Popular Mechanics is running a story on the AF 447 crash, based upon the transcript recovered from the flight recorder: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877 . A recurring theme is that one of the co-pilots (Bonin) insisted on pulling back on his side-stick, keeping the plane’s nose pointed up and sending it into a stall, even though the more senior co-pilot instructed him to knock it off, and he didn’t tell anyone he was doing this until about a minute before the plane crashed. He then took back control of the plane, and tried to pull the nose upon again, without telling anyone else on the flight deck, and after the captain had ordered him to put the nose down.
The article is pretty neutral, and suggests that Bonin’s lack of experience was a factor here. But, speaking as a non-aviator, the man’s behavior seems pretty assinine; for several minutes, he was doing precisely the wrong thing, and never told his co-pilot that he was doing so, even when the more senior co-pilot thought he’d taken full control of the plane (and announced that fact). And even after being told (twice, by the senior co-pilot and the captain) that this was the wrong approach, he kept doing it. Thus, the plane remained in a stall condition until it hit the water, even though it was mechanically in perfect shape.
So, reading this article, I get the impression Bonin was an unprofessional ass. Am I judging the man too harshly?
I respectfully disagree. I would submit that some errors are so basic, and show such an absolute failure of judgment, that they rise to the level of the assinine. Malice isn’t required. For example: If I allowed myself, out of fatigue or apathy or whatever, to forget to raise a basic but vital argument in a court brief, and my client ended up going to prison as a result, I think it would be fair to call me an ass.
There are times when you have a very, very high level of responsibility to not screw up, and you’ve received all of the training and skills you need to avoid this very basic and vital screw-up. If you still botch it, even through carelessness, you’re an ass. What I’m wondering is if Bonin’s error rises to this level.
Just based on the info in the OP, yeah he was an ass (that doomed them all). If you are stalling or think you are you do NOT pull back on the stick. If things are going badly and someone else with more flight experience than you suggests another course of action you at least consider it.
Sounds to me like the old “I’m (sorta/aslo) in charge therefore I must be right despite all the evidence and experience to the contrary” bullshit. Which IMO makes him an “ass”.
Just your random internet only pilot speaking here.
More like “instinctively”. It happens. It’s a tough urge to resist. When you’re headed for the ground, the natural thing to do is to pull up. It’s also the wrong thing. It could be that he was just letting his instincts overrule his brain. It’s the same thing that causes troubled swimmers to drown their rescuers. Fear of death will do that.
Bonin was the most junior pilot on the plane. The senior co-pilot sitting next to him also pulled back on the stick when he was in control, aside from a brief period pushing forward. In other words, both of them made the same incorrect appraisal of their situation, so you can’t blame Bonin alone for dooming them.
When the Captain showed up, he left Bonin in control. This wasn’t about Bonin being an ass.
Killing yourself is not typical behaviour of “an ass.” People don’t blow themselves to smithereens in the south Atlantic because they’re douchebags.
Reading the account, iut seems to me Bonin was stressed out and just reacted badly. He was spooked by the weather, to start with, and then things started going wrong. His first act of pulling back onthe stick just makes no sense at all, and doesn’t even connect logically with the things he had just said. That’s no the actions of an “asshole,” it’s the action of a guy who’s not functioning logically.
I also find two facts very interesting:
NONE of the three fight crew once mentioned the repeated stall warnings, despite the fact tha tthe computer was basically screaming about stalling during the entire mishap, and
It is normally the case that the Airbus 330 will not allow its pilots to stall the aircraft, no matter what they ask it to do; this is referred to as “normal law” in the article.
But as it also points out, this wasn’t a normal law situation; the loss of the pitot tubes meant the computer was allowing the pilots to do things that would stall the aircraft, which is what they did.
So Bonin
A) Was inexperienced,
B) Probably in a state of panic/confusion,
C) Was doing something that would not be dangerous under normal circumstances but which in this unusual case could, and did, fail catastrophically.
At 2:10 Bonin states he’s in “TOGA,” e.g. that he must climb to escape their situation, which is insane; it’s what will kill them, not save them. **But Robert does not hear him. ** Robert doesn’t react to that at all - he seems totally preoccupied with wondering why the Captain hasn’t come back to the flight deck yet. This was Robert’s chance to correct Bonin but he wasn’t paying attention to what was actually going on. He then expresses confusion as to why the plane is climbing, which is only possible if he wasn’t listening to Bonin.
They simply weren’t hearing each other. And that’s what causes most commercial aviation crashes; a failure by the crew to communicate effectively.
Yeah RickJay, thats probably a pretty good analysis of the actual situation.
Though I would submit that asses being asses certainly can and do doom themselves in the process of doing so (though as you note, this may well not be the case here).
There are some basic human-machine interface issues with the design of the stall warning. This is a good summary:
Basically, the A330 shuts off the stall warning if it concludes the airspeed input is outside a valid range, which was the case here due to pitot icing. That happens even if the speed input is so *low *that the software considers it invalid. So yes, they were getting stall warnings when the speed was too high, and not when it was too low.
Respectfully, the two situations aren’t comparable. You failing to raise a basic argument due to fatigue or apathy isn’t being done under the stress of an imminent life or death situation where there is the very real possibility that you and your client will be dead in 15 minutes.
Was altitude and nose tilt instrumentation working the whole time?
If it was I can’t understand how neither of them can realise they are in a stall over a period of almost 10 minutes??? I’ve never flown a plane or been into flight sims beyond the most casual level, but I know enough to know that if your nose is up and you are falling, you have to go down first to recover.
QFT. This is an example of a pilot who acted like a jerk, ignoring warnings to fly safety rather than reacting badly in a life or death situation.
Reading through the article, it seems the causes of the accident were as follows:
Poor planning by the aircrew, failing to avoid the worst of the weather.
Instrumentation failure.
Poor cockpit ergonomics, the situation would have been a lot clearer to the pilots if the stick inputs had been linked, or if there was an indication the aircraft was flying outside normal law. ElvisL1ves may well be right about the stall warning actively misleading the pilots.
I recall a pilot being a jerk episode. Caused the? worst commercial aviation accident of all time. Somewhere in South America I think. German? pilot, quite the big man on campus. Air Traffic control tells him he is cleared for takeoff. The copilot says he thinks ATC said they were NOT cleared for takeoff. Well, Mr Hotshot pilot assumes he is right. Anybody with more concern about safety than being right would have confirmed. Pilot didn’t. So, one big assed airplane collides with another in the fog at high speed. Hundreds and hundreds are killed.
I think this list should include the delay in the Captain showing up on the flight deck, and especially his (to me, stunning) failure to take the controls in what clearly was - and was seen by all to be - a desperate situation.
I would have said it was beyond the realm of possibility that in these circumstance a Captain physically able to do so would have failed to take command.