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Well, Airbus has also had its share of issues with bad pitot tube data combined with automation leading to catastrophic accidents. [0] From the evidence so far

Well, Airbus has also had its share of issues with bad pitot tube data combined with automation leading to catastrophic accidents. [0] From the evidence so far it seems Boeing made a similar mistake. It's not the first and unlikely to be the last. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

CaptainZapp 8y ago
When you actually look at the linked article it wasn't so much an equipment problem, but really a crew issue. Something often conveniently hushed over in those recent discussions. While there was equipment failure this was not the main cause of the crash. The very same article you link to list the following as the cause of the accident : the crew made inappropriate control inputs that destabilized the flight path; the crew failed to follow appropriate procedure for loss of displayed airspeed information; the crew were late in identifying and correcting the deviation from the flight path; the crew lacked understanding of the approach to stall; the crew failed to recognize the aircraft had stalled and consequently did not make inputs that would have made it possible to recover from the stall. There's one mentioning of the pitot tube in this list. And certainly not as the main cause: temporary inconsistency between the measured speeds, likely as a result of the obstruction of the pitot tubes by ice crystals, causing autopilot disconnection and reconfiguration to alternate law; I interpret this that the plane worked exactly as it should. Essentially it was really the crew that fucked up. It's not really comparable with what happened (probably) on those 737MAX8 planes that crashed.
- hodgesrm 8y ago
  There's no question the crew made serious mistakes that led to the stall and subsequent crash in the AF 447 case. Yet you could argue Airbus and AF did not sufficiently highlight this case to ensure adequate training to ensure a proper response. Something similar may emerge from the 737Max cases.

CaptainZapp 8y ago

When you actually look at the linked article it wasn't so much an equipment problem, but really a crew issue. Something often conveniently hushed over in those recent discussions. While there was equipment failure this was not the main cause of the crash. The very same article you link to list the following as the cause of the accident : the crew made inappropriate control inputs that destabilized the flight path; the crew failed to follow appropriate procedure for loss of displayed airspeed information; the crew were late in identifying and correcting the deviation from the flight path; the crew lacked understanding of the approach to stall; the crew failed to recognize the aircraft had stalled and consequently did not make inputs that would have made it possible to recover from the stall. There's one mentioning of the pitot tube in this list. And certainly not as the main cause: temporary inconsistency between the measured speeds, likely as a result of the obstruction of the pitot tubes by ice crystals, causing autopilot disconnection and reconfiguration to alternate law; I interpret this that the plane worked exactly as it should. Essentially it was really the crew that fucked up. It's not really comparable with what happened (probably) on those 737MAX8 planes that crashed.

hodgesrm 8y ago
There's no question the crew made serious mistakes that led to the stall and subsequent crash in the AF 447 case. Yet you could argue Airbus and AF did not sufficiently highlight this case to ensure adequate training to ensure a proper response. Something similar may emerge from the 737Max cases.