What happened to Air France Flight 447
Discussion
http://www.popularmechanics.com/print-this/what-re...
Terrifying. A perfectly serviceable aircraft flown into the sea & none of the pilots knew what was going on.
Terrifying. A perfectly serviceable aircraft flown into the sea & none of the pilots knew what was going on.
Mr Pointy said:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/print-this/what-re...
Terrifying. A perfectly serviceable aircraft flown into the sea & none of the pilots knew what was going on.
Perfectly serviceable?Terrifying. A perfectly serviceable aircraft flown into the sea & none of the pilots knew what was going on.
Sounds like some serious design faults if a couple of experienced pilots weren't able to easily understand what was going on? Presumably if you design an aircraft and fill it with men women and children, you would want it to be very straight forward to operate, not one where two/three pilots could "fly it into the sea" like that.
Presumably there were some other factors to consider?
el stovey said:
Perfectly serviceable?
Sounds like some serious design faults if a couple of experienced pilots weren't able to easily understand what was going on? Presumably if you design an aircraft and fill it with men women and children, you would want it to be very straight forward to operate, not one where two/three pilots could "fly it into the sea" like that.
Presumably there were some other factors to consider?
I'm guessing you've no idea about how to fly a plane nor have you read the other threads on here about this particular accident?Sounds like some serious design faults if a couple of experienced pilots weren't able to easily understand what was going on? Presumably if you design an aircraft and fill it with men women and children, you would want it to be very straight forward to operate, not one where two/three pilots could "fly it into the sea" like that.
Presumably there were some other factors to consider?
el stovey said:
Mr Pointy said:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/print-this/what-re...
Terrifying. A perfectly serviceable aircraft flown into the sea & none of the pilots knew what was going on.
Perfectly serviceable?Terrifying. A perfectly serviceable aircraft flown into the sea & none of the pilots knew what was going on.
Sounds like some serious design faults if a couple of experienced pilots weren't able to easily understand what was going on? Presumably if you design an aircraft and fill it with men women and children, you would want it to be very straight forward to operate, not one where two/three pilots could "fly it into the sea" like that.
Presumably there were some other factors to consider?
200bhp said:
el stovey said:
Perfectly serviceable?
Sounds like some serious design faults if a couple of experienced pilots weren't able to easily understand what was going on? Presumably if you design an aircraft and fill it with men women and children, you would want it to be very straight forward to operate, not one where two/three pilots could "fly it into the sea" like that.
Presumably there were some other factors to consider?
I'm guessing you've no idea about how to fly a plane nor have you read the other threads on here about this particular accident?Sounds like some serious design faults if a couple of experienced pilots weren't able to easily understand what was going on? Presumably if you design an aircraft and fill it with men women and children, you would want it to be very straight forward to operate, not one where two/three pilots could "fly it into the sea" like that.
Presumably there were some other factors to consider?
As I said it sounds like there are other factors to consider.
200bhp said:
el stovey said:
Perfectly serviceable?
Sounds like some serious design faults if a couple of experienced pilots weren't able to easily understand what was going on? Presumably if you design an aircraft and fill it with men women and children, you would want it to be very straight forward to operate, not one where two/three pilots could "fly it into the sea" like that.
Presumably there were some other factors to consider?
I'm guessing you've no idea about how to fly a plane nor have you read the other threads on here about this particular accident?Sounds like some serious design faults if a couple of experienced pilots weren't able to easily understand what was going on? Presumably if you design an aircraft and fill it with men women and children, you would want it to be very straight forward to operate, not one where two/three pilots could "fly it into the sea" like that.
Presumably there were some other factors to consider?
You guessed wrong200bhp said:
el stovey said:
Perfectly serviceable?
Sounds like some serious design faults if a couple of experienced pilots weren't able to easily understand what was going on? Presumably if you design an aircraft and fill it with men women and children, you would want it to be very straight forward to operate, not one where two/three pilots could "fly it into the sea" like that.
Presumably there were some other factors to consider?
I'm guessing you've no idea about how to fly a plane nor have you read the other threads on here about this particular accident?Sounds like some serious design faults if a couple of experienced pilots weren't able to easily understand what was going on? Presumably if you design an aircraft and fill it with men women and children, you would want it to be very straight forward to operate, not one where two/three pilots could "fly it into the sea" like that.
Presumably there were some other factors to consider?
Mr Pointy said:
el stovey said:
Mr Pointy said:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/print-this/what-re...
Terrifying. A perfectly serviceable aircraft flown into the sea & none of the pilots knew what was going on.
Perfectly serviceable?Terrifying. A perfectly serviceable aircraft flown into the sea & none of the pilots knew what was going on.
Sounds like some serious design faults if a couple of experienced pilots weren't able to easily understand what was going on? Presumably if you design an aircraft and fill it with men women and children, you would want it to be very straight forward to operate, not one where two/three pilots could "fly it into the sea" like that.
Presumably there were some other factors to consider?
200bhp said:
el stovey said:
Perfectly serviceable?
Sounds like some serious design faults if a couple of experienced pilots weren't able to easily understand what was going on? Presumably if you design an aircraft and fill it with men women and children, you would want it to be very straight forward to operate, not one where two/three pilots could "fly it into the sea" like that.
Presumably there were some other factors to consider?
I'm guessing you've no idea about how to fly a plane nor have you read the other threads on here about this particular accident?Sounds like some serious design faults if a couple of experienced pilots weren't able to easily understand what was going on? Presumably if you design an aircraft and fill it with men women and children, you would want it to be very straight forward to operate, not one where two/three pilots could "fly it into the sea" like that.
Presumably there were some other factors to consider?
Simpo Two said:
It shows that you can be trained to fly a computer but not an aeroplane.
Really? You take off and head out over the Atlantic at night time, it's late, you find a big line of thunderstorms on your weather radar, so you try and negotiate your way around them, you're tired and it's very dark.
There's some icing and suddenly your instruments all start showing different stuff, there's now all kind of warnings going off and messages everywhere giving conflicting information. After some confusion the stall warning's now blaring away then it suddenly stops. . . you think you've recovered but when you increase the speed the stall warning starts all over again. What's going on?
Easy to sit here now and say they should have just concentrated on a power setting and pitch attitude and waited. Not so easy late at night in or near a thunderstorm.
Bit easy to blame the pilots they're dead. How about taking a look at the architecture of the warning systems. Any accident has a multitude of factors.
fomb said:
Seems bit of a design fault that a pilot can sit there controlling the stick, and effectively have bugger all idea that the other pilot is doing something as well.
Surely a bit of tactile feedback wouldn't go amiss?
Thanks for posting OP. I'm not a pilot but I found it interesting and frightening to read. I flew a small plane a few times and I can imagine panicking like that but would hope a pilot wouldn't. Surely a bit of tactile feedback wouldn't go amiss?
Is this common (no feedback between controls) in modern airliners? Doesn't make sense and must be cheap and technically easy to do? Any reason why you wouldn't?
I'm not 'blaming them because they are dead'. I think - having read the report from top to bottom - that they were largely responsible for the crash.
The only thing that went wrong on the aircraft was iced-up pitot heads. I find it hard to believe that such an obvious and possible event is not catered for either in aircraft design or pilot training.
Had they not ignored 75 stall warnings, which was the start of the problem, or looked at the altimeter to see if they were climbing or diving, which was the middle of the problem, it might have been useful. They were also unaware of the different parameters between flying on autopilot and flying without it (normal and alternate law), which changed what they could do. Once they lost the plot, they were too busy bickering to work the problem.
That said, I stand by my original point - too many computers and too much fly-by-wire means pilots are divorced from reality. I suspect that a WW2 bomber pilot with a blind flying panel would have done a better job.
The only thing that went wrong on the aircraft was iced-up pitot heads. I find it hard to believe that such an obvious and possible event is not catered for either in aircraft design or pilot training.
Had they not ignored 75 stall warnings, which was the start of the problem, or looked at the altimeter to see if they were climbing or diving, which was the middle of the problem, it might have been useful. They were also unaware of the different parameters between flying on autopilot and flying without it (normal and alternate law), which changed what they could do. Once they lost the plot, they were too busy bickering to work the problem.
That said, I stand by my original point - too many computers and too much fly-by-wire means pilots are divorced from reality. I suspect that a WW2 bomber pilot with a blind flying panel would have done a better job.
Simpo Two said:
The only thing that went wrong on the aircraft was iced-up pitot heads. I find it hard to believe that such an obvious and possible event is not catered for either in aircraft design or pilot training.
It is and it is.Simpo Two said:
Had they not ignored 75 stall warnings....
They didn't. They reacted incorrectly.Simpo Two said:
.... or looked at the altimeter to see if they were climbing or diving....
I have absolutely no doubt they looked. However, the aircraft was in a deep stall which meant that it was largely irrelevant as there was nothing they could do about it unless they got the machine flying again. As referred to above, they reacted incorrectly.Simpo Two said:
They were also unaware of the different parameters between flying on autopilot and flying without it (normal and alternate law), which changed what they could do.
If the autopilot is in, you are in normal law. If the autopilot is out, you can be in normal law, alternate law (with our without protections), direct law or an unusual attitude version of alternate law. It depends upon the configuration or the failure state, among other parameters. Shoving the stick forward to get the nose down below the horizon (standard stall recovery at high altitude) works in all laws. This wasn't done.Simpo Two said:
That said, I stand by my original point - too many computers and too much fly-by-wire means pilots are divorced from reality. I suspect that a WW2 bomber pilot with a blind flying panel would have done a better job.
I'd edit that to "pilots can be divorced from reality". Otherwise, in this specific case I'm inclined to agree.Edited by JW911 on Thursday 8th December 17:44
el stovey said:
Bit easy to blame the pilots they're dead. How about taking a look at the architecture of the warning systems. Any accident has a multitude of factors.
I appreciate what you're saying - but considering they had minutes to react rather than seconds, why would they not go back to basics and just look at pitch, airspeed & rate of descent?I appreciate that reactions to a developing situation are different to a fresh situation.
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