If the news reports are correct, the initial details from the flight recorders of the Air New Zealand A320 Airbus that crashed in the Mediterranean off Southern France on November 28 are deeply disturbing.
TV3 tonight reported French air accident investigators as saying the flight data recorder showed the jet experienced a power surge that made it fly sharply upwards as it was coming to land at Perpignan. Such an uncommanded manoeuvre at such a low altitude would have caused the plane to stall and crash, which it did.
If true, this is virtually the same problem suffered by a Qantas Airbus of a different model, the bigger A330, over Western Australia, in October. That plane surged up, then down, before the pilots were able to regain control.
A stall in aviation language is where a plane loses the airflow over the wings that gives it the “lift” that keeps it in the air. It can be caused by the plane flying too slowly to retain its lift, or by, for example, the nose of the plane being pointed at too sharp an upward angle for the wings to be able to “bite” into the air. The latter seems to have been what happened with the Air New Zealand crash.
At cruising altitude some 10,000 metres up, pilots can save a plane from a stall, but not at the very low altitude the Air New Zealand plane was at on its final approach to land.
Unlike Boeing jets, Airbus planes are predominantly controlled by computers that are designed to ensure they will not crash, even if a pilot makes a mistake. But the computer system makes it hard for pilots to override if the computer makes a mistake, which happened with the Qantas flight and which it seems may now have happened with the Air New Zealand one.
Had a pilot tried to pitch an A320 into such a dangerous upwards angle, the computer would not have allowed it. Thus it appears that the computer itself may have caused this crash.
This is, as I said, deeply disturbing. Until this issue is fully sorted out and the computer issues resolved, I will not be going on any Airbus model again and will be advising everyone I know to follow suit. And I say this as someone who has always argued that flying in large passenger jets is incredibly safe. My faith in Airbuses is not that positive any longer.
I hasten to add that the remarkable safe ditching of an A320 into the Hudson River in New York on Friday did not involve any problem with the plane. It happened because a flock of birds flew into both engines, stopping them, an extremely rare event. The skill of the pilot and the ability of the plane to float after ditching saved all aboard.
56 Comments
January 18, 2009 at 9:20 pm
I have had some doubts about Airbus after a couple of incidents in Oz.
I think a couple of other blogs have also raised the same question.
I hope Airbus are looking to see if there is a problem in the software.
January 18, 2009 at 9:33 pm
I thought at the time of the accident that the most likely cause was computer error, although my suspicion then and now is the computer error will almost certainly be the result of the re-painting covering (or leaving masking tape on) the aircraft pitot tubes.
January 19, 2009 at 7:30 am
I have just checked my itinerary as I fly to the UK next week and it does not state the aircraft type.
Should the airlines ground these planes as a safety precaution?
January 19, 2009 at 8:39 am
Should the airlines ground these planes as a safety precaution?
The manufacturer will quickly advise if such a step is needed. More likely is that some urgent modifications to the computer software will be required.
January 19, 2009 at 11:11 am
I have always had a degree of unease over the ultra heavy reliance by Airbus on ‘fly by wire’.
I understand the 380 the super jumbo has extremely complex wiring, one of the reasons for the lengthy delay in getting it into production.
January 19, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I realize its not quite “on topic” as the cause of the crash…. but is anyone else apart from me bothered by the sensationalist reporting of the crew “screaming in terror” on the black box recording? in the herald and on TV1 news?
I think it’s highly crass, and shows a lack of respect for the deceased and their friends/families to report it in such a manner
January 19, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Airbuses are boring, dangerous and use too much fuel (as any good greenie with peak oil paranoia will attest).
I won’t be flying anywhere until we can have Air Trolleybuses!
January 19, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I’m with you on that Fletcher. It’s pretty obvious they wouldn’t have been singing and dancing, but would have been the most scared they would have been in their lives so screeming would have been obvious. The fact they were doesn’t need to be reported!!! What needs to be reported is what was said about the problem the plane got in to.
January 19, 2009 at 1:38 pm
I agree Fletcher, I too was upset by that reporting. Completely gratuitous.
January 19, 2009 at 1:41 pm
yes I thought it was a very nasty piece of reporting
I did not like reading it and did not know the victims so can only wonder what anyone who knew them felt
January 19, 2009 at 1:42 pm
It is a little disturbing. Should point out that the 777 is also a fly-by-wire beast.
January 19, 2009 at 1:44 pm
I’m with FletcherB & Gerard.
Incredibly poor taste on the part of the media. Painful beyond measure for the relatives.
I give the MSM a D- for that effort.
January 19, 2009 at 1:48 pm
As a Travel Agent I have always argued that with as many flights as there are in a day your chances of having problems are minute. That said there are too many problems arising with the Airbus at the moment and I wouldn’t fly on one, and would not recommend my clients fly on them either.
sas, it will depend on the airline you are flying but as far as I am aware only Qantas and Singapore Airlines are flying the Airbus into London.
Fletcher, I too agree that it was unnecessary sometimes there is such a thing as too much information.
January 19, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I realize its not quite “on topic” as the cause of the crash…. but is anyone else apart from me bothered by the sensationalist reporting of the crew “screaming in terror” on the black box recording?
Yes that was appalling and when you saw the age and inexperience of the reporter TV3 sent to France to cover this major event, you can immediately see why the report was the way it was.
She had no idea what the investigator was telling her about the power surge that sent the plane into a stall, as she clearly had no knowledge of aviation. She also clearly had no knowledge of the Qantas incident of only a month before. As a reporter “trained” only to seek headlines, doom, crime and celebrity, the “scream” comment was what grabbed her attention and became the intro of her story and all the other media stories.
It is rather sad. As a professional journalist with expertise and knowledge no longer wanted by the media (read I would have to be paid more than $30,000), it’s also what we have to expect now from the 20-something no-nothings who are hired by the media because they are so cheap and who quickly leave what used to be a profession before they gain the experience that might be useful.
January 19, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Yes Poneke, I agree with you – in fact that was my immediate thought when I read the report… I thought “How f*****g crass to sensationalise people’s terror like that! How do these reporters think this is enhancing the image of their profession?”
Its totally unneccssary and tasteless to write headlines like this. Obviously the poor crew were somewhat less than overjoyed that they were about to plunge into the sea and to report their ’screaming in terror’ is cruel and twisted.
January 19, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Steady on, Poneke. A320s are still much safer than many of the alternatives. According to this site, A320s are about 30% safer than the 737-300s that Air NZ operates and about 6 times safer than 747s.
Model Rate
Airbus A330 0
Airbus A340 0
Boeing 717** 0
Boeing 777 0
Boeing 737-600/700/800/900 0.11
Airbus A320/319/321 0.13
Boeing 737-300/400/500** 0.2
…
Boeing 747 0.76
See link for the full list.
(That data is to 31 Dec 2007. There has since been two A320 fatal incidents, each killing 5 and 7 people respectively. In that time there was also one 737-300/400/500 incident, which killed 82 people. No 747s lost since 2005.)
January 19, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Calls for people to avoid Airbus aircraft are quite frankly ridiculous. See Ben’s comment re safety record relative to other aircraft. Note that many newer Boeing aircraft are also fly-by-wire and nearly all modern aircraft have so many servos/actuators and control systems between the pilot and the actual control that any failure, mechanical, electrical, software or whatever affects the pilots ability to control the aircraft. Even little single seat aircraft still have mechanical linkages that can and do fail from time to time.
Tom Semmens quite rightly pointed out that a possible cause of the event was paint or tape covering one or more of the multitude of ports/probes on the aircraft. The attitude and configuration of the aircraft could interact with this to make a particular reaction from the computer occur at only certain stages of flight.
Even if this was the computer (software) a sense of perspective is required. A trip in an A320 is still safer than driving across town!
January 19, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Mis-reporting too. I believe it was one scream made by one person and right at the end….
January 19, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Fatal Event rates are misleading the only recognised statistic is Hull Loss per Million Departures.
It is also unfair to compare any 737 prior to the 600 model with the A320 because those airframes have simply been in the air longer than the A320 has existed and use different technology. The 600 series onwards are similar planes in technology.
The other factor that is largely ignored is the nature of the American legal system. Being hugely litigious it almost ensures that Boeings will be safer planes than anything a French company will ever make. Apart from wine almost anything the French make is rubbish from cars to airplanes, to armaments, to anything mechanical.
January 19, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I thought there were two Qantas Airbuses that both had that problem over WA, suspiciously near a military installation that broadcasts ultra low frequency communications to submerged submarines. Since those transmissions require enormous transmitting power, there was some suspicion that it could be influencing the planes in some way.
Not saying that was the case, just that it was the last speculation I saw. Certainly two Qantas jets having a similar problem in a similar location, when they appear otherwise trouble free could be an indication of something.
I thought Qantas flew mostly 747s, with only the 1 or 2 new 380s, and some 320s and 330s used domestically.
January 19, 2009 at 11:13 pm
What makes aviation so different to possible global catastrophe through global warming?
On one hand we’re admonished for acting prudently based only on a probabilty of global warming, on the other hand advised to avoid flying on airbus before the jury is fully in.
Until the full accident report comes outI’m happy to take the risk on the plane, but would rather be cautious in regard to the planet as it seems rather more important, in my view.
January 20, 2009 at 3:26 am
I’ts going to make your flight choices more expensive, and harder to find.
The 737’s here in the US have been rumored to have problems with control and many more have been involved in crashes.
It’s your choice, but flying is still far safer than driving. And hell, if it’s my time, it doesn’t matter what kind of plane I’m in…It’s over…if you believe as I do…
If you cut out all of the things in life that presented a potential danger, you wouldn’t leave your house…right?
I do remember when the Airbus was being demonstrated and the pilots were doing a low level fly over, and I think the plane thought they were trying to land, and crashed it into the woods…wasn’t that Airbus?
January 20, 2009 at 6:53 am
Slightly off-topic, but I attended the Wings over Wairarapa airshow over the weekend. It was amazing. Such shows seem a throwback to a previous era – there was even a re-enactment of a WW1 dogfight between British and German planes – but it made it no less entertaining. It’s a pity we have to wait two years for another show.
January 20, 2009 at 8:06 am
I do remember when the Airbus was being demonstrated and the pilots were doing a low level fly over, and I think the plane thought they were trying to land, and crashed it into the woods…wasn’t that Airbus?
Sure was, it was one of the very first A320s being demonstrated at an air show at Basel Mulhouse airport in France, in June 1986.It descended too low on a flypast (50 feet actually) and flew into trees. It was only three weeks old. Though it caught fire in the crash, only three of the 136 aboard failed to escape.
January 20, 2009 at 8:27 am
Scaremonger much?
January 20, 2009 at 10:31 am
Again, slightly off-topic, but has anybody else noticed how this unfortunate crash is being dragged out out in the media ad infinitum? Ad nauseum would be a more apt description, though. First we have the CEO and party rushing off to France, then the superstitious ‘blessing’ ceremony, or whatever it was, on the beach, then the ‘bodies come home’…. and now I notice Dave Dobbin is going to wail over them. Oh come on guys.
Is this the Air New Zealand’s publicity machine going overboard, or what? This unfortunate crew will soon to be elevated to martyrdom status and I expect next we will be looking forward to pieces of the plane being displayed in shopping centres for crowds of mourners to file past like relics of the saints on view.
January 20, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I have only flown on an Airbus once (last year) and I found it ok.
But mind you it was on US Airways and into New York, but thankfully there were no geese out at Newark airport…
January 20, 2009 at 3:19 pm
I think this is a pretty irresponsible post poneke – ironic given that you say the reporting on the topic has been immature and overly sensational. Remember this is a plane that had just been in for maintenance. Isn’t some error there as likely a cause as a design flaw?
They are still working through analysing the data from the flight recorders and will be a long way off working through the root cause assessments so it is too early to tell.
Would you have said stay away from boeings after the early reports around the Silk Air crash which also featured unexplained an engine surge?
And whaleoil is being overly generous to boeing re litigiousness driving design standards, given airbus sell a lot of planes in the US and so are subject to the same laws and US aeroplane manufacturers are not exactly pure when it comes to fixing design faults.
January 20, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Basel Mulhouse airport in France, in June 1986:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EM0hDchVlY&eurl
Then there was footage captured, over Paris I think, of an airbus that went into a vertical climb.
I think this may be the incident in article 3 “Conditioned Reflexes cited in Tarom A310 Incident” in the following 10MB pdf:
http://www.pn.ewi.tudelft.nl/education/et4-138/notes/loc.pdf
January 20, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Well Poneke I’m booked in for JQ73 and JQ74 in February/March. I’ve had a look and both are “Airbus Industrie A320″ flights. Not a lot I can do, there is always a risk with flying.
January 23, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Looks like TOm Semmens might be right. Radio NZ is reporting Airbus has issued a notice to be careful during maintenance to not paint or tape over sensors which has been released as a direct result of the crash investigation.
If this is not a design issue unique to Airbus you probably should reconsider your warning…
January 23, 2009 at 4:18 pm
This just in….
“Airbus warning hints at possible cause of Air NZ crash”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4827673a11.html
January 23, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Looks like my suspicions were correct. A repeat of the Aeroperú Flight 603 and Birgenair Flight 301 accidents.
January 24, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Interesting.
Noting that they might just be reminding everyone of the rules, given that this has been speculated about as a possible cause.
If we assume that this was the cause, then it opens some questions for me:
– does that mean that Boeing’s approach of letting the pilot fly the plane, and not having the computer override them, is a better one? Whilst a computer will make bad decisions if given bad inputs, a human pilot will tend to be more tolerant of uncertainty. They’ll look out the window and notice that their speed isn’t as displayed, for example, and they’ll probably push up the thrust when a stall starts.
– does this mean that Airbus have some single points of failure – a single instrument fails and everything goes wrong? Or are they suggesting that there are a bunch of sensors, and they were all painted over?
January 26, 2009 at 11:35 am
“the age and inexperience of the reporter”
“20-something no-nothings”
“a reporter “trained” only to seek headlines, doom, crime and celebrity”
Forgive me for being personally involved here, but how old must one be in order to pass the Poneke age/experience test?
And if it was the reporter’s age and (lack of) experience that led her to focus on the scream, why was immediately picked up on and followed by other media?
January 26, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Lisa, until recently, all mainstream media had a significant spread of experience, from the 20-somethings straight from university to the senior journalists with 20, 30 or even 40 years of experience.
The takeover of local media the world over by multinational conglomerates answerable only to the stock exchange has seen the experienced reporters pushed out in droves, again all over the world but also in New Zealand.
It means there are very few experienced journalists to guide and help the young inexperienced ones who are now by far the majority in newsrooms. The young ones tend to leave for better pay before they are in the job long enough to get much experience.
All the others concentrated on the scream angle because they did not recognise the actual news in that item, ie the probable cause of the crash, but they recognised a scream as newsworthy because that is the level of what is in today’s media.
January 26, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Thank you for that.
I appreciate what you are saying, but it still doesn’t answer my question. You’ve said the reporter in question was young and inexperienced. You’ve also seem to suggest, unless I have misinterepreted you, that she is one of these ‘20-something no-nothings’.
I happen to think that’s grossly unfair.
At what stage will she no longer be considered young and inexperienced?
And as for the other media who followed her lead – does that mean they too were young and inexperienced? Or could they have been old, experienced, but just happy to piggyback on her work?
January 26, 2009 at 7:04 pm
The Airbus A320 is the safest single aisle plane operating today. The certification of the computer system redundancy is certified to a level of probability of failure of 10 to the power of 10; or to put it another way, one a320 flying would have to fly for 100 years to have a probability of all three flight control computers failing once. in 15 or so years, about 20 a320s have crashed, the B737 has accidents in the several hundreds, even allowing for extrapolation of the statistics, the a320 is a significantly safer plane.
Another point regarding the airbus msg released last week – plane crashes are very litigious:for all of the photo opportunities and statements between airbus, Fyfe et el, you can be guaranteed that the various lawyers are working away behind the scenes, bewteen airbus, ANZ, XL air and the MRO at Perpignan that did the painting and maintenance check:if the MRO is found at fault, its finished; airbus are also managing their flow of information due to yhe delay in releasing an interim report from the french BEA.
June 1, 2009 at 10:47 pm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8076848.stm
June 6, 2009 at 6:34 am
For a better search for the initial Airbus crash from France I would suggest to be looked at the radar’s last images or recordings and than you could find out aproximatly were the plane crashed.
June 6, 2009 at 6:35 am
Last recordings of the plane of course.
June 6, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Erik, I understand that the aeroplane was between radars.
June 7, 2009 at 10:48 am
Hello, is this crash and AF-447 linked????
I see that Air France have admitted they had not implemented an Airbus recommendation to all its airline customers that they replace air speed-measuring Pitot tubes on the A330. Initial analysis of the last automated data received from the doomed Air France AF-447 indicates that there was an inconsistency between the different measured airspeeds shortly after the plane entered a storm zone.
According to the French air accident investigation report, the Air New Zealand crash was caused by an uncommanded surge in engine power. The cause of this surge in the Pepignan case appears unknown, but it stands to reason the automated flight system would only increase power of it thought the speed was to low.
Now, the Air France Airbus was an A330 model and the Air New Zealand one was an A320. But their software would be virtually identical.
Worryingly, the Qantas incident last October – where the jet suddenly dived – was pin pointed to a “software glitch” in the air data inertial reference system, which disengaged the autopilot. This was also an A330 model.
The Airbus series is highly reliant on computer control, based on sensor inputs. I note that in the case of the Air New Zealand crash some people suspected an issue with the Pitot tubes (the aircraft had just been painted, and as far as I am aware the Pitot tubes have never been recovered) being painted over or clogged.
As I said, Air France had not implemented an Airbus recommendation to change the Pitot tubes – http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL5322293 -, suspiciously issued after the Perpignan crash. Reading up – http://avherald.com/h?article=41a81ef1/0004&opt=7680 – I see two other high altitude accidents with similar automatic data streams coming from the aircraft being traced back to clogged Pitot tubes leading to computer flight management problems.
It seems to me that we now have at least five incidents where either blocked pitots (at least three, possibly four of them) or software glitches (one or two) have led to computer flight errors.
Since the loss of AF-447 Airbus HAS WARNED AIRLINE CREWS TO FOLLOW STANDARD PROCEDURES IF THEY SUSPECT SPEED INDICATORS ARE FAULTY. To me, this screams that Airbus is aware of the ability of false flight data to cause a technical malfunction that may endanger the aircraft.
Now for this bit I am only speculating, but I can easily imagine that Flight AF-447 entered an area of high storm activity, with freezing temperatures and lots of icing, had its Pitot tubes ice up, had it computerised system act on false information and in the presence of high winds (apparently downdraughts of up to 150MPH were possible in the storm system in flew into), and before the flight crew could react, suffer stresses on its airframe the aircraft could not survive and it rapidly broke up. As I say, speculation – but plausible.
July 2, 2009 at 4:01 am
It´s useless to consider that the computer system failure probability is 10 to the power of 10….. They have proved to fail, even at that small chance; and it can fail by external factors (other than computer or software failure)
Should be pointed out the difference between “fly by wire” and “fly by computer” as well…..
Psicologically, I can accept human (pilot) errors but not willing to accept software error related catastrophes.
July 2, 2009 at 5:19 am
In an extreme situation, such as the tropical storm AF-447 found itself in, wouldn’t the Boeing approach to having a pilot override (to the fly-by-wire system) be beneficial? If this computer is not processing and acting on accurate information, as a pilot I would think I would like to take over full control of the aircraft.
July 3, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Early speculation regarding a possible midair break up appears to be incorrect :
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090702/world/france_crash_investigation
‘Analysis of the 600-odd pieces of the jet that have been recovered indicate the plane “was not destroyed in flight” and appeared to have hit the water intact and “belly first,” gathering speed as it dropped thousands of feet, he said.’
‘He also said investigators have found “neither traces of fire nor traces of explosives.” ‘
July 3, 2009 at 12:27 pm
With regard to what caused the crash :
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6624798.ece
‘They said that it was too early to assign a cause to the crash, but their outline confirmed the sequence of events from a data transmitter on the aircraft that has been analysed widely by experts. The airliner was flying at night in a tropical storm zone that was not especially severe, said Mr Bouillard. The pitot speed sensors fed faulty readings to data computers. This in turn caused the automatic pilot and automated flight system to shut down, leaving the pilots to hand-fly the aircraft.’
‘“This does not mean that the aircraft was not flyable,” said Mr Bouillard. “It means that it reverted to classical piloting.” Pilots expert in the A330 and A340 long-range Airbus family dispute the assumption that the aircraft was flyable. Piloting an airliner by hand at cruising altitude in turbulence at night without air speed data is extremely difficult, Cedric Maniez, an Air France A330 captain told The Times. The airline had simulated the conditions last week and experienced crew struggled to keep control. ‘
July 3, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Early speculation regarding a possible midair break up appears to be incorrect
Where this seems out of touch with reality is that the wreckage trail and the bodies were found along 100km of the ocean. The bodies were also intact and showed signs of having fallen from a great height.
If the plane had flown nose first into the sea it would have broken in tiny fragments and the bodies would have been in bits, not spread for 100 kms.
This report doesn’t pass my smell test.
July 3, 2009 at 3:34 pm
I have to agree with poneke.
Doesn´t the aircraft have GPS speed reading? (speed of the aircraft related to ground)
I know the air (wind) speed can add or subtract a few hundred km/h (up to +/- 300 can we say?)
Wouldn´t that allow to stablish a real, useable speed range, to orchestrate an emergency plan and control the aircraft?..
I know that thousands of millon dollars are at stake; are these people now trying to blame on the pilots???…
Might be useful to some that the flight recorders were never found.
July 3, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Speculation as to the cause of the loss of Air France flight AF447 is just that –speculation since there is not sufficient information as yet to pinpoint the actual cause. An interim report http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601e1.en/pdf/f-cp090601e1.en.pdf has been produced detailing Pre-Flight and In-Flight information together with other background information. Some items of interest are:
1.12.4 Summary of visual examination:
Observations of the tail fin and on the parts from the passenger (galley, toilet door, crew rest module) showed that the airplane had likely struck the surface of the water in a straight line, with a high rate vertical acceleration.
1.13 Medical and Pathological Information:
Sailors from the Frigate Ventôse recovered about thirty bodies. A visual examination of the bodies showed that they were clothed and relatively well preserved. All of them were handed over to the Brazilian Navy to be transferred to the Recife morgue.
Within the section “1.12 Wreckage and Impact Information” there is a plot showing the position of all of the bodies and debris geo-referenced over an area stretching approximately 280 km in the North/South direction.
An approximate analysis assuming that the aircraft disintegrated into pieces (by whatever reason) at the flight height of 10,670mtrs. (35,000ft) and stated speed of 453knots (839km per hour or 520 miles per hour) suggests that debris would be spread over a distance of 33km in the line of flight direction. If the ocean currents were non-existent then the search party would have found those recovered parts somewhere in this range rather than the actual range of 280km.
Assuming that the aircraft hit the water intact and broke up on impact then the actual spread of debris, over the 15 days of floating in the sea before discovery, would have been spread by the ocean currents and wind with the most northerly location indicating an average speed in the water of 13km per day, which is not out of order.
The spread of debris presumably would thus not indicate the type of failure the aircraft experienced.
July 8, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Continuing the OT discussion on AF447…
“Might be useful to some that the flight recorders were never found.”
Indeed! Everyone, remember the Concorde crash?
Who thinks it was caused by a piece of metal lying on the runway that flicked up and punctured the fuel tank(s)?
A similar, French-orchestrated deflection of blame is apparently in the making here, and as there, The Truth (and the flying public) will be the loser(s).
Once again, this is a spectacular loss of an Air France plane, and again a plane the French themselves made. The leopard doesn’t change his spots, and National Pride (coming before yet another great fall?) will no doubt blind them to the fact that their current, bleeding-edge, low budget planes are really quite unsafe, little more than flimsy “fair weather” birds, and their pilots all too often more than a little reckless and arrogant (a la Capt. Marty). E.g. Did AF447 deviate to avoid the bad weather? I have seen no evidence to say it did (or even asked to), though other flights in the area around the time certainly did.
I wonder who will be able to dig up the truth this time, possibly from 5km below the surface of the Atlantic? Or has the French sub already picked it (i.e the Black Boxes) up? A la Rainbow Warrior, who would know? The French will go to great (dishonest, illegal) lengths to have things their way.
But from what I have read so far, the Airbus flight control computer system design seems to be horrifyingly childish, primitive and ill-thought out. The designers seem to think it’s impossible to lose more than one Pitot tube, they allow the computer to make wild and reckless flight adjustments (particularly in very risky circumstances) based on faulty input data and without warning, confirmation or oversight, and judging by the ACARS data, they don’t give a toss about the sequence of events or the reasons things happened. The ACARS system looks like a Sow’s Ear, not sure whether it’s a Diagnostic Tool or a Maintenance System or what? Apparently, the Flight Control System is a similar, cludged-together mess.
The general impression I get is that they (French / Airbus) are gaily optimistic but really don’t know what they are doing. In other words, Fools.
What a scary thought! Fools trying to create a foolproof plane!
It all starts to make sense and I won’t be riding on an Airbust again anytime soon.
@Poneke:
Should the airlines ground these planes as a safety precaution?
“The manufacturer will quickly advise if such a step is needed.”
Ahhhh….
Yeah. Riot!
July 13, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Continuing the OT discussion on AF447…
“Might be useful to some that the flight recorders were never found.”
Indeed! Everyone, remember the Concorde crash?
Who thinks it was caused by a piece of metal lying on the runway that flicked up and punctured the fuel tank(s)?
Conspracy Alert!
Goodness me, you talk nonsense.
The black boxes of the Concorde crash were not only found, the details of them, including the text of the Cockpit Voice Recorder, were published in the accident report, which you can access through this link from the Aviation Safety Network site:
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20000725-0
Concorde crashed because its left wheels ran over a piece of metal that had fallen off a DC-10 that had left just before. This led to a tyre rupture and the puncturing of a fuel tank. Fuel poured out and was ignited by the engine jetstream. The result was a spectacular trail of fire and loss of thrust in the left engines during and just after take-off. The undercarriage would not retract, adding to the problem. There was not enough thrust from the right engines to keep the plane in the air at such a critical moment, and it stalled as the crew tried to get it to nearby Le Bourget airport. The jet fell into a hotel and exploded.
July 31, 2009 at 1:58 am
Any more news?
Can´t find anything.
July 31, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Conspracy Alert!
Goodness me, you talk nonsense.
Is that so?
Tell me then, since you obviously so wholeheartedly believe the “Simple (French) Explanation” for the Concorde crash:
How many tyres are there on each main landing gear?
How many skid marks were visible at the edge of the runway as the Concorde left it?
Why was the plane overloaded at take off?
Why did the Flight Engineer shut down one of the engines – plainly in total breach of correct operating procedure?
Why was the plane loaded with the centre of gravity beyond the permissible limit at take off?
Why did the pilot decide he “had to take off” when he already knew he was in serious trouble before he rotated?
Why did the plane run over a landing light at the edge of the runway near the end of the takeoff roll??
What effect did that have on “things”?
And what was the position of the rudder at take off?
And why?
Now let’s see who talks the most nonsense…
PS. Why would the undercarriage not retract?
A simple blown tyre should not have caused that…
August 1, 2009 at 1:56 am
Thanks KiwiObs for the info. Disturbing BTW, as we would expect from Airbus lately.
For some reason your last post got deleted.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/5933035/Air-France-pilots-claim-foolproof-speed-sensors-introduced-after-Brazil-plane-crash-are-faulty.html
August 1, 2009 at 9:16 am
Hi Pablo,
Thanks!
Yes, dunno what happened to my last snippet. I see my PS got added into the previous post (as it rightly should) and thought Poneke musta thought I was monopolising his blog…
Apart from the on-going speed sensor problems, the other link I posted was the latest on the Airbus search:
Search News
Plus (New)!
A similar story from CNN
AND (just for Poneke!)
Conspiracy News (Airbus also mentioned)
Sorry, error in Conspiracy Story link:
Story starts here (not on page 2):
Page One Airbus mention at bottom of p1.
My humble apologies. If someone could edit my previous post, that would be nice!