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What really happened aboard Air France 447

• rudiger 15y ago
  That was a chilling read.
  • fr0sty 15y ago
    Agreed. I personally can't think of much more to say than that.
  • anrope 15y ago
    Absolutely. You can almost feel the panic they must have experienced, trying to comprehend what was happening, in the dead of night, over the ocean: "What the hell is happening? I don't understand what's happening." "Damn it, I don't have control of the plane, I don't have control of the plane at all!" It's like a non-fiction horror story. Cockpit data recorders provide some really gripping stories. Same with the air traffic control audio from the bird strike incident that ended with a plane landing in the Hudson river in NYC.
    • jarek 15y ago
      There is a really great write-up of the Hudson river ditching in Vanity Fair: http://vanityfair.com/style/features/2009/06/us_airways200906 http://vanityfair.com/style/features/2009/06/us_airways20090.... Gripping, intense, interesting, and in the end incredibly inspiring due to the emergency going exactly right.
      • jpiasetz 15y ago
        Interesting in that account the person in charge said "my aircraft". May have helped with Air France to eliminate the two people pulling on the stick.
        • jarek 15y ago
          The Popular Mechanics account of AF447 leaves out some quotes and doesn't explain their content very clearly, unfortunately, but it appears they were doing that, more or less. "02:11:37 (Robert) Commandes à gauche! Left seat taking control! [...] At any rate, Bonin soon after takes back the controls." Sometime after 2:12:15: "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." "02:13:43 (Robert) [...] À moi les commandes! [...] Give me the controls! [...] At any rate, without warning his colleagues, Bonin once again takes back the controls and pulls his side stick all the way back." Next timestamp is 02:14:23 and crash is 02:14:28. It's not really clear whether Bonin announced his first retaking of controls. I believe protocol would in fact give him formal control if he did, despite his confusion. Robert appears to have been communicating his control correctly but Bonin appears to have been providing input during this time. We'll never know if he didn't realize he was providing input or if he didn't realize someone else was trying to control the plane.
          • Caballera 15y ago
            i don't know these people and I'm not a pilot, but is it possible the Bonin wanted to crash the plane? I find it hard to believe that he would continue to pull back on the stick almost the entire time and not 'share' that information, and after Robert took control (by stating 'Give me the controls!'. Just wondering if this is something that would be looked into.
            • accountoftheday 15y ago
              I believe Bonin's wife appears on the passenger manifest, which makes a suicide even more unlikely.
            • jarek 15y ago
              Technically possible but seemingly unlikely. I'm leaning towards Occam's razor here: that would be an awful lot of acting fairly consistent with panicked, unexperienced actions, and if you're a pilot it's not exactly difficult to crash the plane if you want to. Additionally, the decision to fly into the storm wasn't Bonin's, so if he did decide to crash the plane in this manner it would have been a very rapid decision, or a result of pretty specific deliberations like "next time the computer goes into alternate mode and there is confusion and panic in the cockpit I will do it," which again runs against the razor.
• Xuzz 15y ago
  Single page (print link): http://www.popularmechanics.com/print-this/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877?page=all http://www.popularmechanics.com/print-this/what-really-happe...
• huntero 15y ago
  It's interesting that First Officer Bonin is able to doom the plane by continuing to hold back on his joystick, even when that action isn't having positive results. Had the other first officer pushed his joystick forward, would the plane begin to dive? I assume that one joystick has precedence over the other... It seems dangerous to have two joysticks, both capable of controlling the plane, that have no physical or simulated physical link. It means that one pilot could be attempting to control the plane and his actions will have no effect whatsoever if the other seat is panicking (as in this case). Anyone have any insight into this?
  • jeffbarr 15y ago
    According to the article, the input from the two joysticks is averaged.
    • greiskul 15y ago
      Which raises a very good question, when would you ever want that joystick behaviour?
      • fr0sty 15y ago
        This is a fantastic question. I can think of no situation where this behavior would be desireable, but then again IANAP
        • mikeash 15y ago
          IAAP (not commercial) and that sounds like an awful way to do things. An important aspect of cockpit resource management is to know who is controlling the airplanes, and part of that is always positively verbally transferring control, with confirmation. "I have the plane." "You have the plane." There is no situation where you want two people to both have input at the same time.
          • flyingkiwi 15y ago
• citricsquid 15y ago
  The lack of reaction to "Stall!" implies one of two things; either it was broken and the sound didn't play or the complete lack of understanding about what the word "Stall" meant with the pilots. Has either of these been proposed and discussed? The author of this piece doesn't seem to touch on why they ignore "Stall!", unless it's been confirmed the sound had been heard (on the recording maybe?) and they did indeed understand what "Stall" meant as it's "standard" pilot language? Why would they ignore it...
  • yew 15y ago
    The articles says it's audible on the recording. Stall alarms are usually very loud. I can't speak for Air France, but in general aviation the word "stall" (in English) is of global significance. I imagine they thought it was malfunctioning, or simply didn't think about it in the heat of the moment.
    • citricsquid 15y ago
      They don't explicitly state that it is something you can hear in the recording, I made the assumption that the "blackbox" contain not just an audio recording but a log of the computer system -- what actions it took, which is how they know the co-pilot was pulling back the entire time -- and they're basing it off of that. Although the way they phrase it (reading back through the relevant paragraphs now) with the assumption he is referring to it being audible it does read that way. I'll email the author to ask for clarification.
      • yew 15y ago
        I was thinking of ". . .even though the word "Stall!" will blare through the cockpit 75 times." Looking back over it, I suppose that's not quite what that means. . .
        • lutorm 15y ago
          No, it's exactly what that means. Search for the youtube link to the Aeroperu recording above and you'll be able to hear how much blaring there is.
• zwadia 15y ago
  Can anyone explain the virtues of asynchronous and dual input modes? Why would it average the inputs? Why would it not give the co-pilot feedback? Is it because instinctual resistance to yoke feedback would result in imprecise inputs during manual maneuvers?
• edtechdev 15y ago
  Looks like one issue might be that all the instruments show what the aircraft is doing and what is happening outside, but it doesn't show what the pilots are doing. When we design interfaces, we of course assume the user is aware of their own actions and embodied state. But I guess when there are multiple users we need to help them be able to sense the actions/state of others. Linking the two sticks is one way, another might be to show the state of the two sticks on the display next to the indicator of pitch, perhaps using coloring to highlight when the sticks are being pushed forward or backward. But of course there is already an overload of indicators. Really, improvements in the software/AI might be the best solution.
  • rguzman 15y ago
    > the user is aware of their own actions and embodied state particularly unaware in this instance. due to the turbulence and general confusion it is very likely both pilots were disoriented. it is possible and likely that their senses were conveying wrong information to them. (most people experience some mild form of this at some point when in a car or plane that's not moving next to one that is moving slowly and it feels as if you are moving backwards)
• blinkingled 15y ago
  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. I have read a few other transcripts from crashed planes and this seems to be the most common and significant contributor. I see variations of this problem almost daily in my day to day work. It strikes me so many times that people flat out refuse to communicate or do do in an extremely ambiguous fashion, people violate responsibility boundaries all the time (faux-technical people forcing technical decisions for e.g.) and that directly results in losses far greater than they should have been if there was any notion of discipline and communication.
  • ekianjo 15y ago
    This was also one of the points of Malcom Gladwell in one of his book ("the Tipping point"), where he talked about what went wrong in several examples of air crashes: lack of human cooperation at its best.
    • dominostars 15y ago
      You might be thinking of his book "Outliers", which dedicates a large segment to plane crashes.
  • celoyd 15y ago
    CRM is interesting stuff. It got popular in aviation after the crash of United 173,[0] where the crew was so involved in a serious landing gear problem that the only one who noticed that they were running out of fuel apparently didn’t want to be rude enough to insist on dealing with it before it was too late. In that case, it was generally interpreted as too much respect for authority: the junior crew member didn’t want to distract the captain by raising the fuel problem too often. So that can go both ways. United 173 was only a particularly good example of exactly what you point out: many plane crashes happen when individual crew members miss simple things that others could easily correct but don’t. After flight crews got CRM-based training, the incidence of this kind of thing went down measurably. But as I was reading this transcript, it was eerie to see how little they were applying it. Why were they practically silent? If they’d each volunteered a little more information about observations, intentions, and actions (“I’m leaving the stick full forward”), they’d have been fine. Anyway, I think CRM has some pretty clear applications to normal business environments, but especially to startups. The jumbled panorama of interlocking and quickly developing options confronting a small team of coders is not unlike an aviation emergency, though at a slower pace. 0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_173 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_173
• donaldc 15y ago
  Having multiple joysticks that can be in different positions at the same time and yet all simultaneously affect the flight of the Airbus is a serious design flaw.
  • anrope 15y ago
    Up to this point, the situation was playing out in a sadly too common case of pilot error, pilot inexperience, which makes up a huge portion of aviation accidents. When I read about the dual input averaging, I literally exclaimed "what?!". I can't believe that, for all the strict standards that flight control software must meet, nobody called this out as a dangerous idea?
    • akira2501 15y ago
      Precisely.. I'd also like to know under what circumstances this would actually be used, and be a useful safety feature to have implemented. At the very least, there should be a significant warning in the cockpit when "dual input" mode is active. That is an incredibly dangerous "feature."
      • tcarnell 15y ago
        completely agree about this 'dual input' mode - crazy. But also these modern planes seem to jump in and out of 'modes' without any warning or confirmation. I believe the 2008 plane crash at Madrid (largely pilot error again) also suffered from some confusion about the plane 'mode'. It was set to 'normal flight mode' whilst attempting to take off (or something). Again, both crashes largely due to 'usability' issues and cockpit design.
        • omegant 15y ago
          Madrid crash was due to a improper disconection of the flight-ground sensor by maintenance( following unclear documentation)That led to a take off without flaps ( the configuration alarm didn't sound as it should when the crew forgot to extend them). It didn't take off it only jumped out of the runway and then crashed. It was not an usability matter just lots of small factors aligning, neither one on itself could have caused the accident.
• rguzman 15y ago
  my dad is a captain, very experienced -- flies 777s, has > 20k hours and is trained in both airbus and boeings. over dinner i once asked him "so what's the most exciting or difficult situation you've even been in?" "hm... nothing i can think of, it is all pretty boring, really" "i mean c'mon, there's got to be something!" "you see? if you do things by the book plus a little on the safe side it usually works out that you are never in an exciting situation -- my job is to ensure that even the most unlikely exciting situations become more unlikely." in this particular instance, it seems that there are a few actions that could've avoided the whole situation had the people in charge had the mentality of "by the book plus a little on the safe side". the most glaring one is that the other planes in the area diverted to avoid the storm. another: the captain should have made clear who is in charge. of course, this is very easy for me to type from the comfort of my office without any situational stress. scary!
  • antidaily 15y ago
    Uncle (in-law) pretty much says the same thing.
  • bdonlan 15y ago
    Surely he's been in exciting situations in simulators, at least? (And if not, he probably should arrange for some simulated excitement :)
    • rguzman 15y ago
      oh yeah... due to a complicated set of fortunate circumstances i once got an observer seat during re-current simulator training (happens every 6 months). all the flying i've ever done was on ms flight simulator, but i know enough to read gauges and what not. it was so intense that even i was too stressed to finish paying attention to the whole session. lots of exciting situations there. and stop calling me surely.
      • gameshot911 15y ago
        It's "Stop calling me Shirley" :)
• ekianjo 15y ago
  Very insightful. Indeed it seems that one of the main contributor was the copilot's attitude (at least one of them, pulling back on the joystick all the way) 02:13:40 (Bonin) Mais je suis à fond à cabrer depuis tout à l'heure! Obviously they were in panic mode and did not take time to think - they were reacting to the "plane go down" message by a "pull back" mode, where they should have been trying to understand why they were losing altitude.
• maeon3 15y ago
  Pilot stalls the plane out of panic to get out of the storm, ignoring 75 reminders that you are stalling and losing altitude, does nothing to remedy the stall until it is too late. I expect blunders like that from drunk drivers.
  • scarmig 15y ago
    If only. Unless you empathize with mistakes like this, it's very difficult to prevent them in the future. You're always going to have people who make mistakes in any system you design. The trick is to design the system so that mistakes are easily corrected, even when multiple ones are compounded. It's akin to someone dropping a table of unrecoverable user data. Sure, it was dumb on their part, but why the hell is it possible for you to lose all your data from a single mistake?
    • maeon3 15y ago
      The problem was Panic. In a panic situation humans revert back to a time when we need to run away from the bear that is chasing us in the woods. To fix this, I propose a "panic awareness system", where the machine says: "Don't panic". and tells the pilots to take some anti-panic medicine.
  • rguzman 15y ago
    way too easy for you to say without being in the situation. heavy turbulence, no visibility, confusing situation, very likely that he was disoriented, operating a very complex set of computer programs hooked up to a very complex set of physical controls that have a myriad of potential configurations and points of failure while trying to debug it at the same time in a panic and making quick decisions. from his vantage point, it is likely that the stall warning is a symptom of something malfunctioning and not an actual stall. that said, i thought that "if stall, you push forward" was instilled into pilots to the point of 2nd nature. i'm very surprised at the reaction to the stall warning.
    • alexbell 15y ago
      The not pushing forward while stalling really does say to me by the time they thought to analyze the situation, they were in a state of absolute panic. I would be curious to know if any of the flight crew were military trained, or if all came from a civilian flight instruction background?
• runningdogx 15y ago
  I've followed the discussion of the AF447 investigation on several flight discussion forums. The PF (Bonin) apparently never became aware of his angle of attack (once the airplane fully stalled, AOA was absurdly high). He did not seem to be aware that his constant inputs had caused the Airbus's THS (trimmable horizontal stabilizer, horizontal flaps on the tail) to deflect to maximum in order to try to keep the nose up. Therefore when he tried to input stick up (nose down) several times briefly, and there was no obvious response (the computer takes a while to reduce THS elevation in response to opposing input), who knows what he thought -- maybe that all readings were incorrect. Strangely, Bonin was the one pilot who had significant recent glider experience as I recall. The Airbus computer even in "alternate law" functions nothing like a glider (only "direct law" is sort of close to direct input), so maybe that further confused him. In my opinion, at night, over an ocean, in a storm, with no visibility, in possibly significant turbulance, a modern aircraft cutting off Autopilot for any reason other than computer failure is completely unacceptable. A computer should be able to fly as well as a human under those circumstances. People suggesting that on airliner forums get flamed. But it's true. Most pilots kept up the refrain that a computer cannot safely fly by gps and gyros unless they also have airspeed. Which is true. It's dangerous to fly if you don't have true airspeed (gyros and gps cannot accurate provide relative wind speed). However, if pitot tubes are frozen and the computer no longer has valid airspeed, the pilots no longer have valid airspeed either. Pitch and power is all they can do. The computer can do that just as well. All it needs to know is aircraft weight, which can be entered (maybe it is entered) before takeoff and automatically adjusted to account for fuel consumption. There are a bunch of factors that contributed to the accident: Pitots shouldn't have frozen. Lack of Air France training for controlling an aircraft at altitude with the computer in "alternate law" (mode without full flight envelope protection; it's therefore possible to stall). The command structure in the cockpit without the Captain (who had just gone on break) actually had Bonin in command, even though the co-pilot in the left seat outranked him... AF has since changed that. CRM (crew resource management) was poor; the co-pilot in the left seat didn't try to take control until way too late. The co-pilot was preoccupied with where the Captain was rather than offering constructive input on how to fly. Bonin was not adequately aware of what his inputs were doing, or what the plane's Angle of Attack was, and did not react properly to the stall warning which in almost every case at high altitude means drop the nose, not raise it (though without valid airspeed there's a risk of overspeed which can cause a new set of problems). The Airbus computers had some quirks; stall warnings stop if airspeed drops too low (due to some computer programming logic involving low airspeed, AOA sensors, and the result being silencing the stall warnings). Nobody believed a passenger aircraft would be so stable during a full stall. This undoubtedly contributed to confusion about whether they were actually stalled. The Airbus's computer setting the trimmable horizontal stabilizer to max nose-up deflection, in response to Bonin's almost constant nose-up input, possibly contributed to the stability during stall. Angle of Attack information may not have been adequately displayed to the PF (Bonin) -- the black box doesn't record data from the right set of instruments, so nobody knows what Bonin had on his screen. There was poor notification on the co-pilot's side of what the PF (Bonin) was doing. Unlike traditional aircraft, it is not easy to see what the pilot in the other seat is doing with the stick. There was poor notification on either side of the cockpit when the other pilot took control. When the co-pilot took control, Bonin almost immediately took control back, and it's not clear either of them knew what the other was trying to do. Apparently there's a light that indicates override, but who would notice such things under that amount of stress? IOW, it was a disaster from top to bottom. Usually in aircraft accidents there's a chain of events, but in this case there were so many possible contributing causes that other than having better pitots that didn't freeze over, solving any one other problem may not have broken the chain.
• Klinky 15y ago
  Co-pilot Robert, after finally getting full control back from Co-pilot Bonin: "Damn it, we're going to crash... This can't be happening!" Co-pilot Bonin, who had been pulling back & stalling the plane during the crisis: "But what's happening?" Pretty much sums it up. I am thinking that perhaps Bonin had shellshock & may not have even realized he was holding the stick back. Perhaps the more experienced Robert didn't think to ask "are you pulling back the stick?" because that would be like asking "did you make sure the computer is plugged into the wall outlet?", i.e. it's so stupid & simple, that can't be "it". There are a few things I could think that would be worth adding. - Add a display that shows the current positions of both control sticks. Add an alarm when the two sticks are not within a certain margin of the each other, if both are engaged. Such as if one is full forward & the other is full back. - Make clearer warnings about the implications of the "alternate law" mode. Such as a warning like "Stalling possible". Also maybe put an alarm in the pilot resting area that would relay when warnings are detected like stall or switching to alternate law. - Delineate command better, e.g. Captain, Co-pilot #1, Co-pilot #2 so that who is in charge is clear.
  • jrockway 15y ago
    - Delineate command better, e.g. Captain, Co-pilot #1, Co-pilot #2 so that who is in charge is clear. This antiquated idea has killed many more people than it would have saved in this case. Read about CRM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management I think a classic example is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_52 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_52 The plane crashed because it burned all of its fuel in a holding pattern waiting to land in JFK. When the flight engineer noticed this, he was afraid to tell air traffic control, who he believed was "higher up" than he was (and he therefore had no right to question their decision). The result was 65 dead people. There are several cases where a lower-ranking person has noticed something that the captain has not. And when they didn't do anything about it, people died.
    • vacri 15y ago
      Your link doesn't say that there isn't a clear chain of command, it says that there should be a culture that allows professional disagreement or calling to attention. Just because the captain is declared top dog doesn't mean that protocol demands subordinates must remain quiet.
• sliverstorm 15y ago
  Could they not simply have looked out the window and understood? Or simply felt gravity in their bodies? A 40 degree incline is pretty severe, wouldn't it be obvious?
  • crikli 15y ago
    Our bodies are horrible when it comes to spatial awareness. Pilots are trained to ignore sensory input like the feel of gravity, the feel of being in a dive/climb/bank and use the instruments to make determinations about what the aircraft is doing. Usually those feelings are dead wrong. It's amazing how flying into a cloud bank, even though you've been flying straight and level, suddenly your body screams at you that you're in a descending bank or something. You just learn to disregard those senses and trust the instruments. As far as looking out the window, it was cloudy, at night, and at high altitude. At high altitude in straight and level flight your nose is pointed at blue sky, not the visual horizon.
    • sliverstorm 15y ago
      Ah, that bit about being trained to ignore their body is interesting. I was not aware of that, and it answers my question pretty well.
      • stoney 15y ago
        There is an unstable mode in some aircraft (maybe only small aircraft?) where it enters into a kind of spiral dive. When you are sat in a plane where that is happening (I have done this in a training exercise) you really cannot feel anything unusual at first - the forces you experience from the different accelerations cancel out. Until all of a sudden you do feel it - at that point you are pitched with the wings at about 45 degrees and the nose pointing about 45 degrees towards the ground. Suddenly you feel it a lot. That is a very scary experience, and one of the reasons to ignore your body if you are a pilot. When I experienced it it was in clear skies, so it would be rather obvious that it was happening just by looking out of the window, but apparently this can happen to inexperienced pilots in clouds. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_spiral http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_spiral
• dhughes 15y ago
  I don't think the average person realizes that for aircraft pilots ice is a constant worry even in tropical areas of the world. The temperature drops 1.98C for every 1,000 feet you go up so you can see quite quickly how fast you can enter an area below the freezing point of water. Icing of the pitot tube and carburetor are a constant worry at least for prop driven aircraft. Right from day one you're taught what to look for signs of carburetor icing and how to correct it. Water in the fuel is probably #3 on the list. I never got far enough along to learn about wing icing I ran out of money for lessons but really everyday it's ice, ice, ice!
  • lutorm 15y ago
    I never got far enough along to learn about wing icing I ran out of money for lessons Hey, me too! (And 9/11 happened which made it a lot harder for foreigners to fly.) But I did have the opportunity to get a lesson in how to avoid carb icing without carb heat when I pulled the carb heat control straight out of the dash on our 152. ;-)
    • dhughes 15y ago
      I'm not surprised most of the 152s are probably from the 1970s and are used constantly for training it's amazing the last even with strict control of inspections and repairs. I learned on a Cessna 152 too but one day we had to use a 172 it was like a Cadillac compared to the 152.
• acabal 15y ago
  That was one of the tensest things I've read in a while. My heart was pumping up until the end. The level of stress, confusion, and terror those pilots, not to mention the passengers, must have experienced must have been truly terrible.
  • Angostura 15y ago
    I couldn't actually bring myself to click to page 2.
  • smiler 15y ago
    I do wonder if passengers knew what was happening. Many might have been asleep. It sounds like there was a fair bit of turbulence on. It looks like from the report that none of the cabin crew raised any concerns, so I'm wondering if people were pretty much oblivious and they went quickly.
    • easilydoable 15y ago
      I've been in flights that have experienced very mild turbulance and let me tell you, it's enough to wakup any sleepy passenger. With the amount of turbulance this plane experienced, there is no way anyone could have been oblivious to what was going on.
  • crististm 15y ago
    My thoughts exactly. While reading this I could not think about the same counter-intuitive reaction that people have when they drive and the car slips. Most people steer in the direction of the road when the single action to regain control is to slightly steer in the direction of the slippage.
    • nradov 15y ago
      Except that steering in the direction of the slippage may not be the correct action at all, at least in some vehicles. http://www.oregon.gov/OSP/PATROL/safety_tip_slide_control.shtml http://www.oregon.gov/OSP/PATROL/safety_tip_slide_control.sh...
• jonah 15y ago
  They were way outside their OODA loop [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
• hybrid11 15y ago
  Reading the last few lines of the article made me cringe: 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.
• ookblah 15y ago
  Such a tragedy... Forgive my ignorance, maybe some pilots can shed some light on this. In the article it mentions that even though the plane was flying in "alternate" mode, my understanding is that it still has limits to what inputs can be given. That said, even if autopilot is off, why wouldn't the computer have emergency functions to negate strange situations like this? When would pulling completely back on the stick while losing altitude rapidly ever be considered within the range of normal?
  • nkurz 15y ago
    why wouldn't the computer have emergency functions to negate strange situations like this? I think there are two main reasons. First, one is dealing with a situation where the autopilot has disengaged because it is receiving contradictory input from its sensors. How is the computer to know that a second sensor has not failed, and that its notion of what is normal is not? Failures may tend to cluster. The current technological presumption is that in the event of something unexpected, trust the human over the computer. At the current level of technology, this is still often a good bet. Second, I think the legal situation encourages having a human be the final point of control. Presume that computer overrode the human, and that due to some low-probability unexpected combination of failures this caused the plane to crash despite the pilot doing "the right thing" as proven by the flight recorder. Then picture the size of the lawsuit against the everyone involved in the building and licensing of the plane. Contrast this with the same situation, but with the pilot responsible and dead in the crash. One may find that there isn't much desire from the manufacturer to change the system to take that final responsibility.
  • jarek 15y ago
    > When would pulling completely back on the stick while losing altitude rapidly ever be considered within the range of normal? I don't have a terribly accurate model of airplane control in my mind, but I think this would be the right answer when the nose is pointed down (i.e., the plane is diving). In some cases I think it might also be the right answer if your nose is level but you're losing altitude, e.g. when in a strong downdraft. Pulling back was the wrong thing in this situation because the plane was in stall, but due to sensor problems and later high angle of attack/low airspeed, the avionics didn't have a complete image and an absolute certainty that the plane was in a stall (hence the stall warnings cutting in and out, too). I'm not sure I'd want the plane overriding me in this specific case.
• fr0sty 15y ago
  Also potentially of interest: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3327828 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3327828 In several of these transcripts you can read the pilots reactions to various warnings (including stall warnings) which might be interesting to look at for comparison.
• andrewfelix 15y ago
  I physically sweated and got an acid taste in my mouth while reading that transcript.
  • jsmcgd 15y ago
    I felt nauseous reading it. The transcriptions seem to enable a really strong empathic response. I could really feel the panic of the situation.
• nikcub 15y ago
  I simply don't undersand (or don't comprehend) how the pilots don't know these things. My knowledge of planes is 4 hours of pilot lessons and watching a few documentaries on the Discovery channel yet I know that pulling the nose up of a plane would stall, that when you get bad readings from instruments you cross-check, and that a frozen pitot tube giving bad airspeed readings is very likely in high-altitude storms. I even knew about the two modes of the Airbus - because I once watched an episode of "Air Crash Investigation" where the exact same thing as what is described in this accident happen to an earlier flight. I don't know if I am jumping to judgement, but it sounds like some of these modern pilots aren't really enthusiasts - they are just people who are trained and do their jobs, and do them by the book and then go home (just like bus or taxi drivers).
  • abk 15y ago
    Surely there must be more to it. Clearly all of us who've played a flight simulator know that going up too fast will cause you to lose speed and eventually stall and fall until you regain enough speed to stabilize. Sadly in this case it sounds like a mix of overconfidence (not avoiding the storm, trusting the plane more than the stall warnings, not waking up the captain until it was too late) and a lack of training for unexpected situations were the major factors in the crash.
    • nikcub 15y ago
      I was thinking about that after reading the report. From our perspective it might be obvious, but we can't put ourselves into that situation. I wonder if civillian pilots can be trained in the same way as military pilots to handle stresses in emergencies and to think clearly. Or to at least learn something from military techniques
      • abk 15y ago
        Yeah I'm curious about that too. It seems that in the very rare cases where a commercial plane goes down spectacularly, the ones that make it alive were flown by formerly non-commercial pilots (military or otherwise), who've flown planes that give them much less assistance and in much more stressful situations and so "doing the right thing" has almost become second nature to them. The problem with people is that even if you know what you should be doing in theory, when you're put in an extremely stressful situation you're unlikely to be able to come up with a creative solution... and few situations are more stressful than the moment you realize that something completely unexpected is happening, at night, in a thunderstorm, over the ocean, with 200+ lives depending 100% on your actions.
• 6ren 15y ago
  That was terrifying. The commentary lends itself to second-guessing, but anything that distances you from what's going on (e.g. controls without tactile feedback) is generally a bad idea. Addressing it with extra procedures adds complexity, which is problematic in itself.
• deepGem 15y ago
  What really intrigues me is the fact that the captain didn't take control of the plane after returning from his nap. If a respected pilot with 11,000 flying hours to his credit made that mistake, I can't imagine what his mind must have gone through during that time.
  • ars 15y ago
    The article explains this. Keep reading.
• teyc 15y ago
  The state of UX design has advanced so much, perhaps we need more UX testing so that even pilots who are unfamiliar with a plane could figure out what to do. Amazon probably does more with figuring how to help users checkout their shopping cart than plane designers helping pilots get a plane out of a stall. Alternate law and normal law introduces two modes. This breaks one of the rules of user experience, especially if it is infrequently encountered. Combined with turning autopilot off on its own, it is bound to cause even more confusion. The plane could have put an alert asking the pilot to go on autopilot, otherwise, it will continue by making educated guesses. (A pilot is no better judge of airspeed than the computer) Another rule of UX broken is "tell" instead of "announce". The voice should have said "Stall. Dive now" or "Stall. Why are you pulling the stick back?". The flight computer can reinforce its credibility by demonstrating it has predictive capability. For instance, it can say, "decrease your angle of attack or you will stall in 5 seconds", then "4", "3" "2" "1", "stalling". The voice should demonstrate increased tension and panic as counting down. It is high time the flight computer act as the "third pilot". It is similar to video judges in competitive sports. Of course people may choose to ignore the computer, but we can then continually review why the computers assessment was wrong and improve on it. What I don't understand is, how does a plane know it's stalling if the pitot tubes are frozen? By the way, optical flow meters could have been used as a backup.
  • freemarketteddy 15y ago
    >how does a plane know it's stalling if the pitot tubes are frozen? I think it can easily do that by measuring the G force similar to an accelerometer on iPhone.
    • jrockway 15y ago
      No. There is, not surprisingly, another sensor in the airflow for that. http://www.lindenhillimports.com/images/photof48.jpg http://www.lindenhillimports.com/images/photof48.jpg
    • barrkel 15y ago
      Accelerometers measure acceleration. You won't feel any unusual G forces for any constant velocity, whether it's climbing or descending.
• bobwaycott 15y ago
  I am stunned at reading this. Its so awfully sad reading the narrative & detailed depictions of just how wrong things went; how wrong we can be. What a sobering article.
• petsos 15y ago
  Where does the captain go to take a nap? I was wondering how he didn't hear the stall sounds in order to immediately return.
  • yuvadam 15y ago
    Not sure about the AF configuration, but he would be resting either in a crew rest compartment fitted in the cargo hold [1], or alternatively in a reserved seat in business class. Either way, no alarms are audible outside the cockpit. [1] - http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/2757149 http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/re...
    • Florin_Andrei 15y ago
      > Either way, no alarms are audible outside the cockpit. They should wear a Bluetooth at all times.
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• tuxguy 15y ago
  Another good account of Air France 447, slightly less technical though & focussed more on the recovery effort . http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/magazine/mag-08Plane-t.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/magazine/mag-08Plane-t.htm...
• akronim 15y ago
  If you want to get into root cause analysis, it sounds like the incorrect radar setting got them in the situation in the first place. Obviously the way the pilots dealt with that situation from then on was suboptimal, but avoiding situations where there is a chance for bad decision making is also important.
• sek 15y ago
  One question: Why are they not speaking English? I heard from fatal command mistakes with pilots an Asian country and now everyone has to speak English. Is this again some stupid patriotism thing (i am German, i know the French attitudes), but i seriously thought to prevent command errors everyone has to speak the international aviation language.
  • brazzy 15y ago
    You seriously believe that command errors are less likely when two people communicate in a foreign language, compared to a shared native one?
    • sek 15y ago
      This sounds funny first, but i have read about this in a book i can't recall right now. Especially asian countries have a extreme passive and submissive language. The receiver is responsible to interpret the language. In this fatal example, the lower ranked pilot said something like "our altimeter was very fortunate in the past" and what he tried to communicate was "look at the altimeter, we are to low". He was so afraid to speak up to his tired captain that they died. Another change after that incident was to make a new flight team every time.
      • minitrollster 15y ago
        I know this is a bit late, but I just wanted to mention that you most likely read that in Malcom Gladwell's Outliers. There's a whole chapter about aviation.
  • mtts 15y ago
    In this case, that would probably have made it worse. I doubt a panicked Frenchman would unfreeze just because he has to speak English to another Frenchman.
  • lutorm 15y ago
    i seriously thought to prevent command errors everyone has to speak the international aviation language It's only international over radio. In the cockpit, you can speak whatever language you want.
• deadmansshoes 15y ago
  I hope the analysis of the flight was more accurate than some of the translations. 02:08:03 (Robert) Tu peux éventuellement le tirer un peu à gauche. You can eventually pull it a little to the left. Eventuellement is not the French equivalent of the English. It should be "You could pull a little to the left." Many sentences read like a straight copy and paste from Google Translate.
  • waqf 15y ago
    Yes. The translations, while basically accurate, don't do a good job of conveying the tone of remarks, which is important in analyzing the situation.
• SagelyGuru 15y ago
  Hmmm, lovely reading on a day I am due to fly with Air France across the globe! It is easy to blame Bonin for being such an idiot and pulling on the stick all the time but it is a natural reaction, just like inexperienced drivers continuing to lock the brakes while skidding off the road. How many die that way every day? More worrying to me is that the whole plane control is inherently and crazily unsafe. Whatever were the designers thinking, making the two sets of controls without cross-feedback and even 'averaging their inputs' ?!? Whatever were they thinking introducing flabby delays between stick movements and control surfaces? Ever tried to play a computer game with a two seconds delay of the controls? The actual cause of the crash is this. There were three pilots trying to fly that plane at the same time: the computer, plus the two co-pilots. I guess four, if you include the captain chiming in from the back. Neither of them had any information or understanding or confidence about what the others were doing, due to no particular fault of their own. In such circumstances, adding and withdrawing auto-pilots, plus adding different 'computer modes' is totally insane and only adds to the confusion. My conclusion: design fault (over engineering)
  • gnaffle 15y ago
    At least you can find some comfort in that AF447 was the first fatal accident with the type, and that there's been continuous improvement throughout the years (including replaced pitot probes). But bigger design problems might have gone unadressed because it's difficult to justify a major change in a certified design until it causes an accident.
• maximusprime 15y ago
  scary how incompetent they seem
  • crististm 15y ago
    They did not have enough training in such situations. The captain seemed more competent, but he was not on the controls to do the right thing. It's the same situation when untrained people drive cars to their limit. If the car slips then you should slightly steer in the direction of the slippage which is most of the time opposite to where the road turns. If you're not trained to do that you won't do it.
    • maximusprime 15y ago
      Do you really need training to say "I'm pushing the stick backwards now", "what are you doing over there?" etc Surely that sort of basic communication about what you're doing should be one of the first things you learn...
      • crististm 15y ago
        That too. I just saw a BBC video about this incident and a pilot was saying exactly that - that the pilots should know who is in control and he should pilot the plane to the safety. But I was thinking about training more in another sense. If your instinct tells you to do something that is opposite of the right thing than you should receive more training to brake your instinct. In this case the right thing to do was probably to push the nose down to gain speed. But if your instinct tells you that going down is not the right thing you won't do it. You should make a concious decision and you are not in the position to do that without prior exposure to the situation.
• bcambel 15y ago
  Another BS story how a plane crashed.. I am wondering what they are hiding behind..
• mikecane 15y ago
  I'm no pilot, and I haven't read the long discussion here, but I can't see how the pilots can be blamed. That Airbus has nonsensical design. Asynchronous sticks, so the other one in the seat couldn't see the other stick being pulled back? Then averaging of the async controls, allowing one stick to work against the other? As for "alternate law," why was there no alarm like the Stall warning to repeatedly tell those in the cockpit that controls were now in Manual Override? Who thought any of that was a good idea? It was bad design that doomed that plane, not the humans inside trying to deal with a design that could thwart anyone. EDIT: Also, I must add that it seems to me just to be able to engage with reality, a bloody string with a weight hanging from the cockpit ceiling would have shown that the airliner was climbing, from the angle it was hanging. Low-tech and it sounds stupid, but with cockpit crew so alienated from physical reality due to computer mediation and no visual cues due to the clouds, it would have immediately shown them what was really happening.
  • Tloewald 15y ago
    Consider the positive impact of having a weight on a string flailing around in a cockpit when the shit hit the fan. The articificial horizon works on this same principle, but pilots are known to ignore it anyway. The whole point of instrument flying is to se aside your senses and common sense and look at your instruments. One of the problems was that the plane was unexpectedly stable during the stall so the pilots might have dismissed the stall warnings as disconnected from reality.
  • jwr 15y ago
    It's been done before. From the excellent article "The Turn": > Pilots, too, have relied on pendulums. It is said that an airliner inbound to New York in the 1950s lost all its gyroscopes in heavy weather over Block Island. The captain was a wise old man who had risen with the airlines from the earliest airmail days and was approaching retirement. A lesser pilot might have fallen for the trap of intuition. But the captain simply took out his pocket watch, dangled it from its chain, and began to swing it toward the instrument panel. Flying by the pendulum and the compass, he proceeded the length of Long Island in the clouds. After breaking into the clear near the airport, he landed and wished his passengers a good day. (the entire article is really worth reading: http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/langew/turn.htm http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/langew/turn.htm) But in this case the pilots didn't even need to do that. Their gyros were working correctly, so they had an artificial horizon right in front of them. The attitude of the plane was known. They even recovered their airspeed indicator after 30s (the second one after a minute)! All that was needed was for the pilot to stop pulling on the stick…
• jsmcgd 15y ago
  Panic seems to be so debilitating in situations like this as stress severely diminishes to ability to think. Is it worth considering making certain fast acting drugs available to professionals that operate in life-threatening environments that would stop or minimize the stress response? I'm not sure if such a drug exists, one that might reduce stress but not also impair other cognitive functions. But it might well be extremely useful. I can't think of any situations where the stress response is useful in a complex environment.
  • gwern 15y ago
    Well, there are things like beta-blockers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_blocker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_blocker), but the thing about emergencies is that they're fast enough that there's not time to pop some pills, much less wait for them to be digested & metabolized & take effect. The whole OP covers, what, 15 minutes it said? The only way beta-blockers might help is if one took them in advance, and they're not perfect side-effect-wise.
    • deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    • jsmcgd 15y ago
      Interesting. Things like cocaine (I'm led to believe) act very quickly. I was even thinking that the placebo effect could be leveraged somehow. Perhaps popping a pill that resides in your top pocket could be a first response whenever a situation starts getting a little hairy. I honestly think it's worth investigating. Why put up with having your stress response decimate your cognitive abilities, especially when you need them most?
• worldvoyageur 15y ago
  What impresses me most in this tragedy is its illustration of the culture of rigorous process to get to the bottom of what happened so that lessons can be learned to make flying safer. Relentlessly followed for decades, in all countries, this culture has made large airliner air travel the safest way to get between two distant places. Ideas really can change the world.
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• tcarnell 15y ago
  Presumably the stall warnings were ignored because in "normal law" even if you try to stall the plane, a). the plane will not allow itself to stall and b). the stall warning will still sound. Hence the stall warning SHOULD NEVER SOUND in "normal law" mode. Therefore, the only time a pilot should hear the stall warning is when they actually have to intervene. Ultimately, if the plane was funcioning perfectly well and assuming the pilots weren't complete idiots, the problem was a 'usability' issue. (think again everytime you see a bug logged as 'usability' and assume it is not important!)
  • Tloewald 15y ago
    I Like your last line. The way I think about it is this. A "bug" crashes or causes bad data when running on a computer. A "usability issue" crashes or causes bad data when running on a person.
• quattrofan 15y ago
  It is just me or does it sound like the simplest solution would be to have both controls react and mirror each others input, if this was done (like the older control yokes) there would've been an understanding much sooner that the co-pilot was keeping the stick back.
• alpswd 15y ago
  From the article, it seems like the plane had a downward velocity of 10,000 fpm (~110mph) upon crashing. Would passengers have died instantly upon impact with the water? (It appears not)
  • Florin_Andrei 15y ago
    At that speed, water is a brick wall.
• adrianwaj 15y ago
  That Bonin guy was so out of his depth, he should've been thrown out of the cockpit, then again the captain was just too laissez-faire. Bonin should've deferred as soon as captain told him to fly into the storm. Instead he chose to be Manuel from Fawlty Towers.
• x03 15y ago
  The pilots, mostly, acted legitatemly based on the flawed and lacking data of which they were presented with. Initially, the captain's non-fear of the storm was based on incorrect weather data based on a mis-configured radar system. His data seemingly grossly underestimated the severity of the weather: had he had the correct data originally he would almost definitely, like every other pilot in the region, known to avoid the area to which they eventually flew into. As soon as the radar was configured correctly, the pilots banked left to avoid it as best they could. How common a misconfigured radar is and how easily it is done is perhaps the most vital piece of information here. No aircraft should be allowed to fly with such important data being incorrect, ever. This needs to be checked and re-checked far better in future. It is the original link in this fatal chain. It was wrong data, not a wrong human assessment of data, that started off this crash sequence. Given the original radar data, the captain made the right call. And there's nothing obsentibly wrong with him going to take a nap, insofar as that's typical protocol. Due to flying into the wrong weather-zone, the autopilot turns itself off. And that's that from there. Given that this is such a rare event it's notification is relatively minor within the grand scheme of fear and confusion that one would expect to exist for such an event that so drastically affects flying itself. There exists such a massive difference between autopilot and pilot-driven flying that there needs to be an unignorable physical presentation difference between the two: perhaps gently vibrating the control stick, changing the entire colour of the cabin (to, say, orange) using some LEDs and even changing the posture of a pilot's seat to a more upright position to subtly but distincly make for a different "feel" to computer-led flying. You'd just know based on these indicators alone. Perhaps it'd be harder to mentally block the stall warnings based on the notion that "we can't be stalling, the airliner won't let us" when it feels like you're personally in control of the whole airliner. They didn't just "ignore" the 70+ stall warnings, they completely ignored the very idea that it was possible for them to be stalling at all. Addressing either of these two issues alone could have helped save AF447. Evaluating the other problems presented, like why two pilots can input vastly different instructions through their joysticks with both being in ignorance of one another clearly needs to be addressed (perhaps even a weighted average towards the more experienced pilot's input rather than a straight up average?); why there existed no clear chain-of-command; why the captain didn't get back quickly enough and how to "force" captains to be quicker; the best way to brief exactly what you've been doing more quickly; and perhaps a new technology that's basically "Clippy" for flying, that could say things like "You're in a stall, consider pointing down?" This was a tragic mistake that ought not to have happen. Based on so much, let's not so easily condemn the pilots actions to stupidity and instead take a moment to consider the sheer horror they suffered after commanding such a massively complex machine in such challenging conditions with so much noise, lights and general "WTF"-ness. Consider that environment the next time you get frustrated investigating a non-obviousl compile error in your quiet, air-conditioned, well-lit office.
• orionlogic 15y ago
  My question is why black box data is not uploaded to a central server while flying? Is it because of its huge size?
• jlla 15y ago
  We need AI to control our planes.
• js2 15y ago
  Priority logic on the dual-sticks. Each stick has a take-over button. From http://www.smartcockpit.com/data/pdfs/plane/airbus/A330/misc/A330_Flight_Deck_and_Systems_Briefing_For_Pilots.pdf http://www.smartcockpit.com/data/pdfs/plane/airbus/A330/misc... • Normal operation: Captain and First Officer inputs are algebrically summed. • Autopilot disconnect pushbutton is used at take-over button. • Last pilot who depressed and holds take-over button has priority; other pilot’s inputs ignored. • Priority annunciation: - in front of each pilot on glareshield - ECAM message - audio warning. • Normal control restored when both buttons are released. • Jammed sidestick: - priority automatically latched after 30 seconds - priority reset by depressing take-over button on previously jammed sidestick. There's also a side-stick priority display on each side showing whether the opposite side is using the take-over button.
  • js2 15y ago
    This is wrong, but I can no longer delete the comment. It's based on an outdated source. Sorry for the noise.
• bjornsteffanson 15y ago
  Sort of off-topic, but does anyone know anything about the software the Airbus (or any commercial aircraft, really) runs? I'd be really interested to know how abstracted the code is from the hardware.
  • assemble 15y ago
    It's highly version controlled. Changing software versions on a plane usually means changing a lot of hardware too. After removing the boxes from the a/c, they can be returned to the manufacturer and the new software can be installed. We test it in a ground-based simulator rig with the exact computers that would be on an a/c. If it gets approved, we put it on an airplane and we go fly the plane around a lot to make sure the software works. A software upgrade almost always means switching out the hardware, because that's one way we ensure conformity.
• jader201 15y ago
  For those interested and not already aware, PBS aired a documentary about this on Feb. 16, 2011. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/crash-flight-447.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/crash-flight-447.html
• dkokelley 15y ago
  If it hasn't already been discussed, could someone explain the rationale for not making the control sticks mirror each other? I know it's an artifact of old, mechanical linkages, but when two people need to be aware of the control inputs at any given time, why not relay that information by manipulating the controls to match the inputs?
• omegant 15y ago
  I hope to give some light from the point of view of an airbus pilot( a320) also with B737 and MD80 experience. First of all I must say that is very difficult to judge what happened from outside, there is a rush of adrenalin if some important alarm starts at the cockpit, it becomes worst if you are flying in the middle of the night and turbulence. Problems that would be solved or the solution evident seating at home in front of a computer, become suddenly a mistery or insolvable because you lost an stabilicer or any other physical problem to the plane( it has happened before). The first obvious mistake is going through the thunderstorm in that lattitudes, I personally know the pilots who where flying in front of them and they took a 200miles reruting to avoid that particular thunderstorm ( as other trafics did). Then the reaction to the lost of information : as has been said the proper way to react is using thrust power % and pitch positions, there are tables for different flight phases , they are located at the quick reference handbook, but they should be located at an sticker close to the instruments( for inmediate use as speed limits for flaps or landing gear). An automatic help for recovering such a problem would be greate but computers do fail regularly in comercial planes( if web servers that are seating in a room fail imagine something that is suffering high doses of vibration, dirt, humidity changes, temperature changes, you name it) and you there MUST be other options. When flying that high you are at whats called coffin corner, that is you are so high that the wings will easily enter both high speed buffeting and low speed stall( both will produce a lost of altitude control, you fall but can do nothing to avoid it). Also the engines don't have enougth thrust( as fighters do) to support the weight of the plane. So the maneuver they performed seemed to don't make sense at all, why would a pilot pull the stick to put the plane deeper in the cofin corner inside a thunderstorm?. I think the cause is precisely training( and possibly other interface choices made by airbus helped too ), let me explain: there IS a maneuver inside thunderstorms wich is trained a lot AND will make the pilot PULL the sidestick and apply TOGA power, is called windshear( avoidment). Usually windshear is the wind state that you could find near a thunderstorm close to the airport. Is caused by the first descending burst( thunderstorm madurity) hitting the ground (please google it as it is easier to see a picture than explain it). The result is that the big wind speed changes( in seconds) may put the plane suddenly in a stall situation. Because it happens when you have no altitude left to recover from a stall ( maybe less than 3000 feet or closer than ten miles to the airport), your only possibility is to apply TOGA power and sidestick FULL back( the protections are NOT lost and then the plane takes care of the stall, the pilot takes care of the ground). This maneuver is practiced yearly ( or almost) as one of the most important ones ( with engine fail, traffic avoiding, depresurization), so it is my opinion ( I must say is not shared by many other pilots, many of them say it was the plane or simply don't know) and the simplest cause, that they simply were trying to fight a windshear, after all they were inside a thunderstorm and had to recover the control. That is way they simply couldn't understand ( or even hear the anouncement) why the plane was in stall, because they were folloing the procedure to the point. And procedures are to be followed if you do 't want problems with the plane and the judge( in a posterior investigation) Also there are problems with the flight controls interface of airbus that have been known from the first a320 accident, and are highly polemic between pilots. Mainly airbus tried to reinvent the wheel at the cockpits,( and the rest of plane systems)in order to save weight. So they removed the link between the pilots controls ( except the rudder-fronwheel ones) and removed the possibility of the throttle levers to move acording to the power possition while in autopilot mode ( as boeing does ), after all only one pilot is taking the controls at a given time right?. But it is wrong, control feedback is fundamental in critical situations and has saved souls in the past. Also knowing the throttle possition at every moment just resting your hand at the levers while they move, gives you an amazing information of how the plane is behaving without having to look at the engine instruments ( there are one mm dots at the indicator showing the virtual "possition" of the levers, or where the thrust is going to move next), or simply overriding the autothrottle with out having to dissengage it. This throttle problem in particular has not caused a serious problem( that I am aware) yet, but give it time... Just imaging an autothrust setting the engines to iddle at 500' and the crew worried about having the runway insight in bad weather. The " don't make me think" principles still apply with airplanes ( and save lives, not only fuel) but airbus doesn't seem to bother too much. I hope to have clarified a bit the problem from the Point of view of an airline pilot. Pd. Sorry for all the misspellings, I am writting from my iphone. I'll edit at home.
• nhangen 15y ago
  Very chilling read.
• bond 15y ago
  I just can't believe a pilot would keep putting pressure after stalling the plane. What the hell was he thinking that stall warning was?...
• reddit_clone 15y ago
  I am pretty ignorant about avionics. First off, I find it surprising that there are two people controlling an air plane. I always thought that one guy had the reins and other guys helped him out. Now I learn that there are computers in between the two guys averaging them out!