AF447 (Merged)

Read the forum code of contact

That's for sure.

Member for

19 years 5 months

Posts: 9,821

Something I just saw in a new Boeing PR video for their new 767 tanker proposal seems to fit this topic.

There is a scene in the video during a refueling mission, a SAM launch is alerted. The tanker commander orders a break away for the receiving aircraft. He slams what appears to be the throttles (sorry, I'm no 767 pilot) and banks hard to the left.
The script continues:
"With the pilot in full control, unrestricted evasive action is fast, responsive and...(pause for effect) possible."

I think it fits into what the magazine article seems to be saying...too much automation may not always be the best thing.

I tried to say that in another thread. I did computer science at university. Computers are swift idiots. Put a comma in the wrong place (which can lay dormant for ages until a particular event invokes that part of the code) and bingo. Computers also don't have a seat of the pants. Don't get me wrong, they are still indispensable in airplanes but like you say an over automated airplane may not be the best thing.

Member for

20 years 5 months

Posts: 10,625

One thing I will say is that I have read in several magazines and papers on numerous occasions that the whole automation thing is making the pilots less alert in modern cockpits. They do more monitoring than they do flying. They get tired quickly and miss things easier.

Does the A330 has a "joystick shaker"? Is it as loud and obtrusive as the traditional yoke "stick shaker"? Perhaps something like that might have alerted the crew to problems a little sooner?

Member for

14 years 7 months

Posts: 144

One thing I will say is that I have read in several magazines and papers on numerous occasions that the whole automation thing is making the pilots less alert in modern cockpits. They do more monitoring than they do flying. They get tired quickly and miss things easier.

Does the A330 has a "joystick shaker"? Is it as loud and obtrusive as the traditional yoke "stick shaker"? Perhaps something like that might have alerted the crew to problems a little sooner?

The automation subject has been the subject of many different documentries, It's become a common debate if pilots are really in control of modern commercial airliners, or if its actually the computer.
As for the shaker, I remember when i was young, I sat in the cockpit of a Airbus A320, and remember the pilot showing me the joystick that he controlled the plane with, quite small and offset to the right, like the handbrake on a car down the right hand side of the seat (or left hand side for LHD cars)
Reading your point, I'd say that is probably is not as 'obvious' as a traditional yoke shaker.
Quite a few accidents involving Airbus aircraft have been due to the confusion over who is actually meant to be doing any given task, such as Air France 296, Indian Airlines 605, Air Inter 148, Armavia 967 to name a few - Where as the amount of incidents involving Boeing aircraft under similar circumstances is much less.
Incorporating technology into aircraft is great, but I personally belive that there is only so much computers should do, over reliance on systems is bound to cause problems.

Member for

12 years 3 months

Posts: 5,905

French pilot representatives are to appeal a decision to dismiss charges against Airbus over the fatal Air France Airbus A330 accident in the South Atlantic in 2009.

Pilots union SNPL is expressing "indignation" at the judicial decision to drop charges against Airbus, as well as Air France, describing the move as "scandalous".

Vice-president Vincent Gilles says the union intends to appeal the ruling.

A previous legal recommendation focused on indicting only Air France, rather than Airbus, which drew similar ire from the union.

Victims association FENVAC also says the decision to "exonerate" Airbus was "incomprehensible and unacceptable".

Source:
https://www.flightglobal.com/

Member for

12 years 3 months

Posts: 5,905

... 

For nothing

And incredibly unrealistic end with no, nada, zilch, rien charges sought by the prosecution team:

 

The prosecution did not request any conviction against Airbus and Air France, Wednesday, December 7. He felt that he was "not in a position to request the conviction" of the two companies tried for involuntary homicides after the crash of the Rio-Paris flight, in which 228 people died on June 1, 2009.

The guilt of the companies "seems to him impossible to demonstrate". "We know that this position will most likely be inaudible to the civil parties," said the prosecutor in conclusion, to the boos of the families of the victims. In the courtroom, some stood up shouting "lie" or "shame" at the end of the indictment, reports our journalist present at the hearing.

"The prosecution has dishonored itself

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/justice-proces/proces-du-crash…

 

Just that everyone understands what's going on here, they are just telling pilots who confronted the same issue, in similar circumstances, on the same type of plane, that their professionalism and courage doesn't matter.

For what concern airliners, airlines, it's the same thing: death is an adjustment variable that doesn't matter at the end. 

Engineers, managers are then irresponsibles for their faulty professionalism or lack of prudence... 

If you have ever wondered where hell should be, geographically, it's certainly somewhere b/w Rio and Paris... That's where death and suffering* isn't worth a french whisper.

 

 

 

*think a minute at the horrendous agony of Af447 passengers, their plane tilted nose up, feeling the sensation of vertical descent like you do in a lifter, plunged in pitch dark that is only interrupted by lightning bolts outside, shaken by turbulences, bracing for impact with the panic rising seconds after seconds...

And now, if it happens to you one day, you would have to compose with this grinding feelings of the  lack of justice that will kill you a thousand time more, somewhere in Paris, France.