Where does the captain go to take a nap? I was wondering how he didn't hear the stall sounds in order to immediately return.
What really happened aboard Air France 447
111–120 of 374 posts
Re: What really happened aboard Air France 447
#112I've followed the discussion of the AF447 investigation on several flight discussion forums. The PF (Bonin) apparently never became aware of his angle of attack (once the airplane fully stalled, AOA was absurdly high). He did not seem to be aware that his constant inputs had caused the Airbus's THS (trimmable horizontal stabilizer, horizontal flaps on the tail) to deflect to maximum in order to try to keep the nose u…
What's missing from this article is the fact that the Captain chose to fly right into the storm, saying "on va pas se laisser emmerder par des cunimbs" (in essence: "fuck this storm")
http://www.lexpress.fr/actualites/2/actualite/des-dialogues-...
This is incredible hubris.
Then, in the middle of the storm he leaves the two copilots alone, one of them quite inexperienced, and goes for a nap. He's obviously trying to demonstrate that he's not afraid of anything.
Well, maybe he was fearless, but now he's dead and so are all the passengers, passengers he was in charge of.
- - -
Once in the storm, and with the incredible amount of stress, it's hard to say if other pilots would have done better (other pilots that night avoided the storm!)
I've read that pilots are trained to react to a stall at the beginning of their career, but not as part of their regular training -- I don't know if it's true or not.
What's true is that stall is one of the worst things that can happen; it's like training bus drivers to hit the brakes when they're going right into a wall: of course they would do that...
Re: What really happened aboard Air France 447
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely. You can almost feel the panic they must have experienced, trying to comprehend what was happening, in the dead of night, over the ocean: "What the hell is happening? I don't understand what's happening." "Damn it, I don't have control of the plane, I don't have control of the plane at all!" It's like a non-fiction horror story. Cockpit data recorders provide some really gripping stories. Same with the air…
There is a really great write-up of the Hudson river ditching in Vanity Fair: http://vanityfair.com/style/features/2009/06/us_airways20090... . Gripping, intense, interesting, and in the end incredibly inspiring due to the emergency going exactly right .
Interesting in that account the person in charge said "my aircraft". May have helped with Air France to eliminate the two people pulling on the stick.
Re: What really happened aboard Air France 447
#114I simply don't undersand (or don't comprehend) how the pilots don't know these things. My knowledge of planes is 4 hours of pilot lessons and watching a few documentaries on the Discovery channel yet I know that pulling the nose up of a plane would stall, that when you get bad readings from instruments you cross-check, and that a frozen pitot tube giving bad airspeed readings is very likely in high-altitude storms. I…
Surely there must be more to it. Clearly all of us who've played a flight simulator know that going up too fast will cause you to lose speed and eventually stall and fall until you regain enough speed to stabilize.
Sadly in this case it sounds like a mix of overconfidence (not avoiding the storm, trusting the plane more than the stall warnings, not waking up the captain until it was too late) and a lack of training for unexpected situations were the major factors in the crash.
Re: What really happened aboard Air France 447
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
>at night, over an ocean, in a storm, with no visibility, in possibly significant turbulance Instead of finding out strategies on how to fly under these circumstances, why can't the plane change its course, if they anticipate the flying route to have these conditions. How about running some reconnaissance drones in the popular routes if they suspect a bad weather and want to check out. Or try out better weather monit…
That was the first thing I noted in reading this. Is there any discussion as to why they didn't seek an alternate plan and if not, is this something that needs to or has been remedied?
> Is there any discussion as to why they didn't seek an alternate plan
The Captain chose not to, because he "wasn't afraid of clouds" (see my comment above). This was a huge mistake.
But Captains are in charge of their route and it makes sense; it would be incredibly bureaucratic and dangerous if routes were decided from a central command somewhere at the airline headquarters...
What we need are humble pilots; there should be psychological evaluation to weed out those who think they are John Wayne hunting down Indians.
Part of the difficulty is that the job attracts daredevils -- among others: that night, all other Captains went around the storm...
Re: What really happened aboard Air France 447
#116The state of UX design has advanced so much, perhaps we need more UX testing so that even pilots who are unfamiliar with a plane could figure out what to do. Amazon probably does more with figuring how to help users checkout their shopping cart than plane designers helping pilots get a plane out of a stall. Alternate law and normal law introduces two modes. This breaks one of the rules of user experience, especially…
>how does a plane know it's stalling if the pitot tubes are frozen?
I think it can easily do that by measuring the G force similar to an accelerometer on iPhone.
Re: What really happened aboard Air France 447
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
- Add a display that shows the current positions of both control sticks. Add an alarm when the two sticks are not within a certain margin of the each other, if both are engaged. Such as if one is full forward & the other is full back. This was my first thought as well. Confusion in one pilot was allowed to cause confusion in the second pilot, because he didn't realize that his partner was doing something unexpected a…
Yes. Or some kind of haptic connection
Like one stick moving the other...
Re: What really happened aboard Air France 447
#118Co-pilot Robert, after finally getting full control back from Co-pilot Bonin: "Damn it, we're going to crash... This can't be happening!" Co-pilot Bonin, who had been pulling back & stalling the plane during the crisis: "But what's happening?" Pretty much sums it up. I am thinking that perhaps Bonin had shellshock & may not have even realized he was holding the stick back. Perhaps the more experienced Robert didn't t…
> Add a display that shows the current positions of both control sticks
Yes! From the article: "As the plane approaches 10,000 feet, Robert tries to take back the controls, and pushes forward on the stick, but the plane is in "dual input" mode, and so the system averages his inputs with those of Bonin, who continues to pull back.
If this is true, it's insane. What does it mean to "average" the inputs of both pilots if one is full forward and the other one full back?? It should say "conflicting command; make up your mind".
The article alludes to the old system where the stick was just the one same stick for both pilots: no possible conflicts there.
The new planes should have a way to emulate that.
Re: What really happened aboard Air France 447
#119[deleted]
Re: What really happened aboard Air France 447
#120The state of UX design has advanced so much, perhaps we need more UX testing so that even pilots who are unfamiliar with a plane could figure out what to do. Amazon probably does more with figuring how to help users checkout their shopping cart than plane designers helping pilots get a plane out of a stall. Alternate law and normal law introduces two modes. This breaks one of the rules of user experience, especially…
> how does a plane know it's stalling if the pitot tubes are frozen
Angle of attack sensor. AoA is the actual definition of a stall as it measures the point at which airflow breaks away from the wing, reducing lift.
Re your other points on computer warnings, cockpits can get pretty noisy when shit happens with various alarms, buzzers, horns and voices going off. There's actually a tendency to reduce the number of different alarms and use screen information to indicate the problem (although that may be changing after the Qantas drama in 2010 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_32).