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Air France: Can you say, basic pilot skills?
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RotorAndWing
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Rotor&Wing
One of the problems in today's world are the newer pilots are coming into the airline with little or no experience. Not to say they are adequately trained, but they simply don't have real world flying experience to fall back on when the going get's tough.
Automation is also a culprit in this. The Airbus family of aircraft are highly automated and one "manages" the airplane more than "pilots" it.
Take a pilot with limited real world flying experience and place him in an automated cockpit then present him with an outside the box scenario and watch the results.
Automation is also a culprit in this. The Airbus family of aircraft are highly automated and one "manages" the airplane more than "pilots" it.
Take a pilot with limited real world flying experience and place him in an automated cockpit then present him with an outside the box scenario and watch the results.
Let'sgoflying!
Touchdown! Greaser!
ref. the BEA/AF responses in that link:
I agree with respecting the pilots - as in it would be better if we didn't have their last moments available to the world on the internet, but to bury the transcripts completely might be to lose a valuable opportunity to learn some very important lessons.
I agree with respecting the pilots - as in it would be better if we didn't have their last moments available to the world on the internet, but to bury the transcripts completely might be to lose a valuable opportunity to learn some very important lessons.
Greg Bockelman
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Greg Bockelman
Watch for Henning to show up in 3... 2...
While I fully support the policy of not ever releasing the audio recordings, I categorically disagree with any withholding of transcripts. They are instructive documents, and from these, others may see and learn things which would allow them (and their passengers) to live.
I was not in these guys' shoes, and I presume that they were, each and all, committed, competent and professional; I cannot judge them. That in mind, we can learn from what happened in their last minutes, and adapt training, procedures and design to reduce the likelihood of a repeat occurrence of similar nature.
I was not in these guys' shoes, and I presume that they were, each and all, committed, competent and professional; I cannot judge them. That in mind, we can learn from what happened in their last minutes, and adapt training, procedures and design to reduce the likelihood of a repeat occurrence of similar nature.
My main question is why didn't the Captain take the plane.
Sully said, "My plane." in about 15 seconds.
Sully said, "My plane." in about 15 seconds.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Al Haynes jokes in his presentations about United 232 that those were the dumbest two words of his career.
Greg Bockelman
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LOL. That was because he had no control over that airplane.
denverpilot
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Yup. We'll other than asymmetric thrust, but they didn't know that yet at that time.
infotango
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I don't think that it is fair blaming this accident only on the pilots. They were operating a very complex aircraft in a critical segment of flight, with inaccurate instruments in IMC, with an aircraft that was not responding as would be expected. In short, these guys were dealt one hell of a hand. From simluator runs, it's not clear that any pilot (even internet ones that have the stones to blame this crash soley on the pilots) have the ability to recover from a similar situation. Simulations have proven this.Stall recovery training. It's not just for regionals any more.
There is a lot of good material about this accident on the internet, from sources much better than a newspaper article written for the public. Others on this board know better than me, but I believe that in the A330 line of aircraft under normal law stall recovery calls for full power and stick full back, as the aircraft recovers for you. Other pilots that were giving inaccurate airspeed readings in a simulator at high altitude also managed to end up in trouble.
Not being humble enough to realize that you could get put in an awful situation like this and could, also, end up being buried in your plane, is missing a critical lesson here.
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Being that I haven't had really extensive recovery training under the hood, I won't cast too many stones, but I think "STALL! STALL! STALL!" "I've been pulling!" is something that at some point would ring the "Undo the last thing you did" bell.
Rob: I agree with you that, given the circumstances, the recovery was challenging - in so saying, I am including overwhelming reliance upon the systems, as opposed to basic piloting skills, as an essential part of the "circumstances" to which I refer.
When the airspeed data became unreliable, the Airbus downgraded from normal law, and it no longer had the envelope protections you mention. This is per design, and (of course) is the right thing to do, because in order for an autopilot to function, it must have reliable input data.
Were the pilots ready for this eventuality? These pilots may not have been. It is (as so often noted) premature to make that determination, and for whatever reason, the investigation panel has declined to ask for my services as of yet.
As for the question of why the Captain did not "take" the plane, I believe that he never got back in his seat, having returned from the Crew Rest area; in any event, I recall reading that the control override shifted from one side to the other several times during the incident. Here is where I still speculate as to whether the pitch control inputs would have been maintained at full aft deflection in a plane with a big, honkin' yoke in the belly of both pilots.
When the airspeed data became unreliable, the Airbus downgraded from normal law, and it no longer had the envelope protections you mention. This is per design, and (of course) is the right thing to do, because in order for an autopilot to function, it must have reliable input data.
Were the pilots ready for this eventuality? These pilots may not have been. It is (as so often noted) premature to make that determination, and for whatever reason, the investigation panel has declined to ask for my services as of yet.
As for the question of why the Captain did not "take" the plane, I believe that he never got back in his seat, having returned from the Crew Rest area; in any event, I recall reading that the control override shifted from one side to the other several times during the incident. Here is where I still speculate as to whether the pitch control inputs would have been maintained at full aft deflection in a plane with a big, honkin' yoke in the belly of both pilots.
airguy
Cleared for Takeoff
I disagree. Any halfway decent pilot with an operating wet noodle would, at some point in the 3 and half minutes it took to fall 7 miles to the ocean surface, realize that if I keep doing Action A and getting a bad result, maybe Action A isn't what we need to do and we should try Action B. How much worse could it be?
I use the word "pilot" here to mean one who manipulates the controls of the aircraft to make it do what he wants it to do, within the logical limits of known physics and aerodynamics. The evidence indicates that these individuals up front were blurring the line between pilot and pax, hoping this very advanced aircraft would simply keep flying if only they wished it to hard enough.
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I think Rob got it right. I think we have two different situations here. Did the pilots fly the plane as trained? Second is/was their training sufficient? I have enough sim training to know things can and do go wrong. On these type aircraft the pilots are systems managers. You may or may not agree with this concept but that does not change how the pilots were trained. I am not sure basic piloting skills were to blame here. They were getting bad data. Garbage in/garbage out. If and I repeat if the pitot tubes did freeze up then we know where to put the blame. If the plane will not respond to control imputs due to bad info then how can the pilots be blamed? When you have redundant systems for the redundant systems and they all fail in a way that your training says can not happen, then you are indeed dealt a very bad hand. Just my $.02
airguy
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Valid point - but there is no evidence the "pilots" tried to do anything different than what was obviously already not working, to attempt to get a different outcome - that is poor training. The aircraft being a full fly-by-wire system was another issue that may (likely did) have an impact to the accident sequence and is a whole 'nuther discussion. I don't really know if there is a realistic way to have airliners of the modern size without some type of fly-by-wire, but there definitely needs to be a default mode that the pilot-flying can select by hitting a "panic button" on the panel and having his inputs fed directly to the flight controls without some silicon brain deciding whether or not he really intended to give those inputs - but again, this requires real pilots up front instead of IT managers.
Don't get me wrong - I absolutely love my FMS, and autothrottles are wonderful, and I use coupled GPS approaches every chance I get. But when things head from good to bad to worse, I love having that little red button on my stick that puts me instantly back in "real world" control of the aircraft with nothing standing between my hand and the flight controls, and let me do the thinkin'...
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Is the Air Bus a bad design? Should it be built different? I don't know. Should the pitot tubes not freeze up, for sure! The pilots did not design or build the planes nor the pitot tube heaters. My point was about blaming pilots. I am simply saying if a jet stalls in air that thin with all of the indicators giving false information it is a very bad hand to be dealt. Should the pilots have the training and skills to deal with a situation like that, I don't know. For sure this exact situation did not work out very well.
Bear in mind that, so far, the reports published state that the airplane continued to respond to control inputs, and it behaved exactly as it should have done based upon the various control inputs. Airspeed was, apparently, the only requisite parameter which the pilots were deprived of.
airguy
Cleared for Takeoff
For sure they had a bad situation to deal with - no one is arguing that. No flight crew of a major airliner should ever have to deal with a high-altitude stall, if they are flying according to proper training and the aircraft is working as intended. There are two critical parameters here - "proper training" and "working as intended". These are not inseparable, by the way - if the aircraft is one that has a computer to decide whether or not the pilot really intends to give those flight commands, and whether or not to modify them before passing them to the flight controls, then the pilots had damn well better know that and understand the ramifications of such in their training. Likewise - if the pilots are incapable (due to poor training or lack of it) of figuring out what to do when things go off-checklist, then the aircraft had damn well better be programmed to be smarter than the dumbest idiot likely to be onboard - and if Windows Vista has taught us anything, it's that "idiot-proof" only breeds better idiots. We would be well-served to take the other route and put qualified people up front and give them unfettered direct access to the aerodynamic flight controls in a legit "Oh Crap" situation.
My primary flight instructor covered deep stalls with me before my first solo - what were these guys thinking? Keep pulling and hoping it will pull out? For how long before realizing something else is not right? At what point did they throw common sense out the window, abandon all hope, shut down all firing neurons, and vote for Obama?
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dmspilot
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The Chicago Tribune article is lacking in context.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
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Everskyward
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I don't see how you can have a fly-by-wire aircraft which can default to a "no computer" mode since the signals to the flight controls are electronic.
Airguy, I do see your point. However, I am not sure any pilot could have dealt with this. Let's take the computer out of it. Mechanical input only. Put a well trained crew at 40,000 feet, give them two airspeed indicators both wrong. Not just wrong but reading an increase in airspeed when it is not happening. Give them two vertical speed indicators both wrong. We are at night, in the soup with moderate to severe turbulance. Understand I am not disagreeing with you. Perhaps aircraft are too automated perhaps not. I am just saying the pilots MAY not be to blame. How far outside the box do we want pilots thinking? Again I do not know. For me, I want my training to reflect what my aircraft can do. I want real world scenerios. Their situation was in fact real world, it did happen. But my point is they should have never seen this scenerio. Jets and heated pitot tubes have been around too long to have this happen. I am not sure any pilot can be trained to handle any and all scenerios one might can dream up. Yes a pilot should be able to get a plane out of a stall. This is basic piloting skills, I agree. What these pilots were having to deal with is worse than going to 40,000 feet, putting the plane in a deep stall, shutting their eyes and fixing the problem. Their eyes were open but, everything they saw was lying to them. I do not know the answer. But by the grace of God....
Ted
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iFlyNothing
Rob, why would you go and use some sort of logic like that among internet pilots who have no faults whatsoever?
*sarcasm off* You are absolutely correct. Some days, the hand you're dealt is a rotten one, and regardless of your skill level, you're out of luck. I'd rather be lucky than good, personally.
I disagree. Any halfway decent pilot with an operating wet noodle would, at some point in the 3 and half minutes it took to fall 7 miles to the ocean surface, realize that if I keep doing Action A and getting a bad result, maybe Action A isn't what we need to do and we should try Action B. How much worse could it be?
So what exactly is Action B? In order to implement Action B you need to have an Action B that you can implement that has a hope of doing something. Just throwing inputs at the airplane and expecting it to start working would be pretty foolish.
Let's say you're flying a conventional aircraft. You said that your instructor made you get into "deep stalls" prior to your first solo. First off, assuming this was a trainer aircraft, the stalls that you'll get in it will not be the same as what you'd get on something significantly larger. Second, your instructor probably didn't go over something such as tailplane stalls. You've got opposite reactions for tailplane stalls vs. wing stalls. Similarly, from what it seems on the Airbus, your stall recovery procedure is significantly different from standard.
I suspect that, put in the situation, you would not have had a different result.
My guess is that there's a combination of pilot and aircraft issues that resulted in this incident.
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dmccormack
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This event obliquely supports my contention that the FAA's approach to stall recovery: "simultaneous application of power and reduction of angle of attack" fails to inculcate that a stall is the result of an excessive Angle of Attack.
Therefore I teach my students stall recovery without (first) and then with power. They quickly learn that excessive AoA results in a stall and reducing AoA restores lift.
Therefore I teach my students stall recovery without (first) and then with power. They quickly learn that excessive AoA results in a stall and reducing AoA restores lift.
airguy
Cleared for Takeoff
No doubt the situation would be confusing and could very well begin as we saw it begin with any crew up front. But let's examine your premise for a minute - I don't know any pilot that has not at least been briefly educated on the possibility of failed instrumentation and how to detect/identify it. At cruise altitude with the conditions present, I can see how the aircraft could quite easily end up in a deep stall - but within a minute (or even two) of seeing high airspeed indications, with full power, full aft stick, and still seeing the altimeter unwinding like mad, something has to click in the pilots brain saying "Hey, wait a minute, those things can't be happening at the same time, one of these instruments is lying to me..."
That didn't happen, it should have. That's a training issue.
dell30rb
Final Approach
He was more likely referring to a direct control input state - where the elevator, rudder, throttles and ailerons will go full stop regardless of what the computer thinks the airplane is doing. The computer is still there but is operating in a fail safe mode - where the controls might as well be in a cessna..
I believe you’ll find that the A330 in question, when it fails out of its normal mode (“law”) as a result of (in this instance) invalid airspeed data, actually does revert to pretty much normal operation, with stick deflections being fed through to the control surfaces without “editing” by the computer. I believe, in this instance, we will ultimately find that it was a lack of situational awareness, a failure to realize (for example) that the stall warning they received when they put the stick forward was the result of airspeed building to a sufficient speed to allow the stall warning logic to give the warning (and, at that point, had they maintained the stick-forward a little longer, they would have actually regained flying speed).
The reports released to date state that, other than the pitot tube failures, and the resultant changes in the airplane’s control logic, the airplane was responding precisely as designed based upon the pilots’ inputs.
The reports released to date state that, other than the pitot tube failures, and the resultant changes in the airplane’s control logic, the airplane was responding precisely as designed based upon the pilots’ inputs.
airguy
Cleared for Takeoff
Exactly correct. This is quite easily done, assuming the magic smoke is still in all the boxes and the electrons are still present. Take those away and all bets are off, in any fly-by-wire machine.
dell30rb
Final Approach
I agree. Either the training of the pilots was not in tune with the complexity of the aircraft, the aircraft is too complex, or its a combination of the two. If you put three experienced pilots in say.. an old 727 that has a 6 pack and an AOA indicator, then clogged their pitot tubes, would the outcome be the same?
Edit: Maybe the more appropriate question is "would there be as much confusion" or just which do you feel would be the easiest to solve? It is entirely possible that the pilots initially believed they were not in a stall, because they were flying an airplane that was too advanced to stall.
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airguy
Cleared for Takeoff
Maybe for the first 20 seconds or so...
No such thing. That ranks right up there with "Banks too big to fail."
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Rex Kramer
Line Up and Wait
You should ask this 727 crew about that. Oh wait, that's right, they're dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Airlines_Flight_6231
Or this crew: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroperú_Flight_603
Or this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birgenair_Flight_301
All variations of the same problem. It's very easy to be outside looking in at the accident sequence and seeing how it all makes sense. When you're sitting in the seat, however, sometimes it's not so clear. That's true for flying anything from a Cub to a Concorde.
dmccormack
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We must evaluate these accidents if we want to learn anything from them....
kontiki
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I personally doubt it's so straight as being incompetent and in a stall.
They were in a stall, but the wing didn't drop. Maybe the Yaw Damper kept them wings level (in a rudder stall) and they didn't understand how much areodynamic trouble they were really in?
After loosing confidence in the airspeed indicator, their only and best indication might have been AOA, that is, if it's displayed in the cockpit.
They may have been attempting to fly out of whatever it was using a placarded pitch and engine thrust, which is done in some large airplanes if AOA isn't provided.
They were in a stall, but the wing didn't drop. Maybe the Yaw Damper kept them wings level (in a rudder stall) and they didn't understand how much areodynamic trouble they were really in?
After loosing confidence in the airspeed indicator, their only and best indication might have been AOA, that is, if it's displayed in the cockpit.
They may have been attempting to fly out of whatever it was using a placarded pitch and engine thrust, which is done in some large airplanes if AOA isn't provided.
Ted
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iFlyNothing
Correct. However, the overall response is typically "They're so stupid, I would've done so much better."
And then, one day, the person quoted as saying such likely ends up dead and in a ditch. And then others will say the same...
Rex Kramer
Line Up and Wait
Thank you. That's what I was trying to convey.
dell30rb
Final Approach
I do understand the point you are making here, not so sure about the examples.
One of those birds took off with a pitot tube clogged, the pilot actually noticed the stick shaker and correctly interpreted the false airspeed reading. He gave it full throttle when he received the stall warning to prevent / recover from a stall but he fed it too much power at too low of an airspeed and one of his engines flamed out. He entered a spin at low altitude due to asymmetric thrust.
The other took off with clogged static ports (maintenance tape over them) and had no airspeed or altitude at all. They fumbled around for awhile while being bombarded with error messages before crashing.
The 727 is close, it was at altitude before the pitot tubes failed. However it entered a spin shortly after stalling at 24,000 and had an 80 second trip down while spinning. The air france jet stalled at 40k feet, had a 3-4 minute trip down, was not spinning, and was responsive to controls, indicating it was recoverable with a nose down input by the pilot.
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dmccormack
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Rex Kramer
Line Up and Wait
The specifics are somewhat different, but the end result is the same. They all crashed perfectly flyable airplanes that had single point air data failures, whether it was blocked pitot probes or static ports. To blame the Air France pilots by saying they lacked basic pilot skills and this is somehow a fault of modern training and they are just system managers not really pilots, which is what a lot of people are doing, is short-sighted.
Also, not directed to dell30rb, but to the people who think "how could that possibly happen? That would never happen to me, if I were there I would have caught it", it's almost a forgone conclusion that better pilots than you, me, or anyone else on this board have met their end as a smoking hole in the ground due to something that they surely thought would never happen to them. Pick up and read Fate is the Hunter sometime.
Instead of "That would never happen to me. Those guys were idiots. I know better" how about "How can I prevent that from happening to me?"