11–20 of 374 posts
The lack of reaction to "Stall!" implies one of two things; either it was broken and the sound didn't play or the complete lack of understanding about what the word "Stall" meant with the pilots. Has either of these been proposed and discussed? The author of this piece doesn't seem to touch on why they ignore "Stall!", unless it's been confirmed the sound had been heard (on the recording maybe?) and they did indeed u…
It's interesting that First Officer Bonin is able to doom the plane by continuing to hold back on his joystick, even when that action isn't having positive results. Had the other first officer pushed his joystick forward, would the plane begin to dive? I assume that one joystick has precedence over the other... It seems dangerous to have two joysticks, both capable of controlling the plane, that have no physical or s…
In addtion, if the autopilot or flight control system goes from a fully 'in the loop' mode to a 'direct mode' where input=output (the transition possibly being caused by faulty airpseed sensors in this case), the automatic flight control mode has no more authority to interrupt pilot command.
In situations like you describe where two 'free' (no force feedback in relation to control surface force) joystics are used, it is better to have a 'pilot in control' switch otherwise you could get situations where an inexperienced pilot would panic and force his joystick to an unsafe position, overriding the more experienced pilot.
See the following link for more info: http://msquair.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/pilots-in-the-loop-a...
The lack of reaction to "Stall!" implies one of two things; either it was broken and the sound didn't play or the complete lack of understanding about what the word "Stall" meant with the pilots. Has either of these been proposed and discussed? The author of this piece doesn't seem to touch on why they ignore "Stall!", unless it's been confirmed the sound had been heard (on the recording maybe?) and they did indeed u…
The articles says it's audible on the recording. Stall alarms are usually very loud. I can't speak for Air France, but in general aviation the word "stall" (in English) is of global significance. I imagine they thought it was malfunctioning, or simply didn't think about it in the heat of the moment.
It's interesting that First Officer Bonin is able to doom the plane by continuing to hold back on his joystick, even when that action isn't having positive results. Had the other first officer pushed his joystick forward, would the plane begin to dive? I assume that one joystick has precedence over the other... It seems dangerous to have two joysticks, both capable of controlling the plane, that have no physical or s…
According to the article, the input from the two joysticks is averaged.
The lack of reaction to "Stall!" implies one of two things; either it was broken and the sound didn't play or the complete lack of understanding about what the word "Stall" meant with the pilots. Has either of these been proposed and discussed? The author of this piece doesn't seem to touch on why they ignore "Stall!", unless it's been confirmed the sound had been heard (on the recording maybe?) and they did indeed u…
The author did touch on it: "According to Camilleri, not one of US Airway's 17 Airbus 330s has ever been in alternate law. Therefore, Bonin may have assumed that the stall warning was spurious because he didn't realize that the plane could remove its own restrictions against stalling and, indeed, had done so."
"We still have the engines! What the hell is happening? I don't understand what's happening." unless this is in reference to the stalling?
Linking the two sticks is one way, another might be to show the state of the two sticks on the display next to the indicator of pitch, perhaps using coloring to highlight when the sticks are being pushed forward or backward. But of course there is already an overload of indicators. Really, improvements in the software/AI might be the best solution.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The articles says it's audible on the recording. Stall alarms are usually very loud. I can't speak for Air France, but in general aviation the word "stall" (in English) is of global significance. I imagine they thought it was malfunctioning, or simply didn't think about it in the heat of the moment.
They don't explicitly state that it is something you can hear in the recording, I made the assumption that the "blackbox" contain not just an audio recording but a log of the computer system -- what actions it took, which is how they know the co-pilot was pulling back the entire time -- and they're basing it off of that. Although the way they phrase it (reading back through the relevant paragraphs now) with the assum…
I have read a few other transcripts from crashed planes and this seems to be the most common and significant contributor.
I see variations of this problem almost daily in my day to day work. It strikes me so many times that people flat out refuse to communicate or do do in an extremely ambiguous fashion, people violate responsibility boundaries all the time (faux-technical people forcing technical decisions for e.g.) and that directly results in losses far greater than they should have been if there was any notion of discipline and communication.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to the article, the input from the two joysticks is averaged.
Which raises a very good question, when would you ever want that joystick behaviour?