Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Airbus was aware that the speed sensors were faulty and were in the process of refitting all the planes. They just hadn't gotten to the accident plane soon enough.
It's very easy to say it was human error, but if a pilot has faulty instruments, I would say that the human that is in error are the engineers and the manufacturer, not the pilot.
If I put you in a car with faulty brakes and you crash, is it your fault or the fault of whoever designed the brakes?
If you had read the article it does place a lot of blame on the lousy design of the pitots...
But the findings also clearly showed the newbie pilots screwed up because of lack of training in the aircraft...
Even with the faulty pitots if the pilots hadn't screwed up the plane wouldn't have crashed....
Yes, I read the G*d damn thing! How else do you think I could comment?
Wait! Don't answer that! All I'll get is some more of your brain drivel and snotty comments aimed at me on a personal level.
When someone says the Woods Hole Institute works on luck, well, how can they be taken seriously???
The interview you said you read with the senior engineer with Woods Hole goes into quite a bit of detail explaining how they got the data on where to start looking, the number of AUV's they used, how the AUV searches....
When someone says the Woods Hole Institute works on luck, well, how can they be taken seriously???
The interview you said you read with the senior engineer with Woods Hole goes into quite a bit of detail explaining how they got the data on where to start looking, the number of AUV's they used, how the AUV searches....
Yeah, lucky
Luck is a part of life and is otherwise known as random chance.
Airbus was aware that the speed sensors were faulty and were in the process of refitting all the planes. They just hadn't gotten to the accident plane soon enough.
The pitot tube was iced over for less than a minute, and the pilots could have corrected the planes attitude at any time - even during the outage, and certainly after. Apart from indicated airspeed, all other instrumentation worked - including the stall warning. And if the pilots had initiated a correct stall recovery, they would have flown all the way to Paris.
Quote:
It's very easy to say it was human error, but if a pilot has faulty instruments, I would say that the human that is in error are the engineers and the manufacturer, not the pilot.
Obviously, a modern aircraft is a very complex piece of machinery, but if the right-seat pilot hadn't pulled back on the stick for minutes, the plane would have righted itself. In fact, if both pilots had let go of the controls, there is a very good chance the plane would have recovered.
Quote:
If I put you in a car with faulty brakes and you crash, is it your fault or the fault of whoever designed the brakes?
After the pitot tube started providing correct input again, the pilots were in a plane with functioning controls and instrument. The situation could have been recovered at basically any point in time.
I have as deep a respect for airline pilots as anyone, but the flight crew either failed to understand what was happening or simply reacted incorrectly here. Incredibly sad.
Time for an aerospace engineer (myself) to butt in here.
Airbus airplanes tend to have a lot more augmentation and interference into the natural reaction of the pilots than other manufacturers put into them. There have been a number of Airbus accidents where the pilots wanted to pull up or something more only to have the computer limit their movements to prevent what it thought was a stall and they get stuck and crash.
This leads me to believe that Airbus airplanes have a similar warning system to alert the pilots when something is going wrong. And when you have computers running the show to the extent that Airbus planes do, you invariably get a LOT of warning messages when your sensors are failing. The pilots were probably not well trained enough to decipher the multitude of warning signals and messages coming at them. So the panicked.
In a computer system, you are only as good as the sensors you rely on.
What the pilot should have done was push DOWN and regain airspeed, but in the weather conditions (cloudy, rainy) it is unlikely the pilots would have had the mental reference and state of mind to detect the increase in airspeed. There have been incidents where planes turn UPSIDE DOWN but they were in a 1-G constant roll and didn't even notice it until it was too late. It can happen. Think of the moment when you are upside down on a roller coaster ride, except lengthen that moment to many minutes and you get the idea.
So the sensors failed and the computer went nuts trying to figure out how to limit the pilot commands, who wasn't helping because it seems the pilot was ill trained to both avoid the weather and not fly at all or divert, OR to know how to decipher the messages you're getting and stay calm.
I squarely blame both Airbus and the pilots for this tragedy. Airbus should stop making planes that limit the pilots' innate ability to fly, and pilots should get more training, and given more leeway in deciding whether they fly or not. They knew a hurricane-force storm was off the coast of Brazil, but decided to fly anyway. Bad news!
Time for an aerospace engineer (myself) to butt in here.
Not an aerospace enginner, just an interested layman, so it's with some trepidation I respond, but...
Quote:
There have been a number of Airbus accidents where the pilots wanted to pull up or something more only to have the computer limit their movements to prevent what it thought was a stall and they get stuck and crash.
Well, I know a lot of people (most notably, the pilot) blame the 1988 A320 Mulhouse crash on the aircraft, but nobody has ever provided a convincing case, as far as I can tell. They changed their plan at the last minute, bled off too much energy and when they realized they were lower than the area obstacles, the plane was too low and too slow. If the plane had responded to a panic pull-up, it would have stalled. As it was, it was at least controllable until it hit the ground. (3 passengers died, but it could have been much worse.)
Or did you have any other examples in mind?
Quote:
This leads me to believe that Airbus airplanes have a similar warning system to alert the pilots when something is going wrong.
A lot of warnings went off, undoubtedly. But if the flight data recorder data are anywhere near reliable, the aircraft was flyable and all sensors, except for one (IAS) were functional. Which returned to service pretty quickly.
Quote:
And when you have computers running the show to the extent that Airbus planes do, you invariably get a LOT of warning messages when your sensors are failing.
Interestingly, an IAS sensor failure puts the A340 in "alternate law" - the mode where the computer stops limiting pilot input. So the problem isn't lack of pilot control.
Quote:
The pilots were probably not well trained enough to decipher the multitude of warning signals and messages coming at them. So the panicked.
This, sadly, is somewhat likely to be the case. The PF pulled back on his sidestick pretty much all the way down. And that was the wrong thing to do.
Quote:
In a computer system, you are only as good as the sensors you rely on.
I'd say that go for all instrument flying. The pilots had no visual clues at all.
Quote:
What the pilot should have done was push DOWN and regain airspeed, but in the weather conditions (cloudy, rainy) it is unlikely the pilots would have had the mental reference and state of mind to detect the increase in airspeed.
I think you may mean decrease - the IAS was down to 40 knots(!) at one point in time. This was a plane in full-out stall.
Quote:
So the sensors failed and the computer went nuts trying to figure out how to limit the pilot commands,
The computer handed more control over to the pilots, not less.
Quote:
who wasn't helping because it seems the pilot was ill trained to both avoid the weather and not fly at all or divert, OR to know how to decipher the messages you're getting and stay calm.
There was definitely a problem on the flight deck. The CVR makes it fairly clear that the left-seat pilot was too focused on getting the captain back, and the right-seat pilot applied the exactly wrong input all the way.
Quote:
Airbus should stop making planes that limit the pilots' innate ability to fly,
I'm not sure I follow. The plane was either approaching or in a stall,the stall warning blared for minutes, and the right-hand pilot simply didn't possess the "innate ability to fly". If he'd just let go of the stick, there's a good chance the plane would have righted itself.
Quote:
and pilots should get more training, and given more leeway in deciding whether they fly or not. They knew a hurricane-force storm was off the coast of Brazil, but decided to fly anyway. Bad news!
That was a bad decision. All other flights avoided the storm. And it was likely the extreme conditions that led to iced-up pitot tubes.
A sad event all around, but I'm not seeing where Airbus' design failed, no where a less-automated approach would have made a difference.
After reading the Wikipedia article, I totally believe that at least one airspeed indicator was false and that caused the pilot to disconnect the autopilot. Lack of outside reference horizon and inability to determine rates due to again lack of trusting the instruments probably led the pilot in command to repeatedly stall the airplane.
So the Airbus design isn't at fault per se here, especially if the pilot was able to stall the airplane. That tells me that the alternate law was engaged and flight envelope limiting was disabled. What Airbus could have done is address the issue of not doing good enough testing on the pitot probes. Those probes should be heated (I have seen them many times before and after a flight, those things are HOT! you can see the heat flow off them on a summer day).
All signs point to bad flight planning and bad decisions from the flight crew. The Airbus vs. Boeing vs. everyone else method of flight deck design and controllability philosophy doesn't really factor in here. I would know that if there was an airspeed disagreement and the backup systems couldn't figure out who was right, I'd put the engines to max and trust my inertial reference system and climb. That cannot be fooled with by the wind and rain because those are (if they're modern) gyros which give actual attitude and rate information. Or I'd keep the autopilot on and climb. If the Airbus autopilot and inertial reference units are worth its weight in salt, it would maintain a reasonable flight path angle while climbing and using the acceleration data from the inertial reference unit.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
