Posted on 07/29/2011 10:38:19 AM PDT by magellan
>>...recommending mandatory training for all pilots to help them fly planes manually...<<
If ever I had a “WTF” moment, this would be it.
As an ex instructor/fighter type, I find it unbelievable that ANY pilot would get themselves into this situation.
When airspeed indicator malfunctions are suspected, one always reverts to pitch and power control.
The French produce as quality a pilot as anyone - so what went wrong here?
Pilots are trained to ignore their senses and to pay attention to their instruments and what happened here was that the instruments FAILED. Air France, Airbus, and the French government are trying to pass this off as pilot error instead of dealing with the fact that their airplanes are not safe and that their instruments on those planes cannot be trusted.
HF calls it extreme pilot error back in May based on preliminary data!
HF
“were insufficiently trained in flying manually”
So whose fault is that?
Not the pilots.
Ping to something that will make you look twice, maybe even three times.
Pilot error my ass. Flying by wire and the closest thing to reality is bum instrument readings. Design flaw all the way. By the time it was decided to disregard instruments and fly by the seat of their pants by nosing the plane down to gain airspeed and foil over the wings again they were to low and into the drink they went.
Captain took a long enough time to wake from his nap and make his way back to the cabin, what’s up with that?
Were the names of the pilots ever published? This reads like catastrophic pilot error and only eclipsed by deliberate sabotage.
The Airbus reflects the Euro-mentality of elite central planning. In this case, the central planner is embodied in the flight control computers, where the pilot doesn’t manipulate flight controls directly. Instead, his control inputs are mere suggestions to the computer which exercises veto power over any control input that it considers will cause it to violate the design envelope.
Tellingly, when the computer is in charge, that condition is called “normal law”. When the pilots take the extraordinary steps to override the computer’s nanny, that is called “alternate law.” I kid you not.
Do not these names reflect a certain world view and mindset?
In other words, Airbus has a bad history of over-reliance on autopilot. I’d like to know what the pilot was looking at while the stall alarm was blaring.
“...never informed the passengers that anything was wrong before they plunged into the sea ...”
Oh yeah that would be such help , this is your captain speaking we are all panicing here but enjoy the peanuts
Reading through the article, and the Airbus history, my bet is that the pilots were fighting the Airbus computer. And the Airbus did not even whisper, “what are you doing Dave?”
A lot of us called it when it happen. Some people wanted to blame Airbus and some wanted to blame terrorist.
Please allow me to add that as an airplane driver since 1969, what kind of professional and regulatory environment do we have when the pilot cannot have enough basic information to keep an aircraft flying no matter what else failed?
A simple Garmin 396 VFR GPS would have given the pilot enough independent information that he could have validated his failing million dollar flight deck.
But as I previously posted, elites are smarter than the rest of us.
IIRC, the pitot-static system failed due to icing. The computer saw a speed mismatch and shut down.
With a plugged pitot port, the static was still open, and caused the altimeter to show a climb.
The (relatively low time ) flight crew raised the nose and reduced power settings. Plane started to descend, but altimeter and ROC indicators indicated it was still climbing. Further reduction in power.....etc....till splash. Went into a falling leaf deep stall.
The AF pilots are trained that the computer can take care of everything. They aren’t taught analog flying (like when you should break the glass on one of your instruments).
It has been about 6 months since seeing this stuff in detail, but basically the flight crew were flying by erroneous flight instruments when they should have set power and pitch at the settings called for in the manual when computer and AS indicators are lost, a known problem in this aircraft.
Rule #1 is to keep the plane flying. If the Airbus crew was so used to letting all of the computers do the actual ‘work’, and didn’t have enough experience manually flying the plane, then this was just an accident waiting to happen. AF crew flying into the trees at an airshow also comes to mind.
Yep.
Translation into plane English:
Our software killed everybody, blame the pilots as they are not here to defend themselves.
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