tEl

AIRTRANSPORT
actual$happenmuchhigher'In the case
slailsoccurredat 35,000ft'

Painful "i-leíu,

concludes.
That has
á"Jes, ooo ft., respectively'
Coker
i*oo"tu"t, negativelmplications'

"Recovery stressesan increase

to

Lessons
and recovery with min-
maximum thiust
i*ui uftit"a. loss," he says' Therefore'
"studentstry to minimizethe nose-down
oii"n while enginesspool up"'
' To "rtu"gl
makJmatters worse, engine mar-
AF447crashinvesti$ationPoints eins at high altitude are much
lÑer flight levels, where
smaller
pilots
to inadequacyof Pilottraining lft*
"t
can count on a much greater response to
is
oo'wá.itt"t"uses. Also, Coker says' "it
WALVTOND0N
and ROBERT *t.n pilots remain on a partic-
IENSFLOTTAU/FRANKFURT irá¡u¡r"
'uiu.*o¿"f for éxtendedperiods of time
; that their exposureto approach-to.-statl
lnfre-
ñ indications and recovery occuras
oncein a decade"'when stall
;;;iú
É*ut.iá"t ". should really be part of recur-

Analvsisol AF447flight recorderdatahas

,llo*.0 BEA
Ftance's to updateits findings
onthe accident'

ring training. He stressesthat training

re-
.holUa focus on correct procedures'
ducing the angle of attack and approprt-
much
ate enlergyawareness'and not so
on minimizing altitude loss'
---Ái"¡"t
aná Boeing have worked to-
for stall
eelher to devisenew procedures
emphasize angle of attack
7".""".v tft"t
focus of the investigation Inflight loss-of-controlaccidentswere ihan altitude'
he rather Preserving
into whY Air France Flight the mo"stfrequent causeof fatal airliner --'¡.. fut ut Af'¿¿Z crew coordination
and bY far the deadliest in 2000-
;;h;. least two
¿42 craihed into the Atlantic in is concerned, there are at
ó-s.óiút" sg iatal accidentsrecorded may have-been
a year agois starting to change inaitutio". that there
p""io¿, 20 were attributed to inflight The Pilot non-flYing(PNF)'
náw thal safetY exPerts have iftá con- ;;;bl"*..
information from the ior.-of control; 16were causedby wiitr o,s¿ztotal hours and
bezun evaluating I'gZuá".
flight recorders' trolled
"' flight into terrain' . "l¿type, tried severaltimes to
on
eii¡"t A330-200's i.+lé n
- n".""t-.*shes linked to stalls include on an
Suestions surrounding human
fac- call back the caPtain,who was
into the spotlight.as tnui of tn" ColganAir Bombardier Q400 ¡t""f.; ut th" time, the pilot fly-
tori are moving (2009.); unt""á
with á" upptou"f,"to Buffalo, N'Y' the 3z-vear-oldjunior copilot
ift" i"""ttigutio"n further unfolds' Airlines Boeing 737-80-0- in i;;inni
and pitot- trrriiiit and 807 hr' on
of't"rbulent weather (2009);West *ñtt aóao flying hours
"án."ttt. shifting into the background' rfr"ri n""f for Amsterdam .iá"ti"íeJto pull back his side-
i"t"i"i"g i""á,
ó"-iú¡á"" eirways MD-82 in Venezuela set
Frencñ accidentinvestigationagency rti.t ut Flight Level 380 with thrust
memo MaY f ZOOSI' ThomsonflyBoeing737-300near around, the angle ofattack
BEA released a three-Page an{ {t' i" i"r.Á"ró
ex- il-o"*"*o"tft, England QooT); i.r"t"utittg frrther and speed
decreas-
i? containing factual information cermanY Airbus A320 offthe
followed by a Áñ;v; pilots also made simultane-
that is likely to be Perpignan'France(2009)'
i;;. ih" Ñ"
the ."".ióf üputs (pitch up) at around
i"oi" i"-a"pth interim report within
""tpl. ":rr,i".t1pptJach-to-stall incidents and
next few weeks' possiblyby the eno ot ""-. "Á"t."f
;ó;0ódí. eslimated sink rate of
report is not ex- u""i¿""I. o""ur with sufñcient altitude ""dan
10,000 ft' Per minute
this month' The final Senior móre than
2012; it should also address uvaitu¡te fot tfte recovery,"Boeing Air France's training and crew coorcll-
oecteJ untit PilotMike Cokertold delegatesat
technical Safetv .tu"aurds will lherefore likely be
i""""t". t"i.edby someabout f iigttt SafetyFoundation'sEuropean "utio" tutg"t for recommendations;the
A330 ú't"
nroblems with the eminarin Istanbulthis u"oiit"t
Áti"i¡? s
"' ilñ"ü;;ü.i. Jit'"'night dataand vear."Incidents "r"ty"Sprogressto accidents Jtlt" trt"fav has undertaken
an outside
Lines rep-
is revealing audit, conduóted by Delta Air
oit voicá recorders th" crew fáils io makea Positive
"o"t caused AF447 to crash ;il" of its safety procedures'
iio-r"'loot *ttat the stallwarningoccurs'" "".""tutiu"., new evidence' the airline
;;J;;" 1,2009:The aircraft stalled at "!"1t"* ^- "t"r
training is partly to blame' i" .pit" "f tttó
el"rl,áa of thr.ee
ád,óó0ft. and was never recovered'
The sátes that "the crew, made up
suggests that proper ft" u.t"tt.. Approich-to-stalltraining .iJir"¿ pii"t., demonstrated a totally
sequenceofevents at simulatedalti-
have i. t*i""Lrv cottáucted and were commit-
.tu'ti .""o""ty procedures could ft', but manvstalls "r"r"-.ii""t áttitod"
ilá'"!
prevented the accident' "il,ooo-10'000
AüationWeek'com/awst
TECIINOLOGY/JT]NE 6' 2O1I
36 AVIATION WEEK & SPACE
 ted to carrying out their task to
the very end."
The sequenceofevents in the
@ should be grounded until the
crash that killed all 228 people
onboard the flight from Rio de
Janeiro to Paris can be seg-
mentedinto two distinct phases. @
In the first phase,the pilots were
dealingwith the faiiure of speed
readingsthat are almost certain
to be linked to iced-over pitot
tubes.The secondphasebegan
when speedindicationsreturned
to normal and the aircraÍt was at f@|
the edgeofits flight envelopebut
under control and not stalled.
Phasetwo also coincidedwith
the captain'sreturn to the cock-
pit from an agreed-uponrest.
The initial chain of eventswas
kicked off by erroneous speed
readingsat 2:10:05(UTC), when
both the primary flight display
and integrated standby instru-
ment system (ISIS) showed a
sharp fall from275 kt. to just 60
kt. The autopilot and auto-thrust
disengagedand the flight man-
agementsystem switched to al-
ternate law.The aircraft rolled to
t' the right and the PF reacted by
making a nose-upand left input.
F
The stall warning soundedtwice.
The nose-upinputs led the air-
craft to climb fast,at a rate of up
to 7,000ft. per minute, but it al-
most leveledoffat a slight climb
of around 700 ft. per minute and
Flight Level FL375.At 4 deg.,the
angle of attack was only slightly
higher than in cruise flight (3
unabie to fly out of the subse-
Time+ quent stall. He consequentlyas-
FLeso serts that the entire .4330 fleet
Mach0.82
Pitchabout2.5deg. software is corrected. However,
industry officials point out that
Autopilot,autothrustdisengage the automatic trim only became
Pilotmakes leftnose-up input activeafter the crew pulledback
Stallwarning on the stick and that it worked
Recorded speeddropsfrom275kt. as expected.
to 60 kt.(inprimary flightdisplay IPFDIand In this phase,the captainre-
integrated standby instrument system)
enteredthe cockpit. What role
he played subsequentlyis not
Pitchattitudeexceeds 1o deg.
Pilotmakes nose-down control inputs clear yet, becausethe full cock-
Verticalspeeddecreases to 700ft./min. pit voice recorder content has
from7.000ft./min. not beenpublished.Accordingto
Speed displayed onPFDincreases to 215kt. one report, he immediately told
F1375 his two copilots that they were
Recorded angleof attack4 deg. in a stall and therefore should
put the aircraft's nosedown and
@ Stallwarning
Thrustleversat takeoff/go-around
reducethrust. Others doubt that
becausethere was hardly any
Pilotmaintains nose-up input nose-downcontrol input in the
Recorded angleof attackincreases beyond6 deg. remaining 3 min. of flight and
Trimmable horizontal stabilizer passes from 38,000ft. to sealevel.
from3 to 13deg.nose-up In fact, forward speeddeclined
so much that even stall warnings
@ Speed onintegrated
increases to 185K.
standby instrumentsystem
stopped,in spite of the fact that
Pilotcontinues nose-up inputs the aircraft remained in a stalled
F1380reached situationfor the remainderof its
Pitchattitude andangleof aüack16 deg. flight. That only happenswhen
measuredspeedsare below 60
Captain re-enters cockpit kt. and angle-of-attackvaluesare
FL35O consideredinvalid. When speed
n'rgl. of attackexceeds 40 deg. drops below 30 kt., that is also
Verticalspeed: descending at 10,000ft./min. registeredby the flight manage-
Engines' N1shaftspeednear10070 ment systemasinvalid-and that
Pilotmakesnose-up inputs is what seemsto have occurred
30 sec.late4 as the PF stated,"I
Thrust levers at idle don't haveany more indications"
Engines' Nl at 55%
and the PNF replied, "'W'ehaveno

@ ffi#:t:?T,t**:to*'
ü:i,Iff .Tl":"';:i:;ifi
valid indications."That second
instrument failure is thus most
after 40 sec.,and after closeto valid Iikely due to the slow speedand
Spi.¿ inlrcát¡oni become
I min. on the ISIS,indicatesthe not linked to pitot-tube icing.
pitot tubes stal'ted,io trans'rit Angeof attackremains above 3b deg. Around 2.5 min. before im-
@ pact, there was one short peri-
vahd data agalnand the rclng rs-
sue appearedto have subsided. @ verticalspeed: descending at 10.912ft../min. od in which the FF did the right
At this stage,the event could Ground speed: 107K. thing by pushing the side-stick
havebeen ove4with the aírcraft Pitchattitude: 16.2deg.nose-up forward. The angle of attack
still in alternate law and manual Rollangle:S.SOeg.leñ decreasedand speedsbecame
control but stabilized.There ap- +alltimesIJTC valid again,with the stall warn-
(June1,2009) Source;BE4
pears to be no technical,aerody- ing returning and indicating an
namic or meteorologicalreason accelerationin horizontal speed.
that would havekept it from returning to gan decreasingto 185kt., and the angle The stall warning may have causedthe
its preüously assignedaltitude (FL350) of attack reached16deg. PF to pull baek on the stick again,re-
by simply applying nose-downstick-for- Gerhard Huettig a professor ofaero- peating his previous pattern; it rvas not
ward control inputs. nautics at the Berlin Technical Univer- correcledby either the PNF or the cap-
But then things went terribly wrong. sity, saysthe changein the horizontal tain. "[The pilots] never madethe inputs
At 2:10:50,the PF continued to provide stabilizer position was due to a software necessaryto recover,"saysone official
nose-upinputs, causingthe trimmable malfunctionthat couldhavebeenneither closeto the investigation.
horizontal stabilizerto go to 13deg.nose- recognizednor corrected by the pilots "We will learn a lot from this accident,"
up from 3 deg.nose-up.The airspeedbe- and was a key factor as to why they were saysWilliam R. Voss,presidentand CEO

AviationWeek.com/awst AVI,{TION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/JTJNE 6,2OII 37


of the Flight SafetyFoundation,who be-
iievesthat Atr'447should havefundamen-
tal consequences for the content of pilot
training globally. .We are still training
[for] the engine fire at Vl, but the com-
plexity of automatedsystemshasgrown.
We have to developcrews that can deal
with incidents such as QF32,"the Qa-
ntas Airbus ,4'380that suffered an un-
contained engine failure after takeoff in
Singaporeon Nov.4,2OlO,and returned
n
ffi
ffi
to the airport severelydamaged.
Voss argues that AF447 would not
ffi
AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/JTJNE 6.2OTT
AIRTRANSPORT
have crashed if the aircraft had been of
an older generation."Highly automated
aircraft have savedmany lives,but they
fail differently than aircraft of 20 years
ago,"he says.He seesit as a "failure of
the industry" that pilot training has not
kept in stepwith the latest aircraft tech-
nologies.He also argues for improved
upset recovery training as "we are not
explicitly training that" and the AF447
4330 "seemsto have had pitch-and-roll
authority all the way down to the water."
The focus on the pilots is not likely to
,FAvio
have an immediate impact on the legal
landscape.Steve Marks, an attorney
with Miami-basedPodhurstOrseck,who
represents41families of AF447 victims,
notes that investigativereports like this
"tend to focuson pilot conducti'adding
that "in this case,there is no doubt the
pilot confusionis linked directly to the
failure of the pitot tubes."Marks is bring-
ing a caseagainstthe companiesinvolved
in the 4330 naügation system.On June
3, a San Franciscojudgewas due to hear
arguments on whether the case could
be brought in the U.S.,or if the liability
claims must be made in French court.
If it is the latter, plaintiffs would haveto
wait until the judicial inquiry in France
is complete,which, as in the caseof the
Concordecrash,could take years.
The BEA report plays down two other
issuesthat havebeenin the spotlight. One
is speculationthat the aircraft entereda
severestorm; the BEA document sug-
gests it was merely turbulence that is
standard for that region. During a crew
briefing 2 hr. into the flight, in which all
three pilots participated,the PF saidthat
"the little bit of turbulence that you just
saq . . . we shouldfind the sameahead. .
. . We're in the cloud layer.Unfortunately,
we can't climb much for the moment
becausethe temperature is falling more
slowly than forecast."And 1l min. later,
the PF told the captainthat "in two min-
utes, we should enter an area where it'll
move about a bit more than at the mo-
ment. You should watch out," adding that
"I'll call you as soon as we're out of it."
The PNF proposed2 min. Iater that "you
can maybego a little to the left" and the
aircraft turned left 12deg.None ofthe ac-
tions suggestarr¡,'bhing out of the ordinary.
The secondspeculationsurrounded pi-
tot-tube icing.Although the pitot probes
appear to have iced over,the speeddis-
crepancybetweenthe primary flight dis-
play and ISIS lasted around 45 sec.,not
atypical for the phenomenon.
There remain somelong-term ques-
tions related to the AF447 accident.
Would better aural cueshelp focus pilot
attention on recovering from a stall?
One industry official doubts replacing
the "stall" alert with a more speciflcin-
struction, such as "push stick," would
make much of a difference.And should
researchbe funded toward devising a
better backup mechanismto pitot tubes
or finding anotherway to determinetrue
air spacethat is less susceptibleto out-
sideenüronmental factors? "It would be
interesting to haveanother technology,"
the industrv official savs. G
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