Air France crash blamed on pilot error

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

An Air France aircraft plunged into the Atlantic en route from Rio to Paris after a "series of failings" by pilots, according to a French air investigation report.

The pilots flying flight AF447 could have saved the plane after it temporarily lost its speed readings. Instead, they did the opposite of what was required, concluded France's air investigation authority the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses (BEA), pulling the aircraft up to a height at which it stalled and fell from the sky at 10,000ft per minute, "The situation was salvageable," Jean Paul Troadec, BEA director told reporters.

Air France, however, defended its pilots in a statement released at the same time as the report was made public, saying the altitude alert system had malfunctioned.

Friday's report was the third into what caused the Air France Airbus 330 to crash into the ocean on 1 June 2009, killing all 228 people on board, after flying through turbulence.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/29/air-france-crash-pilot-error

[FreakinDJ]

1. Airbus crashes are always "Pilot Error" - ya right

maybe they can't feel what the plane is doing during an emergency through the little "Nintendo Joy Stick" Airbus uses

[SoapBox]

2. ALWAYS pilot error...NOT.

This crap makes me furious...

We KNOW that the pitot tubes were a problem...that they would freeze over and cause havoc with the systems. AND, that they have now, all been replaced on the A330's worldwide.

But, the easy way out...blame the pilots...they had ONLY few seconds to minutes to try and figure a way out of the conflicting/confusing readings, that would most likely NOT have happened if the pitot tubes had been replaced.

Makes me sick.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

[cosmicone]

3. Despite the failed pitot tubes..

the pilots could have let the autopilot be off and manually set the velocity and pitch to maintain flight. Instead, they tried rebooting the computer and took the plane high where it stalled.

[FreakinDJ]

5. "manually set the velocity and pitch to maintain flight"

"manually set the velocity and pitch to maintain flight"

Now if your Bicycle or Motorcycle was loosing control can you imagine punching on the keyboard like you are now typing messages on DU, compared to gripping the handle bars tightly and using the 1000s of neural processors in your brain and senses to "Right the falling Bike"

That is the difference between AirBus's "Fly by Wire" and Boeing's Hydraulicly Actuated Yoke = you can use the "Whole Pilot" and not just learned routine responses

But "It's the pilot's fault"

[Blue_Tires]

7. agreed

the pitot tubes were a critical factor, but it shouldn't have been a fatal one...

[thereismore]

4. Makes me sick too. nt

[coyote]

6. Yeah right....German professor and pilot came to another conclusion

Just over a year ago, Hüttig recreated the Air France crash in a flight simulator. In the course of the exercise, Hüttig noticed a strange anomaly in the plane's reaction once it goes into a stall. The trimmable horizontal stabilizer, a flap instrumental in keeping the plane on an even keel, automatically adjusted to push the nose of the plane skyward.

Hüttig, a former Airbus pilot himself, and other pilots present for the test were unable to push the nose of the airplane down and thereby escape the stall.

When the BEA released its preliminary report last Friday, Hüttig immediately zeroed in on data relating to the trimmable horizontal stabilizer. During the final minutes of flight AF 447 as it plunged toward the Atlantic, the flap moved from a 3 degree deflection to a 13 degree deflection, almost the maximum possible. "The phenomenon is startlingly similar," he told SPIEGEL.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,766148,00.html