From that article: The pitot tubes on the plane were a design known as AA, which had been superseded by an AB design. 18 months before the crash, there were suggestions that the AB design resisted adverse weather conditions better, but Air France didn’t swap them, saying that the evidence was inconclusive. Shortly before the crash, it became evident that the ABs were indeed better, and new parts were in the warehouse, ready to install. Air France didn’t appear to be in any hurry to do so.
Yeah, that’s a good article. I read it yesterday myself.
Airline pilot Patrick Smith, who writes Salon’s “Ask The Pilot” column, was a bit critical this week of the NOVA program’s discussion about “coffin corner” and the speed margin of error.
He also, as he often does, noted the tendency to the media to look for simple answers when it comes to aviation issues, and said:
I thought that the whole point of the interest in the Air France crash was that it seemed Air France made a lot of bad decisions, at least that’s the impression I had from reading this thread.
That could be right, but even if it is, it doesn’t negate the probability that the crash was still a result of a very unlucky and unusual combination of circumstances.
Planes generally don’t just fall out of the sky from cruising altitude. Even with some bad decisions by Air France, the plane itself was probably not unsafe, in any meaningful sense of the word.
As a small airplane pilot I have to correct you on this - I was taught to look at engine instruments (rpm, temp, etc. - whatever gauges for whatever engine(s) you have) and notice actual performance, not look at throttle position. This was true for some of the weird aircraft I’ve flown in the ultralight and homebuilt category where, for instance, the throttle was largely obscured by one’s thigh or located such that one would require a transparent forearm to really see it clearly without moving about quite a bit, but even in more typical small airplanes it really was all about what the instruments/actual performance was telling you than where the lever or knob was. It’s not that you never look at the throttle, it’s just that normally there is no reason to do so, and in an emergency I’d be much more inclined to look at engine gauges than throttle.
I think it’s a bit unfair on Air France to suggest they were lax in getting the new pitots fitted to the fleet. It is quite normal for an airline to perform non-critical upgrades to its fleet as each aircraft goes in for scheduled maintenance. “But surely a pitot tube replacement is critical?” you might ask. With the benefit of hindsight it seems it probably was critical, but prior to the crash no one had deemed the current pitot tubes to be unsafe, no one had removed their certification, and no one had mandated that all AA tubes be replaced with the AB tubes immediately. Given that no one else was particularly concerned with pitot tube replacement, it seems harsh on Air France to suggest they should have been.
Yep, saw it on the BBC and Le Monde as well - all the flight data and the final two hours of cockpit voice conversation. Here’s hoping there are some answers in all that.
I’d say there would pretty much have to be. If that much data doesn’t produce some answers, this will have to rank among the greatest aviation mysteries ever.
At the least it should reveal the “whats” of the sequence of events leading to the loss; but that would likely still require expert interpretation to get at the “whys”.
Fine detail about what happened could make “why?” reasonably easy to answer. In particular, the cockpit voice recorder should give good information about what the pilots were thinking and doing, which ought to be enlightening.
The crash happened at something like 3AM, a number of hours into a long flight over a stretch of ocean without even many other airplanes in radio range. Crew alertness has to have been a factor in their actions.
I don’t think it mattered. They probably had every warning buzzer and light going off at once or in such a rapid succession that it closed that small time window needed to stabilize the air speed.
The 3 most important things to be aware of in a cockpit is airspeed, airspeed and airspeed. But if you don’t realize in time that the airspeed indicator is gone or that the computer just made things worse prior to losing the airspeed indicator then it’s like driving by a snow covered sign announcing the bridge is out ahead and then seeing 20 emergency vehicles in your rear view mirror.
The problem with long haul flying, or any flying really, is that you spend a lot of time at a low state of arousal. When you’re not very alert because nothing much is happening your ability to perform on demand is greatly reduced. You can have all sorts of bells and whistles telling you what’s going on, but you won’t respond as well as if you’d just taken off and were already at a moderate state of arousal. This isn’t a failing of any kind for the crew, it’s just what happens when you have long periods with nothing happening. Low alertness is probably a factor, but whether or not it was a significant factor is unknown as yet.
They were flying through bad weather - I wouldn’t be so quick to assume “there was nothing much to do” until the crap hit the fan. They may have been more busy than usual for quite some time given conditions.