Air France crash black box data
 

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/0...74Q16520110527

So sounds like the plane had stalled, but rather than dive to increase air-speed and then pull up, the pilot just pulled up the nose and contined like that, with the plane hitting the water nose-up..

Looks like it stalled because they made it stall by having too much angle of attack after the auto-pilot shut off 'cos of bad air speed data.

What I can't understand is how they were dropping 10,000 ft per min and didn't realise they had stalled it.

Sounds like a nightmare though. Put's you off flying.

Word on the street was the main pilot went for a snooze co-pilot went for a piss door shut crap weather plane stalled.

They have three pilots.

Yes i know that but only one was in the cockpit the door locked when he went for a piss.

Captain went for a crew rest, as he is legally allowed to do, and left the two co-pilots in charge. As both of these were relatively inexperienced that decision is open to scrutiny. Capt returned to the cockpit during the incident, but was unable to recover the aircraft.

So mr flightman was that door shut ? as they could not get back in.

The door would have been shut, but it's not as if the Captain was locked out and wasn't able to get back in.

From what i have just read plane was on auto they could not get back in the cockpit.

Read where?

Mr Jaime. :rolleyes:

Ban flying! If it saves only one life it is worth it...... isnt that the answer

Old link and stop with the mr jamie :)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...4-minutes.html

Pitot tube frozen?

God Almighty - That has to be the worst way to go.
Knowing it's coming. Horrific.

LOL now isn't that just how modern HSE works?!

Jobsworths pat themselves on the back after...

Just knew it would be the Mail.

You started it. :thumb:

Strange that the Captain buggers off when they apparently were flying into thunderstorms?

cpt you two sort this lot out i am going for a gin and a kip.

captin et fermer la porte

Wherever it was you learned to read, I'd go back and ask for a refund. Your link doesn't even hint at anyone being away from the cabin other than the captain, so it can't possibly have been 'they' who couldn't get back in the cockpit. Also, despite being in the Mail, the link makes it perfectly clear the captain was in the cabin by the time of the actual crash (although not at the controls), and also that the autopilot had switched itself off.

I shudder to think at how distorted your general view of the world must be, if you can get that many basic facts wrong from reading just one news article :confused:

According to the voice recorder one of the co-pilots stated that the altitude was 10,000ft when they were at that height, so they must have been aware they were rapidly descending - seems very odd they didn't dive a little to pick-up some air-speed then pull up.

That is a very good point, the captain should not have left the flight deck under those flight conditions as you say.

I saw the satellite charts for that day and it showed unusually intense storm activity along the combining zone. There always are towering cu nimbus clouds along there and I have had to take a 100 mile diversion to miss them in the past.

There is a standard procedure to maintain control of an aircraft with loss of airspeed information and it is surprising that none of the pilots seem to have carried it out. They would surely still have had attitude information from the ADI (Artificial horizon). All the pilots should have been capable of at least recovering the aircraft to straight and level flight. To lose total control from that sort of height is pretty unlikely.

I personally think that there is a strong possibility of airframe damage because the aircraft flew into a Cu Nimbus cloud. The sort of storm cloud in that area would be extremely strong with violent up and downdraft forces from the highly turbulent vertical winds in the storm. I always remember my initial flying instructor telling me that it is worse than a washing machine inside one of those! Any sensible pilot would avoid them like the plague.

I seem to remember that it was said that the cloud collision radar was seeing a smallish storm at the time which was ignored, but that it was hiding a very big one behind it.

I think that if they ever get a chance to inspect the wreckage it is certainly possible that there was some form of airframe damage because of the storm which made it impossible to retain control of the aircraft. Airspeed information failure alone should not have been such that they could not control the aircraft.

Les

Well said Les!

These blocked Pitot tubes seem to be causing a lot of probs...

Its as if the pilots\computers RELY totally on these instruments, forgetting the basic rules of flight...

As Leslie said - they seem to forget that the attidute indicator - the most basic of instruments should be relied upon most in times of crisis....

It was just a link keep your knickers on:lol1:

Regardless of who was at fault I dread to think what was going through the minds of the passengers for the 3 minutes or so it took to hit the water.

What would you do in that 3 minutes?

Is it feasible that it was a deliberate concious effort?

Even I know that with my limited knowledge that to recover from a stall you need to gain speed by diving.

Is the 15 degrees above horizontal they mention a big deal? I thought they take off at 40 odd?

40 degree is ok at full throttle, but it's more than likely the didn't have enough power selected at the time to sustain the 15 degrees.
Once it stalled they were stuffed.

The flight envelope is much smaller at altitude.

That's a real eye opener Les. But from what you know about todays technology, surely that would have been anticipated?

What a tragedy! I feel a bit spooked as I have just travelled on Air France!

Asif

Have a read of this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffin_...%28aviation%29

Would it seriously be possible to control a widebody aircraft in heavy? extreme? turbulence with throttle setting from chart and a manual stick?