilot, the airplane was outside its flight envelope following the manual inputs that were mainly nose-up.”
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http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/gene... Never Formally Identified Stall&channel=comm
 
JohnTinker said:
The fact that it sounds like this was preventable makes it even worse :(
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I lost several coworkers and a neighbor to a similar situation. Insufficient training for the flight led to the crash. It sucks, though legislation actually has/is coming out of the incident. Hopefully it will limit such occurrences in the future.
 
I remember watching a Nova program on this on Netflix and they had some random pilots come in and fly a simulation of the event without them knowing. And they passed with a charm. No crash.

So it's a bit sad to confirm the fears of gross pilot error. They should have been trained for this.
 
Wow he stalled at 38,000 feet at 185 knots and didn't realize that would happen? How inexperienced do you have to be to do that? Jeez. Horrible.
 
Bulbo Urethral Baggins said:
You would think insinct would have taken over. You don't just keep pulling up as you're stalling.
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To be fair, if it's dark enough and you can't see, and you aren't identifying what is occurring as a stall, it's unlikely for the proper instinct to take over.

That said, that's some pretty bad pilot error.
 
So it went nose up all the way down? Tail first...?

Horrible experience for all those onboard I'm sure. We gotta stop the cutting cost mantra of the world. These guys should have had training.
 
I have flown over 100 times and I have a mild fear of flying (which started not long ago, I think it started in 2008 or so).
 
FLEABttn said:
To be fair, if it's dark enough and you can't see, and you aren't identifying what is occurring as a stall, it's unlikely for the proper instinct to take over.

That said, that's some pretty bad pilot error.
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I guess the key is not identifying it as a stall.

My worst nightmare is crashing like this from a high altitude. I can still remember this news like yesterday.
 
I just cant fathom how the pilots would not know the stall. They know they're going down, they know they know more power isn't doing the trick.

I've taken flying lessons, I've even flown solo, and the first lessons are all about stalls, how to see them coming, how to recover from them, and even how to fly at the very edge of the envelope of stalling and keep the plane in the air.

In a stall you always put the nose down to regain speed. Learning to fly is all about learning what to do when things go wrong, flying itself is pretty easy.
 
Seems to have been a lot of confusion/disagreement.
PF: JÂ’ai plus aucune indication
I no longer have any indication

2 h 12 min 04 to 2 h 12 min 07
PF: JÂ’ai lÂ’impression quÂ’on a une vitesse de fou non quÂ’est-ce que vous en pensez ?
I have the impression that we have some crazy speed, donÂ’t we ?.. what do you think ?

2 h 12 min 07
PNF: Non surtout ne ne (les) sors pas
No, in any case, don't don't extend them

2 h 12 min 13
PNF: QuÂ’est-ce que tu en penses quÂ’est-ce que tu en penses, quÂ’est-ce quÂ’il faut faire ?
What do you think ?what do you think ? what do we have to do?

2 h 12 min 15 to 2 h 12 min 19
CAP: Là je sais pas là ça descend
I don't know we're going down

2 h 12 min 19 to 2 h 12 min 45
PF: LĂ  cÂ’est bon lĂ  on serait revenu les ailes Ă  plat, non il veut (pas)
there ! that's good ! we'd be back to wings level, no he (doesn't) wan't to

CAP: Les ailes Ă  plat ... lÂ’horizon lÂ’horizon de secours
Wings level ... the horizon the backup horizon

PNF: LÂ’horizon
The horizon

2 h 12 min 26
PNF: La vitesse ?
The speed?

2 h 12 min 27
PNF: Tu montes ... Tu descends descends descends descends
You're going up ... go down go down go down go down

2 h 12 min 30
PF: Je suis en train de descendre lĂ  ?
Am I going down?

PNF: Descend !
Go down

2 h 12 min 32
CAP: Non tu montes lĂ 
No you're going up, now

2 h 12 min 33
PF: LĂ  je monte okay alors on descend
There I'm going up ok so let's go down

2 h 13 min 39
PNF: Remonte remonte remonte remonte
Climb climb climb climb (literally, "remonte" is "climb back up")

2 h 13 min 40
PF: Mais je suis Ă  fond Ă  cabrer depuis tout Ă  lÂ’heure
But I've been pulling to the back stop for a good while

CAP: Non non non ne remonte pas
No no no don't climb back up

PNF: Alors descend
Go down, then

2 h 13 min 45
PNF: Alors donne-moi les commandes Ă  moi les commandes
So give the me controls. I have control
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Full translation - http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5212138/ - post #102.
 
From what I read of the earlier indications, there was a situation where the pilot really couldn't tell the speed at which they were flying. There was suggestion that they thought they were going too fast and that is why they were trying to bleed off speed.
 
a176 said:
What does a blocked tube matter if your plane is falling and your nose is 15 degrees up to the sky?
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because those tube supply the speed to the pilots/flight director (computer) and there have been cases where the pilots have wrong information and this leads to stalls and crashes.


there have been other cases where the capts speed displays was one thing and the co-pilots another. confusion. crash.

massively important. speed defines config, config defines whether the aircraft keeps flying.

in this case, the config sounds like it was one thing based on the data and the speed was another.
 
B!TCH said:
A blocked pitot tube has been responsible for airplane disasters before in an eerily similar accident,

Birgenair Flight 301
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzsF-7i7ui4

Do they know what blocked this plane's pitot tubes?
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Pito-Tubes are tiny, very tiny. The most common blockage is usually ice, but even small bits of sand can get in. They're usually covered on the ground until engines start up,a nd even the most basic of single engine prop planes have a heater on them to get rid of ice.
 
a176 said:
What does a blocked tube matter if your plane is falling and your nose is 15 degrees up to the sky?
Click to expand...

Watch the Nova documentary on it. They have all the parts on youtube.
NOVA - Crash of Air France

Basically this tube manages damn near everything relating to speed, direction, etc. And since these planes are literally flown by a computer nowadays, when the computer starts breaking down and giving you shit, it's easy for pilots to make mistakes.

Though of course, as experiences as these pilots were supposed to have been, they still should've been able to handle the problem.
 
dabig2 said:
Watch the Nova documentary on it. They have all the parts on youtube.
NOVA - Crash of Air France

Basically this tube manages damn near everything relating to speed, direction, etc. And since these planes are literally flown by a computer nowadays, when the computer starts breaking down and giving you shit, it's easy for pilots to make mistakes.

Though of course, as experiences as these pilots were supposed to have been, they still should've been able to handle the problem.
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The only thing the pito-tube is responsible for is airspeed indications. Altimeter, and Vertical Speed indicator work on a static air port. Heading and Attitude indicator run of gyroscopes.
 
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