9 ms·

It sure looks defective to me: It was controlled more by pressure than movement, using joysticks instead of the traditional huge yoke. When one person was scre

by knaq 6y ago

It sure looks defective to me: It was controlled more by pressure than movement, using joysticks instead of the traditional huge yoke. When one person was screwing up, the other could not observe this. On a Boeing, each person would feel the other person's force because the controls are physically linked. The stall warning was designed for mild stalls, not severe stalls, and would turn off if the stall was really bad. They got into that state. Every time they reduced the stall, they would get back into the range in which the warning would alert. This caused them to go back into the worse condition, in which the stall warning just gave up. The pitot tubes, used to sense speed, were prone to clogging with ice. Better equipment is expected on a large passenger plane. That's all the aircraft itself. If you want to blame the pilots for any of that, then Boeing can rightly say the same for 737 troubles.

NikolaeVarius 6y ago
Notice how 5/6 reasons the accident report contains are "crew screwed up"
- js2 6y ago
  That's a "you're holding it wrong" argument. There are always human factors, no matter how well trained. So while the errors these pilots made shouldn't have happened if they were better trained, at least one of the errors, fighting over who was controlling the plane w/o realizing it, is impossible in a Boeing cockpit.
  - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
    No its not. The point of these reports is to get to the "primary causes" of the accident and include design decisions that contribute to an accident. These are trained pilots who did not follow their training. They didn't follow procedures that were in place for these types of events. They did not follow cockpit management procedures. They didnt know how to properly deal with stall conditions, a fundamental piloting skill. They managed to crash a airplane that was flying perfectly fine. I don't understand the fixation on the sidestick. Its not like they just tossed it in there. Thousands of engineer hours were spent creating the systems to manage control inputs. It may have been a contributing factor, but the sidestick isn't even mentioned in the proposed improvements section. This was pilot failure.
    - js2 6y ago
      That's fair. Thank you for elaborating.
  - gecko 6y ago
    The thing is, in all aircraft (very much including this Airbus), there are procedures you're supposed to follow for certain failure conditions. They're generally in something called the Quick Reference Handbook, or QRH, but there are also simple flows that crews are supposed to be trained for. One thing that is key in this situation is to announce "my plane" if you are the one flying...which never happened. The Airbus also has a button to mark sidestick priority, removing the other pilot's inputs entirely. That also was not used. No, one part of this (holding the stick full back) could not happen on a Boeing, but the rest of it sure could. The thing that personally scares me is not Airbus' take on how to fly planes, but rather Boeing's current take on the 737MAX where things are physical controls, kinda, somewhat, unless they aren't and become fly-by-wire. That's the issue with the MAX: if they'd been willing to train pilots for the new dynamics, rather than try to mask it with MCAS, it'd be fine. If it were fully fly-by-wire like an Airbus, it'd be fine. But the halfway house confused everybody on board.
    - js2 6y ago
      Oh, I agree. My original comment way up thread was based on my perception of the Airbus cockpit to the pre-Max Boeing cockpit. Since the 737 Max incidents, my perception has changed and my preference now is to fly Antonov. :-)
- AniseAbyss 6y ago
  Because humans screw up all the time. They are the weakest link. You can have the best damn plane and it only takes one guy or gal to drive it into the ground.
harshreality 6y ago
The difference between the Boeing problem, where the computer would do un-intuitive things that caused the planes to dive, and the AF447 A330 situation, where the pitot tubes froze over (they shouldn't have) but the aircraft wouldn't try to crash itself, is significant. Of course the pitots shouldn't have frozen over, and of course the stall warnings were poorly thought out, and of course the lack of direct awareness by the other pilot of Bonin's inputs leads to misunderstanding of the situation, but there's one big problem in the AF447 case that has nothing to do with bugs in the A330. Bonin (who flew the plane into the ocean) had no awareness of the Airbus's different flight modes or that the autopilot disconnect meant the plane was in Alternate Law, and as a result blissfully kept pulling back on the joystick thinking the computer would save him from ever stalling. The different flight modes are like the most basic part of operating an Airbus in an emergency, and the idea that any trained pilot wouldn't first consider which mode they're in is staggering. Read the transcript. You have Bonin pulling back on the stick almost continuously without saying so, you have Robert advising him to descend, and Bonin replying that he was descending, when he never did. He let the controls go back to neutral, the plane was still ascending with a wildly high AOA for the conditions, and he quickly reverted to pulling back on the joystick. Only less than a minute before impact, when the rapid descent and confusion lead to Robert advising Bonin to climb, does Bonin reveal the critical information, at which point both Robert and the Captain must have been shocked and horrified, both realizing they had to dive and also realizing they didn't have enough altitude and were going to crash: 02:13:40 (Robert) Climb... climb... climb... climb... 02:13:40 (Bonin) 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) No, no, no… Don’t climb… no, no. 02:13:43 (Robert) 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) Damn it, we’re going to crash… This can’t be happening! 02:14:25 (Bonin) But what’s happening? 02:14:27 (Captain) Ten degrees of pitch… Exactly 1.4 seconds later, the cockpit voice recorder stops. Transcript with notes: https://www.tailstrike.com/010609.html https://www.tailstrike.com/010609.html Bonin may have passed training but he clearly wasn't competent to fly an Airbus. Air France crew resource management (communication between pilots) sucked, and a bunch of Airbus quirks led to the other pilots not discovering that Bonin was doing the wrong thing until it was too late. However, virtually any other pilot wouldn't have stalled the plane.

by knaq 6y ago

NikolaeVarius 6y ago

Notice how 5/6 reasons the accident report contains are "crew screwed up"

js2 6y ago
That's a "you're holding it wrong" argument. There are always human factors, no matter how well trained. So while the errors these pilots made shouldn't have happened if they were better trained, at least one of the errors, fighting over who was controlling the plane w/o realizing it, is impossible in a Boeing cockpit.
- NikolaeVarius 6y ago
  No its not. The point of these reports is to get to the "primary causes" of the accident and include design decisions that contribute to an accident. These are trained pilots who did not follow their training. They didn't follow procedures that were in place for these types of events. They did not follow cockpit management procedures. They didnt know how to properly deal with stall conditions, a fundamental piloting skill. They managed to crash a airplane that was flying perfectly fine. I don't understand the fixation on the sidestick. Its not like they just tossed it in there. Thousands of engineer hours were spent creating the systems to manage control inputs. It may have been a contributing factor, but the sidestick isn't even mentioned in the proposed improvements section. This was pilot failure.
  - js2 6y ago
    That's fair. Thank you for elaborating.
- gecko 6y ago
  The thing is, in all aircraft (very much including this Airbus), there are procedures you're supposed to follow for certain failure conditions. They're generally in something called the Quick Reference Handbook, or QRH, but there are also simple flows that crews are supposed to be trained for. One thing that is key in this situation is to announce "my plane" if you are the one flying...which never happened. The Airbus also has a button to mark sidestick priority, removing the other pilot's inputs entirely. That also was not used. No, one part of this (holding the stick full back) could not happen on a Boeing, but the rest of it sure could. The thing that personally scares me is not Airbus' take on how to fly planes, but rather Boeing's current take on the 737MAX where things are physical controls, kinda, somewhat, unless they aren't and become fly-by-wire. That's the issue with the MAX: if they'd been willing to train pilots for the new dynamics, rather than try to mask it with MCAS, it'd be fine. If it were fully fly-by-wire like an Airbus, it'd be fine. But the halfway house confused everybody on board.
  - js2 6y ago
    Oh, I agree. My original comment way up thread was based on my perception of the Airbus cockpit to the pre-Max Boeing cockpit. Since the 737 Max incidents, my perception has changed and my preference now is to fly Antonov. :-)
AniseAbyss 6y ago
Because humans screw up all the time. They are the weakest link. You can have the best damn plane and it only takes one guy or gal to drive it into the ground.

harshreality 6y ago

The difference between the Boeing problem, where the computer would do un-intuitive things that caused the planes to dive, and the AF447 A330 situation, where the pitot tubes froze over (they shouldn't have) but the aircraft wouldn't try to crash itself, is significant. Of course the pitots shouldn't have frozen over, and of course the stall warnings were poorly thought out, and of course the lack of direct awareness by the other pilot of Bonin's inputs leads to misunderstanding of the situation, but there's one big problem in the AF447 case that has nothing to do with bugs in the A330. Bonin (who flew the plane into the ocean) had no awareness of the Airbus's different flight modes or that the autopilot disconnect meant the plane was in Alternate Law, and as a result blissfully kept pulling back on the joystick thinking the computer would save him from ever stalling. The different flight modes are like the most basic part of operating an Airbus in an emergency, and the idea that any trained pilot wouldn't first consider which mode they're in is staggering. Read the transcript. You have Bonin pulling back on the stick almost continuously without saying so, you have Robert advising him to descend, and Bonin replying that he was descending, when he never did. He let the controls go back to neutral, the plane was still ascending with a wildly high AOA for the conditions, and he quickly reverted to pulling back on the joystick. Only less than a minute before impact, when the rapid descent and confusion lead to Robert advising Bonin to climb, does Bonin reveal the critical information, at which point both Robert and the Captain must have been shocked and horrified, both realizing they had to dive and also realizing they didn't have enough altitude and were going to crash: 02:13:40 (Robert) Climb... climb... climb... climb... 02:13:40 (Bonin) 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) No, no, no… Don’t climb… no, no. 02:13:43 (Robert) 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) Damn it, we’re going to crash… This can’t be happening! 02:14:25 (Bonin) But what’s happening? 02:14:27 (Captain) Ten degrees of pitch… Exactly 1.4 seconds later, the cockpit voice recorder stops. Transcript with notes: https://www.tailstrike.com/010609.html https://www.tailstrike.com/010609.html Bonin may have passed training but he clearly wasn't competent to fly an Airbus. Air France crew resource management (communication between pilots) sucked, and a bunch of Airbus quirks led to the other pilots not discovering that Bonin was doing the wrong thing until it was too late. However, virtually any other pilot wouldn't have stalled the plane.