Air France Crash - shocking

[AtW]

I'm no expert but this is really basic stuff isn't it?

Yes, it is in a stall - it is hard to detect it however and once good chance to fix it passed it might be very hard to get the nose down, especially given that the airplane is plunging down very quickly.

[TimberWolf]

Official briefing here

I don't understand it. Either bits are missing from that report, the pilots didn't know they were in deep trouble, didn't have a clue what was going on, or they were calm and professional to the point of giving away little info on the severity of the situation, verbally. They were stalling and doing a 360 and apparently trying to climb, and became less talkative (mute in fact) when plummeting during the last minute.

Last spoken words as reported being :

"we’re going to arrive at level one hundred"... and ... "go ahead you have the controls".

that's it, the last info packed revelation occurring 1 minute before all flight recordings stopped.

Also, that the the engines were operating at maximum throttle (I gather) seems to have been received little stress in the report. I have a feeling this 'factual report' is leaning toward pilot error.

[NickFitz]

As long as your pilots are Western and you get on and off the plane in a developed country including connections, you don't have a problem.

I'm all for treating the French with that attitude we English (quite properly) have towards them, but even so I think we have to accept that both Brazil and France are Western developed countries, and that Air France has a safety record as good as any airline in the world.

[NickFitz]

Official briefing here

I don't understand it. Either bits are missing from that report, the pilots didn't know they were in deep trouble, didn't have a clue what was going on, or they were calm and professional to the point of giving away little info on the severity of the situation, verbally. They were stalling and doing a 360 and apparently trying to climb, and became less talkative (mute in fact) when plummeting during the last minute.

Last spoken words as reported being :



that's it, the last info packed revelation occurring 1 minute before all flight recordings stopped.

Also, that the the engines were operating at maximum throttle (I gather) seems to have been received little stress in the report. I have a feeling this 'factual report' is leaning toward pilot error.

This isn't intended to be any kind of definitive report, hence the "bits missing" - it was just that some information had already been leaked that it was felt might lead to unwarranted speculation, so some (although quite possibly not all) information has been officially released to clarify the meaning of the information that had been leaked.

Of course this hasn't prevented the press, with their exhaustive knowledge of aviation science and accident investigation protocols, from making up any old tulip in the hope of getting a byline.

Once the full report is published, probably next year, it will be possible to form opinions on how the crew dealt with the situation.

[Gonzo]

I'm all for treating the French with that attitude we English (quite properly) have towards them, but even so I think we have to accept that both Brazil and France are Western developed countries, and that Air France has a safety record as good as any airline in the world.

I am a huge fan of the accident database on the airdisaster.com site Accident Database: Main Index (SFW)

I still see that noone has ever been killed in a Qantas accident and there are no entries for Easyjet or Ryan Air.

It supports SueEllen's point, while there are one or two incidents per year in the western world, the majority of crashes occur in less developed countries.

One of the regulars in the pub I used to drink at was an aircraft maintenance engineer. His advice was that you can never completely eliminate all risks, but so long as you don't fly on a third-world airline you will probably be OK.

[SueEllen]

I'm all for treating the French with that attitude we English (quite properly) have towards them, but even so I think we have to accept that both Brazil and France are Western developed countries, and that Air France has a safety record as good as any airline in the world.

Just because you see bigoted points of view/racism in a comment don't presume there is any.

I'm currently in the process of leaving a project due to the PM changing from a French guy to a English one. Though you probably interpret that to say I think all English PMs are tulip when in fact this particular English PM is just a paper shuffler with annoying habits that interfere with the productivity of the team.

I'm just pointing out to someone who dislikes flying that accidents like this are rare i.e. you have an 8 million to 1 chance of being in an air accident. And if you travel with a Western carrier they are even rarer particularly if you are on a short haul flight.

I had a friend who worked for NATS who use to joke about airlines from certain Asian countries, I also recently looked at air accidents stats which are freely available over the internet which unfortunately still back up her view.

Oh and air accident reports are edited. There have been complaints from air accident investigators about how this is done as they say the editing is done for political purposes which was reported on the various airline forums then picked up and reported by the BBC about a month ago.

[Cliphead]

This is worth a read.

[doodab]

Any Englishman who has sampled the delights of the periphique would think twice about getting into a plane flown by a Frenchman.

It will be interesting to hear the final conclusions, whether it's deemed due to pilot error, or the instruments going haywire or even extreme weather. It sounds a lot like they thought the nose was pointing down doesn't it? I can't imagine 3 professional pilots all getting that wrong without some other factors coming into play. Although I do know **** all about it.

[Cliphead]

Any Englishman who has sampled the delights of the periphique would think twice about getting into a plane flown by a Frenchman.

It will be interesting to hear the final conclusions, whether it's deemed due to pilot error, or the instruments going haywire or even extreme weather. It sounds a lot like they thought the nose was pointing down doesn't it? I can't imagine 3 professional pilots all getting that wrong without some other factors coming into play. Although I do know **** all about it.

Flying in cloud and or at night with instruments reporting in error is a serious situation. For example airspeed being reported incorrectly (indicated airspeed faster than true airspeed), might result in the autopilot or pilot reducing power and raising the nose to reduce speed. This of course could lead to a stall and also for the engines to stall meaning a total loss of power. If a plane is stalled and in a nose high attitude it would be very difficult to restart the engines.

[doodab]

If a plane is stalled and in a nose high attitude it would be very difficult to restart the engines.

Especially after an ample lunch washed down with half a bottle of cheap red.

There is something not entirely surprising about a Frenchman giving a "nose up input" at a time of crisis