AirFrance... they found it

[FTJR]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12953432

[saggs]

Be interesting if they find the recorders, and if there is good data on them.  

Although they have already pieced together pretty much what happened from the ACARS data.    

What they know as fact from ACARS and weather data:

They fly straight into a massive storm with super cooled liquid water at altitude, all the pitot tubes froze in a short time, therefore no airspeed data so the autothrust system shuts down (along with several other automated systems).

Then it becomes conjecture, but the best guess is:

Pilots didn't react quickly enough to the autothrust shutdown with the SOP for no airspeed data (80% throttle, 5° nose up) due to being overwhelmed by dozens of other warnings as many other FDS systems shut down, at their altitude the airspeed envelope is pretty small, plane slows down 40-50 knots stalls and pancakes into the Atlantic.



The one big question, which I doubt even the recorders could answer, is why they chose to fly into that storm.  Some think that a small storm was blocking the big one on their weather radar.

[FTJR]

If the pitots froze over, then the conditions would be stable/static, the autothrust wouldn't shut down.

I'd suggest it be closer to fly into the CB, encounter extreme turbulence which would  result in an over/under speed, incorrect actions coupled to unreliable airspeed, ending up in a terminal dive which broke the plane apart, spreading the debris over a large area.

Why'd they fly into it? Dunno, but I bet the captain wasn't in the cockpit.

[SFRT - Frenchy]

Cpt must have been an ex cargo pilot

Seriously, it's always easy to blame once the deed is done, im sure it seemed like the best course of action to the crew with what they had available.

[eagl]

autoWHATs shut down?

Oh yea, airbus.  A handful of robo-malfunction induced crashes every once in a while is a small price to pay to reduce the number of crashes caused by pilots flying loops in their airliners.

I wonder how bad that southwest 737 emergency would have been with HAL at the controls when the fuselage top ripped open.  Same goes for that airline that had an entire upper half of the forward fuselage rip away near Hawaii.

Me I'll rely on good old known pitch/power settings to get me out of the icing layer when things get nasty.  Been there, done that, good thing I was flying a MacD/Boeing product at the time.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

 Been there, done that, good thing I was flying a MacD/Boeing product at the time.

Yeah since no accident ever was caused by a design fault or stress failure in MD/Boeing. The 737's did an excellent job reversing control inputs all mechanically!

[Tupac]

If it ain't Boeing I ain't going.

No scarebus for me.

[eagl]

Yeah since no accident ever was caused by a design fault or stress failure in MD/Boeing. The 737's did an excellent job reversing control inputs all mechanically!

Stress failures will crash any plane no matter who made it.  But a non-critical failure in a boeing product is less likely to induce HAL to crash an otherwise flyable plane.

Bag on the 737 all you want but it has one of the best safety records in history, even including the string of mishaps traced back to a rudder control flaw (fixed over 16 years ago btw).  And lots of 737s have landed safely after suffering pretty significant damage that had nothing to do with any design flaw (ie. were caused by poor maintenance or undetected corrosion).  Bugger up the pitot tubes on an airbus or forget how much rudder deflection HAL is giving you in an airbus however, and kablooi.

Pilot error will kill you in either aircraft, but in an airbus you also have the added threat of the pilots being excluded from the flight control decision loop for no good reason.  In a military aircraft the tangible benefits of fully FBW CAS systems are worth the risk.  I don't see the payoff for commercial flights crewed by well trained pilots.  Crummy pilots will find a way to wreck any plane no matter how dummy-proof it is, but airbus removes the ability of a good pilot to save the day in a bad situation.

[SFRT - Frenchy]

.

[flight17]

Stress failures will crash any plane no matter who made it.  But a non-critical failure in a boeing product is less likely to induce HAL to crash an otherwise flyable plane.

Bag on the 737 all you want but it has one of the best safety records in history, even including the string of mishaps traced back to a rudder control flaw (fixed over 16 years ago btw).  And lots of 737s have landed safely after suffering pretty significant damage that had nothing to do with any design flaw (ie. were caused by poor maintenance or undetected corrosion).  Bugger up the pitot tubes on an airbus or forget how much rudder deflection HAL is giving you in an airbus however, and kablooi.

thinks of Aloha flight...


as for 447, hopefully they found the main site. They have only confirmed that they have found both engines, the landing gear and pieces of the wing.

[flight17]

pics

http://www.leparisien.fr/diaporama-photos/index.php?id=1392987&photo=0&pub=16806&rub=par:www:une&chaine=par:www:diaporama

[saggs]

If the pitots froze over, then the conditions would be stable/static, the autothrust wouldn't shut down.

I'd suggest it be closer to fly into the CB, encounter extreme turbulence which would  result in an over/under speed, incorrect actions coupled to unreliable airspeed, ending up in a terminal dive which broke the plane apart, spreading the debris over a large area.

Why'd they fly into it? Dunno, but I bet the captain wasn't in the cockpit.

Hmmm... I'd have to look for it, but I read an independent report on it a while ago that claimed the ACARS showed autothrust shutting down (for some reason).  It also showed something like 15- 20 cockpit warnings, in the space of 3 or 4 minutes, including no airspeed data.  Apparently the pitot heaters where kind weak on that model, as there had been several previous instances of all (3 I think ) pitots freezing.

Also they claimed that judging by the floating debris found after the crash, the plane hit the water intact.  Which led to the stall speculation.

[saggs]

If it ain't Boeing I ain't going.

No scarebus for me.

That's just dumb.

Given proper maintenance and pilot training a ride in any certified aircraft is 100X safer then the car ride to get to the airport.

If you wanna be scared of something in airline travel, be scared of cheap carriers cutting corners on maintenance and repairs.  Not the manufacturers.  That has led to more crashes then any other factor.

Remember the Alaska Air MD-80 that augured in the Pacific because Alaska decided they only needed to grease the jackscrew 1/3 as often as the mnfctrs recommendation.
Or the China Air 747 that broke up at altitude because of a cheap "just-cover-it-up" repair on a previous tail strike.
Or the British Air captain who was sucked out of the cockpit because a mechanic used the wrong size screw when installing a new windscreen.
Or the BA Concorde burning up because it hit a piece of FOD on the runway that fell off a previous plane because it was improperly installed, and not a certified part to boot.
Or the DC-10 (forget which carrier) where the whole engine nacelle fell off because it had been installed wrong.