Black box results from French Airbus crash.

[two-niner]

I had to read the article three times to make sure what was being reported. This was about the French airliner Airbus A330 that went into the Atlantic Ocean two years ago. Several weeks ago they recovered the "black boxes" from the aircraft. I'm going to shorten the report for any fixed wing (airplane) pilots who may read this.

In normal flight, at altitude, the autopilot kicked off. The most junior pilot was "flying" the craft. The captain was out of the cockpit.

The junior pilot raised the nose of the airplane 15 degrees above horizontal for reasons still unknown. He held it in a nose high attitude until the craft ran out of flying speed and the plane stalled. The engines were still producing power. The junior pilot continued "nose high".

By the time the captain got back to the cockpit the airplane had ran out of altitude and went into the ocean.

Any student pilot with one hour flight time knows...just lower the nose to get out of the stalled configuration. This whole thing is inexplicable.

Kerry

[777 Driver]

Originally Posted by two-niner

Any student pilot with one hour flight time knows...just lower the nose to get out of the stalled configuration. This whole thing is inexplicable.

Kerry

Hi Kerry,

If only it were so simple...just lower the nose.

When I read about things like this, I try to start out from the position that two, highly experienced and trained pilots DID NOT set out to kill themselves and everyone else aboard.

Through the technology of flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders, we can quite accurately reconstruct WHAT happened. It's much more difficult to understand WHY it happened.

Published excerpts from the voice recorder suggest that there was significant discussion between the two pilots (initially) and among all three (after the Captain returned to the cockpit) about the loss of airspeed indications and conflicting other flight information. I'm sure it was very confusing. Multiple aural warnings, conflicting airspeed information, multiple system failure warnings...a lot to figure out in the middle of the night while you're getting bounced around by the thunderstorms ever-present in the intertropical convergence zone.

Certainly, they could have done better.

They paid with their lives. Unfortunately, many more did too.

I'm not trying to excuse their performance; just asking that we not rush to judgment to condemn the dead pilots.

Take care,
Stu

[John H...]

It's always easy to second guess after the fact. Hard to imagine keeping a nose up attitude as airspeed diminishes, but not knowing what else may have been happening with instrument readouts. You know these people are all competent, so even with the black box results, it is hard to determine exactly what was happening in the cockpit. I agree with Stu. Can't rush to judgment. Some unexplained reason for not lowering the nose.

[Automobilist]

As a 767-757 Captain, I can tell you that one of the most important, yet most difficult problems is simply figuring out what's wrong.

[777 Driver]

Originally Posted by John H...

Hard to imagine keeping a nose up attitude as airspeed diminishes, but not knowing what else may have been happening with instrument readouts.

Years ago, there was a Northwest 727 charter flight that was ferrying to pick up the Baltimore Colts (I told you it was years ago). They forgot to turn on their pitot heat (missed it on their checklist). As they flew into the clouds during their climb to cruise, the pitot tubes iced over. As the pitot pressure remained constant while the static pressure decreased due to their climb, the INDICATED airspeed in the cockpit INCREASED. The pilot flying increased pitch to try to reduce the apparently INCREASING airspeed. In fact, the actual airspeed was decreasing rapidly. There were comments made about unexpected climb performance; they attributed the unexpected performance to lighter than normal weight (ferrying an empty aircraft). Stalled...crashed.


Take care,
Stu

[AZgl1500]

My TriPacer is a long way from the big birds.

But worst case, get your hands off the controls and it will return to normal flight. Reduce power a tad and you have a gradual glide downwards.

fly by wire? I can't even imagine how the same action would effect the aircraft.

[dsbike]

And then there is the unexplained empennage (tail section) found several miles away. Did it come apart in flight? Did it float on the surface until it finally sank several miles away? Would the A 330 fly nose up while descending with out the empennage? Answers we may never know. As Stu said previously, Co-Pilots are not inexperienced junior pilots with little experience. These guys most likely have been Captains on several other passenger types with in their fleet with thousands of flight time hours.

I, as an aircraft mechanic, I worry that maybe it was a maintenance or pilot error that the pitot tubes iced. Hopefully it was a part malfunction & not human error.

For the general public who are not involved in aviation, There are several backup systems & other personnel that inspect our work as mechanics. Sometimes while I am on the aircraft doing repairs & there are passengers boarding, I will get the comment that "this guy needs the manual to fix the airplane". As mechanics & pilots, we know what needs to be done to repair or fly the aircraft, but safety is our #1 concern & following the written procedure ensures we don't omit a task that needs to be completed. Check & double check, that is what keeps are coworkers, passengers, family, & friends safe and gets them to their destination uneventful.

[777 Driver]

Originally Posted by dsbike

Sometimes while I am on the aircraft doing repairs & there are passengers boarding, I will get the comment that "this guy needs the manual to fix the airplane".

Hi Dan,

Many times, things aren't nearly as simple as they appear. Those passengers should be relieved to see you referring to a manual as you complete a repair.

In 2008, a joint FAA and industry working group published a report regarding Airplane Upset Recovery. Basically, how to train pilots to recover from a stall. The report is 443 pages long. 443 pages to describe an event that lasts, at most, a couple of minutes from onset to recovery (or not). Here's a link to the report:

http://flightsafety.org/files/AP_UpsetRecovery_Book.pdf

If it was easy, everybody could do it!

Take care,
Stu

[two-niner]

Well, for all the suppositions there is still the number one rule: Fly the airplane.

I agree with all that was said, as I wasn't there. The black boxes will tell all.

And then a pilot was "cleared to land" on a CAVU night and flew into a mountain while decending into Washington D.C. ? NTSB found no mechanical failures.

Kerry

[frankdamp]

There were significant similarities to the NWA 727 accident. There also used to be a fundamental difference in design philosophy between Airbus and Boeing. Airbus won't let a pilot damage the airplane - the fly-by-wire computers prevent it. Boeing will let you bend it if that's what it would take to save it. I don't know if that's still valid as I've been retired from Boeing since 1998.

[Cat320]

I seriously doubt the "junior pilot"...a misnomer at best... kept raising the nose until a stall occurred. That makes no sense unless he was trying to kill himself and all aboard. Had to be weather, equipment malfunction, electrical malfunction or anyone of a number of other things.

[Skypoke]

It seems we have a number of experienced big iron pilots here so I'll ask a simple question. Given that the airspeed indicators were malfunctioning due to pitot icing or whatever, and assuming they were not using any kind of gps speed indicator, wouldn't it be possible for a competent pilot to judge airspeed/attitude by engine sound, gravity indicators, airframe "feel" such as vibration? Or are the big jets so insulated from the outside that it's impossible to fly by seat of pants?

I do understand that it's unwise to argue with airspeed/attitude indicators when in ifr.

[777 Driver]

Originally Posted by Skypoke

Or are the big jets so insulated from the outside that it's impossible to fly by seat of pants?

Hi Skypoke,

The first airplane that I flew had a mechanical linkage between the throttle (in the cockpit) and the carburetor (mounted on the intake manifold). When I wanted to increase thrust, I opened the throttle control which physically opened a butterfly valve in the carburetor. More air and fuel mixture was allowed into the intake manifold and the engine responded.

On the airplane that I'm flying now, when I want to increase thrust, an electrical signal is generated in the cockpit by moving the 'thrust lever'. That electrical signal is transmitted to a Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC). That FADEC evaluates a number of other conditions (various temperatures and pressures, phase of flight, engine RPM's, etc.) and, using a programmed control logic, varies fuel flow to the combustion section of the engine to produce thrust that the FADEC deems appropriate. Most of the time, the FADEC agrees with my command...BUT...not always. In fact, the FADEC (remember the FULL AUTHORITY part of the name) has FULL AUTHORITY to command engine response, regardless of my input command. You don't even want to find out about flight control logic.

The pilot of modern aircraft has become significantly separated from the physical control of his aircraft. We input control commands into various computers that send signals to drive actuators that move the controls that maneuver the airplane.

Through years of experience and training, the pilots of modern aircraft don't rely much on 'the seat of the pants'. When critical flight instruments are giving erroneous information and various warning systems are going off, it can be a very difficult and challenging situation to try to make sense of the conflicting information.

Take care,
Stu

[Cat320]

In addition to 777 Driver's comments, another factor is that these aircraft are very difficult to hand fly at altitude. The air is thin, you are at or near max power and, depending on how high you are, you are on the verge of a stall. I have flown a corporate jet across country, at altitude with no autopilot. It is extremely difficult and tiring, even with both pilots taking turns at the controls. Had there been an in flight emergency...we would have had our hands full of airplane, and would have started down immediately for lower altitude and more controlability. Diagnosing a problem during this situation would have been very difficult if not impossible.