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Debris, Bodies Recovered From AirAsia Flight 8501
Searchers have found traces of the crashed AirAsia Flight 8501, which lost contact with ground controllers shortly after requesting a weather-related course change. Reuters reports that both debris and some passenger remains have been recovered off the coast of Borneo, in a search complicated by waves "up to three meters high." From the report:
About 30 ships and 21 aircraft from Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and the United States have been involved in the search.
The plane, which did not issue a distress signal, disappeared after its pilot failed to get permission to fly higher to avoid bad weather because of heavy air traffic, officials said. It was travelling at 32,000 feet (9,753 metres) and had asked to fly at 38,000 feet, officials said earlier. Pilots and aviation experts said thunderstorms, and requests to gain altitude to avoid them, were not unusual in that area.
... Online discussion among pilots has centred on unconfirmed secondary radar data from Malaysia that suggested the aircraft was climbing at a speed of 353 knots, about 100 knots too slow, and that it might have stalled.
That they found debris and human remains is evidence that they found where this plane ended up . . . in contrast with the Malaysia flight where the authorities may never find out what really happened, and people in the affected countries will never be sure of the fate of their family members.
The Air France flight 447 that crashed, as I understand it was because the pitot tube(s) froze over and the pilots lost their air speed indicator(s). It seems that in many Airbus crashes, the pilots are so accustomed to the automation that they forget how to fly the aircraft. Or they don't understand exactly how the automation works as was the case of an airbus that crashed because only one axis of the autopilot switched off unexpectedly. The aircraft was crabbing in yaw while the pilot was only controlling pitch by hand. Dunno, but it seems that more automation leads to more problems. Isn't this why the US Navy pilots subs manually all the time?
Could've been busy trying to fly the aircraft. Order of Operatons.... Aviate, Navigate, Communicate.
Lufthansa went through a 4000fpm rate of descent incident a couple of weeks ago. The loss of altitude had been caused by two angle of attack sensors having frozen in their positions during climb at an angle, that caused the fly by wire protection to assume, the aircraft entered a stall while it climbed through FL310.
http://www.aeroinside.com/item...
Modern Engines are designed to ingest tremendous amounts of water and still run.
A Qantas airliner suffered a catastrophic engine failure ad returned to the airport. After landing, the engine was still running and spewing fuel everywhere. They poured foam and water directly into the engine for 30 minutes before it finally quit running.
You can watch a documentary on it here.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Or a cumulonimbus (CB) cloud. Pilots are generally advised to stay 20 miles AWAY from storm clouds because of intense up and down drafts.
It's likely the pilot was trying to do that when denied by ATC - and towering CB can go up to the stratosphere (literally - it's why they get their anvil shape).
No plane can outfly the up or downdrafts which can be several thousand feet per minute. Fly into it and 32,000 feet can be gone in just a few minutes. Never mind wind shear which can basically rob an airplane of all airspeed.
Embedded CBs are even scarier.
Sure as hell better than humans.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Air France Flight 447 stalled at 38,000 feet with an attitude between 35 and 45. If they'd known that their airspeed as below stall, they could have simply dipped the nose and gained airspeed. But the pilots seemed confused the whole way to the sea. Same may have happened here.
Well in the case of Air France 447, an additional factor was that the least experienced pilot was in control of the aircraft at the time. Another factor was the joystick control was not visible to the other pilot and the throttle position is not indicative of actual throttle amount (electronic controls). The more experienced pilot was trying to deal with the all the computer failures and assumed that the flying pilot was diving when he was trying to climb. It wasn't until the captain got back into the cockpit (he was on a scheduled sleep break) that the senior pilots realized the plane was trying to climb. They tried to get the plane to dive but it appears the plane stalled and crashed into the ocean before they could do that.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It's interesting... most of the expert opinions I have heard say that the asynchronous nature of Airbus sidesticks was *not* to blame, and that the crash would not have happened if the pilots were properly communicating as per Cockpit Resource Management protocol. However, when you consider that the crash happened basically because a very junior pilot was pulling the stick back *the entire time* and the senior pilot did not realize this, I can't help but think that synchronous flight controls a la Boeing jets would have at least partially mitigated this problem (the senior pilot would have seen very clearly that the junior pilot was pulling back constantly). IANAP (I am not a pilot), but nevertheless... anyway, back to our regular scheduled programming.
no, that is not the case at the present time. Don't get your ideas about technology from sci-fi tv shows
This Air Asia plane was asking permission to climb to FL380 from FL310 in a storm. But as others have noted, Air Bus has issues with pitot tubes icing over and the flight control computers getting confused.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It's interesting... most of the expert opinions I have heard say that the asynchronous nature of Airbus sidesticks was *not* to blame, and that the crash would not have happened if the pilots were properly communicating as per Cockpit Resource Management protocol.
There's blame and there are contributing factors. Accidents like these are normally a series of failures that leads to the accident.
However, when you consider that the crash happened basically because a very junior pilot was pulling the stick back *the entire time* and the senior pilot did not realize this,
In the Airbus, it is not a flight stick. It is a joystick. If I remember correctly this picture demonstrates the configuration of the joystick. If I remember correctly the flying pilot was in the right-side seat so it was not evident to the other pilot what he doing with the controls. Second, the other pilot isn't having scones and coffee while all of this is happening. The other pilot was dealing with a plethora of warnings and failures and trying to diagnose them all. Communication did break down.
From the transcript Around 2 hr 12 min 32 sec:
Left side pilot: "so go down "
Captain: "No you climb there "
Captain: "You’re climbing"
Right side pilot: "I’m climbing okay so we’re going down"
2 hr 13 min 40 sec
Right side pilot: "But I’ve been at maxi nose-up for a while"
Captain: "no no no don’t climb"
Left side pilot: "so go down "
From my interpretation, it appears the left is telling the right to dive and the captain is simply alerting the right that he is climbing. The right has misunderstood and is still pulling not pushing. In the second set, the left and captain realize that the right has been pulling the entire time. But it's too late.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Yes, there is an Airworthiness Directive (caution:pdf) about that little issue. For some some reason, Airbus won't give the pilots an angle of attack indicator either. It is one of the most basic and important things to know when flying a fixed wing aircraft.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I can't help but think that synchronous flight controls a la Boeing jets would have at least partially mitigated this problem...
That, and a working angle of attack indicator would be most prudent to have on board. However, the accident is a result of a very common error, where a kind of 'tunnel vision' develops, and nobody remembers to fly the plane.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
...because a very junior pilot was pulling the stick back *the entire time* and the senior pilot did not realize this
The ECAM (electronic centralized aircraft monitor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_centralised_aircraft_monitor) provides an aural alert to the pilots if both sticks are out of neutral. Further, the inputs are additive- one full up and the other full down is summed as zero. This is not to say they heard it- hearing is the first sense to diminish when under stress.
I can't help but think that synchronous flight controls a la Boeing jets would have at least partially mitigated this problem
That question has been debated ad nauseum. Still, Boeing have maintained the synchronous approach and Airbus have remained dual-independent and both have been well thought out in approach and execution. Potato, potahto.
most of the expert opinions I have heard say that the asynchronous nature of Airbus sidesticks was *not* to blame
I concur. I do not claim to be an expert but I am type rated in the A320 and have over 8000 hours flying them.
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
I belive you are thinking of flight 708 which crashed in Aug 05. The captain was very fatigued since the crew had not received regular paychecks in several months, and the captain had reportedly been forced to moonlight as a bartender to provide income for his family.
I have no doubt the FDR's will be found and I think the similarities between these two events is significant.
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The pilot did not try to fix the stall. He was pulling up all the time and even the dumbest student pilots know that that's the exact opposite of what to do in a stall. His (in)famous almost last words were "I've been at maxi-nose up for a while". For some reason that only he knows, he thought the plane was diving fast and that the instruments are wrong ("crazy speed" he said). In reality he first steered it above the plane's maximum service ceiling at which point the plane pretty much lost all its speed and subsequently fell down with a slight nose up pitch. The stall warning stopped when he pulled back because the plane slowed down even more and by design, the warning is not meant to be triggered when the plane lands and that was how low their speed was. A better system would of course somehow factor in altitude but then again, any pilot should know that something else than a stall recovery has happened if he's just pulled back. The saddest thing about the whole crash is that apart from the brief moment when the pitot tubes were frozen, there was nothing wrong with the aircraft. The tubes were heated so when they began working, all the pilots would've had to do was to trust their instruments. They had plenty of altitude to recover control of the aircraft and every instrument worked and every warning was correct. A display of shameful incompetence by Air France training.
Engines don't stall, wings do. If your wings aren't passing through the air fast enough or are at too high an angle of attack (or both) the airflow over them becomes turbulent and the amount of lift the wing generates drops abruptly.
In aircraft with straight wings that can result in you being screwed. Aircraft with swept wings are generally designed so that the inside, further forward part of the wing stalls first. That means that a stall drops the nose, lowering the angle of attack and increasing airspeed. When that happens, so long as you have sufficient altitude and follow the correct procedure for the aircraft, stalls are recoverable. Correct procedure usually involves some variation of "stop trying to pull out of the dive until you have sufficient airspeed".
A plane climbing at a slow speed in a storm could mean they were trying to climb at too high an angle of attack and stalled. Or it could be more complicated. Thunderstorms have lots of strong winds. If the plane started climbing in a strong head wind and then flew out of that wind zone, it could stall abruptly.