Slashdot Mirror

AF 443.

Pilot error, and a hair raising one at that

The Paris Air Show lawnmower, AF 296 (And in that one, investigators allegedly altered blackbox data to frame the pilot because heavens no, we can't have FBW impuned in the international spotlight after crashing 1 of 3 at the world's biggest airshow. Vive la France!)

Ah, I see, you are a conspiracy nut. The envelope protection saved almost all lifes back then when the pilot actively tried to kill everyone by stalling the aircraft. Without the protection the plane would have fallen from the sky like a bloody brick, not slowly gliding on the top of the trees.

https://www.flightglobal.com/n...

Bateman's research has also revealed that loss of control accidents are 10 times more likely to occur in non-fly-by-wire aircraft than their digitally flight-envelope-protected counterparts.

So much for that.

The first A320 accident showed that a fly by wire aircraft that overrides the pilot actually saves lifes.
The pilot actively tried to stall the aircraft. Had he succeded, there likely would have been no survivors. Since the aircraft fought the pilot, it managed to decent much slower and onto the top of the trees cushioning the impact, only killing three people.
This is why the flight control systems must disregard the pilot's inputs if they would put the aircraft outside of its flying envelope.

https://www.flightglobal.com/n...

Bateman's research has also revealed that loss of control accidents are 10 times more likely to occur in non-fly-by-wire aircraft than their digitally flight-envelope-protected counterparts.

https://www.flightglobal.com/n...

Bateman's research has also revealed that loss of control accidents are 10 times more likely to occur in non-fly-by-wire aircraft than their digitally flight-envelope-protected counterparts.

Condolences to those who knew the pilots. Fortunately no victims on the ground.

Its too soon to say what caused this tragedy. Weather? Package? Other?

Whatever it was, the plane appears to have suddenly gone from a mile high to ground impact in about 10 seconds.

https://www.flightradar24.com/...

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/2...

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

https://www.click2houston.com/...

https://www.flightglobal.com/n...

Plenty of airports have reached, or are reaching, their maximum capacity. If a single takeoff/landing could carry more passengers, that would be very welcome.

The problem with the A380 is that it creates more turbulence in the air around it than any other plane. This necessitates, for safety reasons, a longer delay between the A380 and the plane after it than is required for other planes. So if you have more passengers on each plane, but a longer wait between planes, that neutralizes the capacity advantage of the A380.

Only for airports that are congested, sadly this is London Heathrow with only two parallel runways and is the 7th busiest airport int he world.

The Wake Turbulence Class (WTC) of the A380 isn't the biggest issue however, the A380 was designed for flights between hubs that could handle it. The problem is that an A380 cant fit inside a normal airport gate (the bit with the boarding jetway) so this limited the number of airports it could land at more than its WTC.

The A380 is a fantastic aircraft to fly, more roomy than any twinjet, even on a crappy airline like QANTAS, let alone a good one like Singapore. They'll still be around for a while but without new ones, we're seeing a golden age of jet travel slowly die with it and be replaced with the ever shrinking seats on twinjets.

Plenty of airports have reached, or are reaching, their maximum capacity. If a single takeoff/landing could carry more passengers, that would be very welcome.

The problem with the A380 is that it creates more turbulence in the air around it than any other plane. This necessitates, for safety reasons, a longer delay between the A380 and the plane after it than is required for other planes. So if you have more passengers on each plane, but a longer wait between planes, that neutralizes the capacity advantage of the A380.

The danger is there regardless of how "sentient" it actually becomes. In fact isn't it more dangerous the less sentient but more "powerful" or ubiquitous we thoughtless allow it to become, meanwhile?

You mean like the same danger with putting any automated software in charge of a critical function? https://www.flightglobal.com/n...

This wouldn't be anything special about AI, or Machine Learning or even software. Any process that isn't properly vetted can lead to people getting killed, such as mismanaged dams that broke. People somehow think that AI will be more powerful but it isn't about the power of the tool but about the criticality of the application is it allowed to automate without oversight. See DO-178b software levels as an example of how this is handled: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

He has said the F-35 would likely lose a close-in combat encounter to a well-flown MiG-21, a 1950s Soviet fighter design.

I ridicule the F-35 procurement boondoggle all the time. But close-in combat is probably number four on the list of design criteria.

* stealth
* operational readiness
* long-range combat
* close-in combat

In order to get into a one-on-one situation, you have to first pass through three other criteria.

* you can't shoot what you can't find or can't see
* the Americans can keep a fair number in the air at any given time (you might lose on numbers alone)
* 90% of all F-35 kills are probably from long range
* if any adversaries remain after distance engagement, you might get into a close-combat situation, but even then, the F-35 might have a numerical edge, because of all the initial kills from long range

F-35 designed for long-range kills, not dog fighting — July 2015

The test pilot, who has experience flying the F-15E, F-16 and F/A-18F, says the F-35A's manoeuvrability is "substantially inferior to the F-15E" because of its smaller wings, similar weight and reduced afterburner thrust.

"Even with the limited F-16 target configuration, the F-35A remained at a distinct energy disadvantage for every engagement."

In response to the report, the F-35 joint programme office said the aircraft is not necessarily designed to fight in visual dogfighting situations, but at longer ranges.

"There have been numerous occasions where a four-ship of F-35s has engaged a four-ship of F-16s in simulated combat; the F-35s won each of those encounters because of its sensors, weapons and stealth technology," JPO spokesman Joe DellaVedova said in a 1 July statement.

That's not a rousing report card by any stretch, though it remains factually true that anyone spouting close-in combat figure alone is grinding a one-sided axe.

Modern warfare is no longer mano-a-mano. Most modern air combat involves sitting at a desk making desk-like decisions (yes, the desk is very shaky, and comes with an ejector seat that you really, really don't wish to use, but there it is.)

BTW, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (2002) is a geek dreamboat of a fast read. The F-35 procurement program featured no such heroic figure, and it certainly shows in the lousy cost-value assessment.

Report: https://www.flightglobal.com/F...

Um... until you've divided by number of units produced, you've got nothing. There have been a lot of CFM56 engines made and used over the past 43 years, as it's the most successful jet engine of all time.

If we use this list as a reference, the CFM56 has more than double the number of units in service than its nearest competitor, and ~4x more than the #3 slot. It's so lopsided that the CFM56 has more engines than the next two models combined (and nearly the next three).

When a fully inflated lighter than air-ship crashes, does it bounce?

This is what used to be LEMV (long endurance multi-intelligence vehicle). Very expensive attempt at long-loiter reconnaissance. Cost the US tax payer many many millions, and was cancelled and the thing was sold back the original builder for $301k. https://www.flightglobal.com/n.... Reminds me of the telcom bubble back in the early 2000's except this was a bubble of helium.

Oh, and the helium thing - possibly overrated - more found: http://www.wired.com/2016/06/d.... Also it can be a by-product of natural gas production, just a low percentages.

Boeing manufacturers them in India...in Bangalore which is landlocked. Unless that thing magically flew to the coast and dropped into the ocean...it didn't come from the factory (as least directly).

The stall warnings happened continuously throughout the time until the condition was corrected. It was never corrected.

This is a factual bit we disagree about.

See e.g. Stall warning controversy haunts AF447 inquiry

After 54s, the stall warning started cutting out because the airspeed approached zero.

While the stall alarm sounded continuously for 54s the captain, urgently called back from a rest break, re-entered the cockpit just as it ceased. The warnings then became intermittent, owing to A330 logic that cuts out the alarm if airspeeds become invalid

SNPL president Jean-Louis Barber said the pitot failure "constituted the trigger" and the pilots then faced a "delicate, unexpected" and "totally novel" situation.

It insists the design of the stall warning "misled" the pilots. "Each time they reacted appropriately the alarm triggered inside the cockpit, as though they were reacting wrongly. Conversely each time the pilots pitched up the aircraft, the alarm shut off, preventing a proper diagnosis of the situation.

No that is also incorrect. Stall [wikipedia.org] warnings are when there is not enough lift. Most of the time (and in this accident), this is when the airspeed is too low or the angle of attack is too high.

Do you really think you need to tell me what a stall is? Yes, the stall happened because airspeed was too low. However, the stall warnings did the worst thing possible: turn off when airspeed is low and turn on when airspeed increases.

The energy cost of methane is the lowest and it has a slight Isp (specific impulse) advantage over kerosene...it does not have the pain-in-the-ass factor that hydrogen has

I know hydrogen has a high "pain-in-the-ass" factor, but are electric cars that much better?

The F-35 is likely to be the last manned fighter ever produced.

Probably true, and quoted for emphasis, but that doesn't square with your observation that "that time is still decades off. That implies at least one more generation of manned fighters. Lockheed Martin and Boeing seem to be counting on that, though the Boeing article actually says they would propose a manned and unmanned variant (with an interesting concept image of them both). I saw that Russia expects the next generation to be unmanned.

The F-35 is likely to be the last manned fighter ever produced.

Probably true, and quoted for emphasis, but that doesn't square with your observation that "that time is still decades off. That implies at least one more generation of manned fighters. Lockheed Martin and Boeing seem to be counting on that, though the Boeing article actually says they would propose a manned and unmanned variant (with an interesting concept image of them both). I saw that Russia expects the next generation to be unmanned.

He. Instrument flight has improves so much that I could imagine the biggest problem might be TAXIING without windows. At least unless all airports have some sort of auto-taxi systems.

And it seems some sort of auto-taxi system was a "research project" in 2006, but I'm not aware of any planes that currently have an auto-taxi system.

which expected

The Ares V was expected to fly in 2018 and put something in orbit around the Moon in 2019. Expectations have a way of not happening in the aerospace industry. Congress can expect the SLS to fly any time they want, but that doesn't mean it actually will do so.

http://www.flightglobal.com/ne...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

"a result of the inadvertent inactivation of the transponder on board N600XL. Further contributing to the accident was inadequate communication between ATC and the N600XL flightcrew."

Figures that the N600XL suffered no casualties.

http://www.flightglobal.com/ne...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

or not.
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/ntsb-faa-investigate-high-altitude-bird-strikes-near-phoenix-334523/

According to a government-industry bird strike committee, there were 2,200 bird strikes involving civil aircraft at altitudes of more than 5,000ft above the ground between 1990 and 2008, with the highest altitude incident reported as a collision between an aircraft and a Griffon vulture at 37,000ft off the coast of Africa.

It sounds like that because KSP is based on what real rocket engineers actually do in the real world. You can see this in just about any major rocket family. Although, admittedly, the changes are a bit larger than what people usually do. But that's a function of most companies not having the technological reserves to increase the thrust of their engines by 50%. (Actually, the Merlin 1D has 135% more thrust than the original Merlin 1A. But 50% more than Merlin 1C.)

For comparison: getting 20% more thrust with the Vulcain II engine was hailed as a major improvement of the Ariane 5 ... and developing just those two engines cost about as much ($2.1bn) as all of what SpaceX has done so far, including development of 3 different rocket designs, the Dragon spaceships, as well as building and launching them.

That used to be true.

The 777 has been certified for ETOPS 330 for several years. source

It was designed for a ETOPS 330.

There was a near miss between a German UAV and an Airbus A300 over Kabul, Afghanistan in 2004. And just like with midair collisions between piloted aircraft there's going to be a collision eventually. Put enough planes (of any type) into the air and give them enough time, and eventually two will collide.

"And the F-35 replaces the F-18, F-15, F-16, A-8, A-10 and the Harriers."

Badly. For example, contrary to the original plan, the Air Force is *NOT* replacing the A-10 with the F-35B because it isn't up to the job. This thing is like The Homer of cutting-edge fighter aircraft.

If you mention Embraer, then Bombardier (Dash 8), Saab (200 and 340) and Fokker (F50/60) are probably worth noting as well. They're all next-tier players, but potentially could eat into the lower A320-esque end of EADS and Boeing's market. Throw Antonov in there too, with the AN-124 and AN-225 already in production, and you're at the big end.

I read a really interesting article yesterday about the Indian company, Mahindra, wishing to grow in the aerospace market. They already own GippsAero, which is just a GA manufacturer but it's a start. In the article Boeing notes that another 1000 commercial aircraft will be required in the Indian market by 2020. That's a big space for someone to fill.

Still, these models were not without merit. Bohr's atom model made a whole array of remarkably accurate predictions, and is still being taught in schools because it's a useful tool for thinking about atoms and chemistry. If you think the current climate models are about as accurate as Bohr's atom model, then you'd better start working on a reduction in CO2 output or looking for real estate in a future hospitable region.

Also, the speed of sound was an engineering problem/challenge. If your engineering is not up to it, you'd better not go there. Airplanes have a Vne (never exceed speed), and for a while, it seemed like no amount of engineering could push this value into the transonic region. Exceeding the Vne is a common cause of accidents and deaths. If you want to use this as an (admittedly bad) analogy for climate change: since we don't have proven effective means of reducing global temperature to levels that won't have a grave impact on society, we'd better not go there. Or to add another generous scoop of hyperbole: will human civilization end up like this?

Aircraft health data is is being sent for at least some aircraft air china lauds real time health monitoring/ it doesn't specify what data link, but it's probably not everything that would be on the black box, but at least some of it gets down.

The problem was not the aircraft and was not the oxygen flow. The solution was found to be overinflation of the pilots upper G-suit ("Combat Edge") that had been occuring for years and in aircraft such as the F-16 and F-15 but no on noticed it then.

Here is a link to the USAF describing the problem and fix:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-24/oxygen-problem-with-f-22-now-solved-pentagon-s-little-says.html

As a secondary precaution the F-22 is also having a particle filter removed from the air supply (the topic of this Slashdot article) but this is not the primary fix.

The "Raptor cough" which (nugget?) pilots got spooked about is actually common for pilots flying all high-performance jets after performing high-G manuevers. It just happens that the performance of the F-22 is good enough that a lot of these maneuvers can be performed before energy bleeds off enough you can pull them (that is, the Raptor can use them to end nearly all Within Visual Range training encounters - although lesser aircraft occasionally beat less experienced Raptor pilots from time-to-time, which opponents of the Raptor love to crow about). The medical name of this acceleration-induced coughing is.
acceleration atelectasis
Please refer to: http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/combat-edge-anti-g-ensemble-might-be-causing-raptors-oxygen-woes-372642/

So please could everyone stop with the media-included scaremongering and stop blaming the F-22 or invoke spooky and mysterious illnessed that pilots of that aircraft are afflicted with (ignoring that fact that the G-suit issue and acceleration atelectatis occurs on other aircraft, just less often because the F-15 and F-16 are relatively lower performance [lol, never thought I'd say that] compared to the F-22).

Now you whippersnappers get off my flight deck!

Sorry, but elastic modulus usually isn't a big consideration, unless the structure has to be extremely rigid for some reason. Otherwise, you might as well let them flap in the breeze like airplane wings.

The best way to compare materials is a plot of density vs. tensile strength.(Java warning!) In this plot, the materials in the upper left corner are ideal. TFA states the material's density as 1.6g/cc (or 1600kg/m^3) and the tensile strength of 7.5GPa (or 7500 MPa) which would make it the best material on the graph.

Actually the F-22s do this to get good at the close-in fight as well as the long-range engagements the USAF prefers (their tactics are based on a long range 'skate' where they launch and extend - using the superior training and situational awareness [via datalinks and AWACS] to beat their opponents).

What is unusual is the 1 vs 1 nature of the engagements. Usually F-22s and F-15s train at 2 or 3 to 1 odds. Occasionally the USAF loses the fights and the opponents always crow about it (eg. the EF/A-18G that beat a Raptor once, the Indians that managed to win a couple of matches against F-15s at Nellis), what is ignored (since it doesn't make sensational news) is all the times the USAF wins. Now it is totally unrealistic for the USAF to win every engagement without losses (no matter what the aircraft) but the general public seems to have the wrong impression and expect the USAF to have a no-loss record (clearly ridiculous). Now the Pentagon has a vastly more realistic expectation and don't expect the 187 Raptors that were built to be nearly enough - which is why the leaked a report in 2008 to try and get more Raptors built:

• http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/war-game-argues-that-usaf-fleet-could-be-outmatched-by-316555/
• http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/20081002/page3.aspx

Now that is 6 Raptors flown from Alaska to Guam and fighting near Taiwan (not mentioned in the linked article, but that was the scenario) vs around one quarter of the Chinese fighter force. While it was marketed as a "loss" (remember, the Pentagon wanted to scare the US public into sensibility and get more Raptors just in case stealth wasn't the advantage they thought).

Regarding the effacy of stealth. Even the pilots of the F-117A flying over Baghdad thought it might not work. It turned out it did. The pilots certainly realised the limitations of stealth
http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/gulf-war-20th-black-jet-over-baghdad/
Note that the F-117 lost over Serbia was due to the smarts of the Serbians using a combination of visual (and aural) spotters, guessing attack routes, and using very old radars working at wavebands that the stealth fighter is less optimized against. Stealth is not magic, apparently it merely reduces detection range to around 20% of normal for an aircraft of similar size (for the F-117), or 10% for the F-35 and F-22s (from the front aspect).

Stealth is not a silver bullet. It is still an edge (among other several other edges the USAF has) in modern combat.

A few companies have designed systems being integrated on Airbus and Boeing narrow-body planes in the next few years for testing http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/in-focus-manufacturers-aim-for-electric-taxi-eis-by-2016-368554/. My guess is that the technology for it was too large/heavy up until recently, so it wasn't worth the fuel waste.

Even if NASA is inefficient, that doesn't prove the thesis at all. Russian (or more pertinently, Soviet) rockets are cheap and reliable.

Last I checked, the Russian program a) wasn't NASA (meaning that just because one agency is relatively efficient, doesn't mean that we can gloss over the massive parts that aren't), and b) was effectively for-profit. It's also worth noting that the Russian program (or for that matter anyone else) can't match the cost numbers that SpaceX has. For example, development of their next generation rocket, Angara costs a bit more (and is well behind schedule).

The Chinese have already admitted that they can't match the Falcon 9's cost figures.

The V-22 isn't in use anywhere? That's odd because I deployed with CV-22s to Afghanistan in 2010, and we lost 4 men and an aircraft to a crash during combat operations.

I'm not necessarily defending the airframe, but it very much is in use in Afghanistan. The Marines have been using it in theater even longer than the Air Force.

A video of the 727 crash can be seen here: http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/video-boeing-727-deliberately-crashed-in-desert-for-tv-371267/

Some cool photos: http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/2007/06/the-view-from-up-front.html

How about this ?

Flight International test pilot -- and former Red Arrows team leader -- Peter Collins gives the Dassault Rafale a ringing endorsement in this week's magazine. "If I had to go into combat, on any mission, against anyone, I would, without question, choose the Rafale," Collins concludes in his six-page flight test report published in our Dubai Air Show preview issue.

In 2010, there was a Red Flag exercise. Rafale won 6 out of 7 fights (lost the long-range due to F-22's improved stealth). In medium range it still wins because its cameras can see the F-22. Even in Dassault this was a surprise, as the internal motto is "second only to the F-22." As for the F-35, who cares about a plane that nobody but the US can afford (read: are willing to finance so to keep jobs), if even.

America is a great country, but it's not the best country. There's no best country. America is barely a teenager in the history of nations, and it fucking shows by how dumb some of you guys are.

For the record, I Googled as you suggested, and I don't think there's anything to be ashamed of. History didn't start 100 years ago. Also keep in mind that until recently (and especially in the middle ages) the power of balance was not as, well, unbalanced as it is today for the US so these victories actually meant something. Having a fucking 100 years war of attrition is not like dropping "smart" bombs on Fallujah.

I think I got trolled.

Looking at the pictures, several ribs were completely busted off of the spar, as well as several bulkheads breached.

Pictures Damage10 thru Damage15 shows the bottom flange of the spar completely broken away, a testament to strengths of the bolts attached. This could also be indicative of accumulated metal fatigue from many flight hours.

Never the less, the amount of over-pressure must have been astounding.

The interesting thing is that the plane took off, presumably with this tank full, and it was re-fueled in-flight.

So the questions that come to mind are,

1) How did this not happen during ground fueling? Smaller pipes I presume
2) Why didn't the tanker's back pressure sensor shut down the flow?

Boeing has already suggested a same or lower cost solution based on the 737, which is dramatically more fuel efficient.

I believe that was the DC10 that you are talking about. Not a Boeing product.

Funny, doesn't look like a DC 10.

even though no human being has ever chosen to nose-dive under any scenario in a commercial flight. Why was an algorithm written that could do something that no one has ever wanted to do?

Is that something you are saying from knowledge or just making up? I was under the impression that getting the nose pointed down was a fairly 'normal' thing for a pilot to do when faced with a stalling plane. Indeed, keeping the nose up can be precisely the wrong thing to do.

Dear Stephen Harper:

Fuck you.

You've obviously decided my family (and every family in Canada) can afford the $3,800 we're putting toward the new F-35s. But thank you, thank you, for saving me the money that would be wasted doing my part for the world.

Sorry, some of my links didn't work. You can see the bumps here:

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/usaf-reveals-rq-170-sentinel-is-new-stealth-uav-335875/

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?172150-RQ-170-Clear-Daylight-Photo

Since the US has already admitted they lost one around that time I'd say there is fair chance it is genuine. Iran is not some backwater country, they have the technology to do this kind of thing.

http://www.hybridairvehicles.com/

The US military is buying half a billion dollars worth of kit from them... Or rather through Northrop Grumman.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/video-northrop-grumman-wins-race-to-revive-hybrid-airships-with-517-million-order-343259/
 

Its not a matter of feeling or not. Wi-fi has been proven to interfere with emergancy landing equipment. Don't believe me? Read for yourself. http://www.zdnet.com.au/wi-fi-proven-to-interfere-with-aircraft-339311113.htm
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/03/10/354179/wi-fi-interference-with-honeywell-avionics-prompts-boeing.html

From your article:

A senior Boeing engineer stressed to ZDNet Australia that the levels of EMI required to affect a pilot's screen exceeds the levels produced by the normal operation of normal levels of Wi-Fi use.

"Boeing and Honeywell have concluded that actual EMI levels experienced during a flight where there is normal operation of a Wi-Fi system will not cause any blanking of a Phase 3 display. This is not a safety issue with currently operating 737s and 777s," a Boeing engineer said.

Its not a matter of feeling or not. Wi-fi has been proven to interfere with emergancy landing equipment. Don't believe me? Read for yourself. http://www.zdnet.com.au/wi-fi-proven-to-interfere-with-aircraft-339311113.htm http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/03/10/354179/wi-fi-interference-with-honeywell-avionics-prompts-boeing.html

uh, rotating cylinders generating lift? similar described in this 1925 paper? or a concept drawing in a 1950 Mechanix Illustrated?

nice engineering (if it works/flies) but nothing exceptionally new...

Somewhere there is an engineer that argued quite vehemently that there is no way the air speed sensors on an Airbus A330 could possibly all fail

There is/was no engineer that argued this. Instead the argument was, "if this happens, what can we do to improve safety in that event?" That failure mode was thought of, I have absolutely no doubt. Engineers thought it was covered, they may have been wrong about that but I'll discuss that later.

leading the engines to stall in mid-flight

An aircraft stalling does not involve the engines, it involves airflow over the wings. Do you have any knowledge of the topic at all? Nothing I've read indicates there was an engine failure on that flight.

The aircraft crashed because when readings became invalid, the computer automatically disconnected the autopilot / autothrottle (as it should have). The pilots then made control inputs that were inappropriate for the situation. They were probably confused by the relative lack of data they had, and the multitude of warnings a complete air data failure causes. The pilots then held a nose up attitude through multiple stall warnings, eventually entering a period of extremely high sink rate. The aircraft had pitched up in excess of 35 degrees through this period, and the pilots held full nose up control inputs through almost all of it. It was the exact opposite of what they should have been doing. The pilots held the stall all the way into the ocean, impacting the water while still in a nose up attitude of more than 16 degrees.

I know people like to get up in arms whenever a crash is blamed on pilot error, but it's pretty clear in this case that the pilot's actions were inappropriate and their inability to recover from the stall despite ample opportunity will almost certainly be listed as the main cause of the accident. There were many contributing factors, but the data suggests that the aircraft would have flown just fine if given proper stall recovery inputs.

What could the engineers have done better? Indicate in a more useful way what was going on and which instruments were reliable. The pilots should have been able to tell at a glance what they should pay attention to and what they should ignore. The avionics display design may not have been good enough for them to do that. The stall warning may have deactivated inappropriately based on the invalid speed, because the computer thought the aircraft was traveling too slow for the angle of attack indicators to function correctly. This failure mode should not exist in my opinion. Either the angle of attack indicator should function at lower speeds, or an alternate stall indication should be used instead. Or just keep the warning on, since the aircraft is quite obviously not in landing configuration. From what I read, they were probably assaulted with a whole host of failure warnings that were confusing and may have contributed to a panic reaction.
Also, pilot training needs to be improved in some areas, especially involving loss of pitot static data. There is no reason an airplane of any type should crash because of a clogged pitot tube. This should be drilled into pilots starting with the most basic beginning flight training. I know from experience the topic is not covered at that level, besides a couple questions that may appear on the knowledge test. In fact, if I had not actually had a pitot tube get clogged during my training, I would have never encountered the situation at all.

There's some fairly good discussion about the events of the flight here.

Buying iPad's isn't a substitute for proper EFB's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_flight_bag), ...

The FAA Begs to differ:
FAA approval of iPad EFB for Executive Jet paves way for industry