Air France 447

[Mike_S]

Another interesting read here from USA Today a couple of weeks ago...

Air France jet's final minutes a free-fall

[Craig Lindsay]

Do the airbus's get the stick shake when they stall. And if they do wouldnt that be enough for the pilots to push forward

[damien b]

They had a program on GEM during the week on flight 447 which showed two pilots in a simulator being hit with the same faults as shown on the ACARS messages (the program was done before the FDR was found) and being able to continue to fly by applying 5 degrees nose up and 85% thrust until the air speed data became vaild again and the warnings dissapeared. The show stated however that if thrust had not been correctly set a nose up attitude would have induced a stall and the pilots may not have believed any further warnings due to what was occuring. This may have lead them to "Flying" the aircraft in a nose up attitude whilst losing altitude and that attitude remained until impact or going into a stall from which they had insufficent altitude to recover.

Looking at what Craig has posted it looks like what was said on the show may have been correct to a point with the pilots finally recognising the stall, went nose down but did so too far and could not recover in time before impact. Considering impact was essentially wings level and slightly nose up they may have almost recovered but had lost too much altitude in doing so.

The final report will be interesting but i am surmising that pilot training/procedures may have some blame layed upon them.

[Philip Argy]

If the altitude and attitude indications were working and reflecting a sink rate of 10,000 ft/min in nose up configuration and with engines at full thrust, isn't it inconceivable that they would persist with stick pull back? That's why I'm so convinced that they were getting erroneous indications from their instrumentation. Three pilots would not all misread that kind of dramatic indication if it showed the true picture, would they?

[Grahame Hutchison]

From today's report on ..

Pilot training and airline safety; and
Consideration of the Transport Safety
Investigation Amendment (Incident Reports)
Bill 2010

Recommendation 8

1. 2.296

The committee recommends that the Government require the Productivity Commission or another suitable body to undertake a review of the current and future supply of pilots in Australia, with particular reference to the general aviation and cadet training pathways, and HECS HELP and VET FEE-HELP arrangements.

2.297
Since the committee last heard evidence, an updated briefing has been provided by France's Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA), France's equivalent to the ATSB, on the loss of Air France 447 on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on 1 June 2009.
2.298
It appears likely from the preliminary briefings by the BEA, that issues of pilot training and experience will be further considered in extensive detail in relation to the loss of Air France 447, and the final findings of the BEA's investigation should be extensively considered by CASA, the ATSB, and the aviation industry generally.

Recommendation 9

1. 2.299

The committee recommends that the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and Australian aviation operators review the final findings of France's Bureau of Investigation and Analysis into Air France 447, including consideration of how it may apply in the Australian context. Subject to those findings, the committee may seek the approval of the Senate to conduct a further hearing in relation to the matter.

[Mike_S]

Latest here:

Pilot errors outlined in 2009 Air France crash


I thought these two comments from the article were quite interesting (and concerning)

Based on cockpit recordings from the crash, the French air accident investigation agency is recommending mandatory training for all pilots to help them fly planes manually and handle a high-altitude stall....

The BEA says neither of the co-pilots at the controls had received recent training for manual aircraft handling or had any high-altitude schooling in case of unreliable air speed readings.

[Mike_S]

Another article from Reuters which includes some more from the cockpit voice transcript

How pilots wrestled in vain to save Air France jet

[Mike_S]

A great synopsis of the cockpit voice recorder from Popular Mechanics

What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447

I still shake my head at how an experienced crew can fly a perfectly good plane into the ocean

[Philip Argy]

I'm still not sure whether to believe that the reconstruction in Popular Mechanics is accurate. Whilst the CVR transcript is troubling, the errors are so fundamental that even a student pilot wouldn't make them. But, having said that, persistent back pressure on the second officer's stick despite 75 repeats of the "STALL!" anunciation and a first officer's speed warnings and advice to descend is hard to explain. Not sure it was wise for the captain to take his rest break when he knew (from the St Elmo's fire) that a serious storm was brewing.

[Craig Lindsay]

Two years after the Airbus 330 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, Air
France 447's flight-data recorders finally turned up. The revelations from
the pilot transcript paint a surprising picture of chaos in the cockpit, and
confusion between the pilots that led to the crash.
>>>
>>> By Jeff Wise
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> AF447 Rio-Paris A330-200 flight data recorder are displayed during a
press conference on May 12, 2011, in the French agency Bureau of Enquiry and
Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) headquarters.
>>>
>>> Mehdi Fedouach/AFP/Getty Images
>>>
>>> For more than two years, the disappearance of Air France Flight 447 over
the mid-Atlantic in the early hours of June 1, 2009, remained one of
aviation's great mysteries. How could a technologically state-of-the art
airliner simply vanish?
>>>
>>> With the wreckage and flight-data recorders lost beneath 2 miles of
ocean, experts were forced to speculate using the only data available: a
cryptic set of communications beamed automatically from the aircraft to the
airline's maintenance center in France. As PM found in our cover story about
the crash, published two years ago this month, the data implied that the
plane had fallen afoul of a technical problem—the icing up of air-speed
sensors—which in conjunction with severe weather led to a complex "error
chain" that ended in a crash and the loss of 228 lives.
>>>
>>> The matter might have rested there, were it not for the remarkable
recovery of AF447's black boxes this past April. Upon the analysis of their
contents, the French accident investigation authority, the BEA, released a
report in July that to a large extent verified the initial suppositions. An
even fuller picture emerged with the publication of a book in French
entitled Erreurs de Pilotage (volume 5), by pilot and aviation writer
Jean-Pierre Otelli, which includes the full transcript of the pilots'
conversation.
>>>
>>> We now understand that, indeed, AF447 passed into clouds associated with
a large system of thunderstorms, its speed sensors became iced over, and the
autopilot disengaged. In the ensuing confusion, the pilots lost control of
the airplane because they reacted incorrectly to the loss of instrumentation
and then seemed unable to comprehend the nature of the problems they had
caused. Neither weather nor malfunction doomed AF447, nor a complex chain of
error, but a simple but persistent mistake on the part of one of the pilots.
>>>
>>> Human judgments, of course, are never made in a vacuum. Pilots are part
of a complex system that can either increase or reduce the probability that
they will make a mistake. After this accident, the million-dollar question
is whether training, instrumentation, and cockpit procedures can be modified
all around the world so that no one will ever make this mistake
again—or whether the inclusion of the human element will always entail the
possibility of a catastrophic outcome. After all, the men who crashed AF447
were three highly trained pilots flying for one of the most prestigious
fleets in the world. If they could fly a perfectly good plane into the
ocean, then what airline could plausibly say, "Our pilots would never do
that"?
>>>
>>> Here is a synopsis of what occurred during the course of the doomed
airliner's final few minutes.
>>> ____
>>>
>>> At 1h 36m, the flight enters the outer extremities of a tropical storm
system. Unlike other planes' crews flying through the region, AF447's flight
crew has not changed the route to avoid the worst of the storms. The outside
temperature is much warmer than forecast, preventing the still fuel-heavy
aircraft from flying higher to avoid the effects of the weather. Instead, it
ploughs into a layer of clouds.
>>>
>>> At 1h51m, the cockpit becomes illuminated by a strange electrical
phenomenon. The co-pilot in the right-hand seat, an inexperienced
32-year-old named Pierre-Cédric Bonin, asks, "What's that?" The captain,
Marc Dubois, a veteran with more than 11,000 hours of flight time, tells him
it is St. Elmo's fire, a phenomenon often found with thunderstorms at these
latitudes.
>>>
>>> At approximately 2 am, the other co-pilot, David Robert, returns to the
cockpit after a rest break. At 37, Robert is both older and more experienced
than Bonin, with more than double his colleague's total flight hours. The
head pilot gets up and gives him the left-hand seat. Despite the gap in
seniority and experience, the captain leaves Bonin in charge of the
controls.
>>>
>>> At 2:02 am, the captain leaves the flight deck to take a nap. Within 15
minutes, everyone aboard the plane will be dead.]
>>>
>>> 02:03:44 (Bonin) La convergence inter tropicale… voilà, là on est
dedans, entre 'Salpu' et 'Tasil.' Et puis, voilà, on est en plein dedans…
>>> The inter-tropical convergence... look, we're in it, between 'Salpu' and
'Tasil.' And then, look, we're right in it...
>>>
>>> The intertropical convergence, or ITC, is an area of consistently severe
weather near the equator. As is often the case, it has spawned a string of
very large thunderstorms, some of which stretch into the stratosphere.
Unlike some of the other planes's crews flying in the region this evening,
the crew of AF447 has not studied the pattern of storms and requested a
divergence around the area of most intense activity. (Salpu and Tasil are
two air-traffic-position reporting points.)
>>>
>>> 02:05:55 (Robert) Oui, on va les appeler derrière... pour leur dire
quand même parce que...
>>> Yes, let's call them in the back, to let them know...
>>>
>>> Robert pushes the call button.
>>>
>>> 02:05:59 (flight attendant, heard on the intercom) Oui? Marilyn.
>>> Yes? Marilyn.
>>>
>>> 02:06:04 (Bonin) Oui, Marilyn, c'est Pierre devant... Dis-moi, dans deux
minutes, on devrait attaquer une zone où ça devrait bouger un peu plus que
maintenant. Il faudrait vous méfier là.
>>> Yes, Marilyn, it's Pierre up front... Listen, in 2 minutes, we're going
to be getting into an area where things are going to be moving around a
little bit more than now. You'll want to take care.
>>>
>>> 02:06:13 (flight attendant) D'accord, on s'assoit alors?
>>> Okay, we should sit down then?
>>>
>>> 02:06:15 (Bonin) Bon, je pense que ce serait pas mal… tu préviens les
copains!
>>> Well, I think that's not a bad idea. Give your friends a heads-up.
>>>
>>> 02:06:18 (flight attendant) Ouais, OK, j'appelle les autres derrière.
Merci beaucoup.
>>> Yeah, okay, I'll tell the others in the back. Thanks a lot.
>>>
>>> 02:06:19 (Bonin) Mais je te rappelle dès qu'on est sorti de là.
>>> I'll call you back as soon as we're out of it.
>>>
>>> 02:06:20 (flight attendant) OK.
>>> Okay.
>>>
>>> The two copilots discuss the unusually elevated external temperature,
which has prevented them from climbing to their desired altitude, and
express happiness that they are flying an Airbus 330, which has better
performance at altitude than an Airbus 340.
>>>
>>> 02:06:50 (Bonin) Va pour les anti-ice. C'est toujours ça de pris.
>>> Let's go for the anti-icing system. It's better than nothing.
>>>
>>> Because they are flying through clouds, the pilots turn on the
anti-icing system to try to keep ice off the flight surfaces; ice reduces
the plane's aerodynamic efficiency, weighs it down, and in extreme cases,
can cause it to crash.
>>>
>>> 02:07:00 (Bonin) On est apparemment à la limite de la couche, ça devrait
aller.
>>> We seem to be at the end of the cloud layer, it might be okay.
>>>
>>> In the meantime Robert has been examining the radar system and has found
that it has not been set up in the correct mode. Changing the settings, he
scrutinizes the radar map and realizes that they are headed directly toward
an area of intense activity.
>>>
>>> 02:08:03 (Robert) Tu peux éventuellement le tirer un peu à gauche.
>>> You can possibly pull it a little to the left.
>>>
>>> 02:08:05 (Bonin) Excuse-moi?
>>> Sorry, what?
>>>
>>> 02:08:07 (Robert) Tu peux éventuellement prendre un peu à gauche. On est
d'accord qu'on est en manuel, hein?
>>> You can possibly pull it a little to the left. We're agreed that we're
in manual, yeah?
>>>
>>> Bonin wordlessly banks the plane to the left. Suddenly, a strange aroma,
like an electrical transformer, floods the cockpit, and the temperature
suddenly increases. At first, the younger pilot thinks that something is
wrong with the air-conditioning system, but Robert assures him that the
effect is from the severe weather in the vicinity. Bonin seems ill at ease.
Then the sound of slipstream suddenly becomes louder. This, presumably, is
due to the accumulation of ice crystals on the exterior of the fuselage.
Bonin announces that he is going to reduce the speed of the aircraft, and
asks Robert if he should turn on a feature that will prevent the jet engines
from flaming out in the event of severe icing.
>>>
>>> Just then an alarm sounds for 2.2 seconds, indicating that the autopilot
is disconnecting. The cause is the fact that the plane's pitot tubes,
externally mounted sensors that determine air speed, have iced over, so the
human pilots will now have to fly the plane by hand.
>>>
>>> Note, however, that the plane has suffered no mechanical malfunction.
Aside from the loss of airspeed indication, everything is working fine.
Otelli reports that many airline pilots (and, indeed, he himself)
subsequently flew a simulation of the flight from this point and were able
to do so without any trouble. But neither Bonin nor Roberts has ever
received training in how to deal with an unreliable airspeed indicator at
cruise altitude, or in flying the airplane by hand under such conditions.
>>>
>>> 02:10:06 (Bonin) J'ai les commandes.
>>> I have the controls.
>>>
>>> 02:10:07 (Robert) D'accord.
>>> Okay.
>>>
>>> Perhaps spooked by everything that has unfolded over the past few
minutes—the turbulence, the strange electrical phenomena, his colleague's
failure to route around the potentially dangerous storm—Bonin reacts
irrationally. He pulls back on the side stick to put the airplane into a
steep climb, despite having recently discussed the fact that the plane could
not safely ascend due to the unusually high external temperature.
>>>
>>> Bonin's behavior is difficult for professional aviators to understand.
"If he's going straight and level and he's got no airspeed, I don't know why
he'd pull back," says Chris Nutter, an airline pilot and flight instructor.
"The logical thing to do would be to cross-check"—that is, compare the
pilot's airspeed indicator with the co-pilot's and with other instrument
readings, such as groundspeed, altitude, engine settings, and rate of climb.
In such a situation, "we go through an iterative assessment and evaluation
process," Nutter explains, before engaging in any manipulation of the
controls. "Apparently that didn't happen."
>>>
>>> Almost as soon as Bonin pulls up into a climb, the plane's computer
reacts. A warning chime alerts the cockpit to the fact that they are leaving
their programmed altitude. Then the stall warning sounds. This is a
synthesized human voice that repeatedly calls out, "Stall!" in English,
followed by a loud and intentionally annoying sound called a "cricket." A
stall is a potentially dangerous situation that can result from flying too
slowly. At a critical speed, a wing suddenly becomes much less effective at
generating lift, and a plane can plunge precipitously. All pilots are
trained to push the controls forward when they're at risk of a stall so the
plane will dive and gain speed.
>>>
>>> The Airbus's stall alarm is designed to be impossible to ignore. Yet for
the duration of the flight, none of the pilots will mention it, or
acknowledge the possibility that the plane has indeed stalled—even though
the word "Stall!" will blare through the cockpit 75 times. Throughout, Bonin
will keep pulling back on the stick, the exact opposite of what he must do
to recover from the stall.
>>>
>>> 02:10:07 (Robert) Qu'est-ce que c'est que ça?
>>> What's this?
>>>
>>> 02:10:15 (Bonin) On n'a pas une bonne… On n'a pas une bonne annonce de
vitesse.
>>> There's no good... there's no good speed indication.
>>>
>>> 02:10:16 (Robert) On a perdu les, les, les vitesses alors?
>>> We've lost the, the, the speeds, then?
>>>
>>> The plane is soon climbing at a blistering rate of 7000 feet per minute.
While it is gaining altitude, it is losing speed, until it is crawling along
at only 93 knots, a speed more typical of a small Cessna than an
airliner. Robert notices Bonin's error and tries to correct him.
>>>
>>> 02:10:27 (Robert) Faites attention à ta vitesse. Faites attention à ta
vitesse.
>>> Pay attention to your speed. Pay attention to your speed.
>>>
>>> He is probably referring to the plane's vertical speed. They are still
climbing.
>>>
>>> 02:10:28 (Bonin) OK, OK, je redescends.
>>> Okay, okay, I'm descending.
>>>
>>> 02:10:30 (Robert) Tu stabilises...
>>> Stabilize…
>>>
>>> 02:10:31 (Bonin) Ouais.
>>> Yeah.
>>>
>>> 02:10:31 (Robert) Tu redescends... On est en train de monter selon lui…
Selon lui, tu montes, donc tu redescends.
>>> Descend... It says we're going up... It says we're going up, so descend.
>>>
>>> 02:10:35 (Bonin) D'accord.
>>> Okay.
>>>
>>> Thanks to the effects of the anti-icing system, one of the pitot tubes
begins to work again. The cockpit displays once again show valid speed
information.
>>>
>>> 02:10:36 (Robert) Redescends!
>>> Descend!
>>>
>>> 02:10:37 (Bonin) C'est parti, on redescend.
>>> Here we go, we're descending.
>>>
>>> 02:10:38 (Robert) Doucement!
>>> Gently!
>>>
>>> Bonin eases the back pressure on the stick, and the plane gains speed as
its climb becomes more shallow. It accelerates to 223 knots. The stall
warning falls silent. For a moment, the co-pilots are in control of the
airplane.
>>>
>>> 02:10:41(Bonin) On est en… ouais, on est en "climb."
>>> We're... yeah, we're in a climb.
>>>
>>> Yet, still, Bonin does not lower the nose. Recognizing the urgency of
the situation, Robert pushes a button to summon the captain.
>>>
>>> 02:10:49 (Robert) Putain, il est où... euh?
>>> Damn it, where is he?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The recovered tailfin of Air France 447 is unloaded from Brazilian Navy
frigate Constituicao.
>>>
>>> Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images
>>>
>>> The plane has climbed to 2512 feet above its initial altitude, and
though it is still ascending at a dangerously high rate, it is flying within
its acceptable envelope. But for reasons unknown, Bonin once again increases
his back pressure on the stick, raising the nose of the plane and bleeding
off speed. Again, the stall alarm begins to sound.
>>>
>>> Still, the pilots continue to ignore it, and the reason may be that they
believe it is impossible for them to stall the airplane. It's not an
entirely unreasonable idea: The Airbus is a fly-by-wire plane; the control
inputs are not fed directly to the control surfaces, but to a computer,
which then in turn commands actuators that move the ailerons, rudder,
elevator, and flaps. The vast majority of the time, the computer operates
within what's known as normal law, which means that the computer will not
enact any control movements that would cause the plane to leave its flight
envelope. "You can't stall the airplane in normal law," says Godfrey
Camilleri, a flight instructor who teaches Airbus 330 systems to US Airways
pilots.
>>>
>>> But once the computer lost its airspeed data, it disconnected the
autopilot and switched from normal law to "alternate law," a regime with far
fewer restrictions on what a pilot can do. "Once you're in alternate law,
you can stall the airplane," Camilleri says.
>>>
>>> It's quite possible that Bonin had never flown an airplane in alternate
law, or understood its lack of restrictions. 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.
>>>
>>> 02:10:55 (Robert) Putain!
>>> Damn it!
>>>
>>> Another of the pitot tubes begins to function once more. The cockpit's
avionics are now all functioning normally. The flight crew has all the
information that they need to fly safely, and all the systems are fully
functional. The problems that occur from this point forward are entirely due
to human error.
>>>
>>> 02:11:03 (Bonin) Je suis en TOGA, hein?
>>> I'm in TOGA, huh?
>>>
>>> Bonin's statement here offers a crucial window onto his reasoning. TOGA
is an acronym for Take Off, Go Around. When a plane is taking off or
aborting a landing—"going around"—it must gain both speed and altitude as
efficiently as possible. At this critical phase of flight, pilots are
trained to increase engine speed to the TOGA level and raise the nose to a
certain pitch angle.
>>>
>>> Clearly, here Bonin is trying to achieve the same effect: He wants to
increase speed and to climb away from danger. But he is not at sea level; he
is in the far thinner air of 37,500 feet. The engines generate less thrust
here, and the wings generate less lift. Raising the nose to a certain angle
of pitch does not result in the same angle of climb, but far less. Indeed,
it can—and will—result in a descent.
>>>
>>> While Bonin's behavior is irrational, it is not inexplicable. Intense
psychological stress tends to shut down the part of the brain responsible
for innovative, creative thought. Instead, we tend to revert to the familiar
and the well-rehearsed. Though pilots are required to practice hand-flying
their aircraft during all phases of flight as part of recurrent training, in
their daily routine they do most of their hand-flying at low altitude—while
taking off, landing, and maneuvering. It's not surprising, then, that amid
the frightening disorientation of the thunderstorm, Bonin reverted to flying
the plane as if it had been close to the ground, even though this response
was totally ill-suited to the situation.
>>>
>>> 02:11:06 (Robert) Putain, il vient ou il vient pas?
>>> Damn it, is he coming or not?
>>>
>>> The plane now reaches its maximum altitude. With engines at full power,
the nose pitched upward at an angle of 18 degrees, it moves horizontally for
an instant and then begins to sink back toward the ocean.
>>>
>>> 02:11:21 (Robert) On a pourtant les moteurs! Qu'est-ce qui se passe
bordel? Je ne comprends pas ce que se passe.
>>> We still have the engines! What the hell is happening? I don't
understand what's happening.
>>>
>>> Unlike the control yokes of a Boeing jetliner, the side sticks on an
Airbus are "asynchronous"—that is, they move independently. "If the person
in the right seat is pulling back on the joystick, the person in the left
seat doesn't feel it," says Dr. David Esser, a professor of aeronautical
science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. "Their stick doesn't move
just because the other one does, unlike the old-fashioned mechanical systems
like you find in small planes, where if you turn one, the [other] one turns
the same way." Robert has no idea that, despite their conversation about
descending, Bonin has continued to pull back on the side stick.
>>>
>>> The men are utterly failing to engage in an important process known as
crew resource management, or CRM. They are failing, essentially, to
cooperate. It is not clear to either one of them who is responsible for
what, and who is doing what. This is a natural result of having two
co-pilots flying the plane. "When you have a captain and a first
officer in the cockpit, it's clear who's in charge," Nutter explains. "The
captain has command authority. He's legally responsible for the safety of
the flight. When you put two first officers up front, it changes things. You
don't have the sort of traditional discipline imposed on the flight deck
when you have a captain."
>>>
>>> The vertical speed toward the ocean accelerates. If Bonin were to let go
of the controls, the nose would fall and the plane would regain forward
speed. But because he is holding the stick all the way back, the nose
remains high and the plane has barely enough forward speed for the controls
to be effective. As turbulence continues to buffet the plane, it is nearly
impossible to keep the wings level.
>>>
>>> 02:11:32 (Bonin) Putain, j'ai plus le contrôle de l'avion, là! J'ai plus
le contrôle de l'avion!
>>> Damn it, I don't have control of the plane, I don't have control of the
plane at all!
>>>
>>> 02:11:37 (Robert) Commandes à gauche!
>>> Left seat taking control!
>>>
>>> At last, the more senior of the pilots (and the one who seems to have a
somewhat better grasp of the situation) now takes control of the airplane.
Unfortunately, he, too, seems unaware of the fact that the plane is now
stalled, and pulls back on the stick as well. Although the plane's nose is
pitched up, it is descending at a 40-degree angle. The stall warning
continues to sound. At any rate, Bonin soon after takes back the controls.
>>>
>>> A minute and a half after the crisis began, the captain returns to the
cockpit. The stall warning continues to blare.
>>>
>>> 02:11:43 (Captain) Eh… Qu'est-ce que vous foutez?
>>> What the hell are you doing?
>>>
>>> 02:11:45 (Bonin) On perd le contrôle de l'avion, là!
>>> We've lost control of the plane!
>>>
>>> 02:11:47 (Robert) On a totalement perdu le contrôle de l'avion... On
comprend rien... On a tout tenté...
>>> We've totally lost control of the plane. We don't understand at all...
We've tried everything.
>>>
>>> By now the plane has returned to its initial altitude but is falling
fast. With its nose pitched 15 degrees up, and a forward speed of 100 knots,
it is descending at a rate of 10,000 feet per minute, at an angle of 41.5
degrees. It will maintain this attitude with little variation all the way to
the sea. Though the pitot tubes are now fully functional, the forward
airspeed is so low—below 60 knots—that the angle-of-attack inputs are no
longer accepted as valid, and the stall-warning horn temporarily stops. This
may give the pilots the impression that their situation is improving, when
in fact it signals just the reverse.
>>>
>>> Another of the revelations of Otelli's transcript is that the captain of
the flight makes no attempt to physically take control of the airplane. Had
Dubois done so, he almost certainly would have understood, as a pilot with
many hours flying light airplanes, the insanity of pulling back on the
controls while stalled. But instead, he takes a seat behind the other two
pilots.
>>>
>>> This, experts say, is not so hard to understand. "They were probably
experiencing some pretty wild gyrations," Esser says. "In a condition like
that, he might not necessarily want to make the situation worse by having
one of the crew members actually disengage and stand up. He was probably in
a better position to observe and give his commands from the seat behind."
>>>
>>> But from his seat, Dubois is unable to infer from the instrument
displays in front of him why the plane is behaving as it is. The critical
missing piece of information: the fact that someone has been holding the
controls all the way back for virtually the entire time. No one has told
Dubois, and he hasn't thought to ask.
>>>
>>> 02:12:14 (Robert) Qu'est-ce que tu en penses? Qu'est-ce que tu en
penses? Qu'est-ce qu'il faut faire?
>>> What do you think? What do you think? What should we do?
>>>
>>> 02:12:15 (Captain) Alors, là, je ne sais pas!
>>> Well, I don't know!
>>>
>>> As the stall warning continues to blare, the three pilots discuss the
situation with no hint of understanding the nature of their problem. No one
mentions the word "stall." As the plane is buffeted by turbulence, the
captain urges Bonin to level the wings—advice that does nothing to address
their main problem. The men briefly discuss, incredibly, whether they are in
fact climbing or descending, before agreeing that they are indeed
descending. 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. The nose remains high.
>>>
>>> 02:13:40 (Robert) Remonte... remonte... remonte... remonte...
>>> Climb... climb... climb... climb...
>>>
>>> 02:13:40 (Bonin) Mais je suis à fond à cabrer depuis tout à l'heure!
>>> But I've had the stick back the whole time!
>>>
>>> At last, Bonin tells the others the crucial fact whose import he has so
grievously failed to understand himself.
>>>
>>> 02:13:42 (Captain) Non, non, non... Ne remonte pas... non, non.
>>> No, no, no... Don't climb... no, no.
>>>
>>> 02:13:43 (Robert) Alors descends... Alors, donne-moi les commandes... À
moi les commandes!
>>> Descend, then... Give me the controls... Give me the controls!
>>>
>>> Bonin yields the controls, and Robert finally puts the nose down. The
plane begins to regain speed. But it is still descending at a precipitous
angle. As they near 2000 feet, the aircraft's sensors detect the
fast-approaching surface and trigger a new alarm. There is no time left to
build up speed by pushing the plane's nose forward into a dive. At any rate,
without warning his colleagues, Bonin once again takes back the controls and
pulls his side stick all the way back.
>>>
>>> 02:14:23 (Robert) Putain, on va taper... C'est pas vrai!
>>> Damn it, we're going to crash... This can't be happening!
>>>
>>> 02:14:25 (Bonin) Mais qu'est-ce que se passe?
>>> But what's happening?
>>>
>>> 02:14:27 (Captain) 10 degrès d'assiette...
>>> Ten degrees of pitch...
>>>
>>> Exactly 1.4 seconds later, the cockpit voice recorder stops.
>>> ___
>>>
>>> Today the Air France 447 transcripts yield information that may ensure
that no airline pilot will ever again make the same mistakes. From now on,
every airline pilot will no doubt think immediately of AF447 the
instant a stall-warning alarm sounds at cruise altitude. Airlines around the
world will change their training programs to enforce habits that might have
saved the doomed airliner: paying closer attention to the weather and to
what the planes around you are doing; explicitly clarifying who's in charge
when two co-pilots are alone in the cockpit; understanding the parameters of
alternate law; and practicing hand-flying the airplane during all phases of
flight.
>>>
>>> But the crash raises the disturbing possibility that aviation may well
long be plagued by a subtler menace, one that ironically springs from the
never-ending quest to make flying safer. Over the decades, airliners have
been built with increasingly automated flight-control functions. These have
the potential to remove a great deal of uncertainty and danger from
aviation. But they also remove important information from the attention of
the flight crew. While the airplane's avionics track crucial parameters such
as location, speed, and heading, the human beings can pay attention to
something else. But when trouble suddenly springs up and the computer
decides that it can no longer cope—on a dark night, perhaps, in turbulence,
far from land—the humans might find themselves with a very
incomplete notion of what's going on. They'll wonder: What instruments are
reliable, and which can't be trusted? What's the most pressing threat?
What's going on? Unfortunately, the vast majority of pilots will have little
experience in finding the answers.