@@bearchow1929 captain was absent. By the time he came it was too late. His fault was that he was banging some chick the night before in Rio late so he went to sleep .
@@BlackKnight344 which report .this is not told by media but it is true . He went to sleep because he had a night out with a Brazilian chick the night before the flight
Maximus, a factual correction: The AF447 never went into *Direct Law* . It went into *Alternate Law 2B* , still with a lot of envelope protections, but unfortunately without stall protection and enough for the pilots to crash the plane.
It’s more like blaming a wreck caused by a shit student on a car used for driving instructing that doesn’t have proper dual pedals for braking and accelerating thus causing the driving instructor to miss the fact the student wasn’t braking for the light and causing the crash
At any rate the basic argument in this video is actually arguing for automation. The argument is something like “The human pilot was constantly fighting the plane to do the wrong thing… Therefore it’s the plane’s fault that another human couldn’t intervene” and if you think about it just a little, you remove the first human in that chain and there is no problem that another one would need to intervene for
@@sorover111 yes, if you look at it like that yes if you removed one human the accident could have not happened. But that’s also only seen in hindsight. There could have been another situation where if one human did one thing correctly and there wasn’t a second human to share the workload things could have gone to crap anyways. It’s easy to say “go if this FO wasn’t flying” or “if this FO wasn’t in the cockpit and only one guy was in the cockpit the plane probably wouldn’t have crashed” But since once pilot ACTUALLY WAS putting in the correct control inputs while the other was (without the knowledge of the other pilot) putting in the wrong inputs it’s easy to say if the sidekicks had feedback the crash probably wouldn’t have happened. Gulf Stream actually acknowledged in their new jets that having Sidestick feedback was an added safety feature. If the sidesticks were linked or gave feedback the conversation may have gone like this on the flight deck that nigh. “Oh Shit a stall” “What the fuck why are you pulling push you moron my controls” “Oh shit that was scary” Or in French “Merde on Décroche” “Mais putain pourquoi tu tire espèce d’abruti, pousse, mes commandes” “putain ca a fait peur ca”
@@sorover111 Even with added automation and a single pilot the original problem would have occurred you would just have to hope the sole pilot would have done the right thing. Since one of the two pilots did do the right thing assuming they would have been one of the pilots on your single pilot flight you had a 50/50 chance of having the pilot that would do the right thing.
They could have flown the plane with known power settings and known attitude for straight and level flight, they’ve seen this configuration many times. Then figure out what was wrong. Aviate, navigate, communicate. They messed up aviate.
Except in IFR conditions and no reference point it is extremely hard. My favorite flying lesson was my instructor asking me to fly the plane with my eyes closed. 30 seconds later he ashed me to open my eyes and I was banking the aircraft with a pitch down attitude.
@@JohnnyChinch Those pilots could fly the aircraft with reference to their artificial horizon display and power setting - those systems were working in the aircraft. But the training for doing so was not given by Air France. Also recognizing a stall situation was obviously not taught by Air France.
@@sorgfaeltig that is only an assumption. Do you know that as a fact what training Air France conduct? My assumption is that the pilots panicked and in that moment of panic and fear, they froze and unfortunately forgot about basic flight training.
Atlas Air 3591, B67, had two pilots doing different things with yokes. The yokes are tied together but can be overcome. The result was it split the elevators. That’s my understanding anyway. Pilots distracted trying to understand what is going wrong will miss things like how the other pilot may be doing something dumb. That’s crew resource management. One pilot flies the other troubleshoots. At the end of the day, improve the automation and overall, the plane will be safer per mile.
5Y3591 wouldn’t have happened in an Airbus. Firstly TOGA isn’t activated by pressing a button, it requires physical movement of the thrust levers. Secondly the aircraft would be limited to a pitch down of 15 degrees and then when it overspeeds it will automatically start to pitch up
Two yokes is overrated. People assume they are mechanically connected. What if they are merely digital controls which happen to use large apparatus? I don't know how the new Boeings work but I'm guessing they are not pure mechanical linkages to flight control surfaces. I'm guessing that the very least, they might still be just smaller mechanical pulleys and levers that control hydraulic actuators. Older Boeings had create complex contraptions like Q-springs in the vertical stabilizer to add feel to rudder controls. But, even purely mechanical controls don't let you easily determine if you are fighting (or being helped by) either aerodynamic forces or input from the other pilot. Remember that in Direct Law, the Airbus aircraft becomes a Boeing. At that point it relies on basic pilot knowledge, which these guys didn't have.
I'm very much an Airbus fan these days, especially after Boeing's horrifying descent into corporate mediocrity. I'm not going to just bash Airbus for the sake of it. In this case, however, it's clear that the sidestick design is suboptimal. It essentially removes two senses that the flight crew can use to gain information about their situation. We don't just process information through our eyes and ears, but also through touch and proprioception - that is, the sense of where your limbs are. That kind of tactile feedback gives you a whole other way to gain information about the condition of your aircraft, and it seems like Airbus have forgotten that. It wouldn't be difficult to add tactile feedback to a sidestick. We already do it with video game controllers. Boeing does it with stick shakers. Airbus can do it too. It doesn't need to interfere with the fly-by-wire system at all.
I used to think the world of Boeing. I wonder if the McDonnell Douglas acquisition cocked them up. That's when, at least anecdotally, things started going measurably south for Boeing... What do you think?
@@karlchilders5420 I think it's a pattern that a lot of companies follow. You start out with smart and passionate people doing what they love, and they build a product they're proud of. But over time, the bean counters and the predators come in, and they take that passion project and start to milk it. Boeing held off the corporatists longer than most, but it does seem that the McDonnell Douglas merger was the crack in their armour. There's a great book by Terry Pratchett called Going Postal that talks about this kind of thing (in between the golems and banshees, of course). It reminded me very strongly of what my father went through with British Airways as they followed a similar path.
@@Werrf1 That sure makes a lot of sense and I believe, like you, that a lot of companies seem to follow such a pattern. I think it's part of routine organizational behavior at-scale. It can be overcome, I believe, by a number of culture changes at various levels. None of those would be successful unless the culture changes were supported not simply by "executive level" folks but really by comprehensive changes all through the chain of leadership. Front line managers to department heads and up: everyone needs to understand what direction things are going. Hope I made sense there...
It's a design oversight that's come to bite them in the ass for sure. Personally I think it's a faulty thought process from the engineers, where they're convinced automation is always superior to human input. While that is true in normal situations, where a humans attention may wander and automation always keeps "focused", the opposite becomes true when the situation goes abnormal. A skilled pilot can make a normally unlikely decision that will save the plane based on his experience, where the automation can only "decide" between set options, that may or may not solve the problem. But here there's another problem in play: the way data is being shown by the automation to the pilots. Sometimes it isn't exactly clear what the problem is or why the automation decided to take action or switch itself off, as the screens don't seem to take the way humans process data into account. In a reaction to a previous video I wondered why airplane manufacturers don't use changing colours on the displays more to draw attention from the pilots.
@@karlchilders5420 That’s exactly when things started to change at Boeing. They bought McDonnell Douglas, but it was McD people that took over the company. There haven’t been any Boeing people at the top for some time.
pilot friend of mine has told me that the pilots he worked with had a saying about crashes: If it was a Boeing plane, it would be ruled pilot error, and then Boeing would fix the hardware. If it was an Airbus plane, it would be ruled pilot error, and then Airbus would fix the software.
i once flew the same route in an old 747-400 and it was caugth by a really bad storm . The plane just moved as if it was a cardboard box , but we landed safely at our destination and all the passengers applauded . i guess that was a good plane and a better pilot .
I once flew on an A380 in exact same conditions - we landed safely as well. No, the 747 is not a better plane. Neither is the A380. It's just bad luck combines with poorly trained pilots. It's just winning the lottery - just with a negative sign.
Good luck man - we’ve dumbed down training we’ve dumbed down airline flying there are very few positions today in aviation that require you to actually fly the airplane and do real pilot shit. The fact that we’ve got pilots flying who have never been in a spin only theoretically talked about recovery or pilots that have never actually VMC’d a twin in training. We’ve gone full participation trophy in pilot training.
@@1Gaumer also pilot certification is just a matter of money not skill. Pilot requirements select for those who can afford the job not for those who are best at the job. Otherwise airlines would be recruiting video game players. This is one of the areas the military is ahead of civilians, if you can't cut it in the simulator they don't even let you try. Conversely you can keep working on your pilot's license until you run out of money. If Tesla can use Dojo, to abstract from self-driving to an Android, then full self-flying autopilot is elementary. And that's really exciting to me, then anyone can be a pilot. Use the computer to expand and narrow the envelope intelligently. So for an extra $20, your flying taxi commute, can become a joyride. Even set up flying taxis in the desert, to host aeronautic e-sports, using VR goggles in the VTOL as a "simulator". Esports companies wouldn't even need to own their own aircraft, land, airport, infrastructure, or anything. Simply rent the taxis, hire some caterers, etc. Heck, if you get bored of your normal commute you can slap on a pair of VR goggles and go shoot the Grand canyon for a lark.
@@jtjames79: In 1981, in Apple Valley, CA, I could have got a single engine pilots license for….Wait for it!? $650.00! In 1981, I didn’t have $650.00. These guys now/and gals, are paying upwards of $65,000.00!! But they STILL can’t pilot a plane? Call me crazy, but the schools and instructors are as much to blame as anyone!
@@TERoss-jk9ny that's a very good point. I also blame the FAA. I complained for more than a decade that the FAA did not have the jurisdiction to deny profiting from drone use. I said back in the very beginning when they first issued the "no profit" directive, that it would have stand until somebody could afford to take them to court. That somebody was The Wolf of Wall Street production. The FAA got destroyed in court. But by that time the drone industry had moved entirely out of the United States where it began in inventors garages. The FAA did this to protect the aerial photography market. Since people were paying so much more for a license, like a diploma it was treated as an investment. Without an aerial photography monopoly, flight schools felt they were in danger of losing profits. Everything touching or connected to aviation is at least 20 years behind modern technology. That's why SpaceX is dominating, they aren't burdened with institutional momentum, and are not motivated by regulatory capture. They actually focus on doing the job. I can't wait to make a lot of money investing in technology companies that also just happened to do aviation.
If you really believe that his postings are without bias then you must be vey stupid indeed. All the postings by Maximus are very technically incorrect and are all designed to generate income for himself via the tedious rubbish product adverts in the overlong intros.
@@georgeclarke163 up you go! Back to the Facebook keyboard hero sewers with you, meanwhile on your way there, step on legos and sit on a cactus💩👏 Maximus has humor and brings the facts, as far as internet/any legit source will let him. I said legit.
Aviate, Navigate, Communicate, that takes a conscious, breathing, experienced pilot, at least in my book.😳 I'll never fly without one. Call me old fashioned...I'm just funny that way.‼️😊 Thanks for this one Maximus. Well done.👍💜
And that is the real cause of this accident. Unfortunately (for him), it’s not the grandpa-thinks-robots-are-out-to-get-him “argument” this video attempts to make. You blame a driver who blows through a stop sign they’re looking straight at, and don’t blame the malfunctioning speedometer or the steering wheel being different in the exact same way you don’t blame the airplane when the pilot fails (and actually fights against the plane trying to) decrease angle of attack when the gd stall alarm (and very noticeable buffeting) is happening for a quarter of an hour The fact is if this plane’s auto pilot could have overruled the SIC’s insane minutes-long rearward stick input, the plane, and everyone in it, would have survived until the problem (the idiot pulling the stick back continuously) could be replaced or removed.
Maximus: "May be if you can prove the pilot is the weakest link in the aviation safety chain ...". As matter of fact, we know this. This was demonstrated in a very similar situation earlier in 2022 onboard AF11 (yes, Air France again) on a Boeing 777-300. The Boeing has the yoke controls that Sully, in my opinion wrongly overpraised. On final, during a go-around, in a very stressful situation, one pilot pulled up, while the other pushed down. Even the controls are connected, neither of the pilots recognized what the other pilot was doing. This firstly speaks very strongly against the argument Sully is making that the connected yokes on the Boeing make it easier to understand what the other pilot is doing. Most importantly, this demonstrates that pilots are indeed the weakest link - as in very stressful situation, they will have tunnel vision and ignore any outside clues, no matter if this is a blinking light on the cockpit panel, an oral warning or a yoke that is physically fighting you back. This is just a limitation in humans. BTW: AF11 were lucky and did not crash, but the accident was reported as loss of control and categorized as severe occurrence.
Maximus - the report on page 174 states: "It would also seem unlikely that the PNF could have determined the PF’s flight path stabilisation targets. *It is worth noting that the inputs applied to a sidestick by one pilot cannot be observed easily by the other one..."* Not explicitly stated as a contributing factor, but why mention it in the report if it was not significant to the crash?
Sorry Maximus buddy but I think you’ve over simplified this one and focused on one small area that’s always been good BvsA click bait for the comments section. There is SO much more to this accident that was critical and has needed to be addressed. Like… Startle effect Pitot tube certification (on all manufacturers) High altitude ice crystals / super cooled water in CBs Upset recovery training (UPRT) Threat and Error Management (High risk risk crossing of an active ITCZ vs who is on the flight deck, not grabbing the premium rest period) Window of Circadian Low pilot performance Stall recovery especially with underslung/airline type aircraft Unreliable Airspeed Drills ( I.e 85%N1 and about 2.5 degrees and ride it out) Future introductions of new items such as the Back Up Speed Scale (BUSS) I.e. AoA driven flight with no airspeed inputs and GPS altitude (At medium alts and below). Would it have helped if the PM knew that the PF had back stick….possibly/probably. The more senior F/O (PM) could have used the time to review and assess, call the issue, and then used the SIDESTICK TAKE OVER button! Minor point but it’s pretty easy to drop the Airbus into Alternate Law. I.e. The laws turn into stabilities which can be overridden. If you drop the gear you even get a trim wheel as an added bonus! Any Airbus pilot worth his salt know how to do this. Get your FAC’s straight for those A320 drivers ;-) (pun intended) P.s. yes...it’s an a A330, but there are ways to do it there too. Anyway…despite the points , thanks for a great channel and evening up the recent content ;-) -- Reply to Thomas below as I can’t post a reply ….turning the FAC’s off is one of method to remove flight control protections. As it is an abnormal event, you will lose other items, the rudder travel limiter would be one. It is a valid method to achieve this but obviously has to be used with caution. As you are in alternate law, you will only see Vsw (stall Warner) and VLS. Turning off two ADR’s is the method that was recommended for OEB 48/49. It has its own limitations and Airbus advise that this method is applied to the OEB scenario only (see the Safety First article). The ADR method will also put you in alternate law (protection lost) and you will lose Valphaprot and Valphamax. safetyfirst.airbus.com/app/themes/mh_newsdesk/pdf/safety_first_28.pdf The added difficulty with the ADR method is that you could lose both PFD indications of airspeed especially if you turn 1+2 off (until you switch to 3 on one side).That could have other unintended consequences for recovery by the flight crew. There is anecdotal advice to turn 1+2 off as you use the ADR switching to transfer airspeed etc to the flying pilot especially when transferring control when briefing and preparing for the approach with no autopilot etc. The point was meant to counter the video statement that the pilots have no ability to override the flight controls. Both methods allow you do that, and align the control to more of a conventional aircraft (B777 FBW etc).
As far as I’m aware you don’t turn the FAC’s off (this may have been old procedure) but turn off 2x ADR’s. That way you keep the VLS V-Alpha Port and V-Alpha Max lines, turning off the FAC’s makes you loose these and I believe rudder turn co-ordination and damper as well
THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED. It was a contributing factor to the confusion, but go LOOK what happened in the report. They flew into a HUGE, well developed thunderstorm system in the ITCZ. They encountered icing at altitude, exceeded their max ceiling for their weight/configuration, and entered a fully developed deep stall. THAT is the problem; the Airbus FBW control system had no way to understand or help pilots get out of that condition. Given their weight and speed, they had less than a minute to get out of that condition in the first place *once they entered the thunderstorm*. After that, system failure, icing, the FBW automation failing to help them with information, etc. The Capt not having his radar tuned properly to help HIM have the proper SA before he left the cockpit was another factor. The control inputs "cancelling" each other, that's little more than a red herring, because the plane wasn't flying; it was in a deep stall rendering those control inputs INVALID anyway. All this other shit about pilot skill, etc. IS HORSE SHIT. The side sticks being connected would NOT have saved them because the jet would not have been ABLE to respond to the control inputs since it was not aerodynamically possible!!!! The thing that got them killed was the decision to fly into, instead of around, the fully developed, severe, and almost 100mi long tropical system. Avoiding that would've prevented the accident chain.
I am right with you in that the storm was one of the contributory causes of the accident but the aircraft systems (what you cal 'FBW'), having detected icing on the sensors, reacted exactly as they should have by switching out the Autopilot and moving into 'Direct Law'. The pilots had total control and sufficient data in front of them and from visual and audible warnings to maintain safe and level flight. However the junior pilot took control and panicked. Quite why the senior pilot did not simply take over control (via the red button on the sidestick) we will never know but THAT was the cause of the crash.
@@1chish they didn't have total control, that is precisely the issue. They were in a deep stall and the elevators and rudder had zero control authority. The airbus doesn't have any deep stall detection or other upset condition detection and mitigation techniques. To this day the same deep stall can kill everyone on board.
@@karlchilders5420 Whoaaaa ... back that truck up right there mate! They DID have full control but they failed to read their instruments correctly and the junior pilot froze on the sidestick in the fully climb position. This would have been displayed in front of the other pilot as well as the pilot in command but neither took any corrective action (until the Captain arrived). Where on earth do you get the idea that: "the elevators and rudder had zero control authority" That is completely untrue. Indeed under 'Direct Law' whatever the pilot inputs is replicated on control surfaces. In fact the position of those surfaces is displayed on the instrument panel. Every damn one. So again the other pilot could have seen what was happening. Why are you peddling these untruths? Not sure what reference you are making by 'deep stall' but the stall warnings were going off all the time and all the junior pilot did was keep the sidestick in full climb position. The aircraft was doing EXACTLY as that pilot was commanding. And of course Airbus aircraft have Stall Warning Systems! Listen to the soundtrack that was released and you can hear it. As for the rest of your comment that is just plain wrong. And your inference Airbus aircraft can crash and kill everyone 'to this day' is just utter scaremongering crap. All you have said is disproved in this video: th-cam.com/video/jM3CwBYX-ms/w-d-xo.html
@@1chish I'm not backing anything up there "mate". Go read the report. Then, understand how Airbus FBW works. Then, understand how a deep stall works, in that it renders elevator and rudder inputs INEFFECTIVE. Bonin didn't make the aircraft climb at first. The video is good at jumbling a few facts incorrectly. When the autopilot was disconnected, the aircraft at that time began a climb. Understand that the tubes and vanes were FROZEN so instrumentation wasn't working correctly. A lightly loaded Airbus with min fuel and no passengers can't climb at 7000+ FPM at FL350 and up. It's just not possible. Also, they didn't have all instruments reporting the data provided to them via the sensors. Once the aircraft climbed to over FL400, it was at a point where it was high, slow, and encountering pretty consistent and moderate turbulence. That is where the deep stall formed, and THAT is why no matter what Bonin, the Captain, or god himself did, those flight controls were not going to produce any effect. They couldn't, they were not able to because the rudder and elevators were blanked out . That's why deep stalls are super problematic. The only way to get out, would've been to continue the right roll they were in, and that would've had to be done very early on. Those crew members had bad information presented to them, poor situational awareness of the aerodynamic stall they were in, and imperfect reactions. We sit here, well after the event, and we say "well, it was THIS and THAT" because we have time and are in the comfort of our homes. Bonins' actions cause confusion, but he didn't kill everyone with those control inputs. As I said, it was a clear accident chain, and the best action that could've been taken was to fly around the system or even better delay on the decision to take off until the storm system had moved or deetiolated to the point it wasn't as intense. They penetrated that storm, and it was all downhill from there.
@@karlchilders5420 Well I got as far as you lecturing me to "Go read the report" and realised you have a closed mind and are just intent of peddling a string of falsehoods. Like: "They couldn't, they were not able to because the rudder and elevators were blanked out" Complete and utter bullshit. As the BEA report stated and as I know because I HAVE read that report. I will not be wasting my time any further with you. You clearly failed to read my reply let alone watch that video. Just a friendly tip: Never make any assumptions about people who are commenting on YT. They may just know more than you realise and likely more than you do. 'Mate'.
With respect to Sully I don’t think blaming a feature on the A330 is valid - a contributory factor? Maybe. This was caused by lack of basic airmanship like you learn on a Cessna 152. Everyone knows how safe the Airbus, Boeing, Embarer family are. It was the people piloting who were the root cause. Too much trust in the technology? This is a good argument against single pilot operations with low flight hours in a slightly challenging situation. The sad thing is, if they’d just not touched any controls on the plane, they’d all be at home now.
If I remember the full interview well he spoke extensively about airmanship. This video has a very short snippet specifically capturing his explanation on Airbus and Boeing designs.
@@patrickflohe7427 Also Airmanship is critical to that crash but the cockpit design was a contributing factor that either pilot could see that the yoke was being pulled back instead of pushed forward they would have solved the flight issues much earlier.
It's always terrified me that each pilot is unable to see or feel what the other pilot does. Then there's the fact that you have to go from right hand to left hand when you step up to Captain ffs. Then there's the 50-50 averaging with woefully little warning. Bonin just did what Airbus implicitly teaches pilots to do in the plane that creating the "pay to fly" concept - tug back on the 'up' button and hope the avionics save you. Absolutely terrifying design, and I've NEVER understood how planes can be certified when they literally HIDE each pilots' inputs from each other. Madness.
When I was in engineering school back in the 90s we used to make fun of people who designed systems where the computer knew better than the human operator. These jokes always involved a HAL voice. Every plane needs to have a "God mode" button that shuts off all the automation and lets the pilot hand fly the plane in an emergency. Far too many crashes happen because it takes 3 minutes to diagnose what's going on with the complex flight systems and the ground is 2 minutes away.
You do know that the aircraft handed control just as you describe by shutting down the Autopilot and switching into 'Direct Law' giving total control to the pilots? The aircraft after that switch did exactly as the pilots instructed. Sadly they were making very wrong decisions, or rather none at all, and created a fatal crash out of a small issue.
@@1chish But did the pilots realize they had been handed over full control? This accident may not be the best example for my point but a God mode switch still would have been helpful. The cluelessness of the 2nd officer would be pretty hard to overcome but having him explicitly know that he is in full control of the plane and capable of stalling it might have made a difference. We'll never know.
@@danielschein6845 'Direct Law' is the very 'God Mode switch' you demand. Yes pilots are made aware of the switch but if, like these two, they are not actually reading accurately what is very clearly being shown (and heard) then as you say you cannot overcome cluelessness. This may help you: th-cam.com/video/TPygaI891C8/w-d-xo.html
My go to joke about automation has been this: th-cam.com/video/-kHa3WNerjU/w-d-xo.html That was, until I watched other videos about this crash of AF296. There was enough things wrong with the flight from a human factors perspective before you get to the automation's dubious contributions to the accident.
@@rpsmith2990 What "automation's dubious contributions to the accident"? The official report from BEA concluded that the probable cause of the accident was a combination of the following: * Very low flyover height, lower than surrounding obstacles; * Speed very slow and reducing to reach maximum possible angle of attack; * Engines speed at flight idle; and * Late application of go-around power. The total cause of this accident was pilot error.
Just curious, if Capt Dubois had managed to save the flight after taking over control, will First Off Bonin be fired from his job and disqualified from flying or will he just be fired or sent for perhaps some sort of retraining?
It’s not at all clear if having a connection between the side sticks would have made a difference here. By the time FO Robert said he was taking over, the aircraft was already in a stalled condition. The proper reaction to a stall would be to push the nose down and gain airspeed. Robert never did this either. Nor did he increase thrust. He made a few slight nose down inputs, but even without FO Bonin’s inputs they would have been nowhere near enough to recover. Unfortunately the flight recorders can’t tell us what the men were thinking and the things they said aloud are a bit confusing. Neither seemed to have figured out that they were stalling. They certainly never took the actions that they would have known very well to take in order to recover from a stall. It couldn’t have helped that the plane was in such an abnormal situation that the stall warning was basically working backwards, blaring at them when they started to nose down and stopping when they nosed back up. Maximus incorrectly characterizes FO Bonin’s reaction. He did not immediately pull hard back and hold it there. The nose up inputs that caused the stall were gradual while he was trying to recover from roll oscillations. The pitch up was not extreme. Only later in the sequence of events, after they had thoroughly lost control did the inputs get to full deflections in both pitch and roll from both pilots. The fact that the sticks were not connected was a small part of a complex incident. It boils down to this: When the autopilot kicked off and the control law degraded to alternate (not direct law as Maximus states) the pilot was required to fly the plane straight and level for about 30 seconds while the pitot tubes thawed out. He was unable to do that. The lack of an artificial feedback system may have played a part in that, but without proper airspeed indication a feedback system may not have been accurate anyway. The change in control law from what he was used to was probably disconcerting and made it difficult to get the roll oscillations under control, but they did not cause him to stall the aircraft. Bonin seems to have been convinced that they were in an overspeed condition and not a stall. Robert may have thought the same thing because he never initiated a stall recovery either.
Studying aerospace engineering it’s clear that most mistakes happen due to stress which is the case here, the automation in airbus helps alleviate stress for pilots. While it is true that some pilots do become complacent in flying planes as a result and rely too much on the systems in place I think it’s unfair to blame the systems which help pilots for pilots using them as an excuse to lower their standards, most competent pilots would have realised their situation much sooner or even avoided it
Actually, you'd have thought that Boeing would have learned from what happened to Lufthansa Flight 1829, where both angle of attack sensors froze in place, causing the system to believe the plane was in a stall, and push the nose down, which could not be corrected with full stick input. The difference between this and the MAX crashes was altitude. This aircraft was at FL310 when it happened. The result was Airworthiness Directives, alterations to the flight manuals, and similar ADs for the A330/340. The pilots had time to disconnect the Air Data Units. Good luck thinking of that right after takeoff. However, Boeing should have seen this coming...
@@rpsmith2990 you say both like there are only 2. There are 3 in the Airbus. The latest Airbus have an enhanced stall warning and detection system which no longer just assumes “if 2 are the same they must be correct”
I guess you’ve not heard of QF72 which had similar AOA sensor issues and the computer twice put the plane into a sharp nose dive. It was only saved by superior airmanship. It’s also not the airbus flight to have such issues.
@@spacemanmat not quite as heroic as made out. Firstly it wasn’t the AOA sensors that were the problem it was the ADIRU and the FCPC. Second the captain just pulled back on the sidestick to recover like any other pilot would. The plane only lost 650ft on the first dive. And no he did not let go of the controls and that caused the plane to start pitching up
When ILS rated pilots ignore the instruments. Even without feedback, the ball (attitude display) would have shown them nose up, as well as the change in altitude. It sounds like they didn't do the basics which are to Aviate, Navigate, and communicate. They ignored #1 and got distracted by chasing squirrels. :(
Two things. 1. I agree totally that if you move a stick, yoke, side stick force sensor, wiji board, whatever, then it should be reflected on both sides of the cockpit. After all, that is exactly the situation when you learn to fly in your C152, and every a/c up until you train on the Airbus systems. In effect you have, suddenly, to un-learn a bunch of feedback information and look for a small indicator light that tells you who is actually in command. Sure you can have procedures, calls, checklists, training, but nothing substitutes for direct feedback in a situation of sensory overload and alarms, contradictory information (too fast, too slow!) and systems confused by their faulty inputs leading to a plethora of hi tech crap (voice commands, sounds, flashing and changing screens) being thrown at you demanding contradictory responses and interfering with your ability to digest a complex situation. Yes, the design idea is great but does not integrate the most important flight management law of all. Murphy's law... "whatever can possibly go wrong will do so, and at the most inconvenient time, and with the greatest consequences." Unfortunately Airbus, an extraordinary engineering company, has not quite grasped this. In Australia this is folklore, derived from living in a remote and hostile environment that is capable of ruining your day at a moments notice. That is why, when QF 7 suffered a massive engine catastrophe, and was confronted with a situation that was not in the manual, that was not part of the training, that was not pre-programmed into either the "flight system laws" or the training of the Pilots flying that, in fact, the rules were thrown out and a return to the basics occurred. AVIATE, NAVIGATE, COMMUNICATE. True... there was an enormous amount of experience on board, by coincidence. But that came into play after the initial management and diagnosis occurred. "Capt... 'ok stop telling what's broken, tell me what works!"... after 240 odd ECAM messages, with attendant alarms.... Then followed by, (un-documented in the actions list), manual flight control handling tests to see what was possible... After that?... A ridiculously high speed approach at way over max landing weight, 12 tons heavier in one wing than the other, a completely un-documented and un-calculable aft CofG (did you know the A380 stored fuel in the tail?), no auto brake, half the spoilers, and no reverse thrust. Calcs "suggested" that they might stop before the end of the runway if the pilot managed to get it on the ground with about a 100 meter margin for error touch down point, and a maybe 2 knot margin for speed between stall, with loss of control, and over shoot. You know the outcome. No one hurt, big sigh of relief. Same thing with QF 70. (A330) Totally normal flight at cruise in clear CAVOK until a/c decided that it was stalling and over-speeding at the same time and pitched violently down. Minus 1.5 G... Passengers, crew, anything loose slammed into the ceiling, Several long seconds where the flight crew were unable to get any response at all from control inputs then suddenly pitch up command response and of course a 1.5 G recovery which brought everything loose including unrestrained pax rapidly back to the floor. After relying on the ECAM messages and restoring the a/c to "normal" auto pilot ops,... the a/c did it again... This time the crew disconected as much of the automatic "safety" control laws as possible, declared an emergency and flew to a remote airforce base in northern AU. (In AU remote means remote, 1000+ NM from major airport/city.) Result was no fatalities, but many injuries, including serious ones with lifelong concequences. (btw, if you happen to fly Qantas at some stage, you may find the Capt's cheery chat punctuated by a serious suggestion to keep your belt fastened when seated, no matter how smooth the air. This is why....) So what's the story here? Well... if it can go wrong, despite the best intentions of every designer, engineer, programmer, it one day will, and at the most inconvenient time. It's at that point that the Pilot Mk 1.1 will either earn his/her stripes, or not. So it is really a good idea that those pilots are more than just "systems operators", and instead, are capable and HAVE EXPERIENCED some "out of the expected" events that can occur in the 3D world of aviation. No, they don't have to go out and spin an A350 as training... But if they haven't spun a 152, 172, or equivalent, felt the world drop out from under their pants, rotating in the opposite direction to every control input they make, then they haven't learnt to fly. Personally I would stipulate a basic simple aerobatics endorsement as a requirement for a commercial pilots licence... Why? Because it focuses you on the basics. Airspeed. Attitude, then altitude. Our French crew on AF 447 had all of that information right in front of them. They had a lot of rubbish and distraction as well. But, in the absence of consistent, reliable data, particularly airspeed, which we are told to focus on blindly, (mostly for good reason) then there are other simple principles. If the power is set to X and I'm flying at an alt of about Y then my attitude should be Z degrees... roughly, to maintain roughly level flight. Super basic stuff... It applies from a Cessna to the Concorde.... We don't teach that stuff to Pilots, and instead let computers do that for us. Its a remarkable fact that the Air data system in AF 447 was effectively trying to do that mental arithmetic, but with faulty info, frozen pitot tubes. Computers... Garbage in... Garbage out. (BTW lets not even touch on the 737Max where greed completely over rode any sense of redundancy in data input and Pilots were deliberately left in the dark about the very existence of this "smart arse safety " software. Hell!, the Boeing test pilot crashed the simulator many times in response to in-appropriate actions of MCAS systems, and he knew about it!! Seriously? So this is not about Airbus vs Boeing, US vs Europe, all that noise. It is about ensuring that when Murphy's law suddenly enters your calm and self assured life, that your EXPERIENCE, way beyond training and manuals, AND the design of the a/c and its most basic interface, THE CONTROLS, give you as much familiar tactile information as possible, that you might be able to recognise what is going on, FLY the a/c, then deal with the systems, data, alarms, warnings, modes, lists, etc. ITS a PLANE!...Fly IT! If you don't then the rest of the tech systems etc won't matter for long...no matter who made them. The Dr. (When I learnt to fly there was no GPS. Where I learnt to fly there were few nav aids. Dead reckoning was SOP. Still had to make your ETA reporting points within 2mins, on HF, no radar, even on an 800nm flight over desert... nothing. 1:1,000,000 WAC charts and a grease pencil. Good discipline, and fun!
Congratulations for your informed videos! For this one though, I would like to dispute you conclusion that the airbus side stick system is suboptimal and a contributing factor to the crash. You can rest assured that the possibility of connecting the side sticks was taken into account at airbus. Keep in mind that when the A320 was unveiled it caused a lot of controversy in the pilot community, most people doing what most people do: they dismiss the things that they do not fully understand or label them as flawed/wrong. The side stick is a simple and elegant solution (compared to the controls of other aircraft) that removes so much failure points and complexity: it basically consists of a joystick with non-linear springs and sensors for 2 axis. It is significantly more simple than some computer joysticks that you can buy today. There are other examples as well of systems that could have been improved to prevent some accidents but were not implemented: like the airplane control using differential thrust (when all control surface authority is lost). It was proven possible, almost practical. And in the airbus architecture of the flight control system could be seemlesly integrated as an alternate law - you could control the engines with the side stick - very convenient and intuitive. BUT the software necessary to achieve this mode of control turned out to be so complex and complicate to develop, validate and test that it was never implemented, nor by airbus, not by anyone else. From someone that has flown the A320 and other mechanical control system airplanes: the airbus implementation of the fbw philosophy is superior to any mechanical control system (and probably superior to other fbw systems as well, since it was largely kept the same to the newer planes as it was initially designed on the A320). That being said, I can say that the ATR I'm flying today is much more fun to fly than the bus, but pilot enjoyment isn't usually a design consideration for the aircraft manufacturers...
“The FBW system cannot be deactivated by the pilots”. No and the planes FBW doesn’t ever turn off by itself otherwise they’d have no control at all. The pilots can force alternate law (just like the plane can switch to alternate law) themselves and then with gear down all controls input go directly to the control surfaces so it acts like an old Boeing. Loosing the protections doesn’t mean turning off the FBW. That can only be done by loss of 3x SEC’s and 2x ELAC’s 11:10 No it went into Alternate Law. Direct law would have meant manual trim inputs would need to be made. Did you read the report before making this video? Airbus haven’t added an AOA display but the closest thing is the BUSS which activates on older models when all 3x ADR are switched off (permanently display until on ground) and on newer at the push of a button and is reversible “If the sidesticks were connected this accident would never have happened” Can you prove that? If the sidesticks were connected you have to fight the other pilot for control. You never once mentioned the priority takeover push button switch that Robert should have used but never did. When used it takes control away from other pilot so no need to wrestle them using possibly your weaker hand for control. And if your theory was correct then the Atlas Air 3591 accident should never have happened because the captain would have instantly reacted to the FO’s sudden nose down input…but he didn’t
In fact, in Atlas Air 3591, the captain did react to the FO's nose-down, and 'split' the elevators - but too late (and ineffectively because the FO was still holding full nose-down so they cancelled each other out). If the columns hadn't been 'splittable' then it would just have come down to a trial of strength.
The fact of the matter is that it has happened on a Boeing - at least twice. In the case of Birgenair 301 which you covered recently (a B757), the Captain was pulling up into the stall, with one of the FOs calling out "ADI" throughout the descent, the other FO having the connected yoke in his lap, and yet the FO was not able to put it together and take control from the Captain before the aircraft crashed. The other accident occured in 1974 to Northwest Orient flight 6231, a positioning flight being flown by a B727 - in very similar circumstances to AF447, the pitot probes iced over and the crew misdiagnosed the stick shaker (indicating a stall) as mach buffet (indicating overspeed), just as FO Bonin did on AF447. Again, the pilot flying pulled up into the stall and the pilot monitoring, despite having the connected yoke practically in his lap, was unable to diagnose the problem before the aircraft crashed near Stony Point, NY.
Still, it's hard to see how the designers could have anticipated that their aircraft would be operated by a pilot with so little understanding of basic piloting.
Simple! with lots of automation and simplification, people forget how they took everything for granted. Just like Google Map engineers, they still don't understand why some idiot drove their car into sea.
I think it has more to do with people panicking in a critical situation. This has happened so many times in aviation, where they didn’t just concentrate on flying the aircraft, rather than reacting immediately. This is where the saying developed: First, fly the aircraft. Panicking and overreacting will kill you.
It wasn't designed to be so flown. What the designers had not anticipated was that a pilot would panic (about falling from the sky) and pull the nose hard up when anti-stall had been disabled due to invalid input data (no air speed). Further they did appreciate that the pilots could put in conflicting inputs - there was a small warning on the display - but didn't appreciate how disastrous and confusing it could be in a stressful situation when the pilots were busy with an unexpected autopilot disconnect when there would be messages of more importance to deal with which would overload the small warning about input conflict and cause it to be overlooked. Having some feedback on the sidestick (such a joystick exists for gamers and their PCs) would give a more obvious warning to the pilots when they're looking at all the messages and displays; eg increase the pressure required to move the joystick, or cause it to vibrate (for both pilots) if both joysticks are moved from the neutral position, especially if the direction of movement is in opposite directions.
Is there any advantage of the side-stick system compared with a conventional yoke? I'm sure it is cheaper to install and maintain but that might not be a good trade-off. The "linked side-stick" system of Gulfstream doesn't offer all the advantages of a yoke based on what the video said. If nothing else, the yoke provides a convenient place to mount a tablet of supplmental instructment panel. Based on my limited time piloting a plane, taking one hand off of the yoke to do something else does not normally pose any undue risks.
I don't recall the details, but an American plane did jut the opposite. While the Captain was distracted the First Officer pointed the plane straight at the ground, not believing the instruments, thinking he was nose up and stalling. Many, if not most, crashes are due to mind blowing pilot errors.
This accident actually made me think about a similar accident involving a Boeing aircraft, that being Asiana Flight 214 in 2013. Just like the case of Air France 447, Asiana 214, a Boeing 777-200ER, suffered a stall due to pilot error and inadvertent disabling of the fly-by-wire system (the 777 was Boeing's first fly-by-wire airliner). Also like AF 447, the crew of Asiana 214 did not notice that their airspeed dropped, and both were suffering from fatigue. (The Captain of AF 447 Captain Dubois, said he only slept for 1 hour) I don't think Airbus, Boeing, or any aerospace company for that matter, are responsible for these types of accidents, but rather the airlines. I believe airlines are intentionally providing their pilots with less training in the belief that, firstly, it will save money, and secondly, but most importantly, that the automation will make up the difference, which is simply not the case. You can't blame just Airbus or just Boeing for an event that happens to both of them and their aircraft. Besides, Airbus and Boeing are merely companies and brand names. It's the people BEHIND those companies who made those decisions who should be getting the blame. I find it frustrating that you blame either Airbus or Boeing as entire companies, because I see that as the equivalent of locking an entire family in jail when just ONE person in said family committed a crime.
@@cigmorfil4101 Apparently they weren’t very WELL qualified, as they couldn’t “figure out what was happening”, and the idiot in the left seat was pulling back on the stick the whole time. One of the very FIRST things you learn in pilot training is to PUSH the stick to get out of a stall!
@@kencarp57 So glad you read the BEA report... *NOT* (unless you know something the investigators don't?) How do I know? Pages 24-29 describe the qualifications and experience of each of the three pilots. And page 21 specifically states: "...the PF *(seated on the right)..."* It was the panicking pilot in the *RIGHT* seat, not the left seat that pulled back on the side stick. There are plenty more references in the analysis between pages 167 and 195 to which pilot was the PF and keeping the nose up.
Even not being a pilot when I first read this story I couldn’t believe that anyone that has a pilots license would just pull back on the stick especially with a stall warning sounding over 50 times and not know how to recover the aircraft. It really just blows my mind. If I know the proper procedure to recover from a stall, how the hell does a” pilot” not know. The other thing that’s really sad to me is, even when the Pedo tube froze, the airplane was flying. You should’ve done nothing other than continue to fly the airplane. Aviate, navigate, communicate. Isn’t this like pilot training 101? The whole thing is really just sad and frustrating.
Therr is a leap of logic in the argument. The argument is that if thd senior pilot in the cockpit would se what the junior did, he would be taken over. The problem with this argument is that the horizon was still working, and the plane was working. The horizon was clearly showing that the aircraft was climbing. So the aircraft was doing exactly what it was told to do. The senior pilot did see that. So why didnt he do anything. Well the over speed larm was going of. When both the over speed and stall warning go of the order of operation is simple. Get the plane in a shallow acend and give high throttle input. This will eventually get the aircraft to a neutral speed.
I don't know much about aviation, however, I do know that when a commercial/professional pilot gets caught out by a malfunctioning Pitot tube - this should be regarded as a schoolboy error - and nothing to do with FBW.
The problem is that Air France wants to FULLY train their pilots. Therefore, they won`t hire former military pilots. New pilots are hired with NO flying experience and are taught what they need to know. This results in a lot of on the job training. The second first officer was VERY inexperienced and clearly did not fully understand how to fly. So yes, it was a schoolboy error, but that is what he was. The other first officer should been the one to initially take control of the aircraft since he was more experienced. For comparison, it is not unusual for a first officer for a major US airline to have more flight hours then a captain at many international airlines. The design of the Airbus FBW can certainly be blamed for not adequately alerting to fact that opposite inputs are being applied. It is my understanding that the more experienced first officer did eventually apply proper controls (nose down to break the stall), but the less experienced first officer continued to apply full nose up. This resulted in a neutral input, but the nose was already way up, so it stayed up (and in a full stall). Automation is a double edge sword, it can help when everything is working correctly. However, it does erode your skills, so when the automation fails your skills may not be up to the task. For those without real skill, it becomes even hard to gain those skills.
@@fourtoes412 Your right experience is experience, regardless of where it was gained. My comment on AF not hiring military pilots was about AF wanting to train pilots their own way rather then taking the highly experienced pilots.
The pitot tube issue that Airbus was having was not addressed quickly enough. This contributed to the fact that the two joysticks are not electronically slave to each other. So when the co-pilot locked up mentally with the stick all the way back no one could see what he was doing, that is until the captain actually looked at his hand on the side controller and was screaming what are you doing. I think this is a major safety flaw in the design of the aircraft.
What would have been nice is if you looked into what Airbus did change. You mentioned the new pitot tubes but no mention of the BUSS which was available around the time of the accident. In fact the newest A320/A330 have synthetic airspeed like the A350
I have never flown an aircraft but even I know that you don't handle a stall by pulling the nose up. The artificial horizon would have made it clear that the plane was in a nose up attitude. They were being told that the aircraft was stalling (the stall warning) and they had 35,000 feet of altitude to handle it in. The controls clearly didn't help but these two were, sadly, just not competent.
SORRY MAXIMUS ABOUT BIRGENAIR FLIGHT 301 IT AS Boeing 757 PITOT TUBES WAS BLOCK During takeoff the captain found that his airspeed indicator (ASI) was malfunctioning but he chose not to abort the takeoff The autopilot, which was taking its airspeed information from the same equipment that was providing faulty readings to the captain's because autopilot use one pitot tube
This brought back a lot of memories from recurrent training as airlines changed their training to address the inappropriate reactions of the AF pilots. One factor that Maximus doesn’t address is the nature of the stall warning and how it seems to have confused the pilots. I pulled this from one report on the incident : “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." I have since switched over to Boeing duties, and I can’t remember if Airbus did anything to address this design issue.
While what you say is truth, the reason for that was not an incorrect stall warning design, but a consequence of how the aircraft measures air pressure and determines if a stall situation is going on... while they were falling from the sky at great speed, air was not entering the pitot tubes while the nose was up, thus the plane could not resolve it was stalling, while when the nose went down, air would be able to enter the pilot tubes, thus causing the stall warning to sound again...
@@raulko4898 Well, if I were to be consulted by the engineers, there would never be a point in the stall sequence where increasing the AOA deeper into the stall caused the warning to go away. Yes, there is point where the airflow through the pitot tubes might be unregistered, but that is hardly cause for the stall warning to cease. The real need is exactly the opposite.
This story reminds me of the James Bond verbal exchange to verify identity when he meets another unknown friendly agent in ‘From Russia With Love.’ Agent 1 says: “May I borrow a match?” Agent 2: “I use a lighter.” Agent 1: “better still.” Agent 2: “Until they go wrong.” Conclusion - the technology is great until it goes wrong. So wise smokers in those days always carried a book of matches in case the lighter failed. But make sure those matches stay dry. Parallel- the technology is great but keep 2 pilots in you pocket for when the technology fails (and it will). Oh, and make sure they are properly trained and not worthless wet matches!
Airbus are truly magnificent aircrafts…but the small side hold does not provide the proper haptic feedback like a yolk does…regardless of sim stall experience, the mini joystick is the achilles heel in these magnificent jets…normal flying no problem…but when the going gets real rough, that haptic feel gives you so much more control
Look into the Air France training before and after this accident. It's very revealing. Air France wasn't training its pilot as much as it should have and left inexperienced pilots on the part of the flight traveling through known tropical storms on the route. A well-trained and experienced pilot was needed during that part of the flight. Also, newer fly-by-wire systems now mimic user's input. Yes, not on all airplanes yet. But to your point, I know many pilots in the private and commercial industries who are walking away in disgust because companies and insurances only want them to monitor flight characteristics - push buttons and don't fly. That's why I feel relieved seeing a gray-haired captain when I board any flight.
Haven't watched this video, but all the other material I've seen disagrees. All the other material comes to the conclusion that the cause was pilots who couldn't do what every PPL has to be tested on regularly - if you're stalled, shove the bloody nose down.
Hi Maximus. I hope you and your family are well. I am an airline Captain for a Legacy US Airline. I have flown both Boeing and Airbus equipment, as well as Gulfstream jets during my furloughes from my airline. I have 10 type ratings, and over +20,000 hours of flight time. With that being said, I appreciate your channel/videos. One thing I appreciate about your channel/videos is your accuracy. The mainstream media, both print and video, rarely get any story right when it comes to Aviation. Accuracy is critical in our industry, as many lives are at stake. To that end, you are inaccurate about Fly-By-Wire flight controls, side-stick controls, yoke controls, and what is known as Envelope Protection. They are ALL separate systems, and operate as such. Think of them as Lego blocks that you can use/interchange, when designing an airplane. Your assertion that Fly-By-Wire won’t let you do something stupid, at minute 8 in your video, is understandably wrong. It’s a common misconception. Let’s start from the beginning. The conventional control wheel that most airplanes use (including Boeing, and Gulfstream until recently) Always moves, and Always moves in unison! This means I can see and feel what control inputs the other pilot is making (including the autopilot) at ALL times! I can literally put my left hand on the control wheel, look away, and still know what control inputs are being made. This means I’m always in the loop in regards to control inputs, with this type of control. This also applies to the Gulfstream’s new Active side stick control, as they designed/engineered their side sticks to move in unison, just like the conventional control wheel. Simply brilliant. Say the Flight Attendant comes up for a meal service/lavatory break. In both these airplanes, I can rest my left hand on the control, and while looking away from the flight instruments to communicate with her/him, I know what control inputs are being made by the other pilot/auto flight system. I’m in the loop, and my situational awareness is maintained. With the Airbus side stick, none of this applies. Their side sticks do not move in unison. As for Seeing what the other pilot is doing with an Airbus side stick, it’s almost impossible. First, his/her control stick is cross cockpit, and physically difficult to see. Especially in a dark cockpit. Air France 447 went down at night. Second, you fly a side stick with small finger movements, that are barely perceptible. Very different from a conventional control wheel, where your entire hand is holding the control, and can be perceived easily. It’s right in front of you. Now, to Fly-By-Wire. This system simply takes over the control cables once used on control systems. THATS IT! Nothing more! The are cheaper, lighter, and more accurate than the old conventional control cable. You move the control column/side stick, the Fly-By-Wire system tells the controls to move. That’s it. That simple. Now comes the Envelope Protection System, and the confusion that is so commonly made. This system, if installed (again, think Lego blocks), takes the inputs the pilot is making, and determines if those inputs will then be allowed. So in an Airbus, under Normal Law, you can pull back all the way on the side stick, and this system will only allow you to go to a predetermined (by the engineers) pitch/angle of attack. Then it will disregard the pilots continued input, and stop the control deflection. As the monitoring pilot, I cannot feel or see this interruption by the computer (Envelope Protection System). It prevents the pilot from exceeding a predetermined limit that has been programmed by the engineers. Some of these systems can be programmed with “Hard Envelope Protection”, it will never let a pilot do……. While others are programmed with “Soft Envelope Protection”, it will allow this, but not that…. Now lets put this all together. Can an airplane have Fly-By-Wire with No Envelope Protection? Most definitely YES! Can an air airplane have conventional control cables (no Fly-By-Wire) and have Envelope Protection? YES. Can an airplane have side stick Fly-By-Wire controls with/without Envelope Protection? Of course, whatever the manufacturer/engineers have decided to program. They can configure the systems to whatever they deem best for their airplane. So some examples: Boeing Max aircraft have conventional control columns, that move conventional control cables, but the speed brake/spoilers are fly by wire. They chose a combination. Does it have Envelope Protection? Not to the extent that the computer will allow/deny your control inputs. But if the airplane does get too slow, the leading edge devices will deploy automatically in an attempt to delay a stall. The Airbus I flew had side stick controls that didn’t move in unison. They sent inputs via Fly-By-Wire to a computer with Envelope Protection, which then sent a signal to the flight controls. That system had Hard Envelope protection, allowing the pilot to do some things, but never do others, ie.: stall the plane, overspend, etc. The Gulfstream 700 has Active Side Sticks. Brilliant! Does it have Fly-By-Wire? Envelope Protection? I don’t know, as I haven’t gone to school on it, or flown it. But boy I’d sure like to!!! You Gulfstream 700 Pilots can enlighten me, please. As said above, the Airbus fleet that I flew used a side stick that did not move in unison with the other side stick. I could not feel any movement on my side stick for what the autopilot/other pilot was doing. My reference was almost all visual, via the flight instruments, with a very limited audible notifications (autopilot disconnect, stall - although limited, and over speed). This side stick then sent electronic signals through the Fly-By-Wire system to the computer, where the Envelope Protection System, that determines if the control commands asked for by the pilot will be allowed/disallowed to transmit to the actual flight controls, and to what extent. That’s where the difference is. They are all separate systems. To make matters worse, on the Airbus I flew, the audible stall notification would cease alerting below a certain speed, even though you were in fact stalled? This may have been reprogrammed since I flew the plane. I couldn’t tell you, but I definitely saw it as the threat it is! If you look carefully at the report on Air France 447, the speed they slowed to was incredible. Could this have been a player? I leave that to “experts”. Could the point that the pilot monitoring didn’t know what control inputs the flying pilot was making be relevant? Again, I’ll leave that to the “experts”. Monday morning quarterbacking is something many will do. It’s our job to be completely accurate, which I’m sure I wasn’t in this writing. I meant no harm, just as I’m sure your inaccuracies weren’t meant to be, but accuracy should always be the path towards understanding. With accurate data, and clear eyed understanding, we can continually improve, and Aviation Safety will continue moving in the right direction. Now about that Max I fly…….
Every time a pilot screws up and causes a crash, people howl about pilotless aircraft. But those people never hear about the many many times pilots do something simple and not only stop an emergency but avoid one altogether. You. Never. Know. Automation is only as good as its sensors and sensors are far from faultless. They work fine when everything goes as expected. But when things get a little sideways, current automation doesn’t have a clue and just throws its electronic hands up and quits. Automation can improve safety, reduce workload, and save money but it is not ready for autonomy. Not even close.
It’s not about the cost saving by installing coordinated side sticks… it’s like looking to Airbus to share the blame for this pilot inexperience. Pilots are well aware that their side sticks are working independently. So rightfully the investigation revealed that it’s all about TRAINING… But then again… how many other clues do you need when the alarm of a stall goes off 72 times…. 🤦🏻♂️ This young pilot was in panic mode… it’s truly unfortunate. Luckily those shortcomings were rectified and implemented by Airbus (pitot tubes, better display info recommended) and above ALL by the airlines (pilot training). They caused that particular crash by flying into the storm…. I hate to make this comparison but in this case you are suggesting that maybe this was somehow Airbus fault when it’s clearly pilot error while Boeing was trying to blame their Max crashes on pilot error when it was clearly the MCAS… just saying 😉
@Remi Gio: How can you blame Boeing & not Airbus when all these crashes were caused by automation failures which poorly trained crews were unable to handle?
@@bobvicki because in AF447 case failure of automation didn’t lead to the crash. The pilot caused the plane to stall and the pilot should be trained to fly manually if they needed to. In the case of MCAS the failure of automation was due to lack of redundancy in a system designed by Boeing
@@tomstravels520 Same situation with the MAX. A properly trained crew should have disabled MCAS in 10 seconds or less by using established "runaway trim" procedure. Boeing relied on a properly trained crew as backup. Plus, Lion Air caused the initial problem by their faulty installation of the AOA vane without the required orientation check. We may never know the root cause of the Ethiopian AOA failure because they have hidden the maintenance records of the aircraft & never published a final report on the cause, but that crew responded in a similarly untrained way.
@@bobvicki the crew of ET responded correctly by turning off the stab trim but had to turn it back on as they couldn’t manually trim. The intital problem that went undetected was lack of redundancy in the controls. Airbus at least had redundancy using 3x pitot tubes (A380 and A350 have 4) but they couldn’t see a situation during testing where all 3 would fail. But even if they did if the pilots did nothing the plane would still fly pretty straight and level until ice melted. In the Max if the pilot did nothing they and the pax would die. The runaway trim stabiliser scenario they were trained for was different to what they encountered. It has been argued they may not have heard the trim bursts due to the stick shaker going off as that is louder. Pierre was apparently not fully trained in unreliable airspeed drills but if you have an altimeter and attitude indicator even a basic Cessna pilot should know to add power and look through QRH for the pitch/power tables
Yes what a yoke! The pilot flying was portrayed as a rookie with only 3000 hours flight time but any pilot with only 30 hours total time who does not know that holding full up elevator forever,, will cause a stall and rapid descent will never get his private licence. Meanwhile the pilot in the left seat could feel the aircraft shuddering, see the airspeed too low, the altimeter unwinding and the vertical speed pegged way low, but did nothing to intervene.He did not need a control wheel pulled back into his lap to tell him what was happening. My wings melted because I flew too close to the sun.
There are " pilots " and there are PILOTS ! SKILL and EXPERIENCE do make the difference. I hand flew my Boeing 767 for five and a half hours at night over a typhoon. We lost All 3 Autopilots. Viva Macau last flight from Maldives to Macau. I had flown B 727 - B 707 - DC 8 71 - B 767 and Fighter planes ( A 37 Dragonfly - DH 115 Vampire ) , plus Gliders - Turboprops - Light Twins - Executive Jets and almost every General Aviation plane. I had 19.000 flight time. 10.000 as Commander of Big Jets. I went to fly B 747 400 , Airbus 320/321 and B 777 300 / 200 for Lufthansa Cargo China ( Jade Cargo ) , Juneyao Airlines ( Base Shanghai ) and Qatar Airways. Retired now with 27.000 hrs.
@@1chish Because in several accidents and incidents on Airbus transport planes both pilots introduce differently inputs and the computer only takes one. If you are in a critical situation you will never take a look at the input of your companion, but if you feel in your hand you could notice that, and correct it. Is only another security measure.
@@loodwich Sorrybut you are fundamentally wrong in your assumption. A pilot can take control away from the other sidestick by pressing the red button (which is also used to switch out the Autopilot) and declaring THAT stick as the master. This YT piece fully explains how it works. Its quite odd you would believe Airbus had not thought of it ...... th-cam.com/video/t_R45td63qg/w-d-xo.html On your serious allegation please list these 'several accidents and incidents on Airbus transport planes' you say happened. Sources, dates and links please because I know of none. In this accident ONE pilot had control the whole time. ONE. Sadly it was the trainee pilot and the senior pilot failed to take control. That alone makes a nonsense of your argument.
The 777 has fly by wire. It just has traditional control columns instead of the side stick but they work the same way. That aside there have been boeng jets that have crashed because of obstructed Pito tubes as well.
It’s always a pleasure to watch your channel. The two separated joysticks (without a connection from one to be the other) are clearly a potential problem. But it’s also a way do reduce risk by minimizing additional systems (motors) on the joysticks Nevertheless, the crash would never occurred if the young pilot would have respect the first law in case of alarm: the plane is flying before autopilot disconnection and will fly after. So, you have to do nothing, analyze the problem and then only take correct actions
@@RLTtizME, not sure MAX crashes are similar to this case. For those crashes, an automatic system took bad decision and the pilots didn’t know how to disconnect this system (as they were no additional trainings to reduce cost for airline company and to get commercial advantage for Boeing). The pilots were unable to win their fight against this system
@@Thierry.g38 The previous Lion Air crew experienced the same issue and addressed it by turning off the automated stab trim. They completed the flight and never told the demised crew. That crew never figured it out. So…there is much disinformation floating around and it appears that you are perpetuating that.
@@RLTtizME your’re right when you say the previous crew experimented the same issue and this issue was not transmitted to the next crew. But if I correctly remember, a third pilot was in the cockpit with the first crew (who was in transit) and he knew how to disable the system because he just add an additional training on an iPad about this new system severals days before It was not mandatory for a crew to have this additional training before flying (additional qualification of pilots was not requested). It was not clearly explain by Boeing that this new plane includes additional systems
@@Thierry.g38 Yes but the issue is pilot skill and common sense. Most well trained crews (non third world) would have figured it out. Turn off the automation. An obvious solution.
Even if the pilots had not stalled and airspeed recovered. From what I remember the plane would be locked into alternate law because none of the ADR’s were considered reliable. So whilst the speed would display as normal, the aircraft would not revert back to normal law and I don’t think the AP would have re-engaged either so they’d have to return back to Brazil manually. Nowadays things have changed and airspeed can be considered valid again
I'm not a pilot but for me if the plane is nose up but the plane is descending rapidly it can mean only one thing: Stall. The accident investigation slammed Air France for poor pilot training. That's a systemic failure and for that reason I will not set foot on an Air France flight.
This has always been the trouble we have fools in charge of things that have actually never done anything themselves so they base things on their lack of abilities. That in turn creates problems when something actually happens or goes wrong. Tell the over 200 dead how safe that flight was.
I wouldn’t blame it on that. It’s typical in the fixed wing community to be completely reliant on automation and have no actual idea how to ‘fly’ the aircraft, most fatal accidents are caused by the pilots just being completely incompetent, the air fly are designed to be fool proof yet the fools still fuck it up
@@kevinblackstock3892you both are right but because Air France is major airline they are suppose to have premium pilots . Obviously this couldn't be further from the truth. Now it can happen again you know....
I have huge respect for Maximus' Channel but on this one he has it so very wrong. It was NOT the location, feel or whatever of the 'Sidestick' that caused this crash it was the fact the pilots panicked, and ignored all the data that the instruments were telling them and flew the aircraft into a stall. The FBW system had in fact worked as designed, cancelled the autopilot and handed control to the pilots as sensors had frozen (due entirely to the pilots' decision to fly above bad weather). After a few minutes the sensors were unfrozen by the built in heater system and fed verified valid data to the flight deck. But in any case the data being provided even in partial frozen state was sufficient to fly the aircraft safely at level flight. 'Direct Law' is still FBW but the aircraft is under absolute pilot control. It is wrong to say that the FBW system was turned off. It was not. What caused the crash as found by the investigations and confirmed by the voice recorder (since published) was that there was a total lack of communication between LH and RH pilots, the LH pilot was keeping that 'Sidestick' fully back in the climb position and the Captain was not even in the cockpit at the start of the problem. However when he did return and discovered what was going on he instructed the LH pilot to release the 'stick'. But sadly the aircraft was already falling at thousands of feet per minute. I have no idea why Maximus would feel he should peddle this utter lie but a lie it is. This crash was tragically caused by human error and NOT by (and I quote): "How Airbus SideStick Design Led To The Crash" Where the 'stick' was located or how it operates had no part in why the aircraft crashed. Had the pilots acted as they should have and communicated professionally the aircraft would not have stalled and crashed.
1chish…. Pretty much agree. Maximus, I think you over simplified this one a little too much. Sorry buddy. Topics might have included, upset recovery training, threat and error management (for who was in control during the crossing of the ITCZ, a high threat region, awareness of high level transient pitot blockage, application of unreliable airspeed drill - 85% N1 and about 2.5 degrees), use of the sidestick take over, Window of Circadian Low (WOCL). Would it have helped to understand what the PF was doing, yes. Did they recognise the stall at the early stage? No. Anyway, Maximus keep up the good work on your channel reporting aviation events such as AD’s.
Maximus' main point is the lack of control feel and visual indication, the sidestick is relevant to the latter. Yes he does wander around a bit but he makes his main point, how far it is relevant is for pilots to assess.
@@FairladyS130 …I can understand that’s his point but listing it as the ‘cause’ as per the title of the video is taking it little to far and an oversimplification. It was not THE ‘cause’; was it a ‘factor’ in the outcome possibly/probably(?). The causes of the accident are listed in the report and are pretty clear. They are Temporary inconsistency between the airspeed measurements, likely following the obstruction of the Pitot probes by ice crystals that, in particular, caused the autopilot disconnection and the reconfiguration to alternate law; Inappropriate control inputs that destabilized the flight path; The lack of any link by the crew between the loss of indicated speeds called out and the appropriate procedure; The late identification by the PNF of the deviation from the flight path and the insufficient correction applied by the PF; The crew not identifying the approach to stall, their lack of immediate response and the exit from the flight envelope; The crew's failure to diagnose the stall situation and consequently a lack of inputs that would have made it possible to recover from it. The non-recognition of the PF side stick actions by the PM(PNF) is not one these causes. There were far bigger causes or significant factors worthy of discussion.
As an Airbus pilot with thousands of hours in it, I mostly agree with you. Yes, the pilots were at fault and reacted horribly from start to finish. You outlined correctly where they failed, and we now train specifically to these failures. We now do full stall recoveries from cruise altitude, for example. Where Maximus opines “how Airbus side stick design led to the crash,” and states that had the side sticks been connected the crash would never have happened, he is taking it too far. The lack of side stick feedback from one side to the other is best seen as a contributing factor, not the causal factor. Do I think Airbus safety would be improved if they adopted Gulfstream’s control philosophy and mechanism? Absolutely, but the aircraft can be flown safely without that change.
@@RobertsonDCCD spot on and totally agree with you, and I guess… is consistent with the post above? As we have similar experience, my reply was to highlight the oversimplification / singular focus of the video and remarks, and that there were other more significant factors worthy of discussion (and now appear in our recurrent training)
When my pitot tube froze up all I did was fly the FMS ground speed. One minute later the ice melted and everything was back to normal. No one was ever told of my story, or even cared.
You are right it was the captain’s pitot tube. Still we ha a discrepancy and the captain thought the plane was about to stall. He saw the low speed on his side and started screaming. I pointed out the ground speed on the FMS and everything calmed down.
@@tomstravels520 I don’t know. He just looked at his airspeed indicator. It was reading almost stall speed. He panicked and started screaming. I just showed him my airspeed indicator, the standby airspeed indicator and the FMS ground speed. Then he calmed down.
Yes, I remembered the unwanted side stick input, but wasn’t the situation also brought about through the less experienced pilots waiting far too long to call the captain back to the cockpit to deal with the situation, and the captain’s choice to fly through the bad weather rather than go around it and thereby avoid the icing opportunity. Interesting video though.. much appreciated.
it is actually exactly what airbus is trying to do. On one hand we complain that the computer sets the limits but on the other hand if a Pilot is pulling back the joke full IN THE COFFIN CORNER - A PILOT MISTAKE ONLY A FIVE YEAR OLD SHOULD DO - then we ask for the plane to do something about it. The pilots could see on the artificial horizon where the nose is, still the second in the cockpit didn't do anything right hence why do we think if he felt it on the joke the second in the cockpit would have done the right thing? I am 100% sure that with Sully in the cockpit this would not have happened. But the main reason for that is that Sully is also flying private planes - especially gliders - from which he knows what to do. Now if I have the choice between a computer flying the plane or some pilots with a bus driver mentality and no real interest in their craft....I'll go with the computer (preferably from Airbus).... By the way ...not a single bad word about you, Maximus 🤗 because I like what you do. Just keep on doing it 👍👍👍
Earlier flights diverted around the known storms avoiding the frozen pitot tube situation. The commanding pilot took this decision before going on his scheduled rest break which would of course also give passengers a very bumpy ride but saving fuel for AF costs. AF hull loss is not the best record in the industry. Air Farce don't just lose your bags for you more than other airlines.... best avoided if you want a good aviator in the cockpit that can do their real job which is to fly in the rare occasion a pilot has to do the thinking not a computer....
Canadian First Air 6560, the Captain of the 737 inadvertently moves the yoke, disconnecting the autopilot lateral guidance... the plane drifts from the course and ends up hitting nearby terrain... now you can do a video against Boeing yokes...
This sounds like a Boeing representative attempting to perform a hatchet job on Airbus. It hasn’t aged well after the 737 Max crashes that were much more a fault of the aircraft design than this crash.
Maximus, I am a big fan of your channel, however this episode hugely disappointed me. Did you at least read the final report from the BEA? This video is full of inaccuracies that are not minor and end up misrepresenting what happened that night. To name 2: "The pilot cannot disconnect the FBW but the FBW can disconnect itself". Incorrect. The pilot can downgrade the control laws from normal to alternate and to direct law. "The FBW went to direct law". No, it didn't. It went to abnormal alternate law, which is very different. The pilot inputs would have ended in a stall, and in not recovering from such stall, in a A330, a B777 (FBW too) a Boeing 737 (not FBW) or a Piper Cub. The main difference is that what the pilot flying was doing would have been more obvious for the other pilot, increasing the chances that the other pilot recognizes the situation and takes appropriate action. So I agree with that. For the rest, Airbus FBW control laws and cockpit design philosophy (compared with for example Boeing's) had little to do with the accident. There are other interesting things to discuss about how technology influenced the outcome, like the lack of an alternative way to determine speed, the AP just giving up with no previous notice, the FD remaining active but giving wrong cues, the thrust lock mode, and the AoA warning stopping working at very high AoAs. Although these factors are common for most planes not just Airbus, it is something that can be improved. I am not writing this comment with any hate, intention to start a heated debate, or anything like that. As I said, I am a big fan of your channel and I have been subscribed for some time, and I will remain subscribed. I am just trying to help. Please respond to this comment if you want to discuss off-line.
I remember watching a documentary on this and every bit of the hour was needed to explain how the super cooled precipitation had overwhelmed all of the pito tubes and how confusing it was in the cockpit and how the crew had not taken appropriate action when all airspeed indicators were lost to set a specific trim and thrust setting to maintain level flight. It also mentioned how the Airbus had actually sent automated maintenance data during the incident that investigators later found. This episode oversimplified the situation.
Thanks for watching and yes I read the report. The bottom and what you say is true but, the bottom line is they never should have gotten in the stall in the first place.
@@maximusaviationchannel One topic absent in the video is the decision of the pilots to fly the plane into bad weather. The plane can fly in such weather, but it is normal practise to avoid it and the pilots had every opportunity to fly around the bad wather. This was the first mistake they made in the events that did lead to the crash.
Maximus you are wrong , it was not the airbus sidestick design that led to the crash , it was pilot error , the first officer failed to see that he was in a stall and kept pulling the nose of the plane up. its simply physics going up a hill will always slow you down . All the pilot had to do was to look at his instruments and fly the plane. One thing I know for sure is you always fly with the instruments in the dark , don't ever use visual references cause you make get disoriented.
However, if Airbus wants the biggest profits they can try to reduce labor costs by eliminating as many pilots as possible. This is the course some Las Vegas casinos use to eliminate bartenders with automated drink dispensers.
It was a 228 person shame that the pilots didn't seem to even have basic flying skills. If you look at the artificial horizon (Plenty available on the Airbus 330), you would have probably seen a 20 or 30 degree nose up attitude. Jets fly with idle power all the time while in a decent (nose down attitude). In fact, if they were to fly nose down with full power, the plane would soon reach overspeed condition and start ripping off plane parts on the way down. That is why us GA pilots were taught early on to lower the nose during a stall. The same flying principles hold true whether you are flying a Cessna C-172 or an Airbus A380. Fly the airplane. Aviation, navigate, communicate.
@@kirilmihaylov1934 the plane encountered a deep stall, and the airbus software has no idea how to detect such a thing much less get out of it. It's easier to blame a dead pilot rather than say that airbus design allowed this to happen. Keeps share prices up and insurance payouts small.
Well, as a rated A330 pilot I beg to differ. One small look at the engine instruments, would have informed them that the autotrottle had disconnected. As it should.
This is a very sensationalist title for the video... the fact that the design of the Airbus cockpit made more difficult for the pilot monitoring to see the actions of the flying pilot doesn't imply it was the root cause of the accident. I would say the pilots inability to identify the stall situation and react accordingly was a far more pressing matter...
I've been saying this for years! The crash was caused by Bonin and the inability of the other pilots to see what he was doing because of that damn sidestick. The sidestick is responsible for at least one other crash. French arrogance is the problem.
Not seeing what the other pilot is doing does not mean a crash has to happen. Other pilot should have pressed the takeover button as taught in training and lock him out from the controls the recover himself. Better still Bonin should have known how to maintain straight and level flight even with loss of airspeed
Maybe Maximus or anyone can answer this. Dropping at nearly 10000 feet per minute which is going down close to 110 mph. Forgetting the 2 pilots as they were strapped in. But couldn’t the captain recognize that walking into the cockpit nearly weightless?
No. Not if the 10,000 fpm was a steady descent rate. Weight would decrease while they were accelerating into the descent, but once it was established, if it was steady, apparent weight would be normal.
I've never piloted anything bigger than a glider, but the idea of side sticks seems so wrong I can't believe anyone installed them. That the two side sticks don't operate in tandem is amazing. As for Boeing, they invented MCAS to save money, then waited for a 2nd crash before acting, so forget them. They & the FAA teamed up against basic safety culture. Scariest of all, United Airlines has recently announced a diversity program for new hires.
The 777 was designed as a fly by wire, side stick airplane. After complaints from scared senior pilots, Boeing moved to the control wheel/column. Fear led the day. Note: when checking the 777 back drive actuators, you must ensure hydraulics are off. Let that sink in. There are documented cases of pilots panicking with control columns, one pushing forward and the other pulling back.
The challenge in a cockpit is to show the pilots not as much information as possible, but relevant information. The more relevant the information, the less likely the chances of human errors. Whenever a pilot is confused, you can always argue that one more data point would have given him the solution out of the confusion and aviod the accident. Yet showing as much information as possible won't decrease the amount of accidents, rather than increase it. The pilots had information that the plane was into a stall, alarms are there for a good reason. While alarms might be false, they had to consider a stall and they didn't. For this reason it is quite hard to blame the plane, neither the way it was functioning, nor the design of it. While I see the potential of force feedback as a way to convey information to the pilots... if pilots act like clowns they will manage to get a plane into trouble. The pilots: - Flew the plane into bad weather where there was no need to fly into bad weather. - Did misinterpret the plane going into alternate law and took action where there was no need. - You can get away with pulling the stick backwards under normal law because the plane is able to correct the pilot, but avoiding stalls are pilot basics and any proper educated Airbus pilot knows that you cannot recklessly pull the stick back in alternate law. - There are many possible ways to get a clue that a stall is happening, besides the alarms, for example low ground speed (a simple look at the GPS data) is a good clue. ... leaves only one conclusion: A plane flown by idiots. Would it have happened on a Boeing? No, not in this way. But... it is way easier for idiots to crash a Boeing than an Airbus.
I always wondered if the pilot landing an Airbus just seconds before touchdown was suddenly incapacitated....how would the other pilot be able to respond in time especially if it caused a wrong input during the incapacitation?
he has an override button that he can press, so only his sidestick is effective. this button is straight in front of him. Also if the other pilot suddenly inputs and he counteracts it, the plane will take the middle option of the two inputs as far as I know, so he could at least neutralize the wrong commands until he had pressed the button to take command to his sidestick completely.
@@semperjr I mean... what would happen if a Boeing pilot fell unconscious at the last second during short final and slumped over onto the yoke, pushing the nose down? It's a bad situation either way.
Ahhh, yes that was gonna happen BUT then were would the mystery be when I do finally reveal myself. The rugged handsomeness is too much to just spring on you. )
Please, don´t blame the sidestick design for this accident. The sidestick is there since 1987. Blame the pilots lack o experience and trainning. That accident is the only A330 accident with casualties until now (correct me if I´m wrong). Suddenly it seams to apear many concerns about Airbus planes. First was the painting in the Quatar Airwais A350, without results. Now, is an event that occurred im march 2009 (It was wrong CRM). I must remind tha this accident changed many procedures in the commercial aviation. (I follow this channel for some time and I like it. But I think that in this case, you are a little biased. I read the previous comment about Atlas Air 3591 (they had yokes). Please, don´t feel offended. As I said before, I like your channel. Greetings
This was NOT pilot error. Air France 447 didn't have a pilot, just a bunch of fools in the cockpit.
Pilot error
Calling all but the Captain pilots is an insult to the profession.
@@bearchow1929 captain was absent. By the time he came it was too late. His fault was that he was banging some chick the night before in Rio late so he went to sleep .
@@kirilmihaylov1934 Was that established anywhere in the report by any chance?
@@BlackKnight344 which report .this is not told by media but it is true . He went to sleep because he had a night out with a Brazilian chick the night before the flight
Maximus, a factual correction: The AF447 never went into *Direct Law* . It went into *Alternate Law 2B* , still with a lot of envelope protections, but unfortunately without stall protection and enough for the pilots to crash the plane.
Imagine blaming a wreck caused by a driver driving straight through a red light on the steering wheel.
It’s more like blaming a wreck caused by a shit student on a car used for driving instructing that doesn’t have proper dual pedals for braking and accelerating thus causing the driving instructor to miss the fact the student wasn’t braking for the light and causing the crash
At any rate the basic argument in this video is actually arguing for automation. The argument is something like “The human pilot was constantly fighting the plane to do the wrong thing… Therefore it’s the plane’s fault that another human couldn’t intervene” and if you think about it just a little, you remove the first human in that chain and there is no problem that another one would need to intervene for
@@sorover111 yes, if you look at it like that yes if you removed one human the accident could have not happened.
But that’s also only seen in hindsight. There could have been another situation where if one human did one thing correctly and there wasn’t a second human to share the workload things could have gone to crap anyways.
It’s easy to say “go if this FO wasn’t flying” or “if this FO wasn’t in the cockpit and only one guy was in the cockpit the plane probably wouldn’t have crashed”
But since once pilot ACTUALLY WAS putting in the correct control inputs while the other was (without the knowledge of the other pilot) putting in the wrong inputs it’s easy to say if the sidekicks had feedback the crash probably wouldn’t have happened.
Gulf Stream actually acknowledged in their new jets that having Sidestick feedback was an added safety feature.
If the sidesticks were linked or gave feedback the conversation may have gone like this on the flight deck that nigh.
“Oh Shit a stall”
“What the fuck why are you pulling push you moron my controls”
“Oh shit that was scary”
Or in French
“Merde on Décroche”
“Mais putain pourquoi tu tire espèce d’abruti, pousse, mes commandes”
“putain ca a fait peur ca”
@@sorover111 Even with added automation and a single pilot the original problem would have occurred you would just have to hope the sole pilot would have done the right thing. Since one of the two pilots did do the right thing assuming they would have been one of the pilots on your single pilot flight you had a 50/50 chance of having the pilot that would do the right thing.
Video actually starts at 4:37 after Maximus has told us about his favourite VPN!
Quite so, the man is a total disgrace. Just using his channel to post incorrect information and promote information that generates income for himself.
I'm fine with some promotion but that's a bit much
@@georgeclarke163
He’s not the only one that does this.
That’s how they get revenue to keep the program going.
@@georgeclarke163 What incorrect information?
There’s a plug-in for that…
They could have flown the plane with known power settings and known attitude for straight and level flight, they’ve seen this configuration many times. Then figure out what was wrong. Aviate, navigate, communicate. They messed up aviate.
Except in IFR conditions and no reference point it is extremely hard. My favorite flying lesson was my instructor asking me to fly the plane with my eyes closed. 30 seconds later he ashed me to open my eyes and I was banking the aircraft with a pitch down attitude.
@@JohnnyChinch no visual reference? Better pull on the stick all the way until i hit the ground
@@mro9466 which why human factors is very important
@@JohnnyChinch Those pilots could fly the aircraft with reference to their artificial horizon display and power setting - those systems were working in the aircraft. But the training for doing so was not given by Air France. Also recognizing a stall situation was obviously not taught by Air France.
@@sorgfaeltig that is only an assumption. Do you know that as a fact what training Air France conduct?
My assumption is that the pilots panicked and in that moment of panic and fear, they froze and unfortunately forgot about basic flight training.
Atlas Air 3591, B67, had two pilots doing different things with yokes. The yokes are tied together but can be overcome. The result was it split the elevators. That’s my understanding anyway. Pilots distracted trying to understand what is going wrong will miss things like how the other pilot may be doing something dumb. That’s crew resource management. One pilot flies the other troubleshoots. At the end of the day, improve the automation and overall, the plane will be safer per mile.
5Y3591 wouldn’t have happened in an Airbus. Firstly TOGA isn’t activated by pressing a button, it requires physical movement of the thrust levers. Secondly the aircraft would be limited to a pitch down of 15 degrees and then when it overspeeds it will automatically start to pitch up
Two yokes is overrated. People assume they are mechanically connected. What if they are merely digital controls which happen to use large apparatus? I don't know how the new Boeings work but I'm guessing they are not pure mechanical linkages to flight control surfaces. I'm guessing that the very least, they might still be just smaller mechanical pulleys and levers that control hydraulic actuators. Older Boeings had create complex contraptions like Q-springs in the vertical stabilizer to add feel to rudder controls.
But, even purely mechanical controls don't let you easily determine if you are fighting (or being helped by) either aerodynamic forces or input from the other pilot. Remember that in Direct Law, the Airbus aircraft becomes a Boeing. At that point it relies on basic pilot knowledge, which these guys didn't have.
@@tomstravels520 this was pilot error too
@@kirilmihaylov1934 yeah I know. But people seem to think the yoke is the safest thing when it makes no difference as the atlas air crash proved
@@tomstravels520 that's true yes .
I'm very much an Airbus fan these days, especially after Boeing's horrifying descent into corporate mediocrity. I'm not going to just bash Airbus for the sake of it. In this case, however, it's clear that the sidestick design is suboptimal. It essentially removes two senses that the flight crew can use to gain information about their situation. We don't just process information through our eyes and ears, but also through touch and proprioception - that is, the sense of where your limbs are. That kind of tactile feedback gives you a whole other way to gain information about the condition of your aircraft, and it seems like Airbus have forgotten that.
It wouldn't be difficult to add tactile feedback to a sidestick. We already do it with video game controllers. Boeing does it with stick shakers. Airbus can do it too. It doesn't need to interfere with the fly-by-wire system at all.
I used to think the world of Boeing. I wonder if the McDonnell Douglas acquisition cocked them up. That's when, at least anecdotally, things started going measurably south for Boeing... What do you think?
@@karlchilders5420 I think it's a pattern that a lot of companies follow. You start out with smart and passionate people doing what they love, and they build a product they're proud of. But over time, the bean counters and the predators come in, and they take that passion project and start to milk it.
Boeing held off the corporatists longer than most, but it does seem that the McDonnell Douglas merger was the crack in their armour.
There's a great book by Terry Pratchett called Going Postal that talks about this kind of thing (in between the golems and banshees, of course). It reminded me very strongly of what my father went through with British Airways as they followed a similar path.
@@Werrf1 That sure makes a lot of sense and I believe, like you, that a lot of companies seem to follow such a pattern. I think it's part of routine organizational behavior at-scale. It can be overcome, I believe, by a number of culture changes at various levels. None of those would be successful unless the culture changes were supported not simply by "executive level" folks but really by comprehensive changes all through the chain of leadership. Front line managers to department heads and up: everyone needs to understand what direction things are going. Hope I made sense there...
It's a design oversight that's come to bite them in the ass for sure.
Personally I think it's a faulty thought process from the engineers, where they're convinced automation is always superior to human input.
While that is true in normal situations, where a humans attention may wander and automation always keeps "focused", the opposite becomes true when the situation goes abnormal. A skilled pilot can make a normally unlikely decision that will save the plane based on his experience, where the automation can only "decide" between set options, that may or may not solve the problem.
But here there's another problem in play: the way data is being shown by the automation to the pilots. Sometimes it isn't exactly clear what the problem is or why the automation decided to take action or switch itself off, as the screens don't seem to take the way humans process data into account. In a reaction to a previous video I wondered why airplane manufacturers don't use changing colours on the displays more to draw attention from the pilots.
@@karlchilders5420
That’s exactly when things started to change at Boeing.
They bought McDonnell Douglas, but it was McD people that took over the company.
There haven’t been any Boeing people at the top for some time.
pilot friend of mine has told me that the pilots he worked with had a saying about crashes: If it was a Boeing plane, it would be ruled pilot error, and then Boeing would fix the hardware. If it was an Airbus plane, it would be ruled pilot error, and then Airbus would fix the software.
i once flew the same route in an old 747-400 and it was caugth by a really bad storm . The plane just moved as if it was a cardboard box , but we landed safely at our destination and all the passengers applauded . i guess that was a good plane and a better pilot .
747 is one of the best. Hate to see her being phased out.
@@lisanadinebaker5179 the queen of the skies .
I once flew on an A380 in exact same conditions - we landed safely as well.
No, the 747 is not a better plane. Neither is the A380. It's just bad luck combines with poorly trained pilots. It's just winning the lottery - just with a negative sign.
I personally would like an actual SKILLED pilot. Call me old fashioned.
Good luck man - we’ve dumbed down training we’ve dumbed down airline flying there are very few positions today in aviation that require you to actually fly the airplane and do real pilot shit.
The fact that we’ve got pilots flying who have never been in a spin only theoretically talked about recovery or pilots that have never actually VMC’d a twin in training. We’ve gone full participation trophy in pilot training.
@@1Gaumer also pilot certification is just a matter of money not skill.
Pilot requirements select for those who can afford the job not for those who are best at the job. Otherwise airlines would be recruiting video game players.
This is one of the areas the military is ahead of civilians, if you can't cut it in the simulator they don't even let you try. Conversely you can keep working on your pilot's license until you run out of money.
If Tesla can use Dojo, to abstract from self-driving to an Android, then full self-flying autopilot is elementary.
And that's really exciting to me, then anyone can be a pilot. Use the computer to expand and narrow the envelope intelligently. So for an extra $20, your flying taxi commute, can become a joyride. Even set up flying taxis in the desert, to host aeronautic e-sports, using VR goggles in the VTOL as a "simulator". Esports companies wouldn't even need to own their own aircraft, land, airport, infrastructure, or anything. Simply rent the taxis, hire some caterers, etc.
Heck, if you get bored of your normal commute you can slap on a pair of VR goggles and go shoot the Grand canyon for a lark.
@@jtjames79: In 1981, in Apple Valley, CA, I could have got a single engine pilots license for….Wait for it!? $650.00!
In 1981, I didn’t have $650.00. These guys now/and gals, are paying upwards of $65,000.00!! But they STILL can’t pilot a plane? Call me crazy, but the schools and instructors are as much to blame as anyone!
@@TERoss-jk9ny that's a very good point.
I also blame the FAA.
I complained for more than a decade that the FAA did not have the jurisdiction to deny profiting from drone use.
I said back in the very beginning when they first issued the "no profit" directive, that it would have stand until somebody could afford to take them to court.
That somebody was The Wolf of Wall Street production.
The FAA got destroyed in court.
But by that time the drone industry had moved entirely out of the United States where it began in inventors garages.
The FAA did this to protect the aerial photography market. Since people were paying so much more for a license, like a diploma it was treated as an investment. Without an aerial photography monopoly, flight schools felt they were in danger of losing profits.
Everything touching or connected to aviation is at least 20 years behind modern technology. That's why SpaceX is dominating, they aren't burdened with institutional momentum, and are not motivated by regulatory capture. They actually focus on doing the job.
I can't wait to make a lot of money investing in technology companies that also just happened to do aviation.
@@TERoss-jk9ny it was pilot mistake
Congratulations Maximus.Your channel reports real Boeing or Airbus news without bias
Thanks a lot!
If you really believe that his postings are without bias then you must be vey stupid indeed.
All the postings by Maximus are very technically incorrect and are all designed to generate income for himself via the tedious rubbish product adverts in the overlong intros.
George Clarke: And you are qualified to assess Maximus's technical expertise HOW?
@An Phuc Lol !
@@georgeclarke163 up you go! Back to the Facebook keyboard hero sewers with you, meanwhile on your way there, step on legos and sit on a cactus💩👏 Maximus has humor and brings the facts, as far as internet/any legit source will let him. I said legit.
Aviate, Navigate, Communicate, that takes a conscious, breathing, experienced pilot, at least in my book.😳 I'll never fly without one. Call me old fashioned...I'm just funny that way.‼️😊 Thanks for this one Maximus. Well done.👍💜
Unfortunately you don't usually get to decide on the aircrew flying 'your' plane.
@@grahamstevenson1740: All I ask is that they're conscious, breathing and have some experience. Like I said, I'm funny that way.
I still remember this accident. I will never forget it thanks to the Chaos in the cockpit doumentary
And that is the real cause of this accident. Unfortunately (for him), it’s not the grandpa-thinks-robots-are-out-to-get-him “argument” this video attempts to make. You blame a driver who blows through a stop sign they’re looking straight at, and don’t blame the malfunctioning speedometer or the steering wheel being different in the exact same way you don’t blame the airplane when the pilot fails (and actually fights against the plane trying to) decrease angle of attack when the gd stall alarm (and very noticeable buffeting) is happening for a quarter of an hour
The fact is if this plane’s auto pilot could have overruled the SIC’s insane minutes-long rearward stick input, the plane, and everyone in it, would have survived until the problem (the idiot pulling the stick back continuously) could be replaced or removed.
Indeed, who would ever fly Air France going forward!
Maximus: "May be if you can prove the pilot is the weakest link in the aviation safety chain ...". As matter of fact, we know this.
This was demonstrated in a very similar situation earlier in 2022 onboard AF11 (yes, Air France again) on a Boeing 777-300. The Boeing has the yoke controls that Sully, in my opinion wrongly overpraised. On final, during a go-around, in a very stressful situation, one pilot pulled up, while the other pushed down. Even the controls are connected, neither of the pilots recognized what the other pilot was doing. This firstly speaks very strongly against the argument Sully is making that the connected yokes on the Boeing make it easier to understand what the other pilot is doing. Most importantly, this demonstrates that pilots are indeed the weakest link - as in very stressful situation, they will have tunnel vision and ignore any outside clues, no matter if this is a blinking light on the cockpit panel, an oral warning or a yoke that is physically fighting you back. This is just a limitation in humans.
BTW: AF11 were lucky and did not crash, but the accident was reported as loss of control and categorized as severe occurrence.
Maximus - the report on page 174 states:
"It would also seem unlikely that the PNF could have determined the PF’s flight path stabilisation targets. *It is worth noting that the inputs applied to a sidestick by one pilot cannot be observed easily by the other one..."*
Not explicitly stated as a contributing factor, but why mention it in the report if it was not significant to the crash?
Sorry Maximus buddy but I think you’ve over simplified this one and focused on one small area that’s always been good BvsA click bait for the comments section.
There is SO much more to this accident that was critical and has needed to be addressed. Like…
Startle effect
Pitot tube certification (on all manufacturers)
High altitude ice crystals / super cooled water in CBs
Upset recovery training (UPRT)
Threat and Error Management (High risk risk crossing of an active ITCZ vs who is on the flight deck, not grabbing the premium rest period)
Window of Circadian Low pilot performance
Stall recovery especially with underslung/airline type aircraft
Unreliable Airspeed Drills ( I.e 85%N1 and about 2.5 degrees and ride it out)
Future introductions of new items such as the Back Up Speed Scale (BUSS) I.e. AoA driven flight with no airspeed inputs and GPS altitude (At medium alts and below).
Would it have helped if the PM knew that the PF had back stick….possibly/probably. The more senior F/O (PM) could have used the time to review and assess, call the issue, and then used the SIDESTICK TAKE OVER button!
Minor point but it’s pretty easy to drop the Airbus into Alternate Law. I.e. The laws turn into stabilities which can be overridden. If you drop the gear you even get a trim wheel as an added bonus! Any Airbus pilot worth his salt know how to do this. Get your FAC’s straight for those A320 drivers ;-) (pun intended) P.s. yes...it’s an a A330, but there are ways to do it there too.
Anyway…despite the points , thanks for a great channel and evening up the recent content ;-)
--
Reply to Thomas below as I can’t post a reply ….turning the FAC’s off is one of method to remove flight control protections. As it is an abnormal event, you will lose other items, the rudder travel limiter would be one. It is a valid method to achieve this but obviously has to be used with caution.
As you are in alternate law, you will only see Vsw (stall Warner) and VLS.
Turning off two ADR’s is the method that was recommended for OEB 48/49. It has its own limitations and Airbus advise that this method is applied to the OEB scenario only (see the Safety First article). The ADR method will also put you in alternate law (protection lost) and you will lose Valphaprot and Valphamax.
safetyfirst.airbus.com/app/themes/mh_newsdesk/pdf/safety_first_28.pdf
The added difficulty with the ADR method is that you could lose both PFD indications of airspeed especially if you turn 1+2 off (until you switch to 3 on one side).That could have other unintended consequences for recovery by the flight crew. There is anecdotal advice to turn 1+2 off as you use the ADR switching to transfer airspeed etc to the flying pilot especially when transferring control when briefing and preparing for the approach with no autopilot etc.
The point was meant to counter the video statement that the pilots have no ability to override the flight controls. Both methods allow you do that, and align the control to more of a conventional aircraft (B777 FBW etc).
As far as I’m aware you don’t turn the FAC’s off (this may have been old procedure) but turn off 2x ADR’s. That way you keep the VLS V-Alpha Port and V-Alpha Max lines, turning off the FAC’s makes you loose these and I believe rudder turn co-ordination and damper as well
THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED.
It was a contributing factor to the confusion, but go LOOK what happened in the report. They flew into a HUGE, well developed thunderstorm system in the ITCZ. They encountered icing at altitude, exceeded their max ceiling for their weight/configuration, and entered a fully developed deep stall. THAT is the problem; the Airbus FBW control system had no way to understand or help pilots get out of that condition. Given their weight and speed, they had less than a minute to get out of that condition in the first place *once they entered the thunderstorm*. After that, system failure, icing, the FBW automation failing to help them with information, etc. The Capt not having his radar tuned properly to help HIM have the proper SA before he left the cockpit was another factor. The control inputs "cancelling" each other, that's little more than a red herring, because the plane wasn't flying; it was in a deep stall rendering those control inputs INVALID anyway. All this other shit about pilot skill, etc. IS HORSE SHIT. The side sticks being connected would NOT have saved them because the jet would not have been ABLE to respond to the control inputs since it was not aerodynamically possible!!!! The thing that got them killed was the decision to fly into, instead of around, the fully developed, severe, and almost 100mi long tropical system. Avoiding that would've prevented the accident chain.
I am right with you in that the storm was one of the contributory causes of the accident but the aircraft systems (what you cal 'FBW'), having detected icing on the sensors, reacted exactly as they should have by switching out the Autopilot and moving into 'Direct Law'. The pilots had total control and sufficient data in front of them and from visual and audible warnings to maintain safe and level flight. However the junior pilot took control and panicked. Quite why the senior pilot did not simply take over control (via the red button on the sidestick) we will never know but THAT was the cause of the crash.
@@1chish they didn't have total control, that is precisely the issue. They were in a deep stall and the elevators and rudder had zero control authority. The airbus doesn't have any deep stall detection or other upset condition detection and mitigation techniques. To this day the same deep stall can kill everyone on board.
@@karlchilders5420 Whoaaaa ... back that truck up right there mate!
They DID have full control but they failed to read their instruments correctly and the junior pilot froze on the sidestick in the fully climb position. This would have been displayed in front of the other pilot as well as the pilot in command but neither took any corrective action (until the Captain arrived).
Where on earth do you get the idea that:
"the elevators and rudder had zero control authority"
That is completely untrue. Indeed under 'Direct Law' whatever the pilot inputs is replicated on control surfaces. In fact the position of those surfaces is displayed on the instrument panel. Every damn one. So again the other pilot could have seen what was happening. Why are you peddling these untruths?
Not sure what reference you are making by 'deep stall' but the stall warnings were going off all the time and all the junior pilot did was keep the sidestick in full climb position. The aircraft was doing EXACTLY as that pilot was commanding. And of course Airbus aircraft have Stall Warning Systems! Listen to the soundtrack that was released and you can hear it.
As for the rest of your comment that is just plain wrong. And your inference Airbus aircraft can crash and kill everyone 'to this day' is just utter scaremongering crap.
All you have said is disproved in this video:
th-cam.com/video/jM3CwBYX-ms/w-d-xo.html
@@1chish I'm not backing anything up there "mate". Go read the report. Then, understand how Airbus FBW works. Then, understand how a deep stall works, in that it renders elevator and rudder inputs INEFFECTIVE. Bonin didn't make the aircraft climb at first. The video is good at jumbling a few facts incorrectly.
When the autopilot was disconnected, the aircraft at that time began a climb. Understand that the tubes and vanes were FROZEN so instrumentation wasn't working correctly. A lightly loaded Airbus with min fuel and no passengers can't climb at 7000+ FPM at FL350 and up. It's just not possible. Also, they didn't have all instruments reporting the data provided to them via the sensors. Once the aircraft climbed to over FL400, it was at a point where it was high, slow, and encountering pretty consistent and moderate turbulence. That is where the deep stall formed, and THAT is why no matter what Bonin, the Captain, or god himself did, those flight controls were not going to produce any effect. They couldn't, they were not able to because the rudder and elevators were blanked out . That's why deep stalls are super problematic. The only way to get out, would've been to continue the right roll they were in, and that would've had to be done very early on. Those crew members had bad information presented to them, poor situational awareness of the aerodynamic stall they were in, and imperfect reactions. We sit here, well after the event, and we say "well, it was THIS and THAT" because we have time and are in the comfort of our homes.
Bonins' actions cause confusion, but he didn't kill everyone with those control inputs. As I said, it was a clear accident chain, and the best action that could've been taken was to fly around the system or even better delay on the decision to take off until the storm system had moved or deetiolated to the point it wasn't as intense. They penetrated that storm, and it was all downhill from there.
@@karlchilders5420 Well I got as far as you lecturing me to "Go read the report" and realised you have a closed mind and are just intent of peddling a string of falsehoods. Like:
"They couldn't, they were not able to because the rudder and elevators were blanked out"
Complete and utter bullshit. As the BEA report stated and as I know because I HAVE read that report.
I will not be wasting my time any further with you. You clearly failed to read my reply let alone watch that video.
Just a friendly tip: Never make any assumptions about people who are commenting on YT. They may just know more than you realise and likely more than you do. 'Mate'.
With respect to Sully I don’t think blaming a feature on the A330 is valid - a contributory factor? Maybe. This was caused by lack of basic airmanship like you learn on a Cessna 152. Everyone knows how safe the Airbus, Boeing, Embarer family are. It was the people piloting who were the root cause.
Too much trust in the technology? This is a good argument against single pilot operations with low flight hours in a slightly challenging situation. The sad thing is, if they’d just not touched any controls on the plane, they’d all be at home now.
If I remember the full interview well he spoke extensively about airmanship. This video has a very short snippet specifically capturing his explanation on Airbus and Boeing designs.
It was definitely a contributing factor, as were the lousy pitot probes.
@@patrickflohe7427 Also Airmanship is critical to that crash but the cockpit design was a contributing factor that either pilot could see that the yoke was being pulled back instead of pushed forward they would have solved the flight issues much earlier.
It's always terrified me that each pilot is unable to see or feel what the other pilot does. Then there's the fact that you have to go from right hand to left hand when you step up to Captain ffs. Then there's the 50-50 averaging with woefully little warning. Bonin just did what Airbus implicitly teaches pilots to do in the plane that creating the "pay to fly" concept - tug back on the 'up' button and hope the avionics save you. Absolutely terrifying design, and I've NEVER understood how planes can be certified when they literally HIDE each pilots' inputs from each other. Madness.
He lost control and panicked. Those poor people.
He panicked, THEN lost control.
If only he’d have thought for a moment, before overreacting....
When I was in engineering school back in the 90s we used to make fun of people who designed systems where the computer knew better than the human operator. These jokes always involved a HAL voice.
Every plane needs to have a "God mode" button that shuts off all the automation and lets the pilot hand fly the plane in an emergency. Far too many crashes happen because it takes 3 minutes to diagnose what's going on with the complex flight systems and the ground is 2 minutes away.
You do know that the aircraft handed control just as you describe by shutting down the Autopilot and switching into 'Direct Law' giving total control to the pilots?
The aircraft after that switch did exactly as the pilots instructed. Sadly they were making very wrong decisions, or rather none at all, and created a fatal crash out of a small issue.
@@1chish But did the pilots realize they had been handed over full control? This accident may not be the best example for my point but a God mode switch still would have been helpful. The cluelessness of the 2nd officer would be pretty hard to overcome but having him explicitly know that he is in full control of the plane and capable of stalling it might have made a difference. We'll never know.
@@danielschein6845 'Direct Law' is the very 'God Mode switch' you demand. Yes pilots are made aware of the switch but if, like these two, they are not actually reading accurately what is very clearly being shown (and heard) then as you say you cannot overcome cluelessness.
This may help you:
th-cam.com/video/TPygaI891C8/w-d-xo.html
My go to joke about automation has been this: th-cam.com/video/-kHa3WNerjU/w-d-xo.html
That was, until I watched other videos about this crash of AF296. There was enough things wrong with the flight from a human factors perspective before you get to the automation's dubious contributions to the accident.
@@rpsmith2990 What "automation's dubious contributions to the accident"?
The official report from BEA concluded that the probable cause of the accident was a combination of the following:
* Very low flyover height, lower than surrounding obstacles;
* Speed very slow and reducing to reach maximum possible angle of attack;
* Engines speed at flight idle; and
* Late application of go-around power.
The total cause of this accident was pilot error.
We all should be flying B-52s
Lmao
Just curious, if Capt Dubois had managed to save the flight after taking over control, will First Off Bonin be fired from his job and disqualified from flying or will he just be fired or sent for perhaps some sort of retraining?
Retraining probably
Prol retained.
fired
It’s not at all clear if having a connection between the side sticks would have made a difference here. By the time FO Robert said he was taking over, the aircraft was already in a stalled condition. The proper reaction to a stall would be to push the nose down and gain airspeed. Robert never did this either. Nor did he increase thrust. He made a few slight nose down inputs, but even without FO Bonin’s inputs they would have been nowhere near enough to recover. Unfortunately the flight recorders can’t tell us what the men were thinking and the things they said aloud are a bit confusing. Neither seemed to have figured out that they were stalling. They certainly never took the actions that they would have known very well to take in order to recover from a stall. It couldn’t have helped that the plane was in such an abnormal situation that the stall warning was basically working backwards, blaring at them when they started to nose down and stopping when they nosed back up.
Maximus incorrectly characterizes FO Bonin’s reaction. He did not immediately pull hard back and hold it there. The nose up inputs that caused the stall were gradual while he was trying to recover from roll oscillations. The pitch up was not extreme. Only later in the sequence of events, after they had thoroughly lost control did the inputs get to full deflections in both pitch and roll from both pilots. The fact that the sticks were not connected was a small part of a complex incident.
It boils down to this: When the autopilot kicked off and the control law degraded to alternate (not direct law as Maximus states) the pilot was required to fly the plane straight and level for about 30 seconds while the pitot tubes thawed out. He was unable to do that. The lack of an artificial feedback system may have played a part in that, but without proper airspeed indication a feedback system may not have been accurate anyway. The change in control law from what he was used to was probably disconcerting and made it difficult to get the roll oscillations under control, but they did not cause him to stall the aircraft. Bonin seems to have been convinced that they were in an overspeed condition and not a stall. Robert may have thought the same thing because he never initiated a stall recovery either.
Studying aerospace engineering it’s clear that most mistakes happen due to stress which is the case here, the automation in airbus helps alleviate stress for pilots. While it is true that some pilots do become complacent in flying planes as a result and rely too much on the systems in place I think it’s unfair to blame the systems which help pilots for pilots using them as an excuse to lower their standards, most competent pilots would have realised their situation much sooner or even avoided it
Max's chronic nose dives to the ground - wouldn't happen in an Airbus.
Actually, you'd have thought that Boeing would have learned from what happened to Lufthansa Flight 1829, where both angle of attack sensors froze in place, causing the system to believe the plane was in a stall, and push the nose down, which could not be corrected with full stick input. The difference between this and the MAX crashes was altitude. This aircraft was at FL310 when it happened. The result was Airworthiness Directives, alterations to the flight manuals, and similar ADs for the A330/340.
The pilots had time to disconnect the Air Data Units. Good luck thinking of that right after takeoff.
However, Boeing should have seen this coming...
@@rpsmith2990 you say both like there are only 2. There are 3 in the Airbus. The latest Airbus have an enhanced stall warning and detection system which no longer just assumes “if 2 are the same they must be correct”
Very true.
I guess you’ve not heard of QF72 which had similar AOA sensor issues and the computer twice put the plane into a sharp nose dive. It was only saved by superior airmanship. It’s also not the airbus flight to have such issues.
@@spacemanmat not quite as heroic as made out. Firstly it wasn’t the AOA sensors that were the problem it was the ADIRU and the FCPC. Second the captain just pulled back on the sidestick to recover like any other pilot would. The plane only lost 650ft on the first dive. And no he did not let go of the controls and that caused the plane to start pitching up
When ILS rated pilots ignore the instruments. Even without feedback, the ball (attitude display) would have shown them nose up, as well as the change in altitude. It sounds like they didn't do the basics which are to Aviate, Navigate, and communicate. They ignored #1 and got distracted by chasing squirrels. :(
Two things.
1. I agree totally that if you move a stick, yoke, side stick force sensor, wiji board, whatever, then it should be reflected on both sides of the cockpit. After all, that is exactly the situation when you learn to fly in your C152, and every a/c up until you train on the Airbus systems. In effect you have, suddenly, to un-learn a bunch of feedback information and look for a small indicator light that tells you who is actually in command. Sure you can have procedures, calls, checklists, training, but nothing substitutes for direct feedback in a situation of sensory overload and alarms, contradictory information (too fast, too slow!) and systems confused by their faulty inputs leading to a plethora of hi tech crap (voice commands, sounds, flashing and changing screens) being thrown at you demanding contradictory responses and interfering with your ability to digest a complex situation.
Yes, the design idea is great but does not integrate the most important flight management law of all.
Murphy's law... "whatever can possibly go wrong will do so, and at the most inconvenient time, and with the greatest consequences."
Unfortunately Airbus, an extraordinary engineering company, has not quite grasped this. In Australia this is folklore, derived from living in a remote and hostile environment that is capable of ruining your day at a moments notice. That is why, when QF 7 suffered a massive engine catastrophe, and was confronted with a situation that was not in the manual, that was not part of the training, that was not pre-programmed into either the "flight system laws" or the training of the Pilots flying that, in fact, the rules were thrown out and a return to the basics occurred. AVIATE, NAVIGATE, COMMUNICATE. True... there was an enormous amount of experience on board, by coincidence. But that came into play after the initial management and diagnosis occurred. "Capt... 'ok stop telling what's broken, tell me what works!"... after 240 odd ECAM messages, with attendant alarms.... Then followed by, (un-documented in the actions list), manual flight control handling tests to see what was possible... After that?... A ridiculously high speed approach at way over max landing weight, 12 tons heavier in one wing than the other, a completely un-documented and un-calculable aft CofG (did you know the A380 stored fuel in the tail?), no auto brake, half the spoilers, and no reverse thrust. Calcs "suggested" that they might stop before the end of the runway if the pilot managed to get it on the ground with about a 100 meter margin for error touch down point, and a maybe 2 knot margin for speed between stall, with loss of control, and over shoot. You know the outcome. No one hurt, big sigh of relief.
Same thing with QF 70. (A330) Totally normal flight at cruise in clear CAVOK until a/c decided that it was stalling and over-speeding at the same time and pitched violently down. Minus 1.5 G... Passengers, crew, anything loose slammed into the ceiling, Several long seconds where the flight crew were unable to get any response at all from control inputs then suddenly pitch up command response and of course a 1.5 G recovery which brought everything loose including unrestrained pax rapidly back to the floor. After relying on the ECAM messages and restoring the a/c to "normal" auto pilot ops,... the a/c did it again... This time the crew disconected as much of the automatic "safety" control laws as possible, declared an emergency and flew to a remote airforce base in northern AU. (In AU remote means remote, 1000+ NM from major airport/city.) Result was no fatalities, but many injuries, including serious ones with lifelong concequences.
(btw, if you happen to fly Qantas at some stage, you may find the Capt's cheery chat punctuated by a serious suggestion to keep your belt fastened when seated, no matter how smooth the air. This is why....)
So what's the story here? Well... if it can go wrong, despite the best intentions of every designer, engineer, programmer, it one day will, and at the most inconvenient time. It's at that point that the Pilot Mk 1.1 will either earn his/her stripes, or not. So it is really a good idea that those pilots are more than just "systems operators", and instead, are capable and HAVE EXPERIENCED some "out of the expected" events that can occur in the 3D world of aviation. No, they don't have to go out and spin an A350 as training... But if they haven't spun a 152, 172, or equivalent, felt the world drop out from under their pants, rotating in the opposite direction to every control input they make, then they haven't learnt to fly.
Personally I would stipulate a basic simple aerobatics endorsement as a requirement for a commercial pilots licence... Why? Because it focuses you on the basics. Airspeed. Attitude, then altitude. Our French crew on AF 447 had all of that information right in front of them. They had a lot of rubbish and distraction as well. But, in the absence of consistent, reliable data, particularly airspeed, which we are told to focus on blindly, (mostly for good reason) then there are other simple principles. If the power is set to X and I'm flying at an alt of about Y then my attitude should be Z degrees... roughly, to maintain roughly level flight. Super basic stuff... It applies from a Cessna to the Concorde.... We don't teach that stuff to Pilots, and instead let computers do that for us. Its a remarkable fact that the Air data system in AF 447 was effectively trying to do that mental arithmetic, but with faulty info, frozen pitot tubes. Computers... Garbage in... Garbage out. (BTW lets not even touch on the 737Max where greed completely over rode any sense of redundancy in data input and Pilots were deliberately left in the dark about the very existence of this "smart arse safety " software. Hell!, the Boeing test pilot crashed the simulator many times in response to in-appropriate actions of MCAS systems, and he knew about it!! Seriously? So this is not about Airbus vs Boeing, US vs Europe, all that noise. It is about ensuring that when Murphy's law suddenly enters your calm and self assured life, that your EXPERIENCE, way beyond training and manuals, AND the design of the a/c and its most basic interface, THE CONTROLS, give you as much familiar tactile information as possible, that you might be able to recognise what is going on, FLY the a/c, then deal with the systems, data, alarms, warnings, modes, lists, etc. ITS a PLANE!...Fly IT! If you don't then the rest of the tech systems etc won't matter for long...no matter who made them.
The Dr.
(When I learnt to fly there was no GPS. Where I learnt to fly there were few nav aids. Dead reckoning was SOP. Still had to make your ETA reporting points within 2mins, on HF, no radar, even on an 800nm flight over desert... nothing. 1:1,000,000 WAC charts and a grease pencil. Good discipline, and fun!
1. Wrong fight numbers
2. It was -0.8G, not -1.5
3. “Several seconds”? It was 2 seconds before control was regained
Congratulations for your informed videos!
For this one though, I would like to dispute you conclusion that the airbus side stick system is suboptimal and a contributing factor to the crash.
You can rest assured that the possibility of connecting the side sticks was taken into account at airbus. Keep in mind that when the A320 was unveiled it caused a lot of controversy in the pilot community, most people doing what most people do: they dismiss the things that they do not fully understand or label them as flawed/wrong.
The side stick is a simple and elegant solution (compared to the controls of other aircraft) that removes so much failure points and complexity: it basically consists of a joystick with non-linear springs and sensors for 2 axis. It is significantly more simple than some computer joysticks that you can buy today.
There are other examples as well of systems that could have been improved to prevent some accidents but were not implemented: like the airplane control using differential thrust (when all control surface authority is lost). It was proven possible, almost practical. And in the airbus architecture of the flight control system could be seemlesly integrated as an alternate law - you could control the engines with the side stick - very convenient and intuitive. BUT the software necessary to achieve this mode of control turned out to be so complex and complicate to develop, validate and test that it was never implemented, nor by airbus, not by anyone else.
From someone that has flown the A320 and other mechanical control system airplanes: the airbus implementation of the fbw philosophy is superior to any mechanical control system (and probably superior to other fbw systems as well, since it was largely kept the same to the newer planes as it was initially designed on the A320).
That being said, I can say that the ATR I'm flying today is much more fun to fly than the bus, but pilot enjoyment isn't usually a design consideration for the aircraft manufacturers...
6:20 Yet it was the Airbus that went down when the pilot was having a bad day...
“The FBW system cannot be deactivated by the pilots”. No and the planes FBW doesn’t ever turn off by itself otherwise they’d have no control at all. The pilots can force alternate law (just like the plane can switch to alternate law) themselves and then with gear down all controls input go directly to the control surfaces so it acts like an old Boeing. Loosing the protections doesn’t mean turning off the FBW. That can only be done by loss of 3x SEC’s and 2x ELAC’s
11:10 No it went into Alternate Law. Direct law would have meant manual trim inputs would need to be made. Did you read the report before making this video?
Airbus haven’t added an AOA display but the closest thing is the BUSS which activates on older models when all 3x ADR are switched off (permanently display until on ground) and on newer at the push of a button and is reversible
“If the sidesticks were connected this accident would never have happened” Can you prove that? If the sidesticks were connected you have to fight the other pilot for control. You never once mentioned the priority takeover push button switch that Robert should have used but never did. When used it takes control away from other pilot so no need to wrestle them using possibly your weaker hand for control. And if your theory was correct then the Atlas Air 3591 accident should never have happened because the captain would have instantly reacted to the FO’s sudden nose down input…but he didn’t
In fact, in Atlas Air 3591, the captain did react to the FO's nose-down, and 'split' the elevators - but too late (and ineffectively because the FO was still holding full nose-down so they cancelled each other out). If the columns hadn't been 'splittable' then it would just have come down to a trial of strength.
The fact of the matter is that it has happened on a Boeing - at least twice. In the case of Birgenair 301 which you covered recently (a B757), the Captain was pulling up into the stall, with one of the FOs calling out "ADI" throughout the descent, the other FO having the connected yoke in his lap, and yet the FO was not able to put it together and take control from the Captain before the aircraft crashed. The other accident occured in 1974 to Northwest Orient flight 6231, a positioning flight being flown by a B727 - in very similar circumstances to AF447, the pitot probes iced over and the crew misdiagnosed the stick shaker (indicating a stall) as mach buffet (indicating overspeed), just as FO Bonin did on AF447. Again, the pilot flying pulled up into the stall and the pilot monitoring, despite having the connected yoke practically in his lap, was unable to diagnose the problem before the aircraft crashed near Stony Point, NY.
Still, it's hard to see how the designers could have anticipated that their aircraft would be operated by a pilot with so little understanding of basic piloting.
Part of the problem is people get so use to automation they forget how to fly manually and troubleshoot complex situations.
Simple! with lots of automation and simplification, people forget how they took everything for granted. Just like Google Map engineers, they still don't understand why some idiot drove their car into sea.
I think it has more to do with people panicking in a critical situation.
This has happened so many times in aviation, where they didn’t just concentrate on flying the aircraft, rather than reacting immediately.
This is where the saying developed: First, fly the aircraft.
Panicking and overreacting will kill you.
It wasn't designed to be so flown. What the designers had not anticipated was that a pilot would panic (about falling from the sky) and pull the nose hard up when anti-stall had been disabled due to invalid input data (no air speed).
Further they did appreciate that the pilots could put in conflicting inputs - there was a small warning on the display - but didn't appreciate how disastrous and confusing it could be in a stressful situation when the pilots were busy with an unexpected autopilot disconnect when there would be messages of more importance to deal with which would overload the small warning about input conflict and cause it to be overlooked.
Having some feedback on the sidestick (such a joystick exists for gamers and their PCs) would give a more obvious warning to the pilots when they're looking at all the messages and displays; eg increase the pressure required to move the joystick, or cause it to vibrate (for both pilots) if both joysticks are moved from the neutral position, especially if the direction of movement is in opposite directions.
You mean like the college kids graduating with so little understanding about life but wants to immediately wanting to run the world ?
Is there any advantage of the side-stick system compared with a conventional yoke? I'm sure it is cheaper to install and maintain but that might not be a good trade-off. The "linked side-stick" system of Gulfstream doesn't offer all the advantages of a yoke based on what the video said. If nothing else, the yoke provides a convenient place to mount a tablet of supplmental instructment panel. Based on my limited time piloting a plane, taking one hand off of the yoke to do something else does not normally pose any undue risks.
Very well presented Max .. 2 thumbs up
Several facts in this are incorrect
I don't recall the details, but an American plane did jut the opposite. While the Captain was distracted the First Officer pointed the plane straight at the ground, not believing the instruments, thinking he was nose up and stalling. Many, if not most, crashes are due to mind blowing pilot errors.
Atlas Air 3591. Proof that having a yoke is not a get out of jail free card
This accident actually made me think about a similar accident involving a Boeing aircraft, that being Asiana Flight 214 in 2013.
Just like the case of Air France 447, Asiana 214, a Boeing 777-200ER, suffered a stall due to pilot error and inadvertent disabling of the fly-by-wire system (the 777 was Boeing's first fly-by-wire airliner).
Also like AF 447, the crew of Asiana 214 did not notice that their airspeed dropped, and both were suffering from fatigue. (The Captain of AF 447 Captain Dubois, said he only slept for 1 hour)
I don't think Airbus, Boeing, or any aerospace company for that matter, are responsible for these types of accidents, but rather the airlines.
I believe airlines are intentionally providing their pilots with less training in the belief that, firstly, it will save money, and secondly, but most importantly, that the automation will make up the difference, which is simply not the case.
You can't blame just Airbus or just Boeing for an event that happens to both of them and their aircraft.
Besides, Airbus and Boeing are merely companies and brand names. It's the people BEHIND those companies who made those decisions who should be getting the blame.
I find it frustrating that you blame either Airbus or Boeing as entire companies, because I see that as the equivalent of locking an entire family in jail when just ONE person in said family committed a crime.
They didn’t disable the FBW, they disabled the autothrottle “wake up” mode
Captain Dubois was not on the flight deck at the time of the incident as he was on a break, leaving two qualified pilots behind.
@@cigmorfil4101 Apparently they weren’t very WELL qualified, as they couldn’t “figure out what was happening”, and the idiot in the left seat was pulling back on the stick the whole time. One of the very FIRST things you learn in pilot training is to PUSH the stick to get out of a stall!
@@kencarp57
So glad you read the BEA report... *NOT* (unless you know something the investigators don't?)
How do I know?
Pages 24-29 describe the qualifications and experience of each of the three pilots.
And page 21 specifically states:
"...the PF *(seated on the right)..."*
It was the panicking pilot in the *RIGHT* seat, not the left seat that pulled back on the side stick.
There are plenty more references in the analysis between pages 167 and 195 to which pilot was the PF and keeping the nose up.
But Asiana 214 incident is not due to dual input error
Even not being a pilot when I first read this story I couldn’t believe that anyone that has a pilots license would just pull back on the stick especially with a stall warning sounding over 50 times and not know how to recover the aircraft. It really just blows my mind. If I know the proper procedure to recover from a stall, how the hell does a” pilot” not know. The other thing that’s really sad to me is, even when the Pedo tube froze, the airplane was flying. You should’ve done nothing other than continue to fly the airplane. Aviate, navigate, communicate. Isn’t this like pilot training 101? The whole thing is really just sad and frustrating.
Therr is a leap of logic in the argument. The argument is that if thd senior pilot in the cockpit would se what the junior did, he would be taken over.
The problem with this argument is that the horizon was still working, and the plane was working. The horizon was clearly showing that the aircraft was climbing. So the aircraft was doing exactly what it was told to do. The senior pilot did see that. So why didnt he do anything. Well the over speed larm was going of.
When both the over speed and stall warning go of the order of operation is simple. Get the plane in a shallow acend and give high throttle input. This will eventually get the aircraft to a neutral speed.
I don't know much about aviation, however, I do know that when a commercial/professional pilot gets caught out by a malfunctioning Pitot tube - this should be regarded as a schoolboy error - and nothing to do with FBW.
The problem is that Air France wants to FULLY train their pilots. Therefore, they won`t hire former military pilots. New pilots are hired with NO flying experience and are taught what they need to know. This results in a lot of on the job training. The second first officer was VERY inexperienced and clearly did not fully understand how to fly. So yes, it was a schoolboy error, but that is what he was. The other first officer should been the one to initially take control of the aircraft since he was more experienced.
For comparison, it is not unusual for a first officer for a major US airline to have more flight hours then a captain at many international airlines.
The design of the Airbus FBW can certainly be blamed for not adequately alerting to fact that opposite inputs are being applied. It is my understanding that the more experienced first officer did eventually apply proper controls (nose down to break the stall), but the less experienced first officer continued to apply full nose up. This resulted in a neutral input, but the nose was already way up, so it stayed up (and in a full stall).
Automation is a double edge sword, it can help when everything is working correctly. However, it does erode your skills, so when the automation fails your skills may not be up to the task. For those without real skill, it becomes even hard to gain those skills.
@@fourtoes412 Your right experience is experience, regardless of where it was gained. My comment on AF not hiring military pilots was about AF wanting to train pilots their own way rather then taking the highly experienced pilots.
@@tjmazur9697 Totally agree...no substitute for hands-on experience.
The pitot tube issue that Airbus was having was not addressed quickly enough. This contributed to the fact that the two joysticks are not electronically slave to each other. So when the co-pilot locked up mentally with the stick all the way back no one could see what he was doing, that is until the captain actually looked at his hand on the side controller and was screaming what are you doing. I think this is a major safety flaw in the design of the aircraft.
What would have been nice is if you looked into what Airbus did change. You mentioned the new pitot tubes but no mention of the BUSS which was available around the time of the accident. In fact the newest A320/A330 have synthetic airspeed like the A350
What's that mate
@@kirilmihaylov1934 Back Up Speed Scale
@@tomstravels520 back up system ok
@@kirilmihaylov1934 yes. Slowly being replaced by Digital Backup Speed which give you an actual speed rather than just a safe zone
@@tomstravels520 that sounds good
I have never flown an aircraft but even I know that you don't handle a stall by pulling the nose up. The artificial horizon would have made it clear that the plane was in a nose up attitude. They were being told that the aircraft was stalling (the stall warning) and they had 35,000 feet of altitude to handle it in. The controls clearly didn't help but these two were, sadly, just not competent.
SORRY MAXIMUS ABOUT BIRGENAIR FLIGHT 301 IT AS Boeing 757 PITOT TUBES WAS BLOCK During takeoff the captain found that his airspeed indicator (ASI) was malfunctioning but he chose not to abort the takeoff The autopilot, which was taking its airspeed information from the same equipment that was providing faulty readings to the captain's because autopilot use one pitot tube
Maximus you’re absolutely right we need aviators not button pushers.
All pilots should practice stall recovery various times in different weather and time zones. If so, every 4 years or so, re do simulation tests.
There is a peto tube froze lesson... they didnt folllow it.
They do.
@@nickv4073 Every flight school in the world? no retake on sims of hazardous situations every 4 or 5 years?
This brought back a lot of memories from recurrent training as airlines changed their training to address the inappropriate reactions of the AF pilots. One factor that Maximus doesn’t address is the nature of the stall warning and how it seems to have confused the pilots. I pulled this from one report on the incident
: “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."
I have since switched over to Boeing duties, and I can’t remember if Airbus did anything to address this design issue.
While what you say is truth, the reason for that was not an incorrect stall warning design, but a consequence of how the aircraft measures air pressure and determines if a stall situation is going on... while they were falling from the sky at great speed, air was not entering the pitot tubes while the nose was up, thus the plane could not resolve it was stalling, while when the nose went down, air would be able to enter the pilot tubes, thus causing the stall warning to sound again...
@@raulko4898 Well, if I were to be consulted by the engineers, there would never be a point in the stall sequence where increasing the AOA deeper into the stall caused the warning to go away. Yes, there is point where the airflow through the pitot tubes might be unregistered, but that is hardly cause for the stall warning to cease. The real need is exactly the opposite.
2 mins of paid promotion is why I use the Sponsorblock extension
This story reminds me of the James Bond verbal exchange to verify identity when he meets another unknown friendly agent in ‘From Russia With Love.’ Agent 1 says: “May I borrow a match?” Agent 2: “I use a lighter.” Agent 1: “better still.” Agent 2: “Until they go wrong.”
Conclusion - the technology is great until it goes wrong. So wise smokers in those days always carried a book of matches in case the lighter failed. But make sure those matches stay dry.
Parallel- the technology is great but keep 2 pilots in you pocket for when the technology fails (and it will). Oh, and make sure they are properly trained and not worthless wet matches!
I would rather fly an airbus than a boeing these days.. one accident doesn't make a rule!
Airbus are truly magnificent aircrafts…but the small side hold does not provide the proper haptic feedback like a yolk does…regardless of sim stall experience, the mini joystick is the achilles heel in these magnificent jets…normal flying no problem…but when the going gets real rough, that haptic feel gives you so much more control
Look into the Air France training before and after this accident. It's very revealing. Air France wasn't training its pilot as much as it should have and left inexperienced pilots on the part of the flight traveling through known tropical storms on the route. A well-trained and experienced pilot was needed during that part of the flight. Also, newer fly-by-wire systems now mimic user's input. Yes, not on all airplanes yet.
But to your point, I know many pilots in the private and commercial industries who are walking away in disgust because companies and insurances only want them to monitor flight characteristics - push buttons and don't fly. That's why I feel relieved seeing a gray-haired captain when I board any flight.
Haven't watched this video, but all the other material I've seen disagrees. All the other material comes to the conclusion that the cause was pilots who couldn't do what every PPL has to be tested on regularly - if you're stalled, shove the bloody nose down.
Yes Siree ! The trouble is, some pilots get it wrong somehow. It brought down Colgan Air too, probably fatigue in that case.
Hi Maximus. I hope you and your family are well.
I am an airline Captain for a Legacy US Airline. I have flown both Boeing and Airbus equipment, as well as Gulfstream jets during my furloughes from my airline. I have 10 type ratings, and over +20,000 hours of flight time. With that being said, I appreciate your channel/videos. One thing I appreciate about your channel/videos is your accuracy. The mainstream media, both print and video, rarely get any story right when it comes to Aviation. Accuracy is critical in our industry, as many lives are at stake.
To that end, you are inaccurate about Fly-By-Wire flight controls, side-stick controls, yoke controls, and what is known as Envelope Protection. They are ALL separate systems, and operate as such. Think of them as Lego blocks that you can use/interchange, when designing an airplane. Your assertion that Fly-By-Wire won’t let you do something stupid, at minute 8 in your video, is understandably wrong. It’s a common misconception.
Let’s start from the beginning. The conventional control wheel that most airplanes use (including Boeing, and Gulfstream until recently) Always moves, and Always moves in unison! This means I can see and feel what control inputs the other pilot is making (including the autopilot) at ALL times! I can literally put my left hand on the control wheel, look away, and still know what control inputs are being made. This means I’m always in the loop in regards to control inputs, with this type of control. This also applies to the Gulfstream’s new Active side stick control, as they designed/engineered their side sticks to move in unison, just like the conventional control wheel. Simply brilliant. Say the Flight Attendant comes up for a meal service/lavatory break. In both these airplanes, I can rest my left hand on the control, and while looking away from the flight instruments to communicate with her/him, I know what control inputs are being made by the other pilot/auto flight system. I’m in the loop, and my situational awareness is maintained. With the Airbus side stick, none of this applies. Their side sticks do not move in unison. As for Seeing what the other pilot is doing with an Airbus side stick, it’s almost impossible. First, his/her control stick is cross cockpit, and physically difficult to see. Especially in a dark cockpit. Air France 447 went down at night. Second, you fly a side stick with small finger movements, that are barely perceptible. Very different from a conventional control wheel, where your entire hand is holding the control, and can be perceived easily. It’s right in front of you.
Now, to Fly-By-Wire. This system simply takes over the control cables once used on control systems. THATS IT! Nothing more! The are cheaper, lighter, and more accurate than the old conventional control cable. You move the control column/side stick, the Fly-By-Wire system tells the controls to move. That’s it. That simple.
Now comes the Envelope Protection System, and the confusion that is so commonly made. This system, if installed (again, think Lego blocks), takes the inputs the pilot is making, and determines if those inputs will then be allowed. So in an Airbus, under Normal Law, you can pull back all the way on the side stick, and this system will only allow you to go to a predetermined (by the engineers) pitch/angle of attack. Then it will disregard the pilots continued input, and stop the control deflection. As the monitoring pilot, I cannot feel or see this interruption by the computer (Envelope Protection System). It prevents the pilot from exceeding a predetermined limit that has been programmed by the engineers. Some of these systems can be programmed with “Hard Envelope Protection”, it will never let a pilot do…….
While others are programmed with “Soft Envelope Protection”, it will allow this, but not that….
Now lets put this all together. Can an airplane have Fly-By-Wire with No Envelope Protection? Most definitely YES! Can an air airplane have conventional control cables (no Fly-By-Wire) and have Envelope Protection? YES. Can an airplane have side stick Fly-By-Wire controls with/without Envelope Protection? Of course, whatever the manufacturer/engineers have decided to program. They can configure the systems to whatever they deem best for their airplane. So some examples: Boeing Max aircraft have conventional control columns, that move conventional control cables, but the speed brake/spoilers are fly by wire. They chose a combination. Does it have Envelope Protection? Not to the extent that the computer will allow/deny your control inputs. But if the airplane does get too slow, the leading edge devices will deploy automatically in an attempt to delay a stall. The Airbus I flew had side stick controls that didn’t move in unison. They sent inputs via Fly-By-Wire to a computer with Envelope Protection, which then sent a signal to the flight controls. That system had Hard Envelope protection, allowing the pilot to do some things, but never do others, ie.: stall the plane, overspend, etc. The Gulfstream 700 has Active Side Sticks. Brilliant! Does it have Fly-By-Wire? Envelope Protection? I don’t know, as I haven’t gone to school on it, or flown it. But boy I’d sure like to!!! You Gulfstream 700 Pilots can enlighten me, please.
As said above, the Airbus fleet that I flew used a side stick that did not move in unison with the other side stick. I could not feel any movement on my side stick for what the autopilot/other pilot was doing. My reference was almost all visual, via the flight instruments, with a very limited audible notifications (autopilot disconnect, stall - although limited, and over speed). This side stick then sent electronic signals through the Fly-By-Wire system to the computer, where the Envelope Protection System, that determines if the control commands asked for by the pilot will be allowed/disallowed to transmit to the actual flight controls, and to what extent. That’s where the difference is. They are all separate systems.
To make matters worse, on the Airbus I flew, the audible stall notification would cease alerting below a certain speed, even though you were in fact stalled? This may have been reprogrammed since I flew the plane. I couldn’t tell you, but I definitely saw it as the threat it is! If you look carefully at the report on Air France 447, the speed they slowed to was incredible. Could this have been a player? I leave that to “experts”. Could the point that the pilot monitoring didn’t know what control inputs the flying pilot was making be relevant? Again, I’ll leave that to the “experts”.
Monday morning quarterbacking is something many will do. It’s our job to be completely accurate, which I’m sure I wasn’t in this writing. I meant no harm, just as I’m sure your inaccuracies weren’t meant to be, but accuracy should always be the path towards understanding. With accurate data, and clear eyed understanding, we can continually improve, and Aviation Safety will continue moving in the right direction.
Now about that Max I fly…….
Every time a pilot screws up and causes a crash, people howl about pilotless aircraft. But those people never hear about the many many times pilots do something simple and not only stop an emergency but avoid one altogether. You. Never. Know.
Automation is only as good as its sensors and sensors are far from faultless. They work fine when everything goes as expected. But when things get a little sideways, current automation doesn’t have a clue and just throws its electronic hands up and quits. Automation can improve safety, reduce workload, and save money but it is not ready for autonomy. Not even close.
It’s not about the cost saving by installing coordinated side sticks… it’s like looking to Airbus to share the blame for this pilot inexperience.
Pilots are well aware that their side sticks are working independently. So rightfully the investigation revealed that it’s all about TRAINING… But then again… how many other clues do you need when the alarm of a stall goes off 72 times…. 🤦🏻♂️ This young pilot was in panic mode… it’s truly unfortunate. Luckily those shortcomings were rectified and implemented by Airbus (pitot tubes, better display info recommended) and above ALL by the airlines (pilot training). They caused that particular crash by flying into the storm….
I hate to make this comparison but in this case you are suggesting that maybe this was somehow Airbus fault when it’s clearly pilot error while Boeing was trying to blame their Max crashes on pilot error when it was clearly the MCAS… just saying 😉
@Remi Gio: How can you blame Boeing & not Airbus when all these crashes were caused by automation failures which poorly trained crews were unable to handle?
@@bobvicki I read reports of professionals who determine what or who has caused the crash.
@@bobvicki because in AF447 case failure of automation didn’t lead to the crash. The pilot caused the plane to stall and the pilot should be trained to fly manually if they needed to. In the case of MCAS the failure of automation was due to lack of redundancy in a system designed by Boeing
@@tomstravels520 Same situation with the MAX. A properly trained crew should have disabled MCAS in 10 seconds or less by using established "runaway trim" procedure. Boeing relied on a properly trained crew as backup. Plus, Lion Air caused the initial problem by their faulty installation of the AOA vane without the required orientation check. We may never know the root cause of the Ethiopian AOA failure because they have hidden the maintenance records of the aircraft & never published a final report on the cause, but that crew responded in a similarly untrained way.
@@bobvicki the crew of ET responded correctly by turning off the stab trim but had to turn it back on as they couldn’t manually trim. The intital problem that went undetected was lack of redundancy in the controls. Airbus at least had redundancy using 3x pitot tubes (A380 and A350 have 4) but they couldn’t see a situation during testing where all 3 would fail. But even if they did if the pilots did nothing the plane would still fly pretty straight and level until ice melted. In the Max if the pilot did nothing they and the pax would die. The runaway trim stabiliser scenario they were trained for was different to what they encountered. It has been argued they may not have heard the trim bursts due to the stick shaker going off as that is louder. Pierre was apparently not fully trained in unreliable airspeed drills but if you have an altimeter and attitude indicator even a basic Cessna pilot should know to add power and look through QRH for the pitch/power tables
Yes what a yoke! The pilot flying was portrayed as a rookie with only 3000 hours flight time but any pilot with only 30 hours total time who does not know that holding full up elevator forever,, will cause a stall and rapid descent will never get his private licence. Meanwhile the pilot in the left seat could feel the aircraft shuddering, see the airspeed too low, the altimeter unwinding and the vertical speed pegged way low, but did nothing to intervene.He did not need a control wheel pulled back into his lap to tell him what was happening. My wings melted because I flew too close to the sun.
Thanks Sully, you did one thing and now you are a spokes person for aviation.
Booing has killed many people many times over.
There are " pilots " and there are PILOTS !
SKILL and EXPERIENCE do make the difference.
I hand flew my Boeing 767 for five and a half hours at night over a typhoon. We lost All 3 Autopilots. Viva Macau last flight from Maldives to Macau.
I had flown B 727 - B 707 - DC 8 71 - B 767 and Fighter planes ( A 37 Dragonfly - DH 115 Vampire ) , plus Gliders - Turboprops - Light Twins - Executive Jets and almost every General Aviation plane.
I had 19.000 flight time.
10.000 as Commander of Big Jets.
I went to fly B 747 400 , Airbus 320/321 and B 777 300 / 200 for Lufthansa Cargo China ( Jade Cargo ) , Juneyao Airlines ( Base Shanghai ) and Qatar Airways.
Retired now with 27.000 hrs.
OK, yes, I agree with you, both sidesticks need to be connected.
Why?
@@1chish Because in several accidents and incidents on Airbus transport planes both pilots introduce differently inputs and the computer only takes one. If you are in a critical situation you will never take a look at the input of your companion, but if you feel in your hand you could notice that, and correct it. Is only another security measure.
@@loodwich Sorrybut you are fundamentally wrong in your assumption. A pilot can take control away from the other sidestick by pressing the red button (which is also used to switch out the Autopilot) and declaring THAT stick as the master. This YT piece fully explains how it works.
Its quite odd you would believe Airbus had not thought of it ......
th-cam.com/video/t_R45td63qg/w-d-xo.html
On your serious allegation please list these 'several accidents and incidents on Airbus transport planes' you say happened. Sources, dates and links please because I know of none.
In this accident ONE pilot had control the whole time. ONE. Sadly it was the trainee pilot and the senior pilot failed to take control. That alone makes a nonsense of your argument.
@@1chish
What if *both* pilots press the P/B ?
The 777 has fly by wire. It just has traditional control columns instead of the side stick but they work the same way. That aside there have been boeng jets that have crashed because of obstructed Pito tubes as well.
Yes, but if this happened on 777, the other pilots would have noticed the 2 yokes pressing against their stomachs and known the plane was nose up.
It’s always a pleasure to watch your channel.
The two separated joysticks (without a connection from one to be the other) are clearly a potential problem. But it’s also a way do reduce risk by minimizing additional systems (motors) on the joysticks
Nevertheless, the crash would never occurred if the young pilot would have respect the first law in case of alarm: the plane is flying before autopilot disconnection and will fly after. So, you have to do nothing, analyze the problem and then only take correct actions
Same could be said for the MAX crashes. The Euro-Brit Trolls seem to have changed their tunes.
@@RLTtizME, not sure MAX crashes are similar to this case. For those crashes, an automatic system took bad decision and the pilots didn’t know how to disconnect this system (as they were no additional trainings to reduce cost for airline company and to get commercial advantage for Boeing).
The pilots were unable to win their fight against this system
@@Thierry.g38 The previous Lion Air crew experienced the same issue and addressed it by turning off the automated stab trim. They completed the flight and never told the demised crew. That crew never figured it out. So…there is much disinformation floating around and it appears that you are perpetuating that.
@@RLTtizME your’re right when you say the previous crew experimented the same issue and this issue was not transmitted to the next crew.
But if I correctly remember, a third pilot was in the cockpit with the first crew (who was in transit) and he knew how to disable the system because he just add an additional training on an iPad about this new system severals days before
It was not mandatory for a crew to have this additional training before flying (additional qualification of pilots was not requested). It was not clearly explain by Boeing that this new plane includes additional systems
@@Thierry.g38 Yes but the issue is pilot skill and common sense. Most well trained crews (non third world) would have figured it out. Turn off the automation. An obvious solution.
Miss the B-707's and DC-8's of my youth!
Wha gwan, star?
Even if the pilots had not stalled and airspeed recovered. From what I remember the plane would be locked into alternate law because none of the ADR’s were considered reliable. So whilst the speed would display as normal, the aircraft would not revert back to normal law and I don’t think the AP would have re-engaged either so they’d have to return back to Brazil manually. Nowadays things have changed and airspeed can be considered valid again
Hence whilst thou disagree?
Thanks for a optimal and very informative video. Loved it.
I'm not a pilot but for me if the plane is nose up but the plane is descending rapidly it can mean only one thing: Stall. The accident investigation slammed Air France for poor pilot training. That's a systemic failure and for that reason I will not set foot on an Air France flight.
This has always been the trouble we have fools in charge of things that have actually never done anything themselves so they base things on their lack of abilities. That in turn creates problems when something actually happens or goes wrong.
Tell the over 200 dead how safe that flight was.
I wouldn’t blame it on that. It’s typical in the fixed wing community to be completely reliant on automation and have no actual idea how to ‘fly’ the aircraft, most fatal accidents are caused by the pilots just being completely incompetent, the air fly are designed to be fool proof yet the fools still fuck it up
@@kevinblackstock3892you both are right but because Air France is major airline they are suppose to have premium pilots . Obviously this couldn't be further from the truth. Now it can happen again you know....
I have huge respect for Maximus' Channel but on this one he has it so very wrong. It was NOT the location, feel or whatever of the 'Sidestick' that caused this crash it was the fact the pilots panicked, and ignored all the data that the instruments were telling them and flew the aircraft into a stall. The FBW system had in fact worked as designed, cancelled the autopilot and handed control to the pilots as sensors had frozen (due entirely to the pilots' decision to fly above bad weather). After a few minutes the sensors were unfrozen by the built in heater system and fed verified valid data to the flight deck. But in any case the data being provided even in partial frozen state was sufficient to fly the aircraft safely at level flight. 'Direct Law' is still FBW but the aircraft is under absolute pilot control. It is wrong to say that the FBW system was turned off. It was not.
What caused the crash as found by the investigations and confirmed by the voice recorder (since published) was that there was a total lack of communication between LH and RH pilots, the LH pilot was keeping that 'Sidestick' fully back in the climb position and the Captain was not even in the cockpit at the start of the problem. However when he did return and discovered what was going on he instructed the LH pilot to release the 'stick'. But sadly the aircraft was already falling at thousands of feet per minute.
I have no idea why Maximus would feel he should peddle this utter lie but a lie it is. This crash was tragically caused by human error and NOT by (and I quote):
"How Airbus SideStick Design Led To The Crash"
Where the 'stick' was located or how it operates had no part in why the aircraft crashed. Had the pilots acted as they should have and communicated professionally the aircraft would not have stalled and crashed.
1chish…. Pretty much agree. Maximus, I think you over simplified this one a little too much. Sorry buddy.
Topics might have included, upset recovery training, threat and error management (for who was in control during the crossing of the ITCZ, a high threat region, awareness of high level transient pitot blockage, application of unreliable airspeed drill - 85% N1 and about 2.5 degrees), use of the sidestick take over, Window of Circadian Low (WOCL).
Would it have helped to understand what the PF was doing, yes. Did they recognise the stall at the early stage? No.
Anyway, Maximus keep up the good work on your channel reporting aviation events such as AD’s.
Maximus' main point is the lack of control feel and visual indication, the sidestick is relevant to the latter. Yes he does wander around a bit but he makes his main point, how far it is relevant is for pilots to assess.
@@FairladyS130 …I can understand that’s his point but listing it as the ‘cause’ as per the title of the video is taking it little to far and an oversimplification. It was not THE ‘cause’; was it a ‘factor’ in the outcome possibly/probably(?). The causes of the accident are listed in the report and are pretty clear. They are
Temporary inconsistency between the airspeed measurements, likely following the obstruction of the Pitot probes by ice crystals that, in particular, caused the autopilot disconnection and the reconfiguration to alternate law;
Inappropriate control inputs that destabilized the flight path;
The lack of any link by the crew between the loss of indicated speeds called out and the appropriate procedure;
The late identification by the PNF of the deviation from the flight path and the insufficient correction applied by the PF;
The crew not identifying the approach to stall, their lack of immediate response and the exit from the flight envelope;
The crew's failure to diagnose the stall situation and consequently a lack of inputs that would have made it possible to recover from it.
The non-recognition of the PF side stick actions by the PM(PNF) is not one these causes. There were far bigger causes or significant factors worthy of discussion.
As an Airbus pilot with thousands of hours in it, I mostly agree with you. Yes, the pilots were at fault and reacted horribly from start to finish. You outlined correctly where they failed, and we now train specifically to these failures. We now do full stall recoveries from cruise altitude, for example. Where Maximus opines “how Airbus side stick design led to the crash,” and states that had the side sticks been connected the crash would never have happened, he is taking it too far. The lack of side stick feedback from one side to the other is best seen as a contributing factor, not the causal factor. Do I think Airbus safety would be improved if they adopted Gulfstream’s control philosophy and mechanism? Absolutely, but the aircraft can be flown safely without that change.
@@RobertsonDCCD spot on and totally agree with you, and I guess… is consistent with the post above? As we have similar experience, my reply was to highlight the oversimplification / singular focus of the video and remarks, and that there were other more significant factors worthy of discussion (and now appear in our recurrent training)
I’m on lesson 4…if you stall…drop the nose…level the wings…if it’s spinning…opposite rudder..etc etc…right?
Yeah - if you KNOW you’re stalling. This pilot didn’t know despite the warnings.
When my pitot tube froze up all I did was fly the FMS ground speed. One minute later the ice melted and everything was back to normal. No one was ever told of my story, or even cared.
Tube or tubes?
You are right it was the captain’s pitot tube. Still we ha a discrepancy and the captain thought the plane was about to stall. He saw the low speed on his side and started screaming. I pointed out the ground speed on the FMS and everything calmed down.
@@tinaandalex what aircraft? Why didn’t he cross check with yours and the standby instruments?
@@tomstravels520 I don’t know. He just looked at his airspeed indicator. It was reading almost stall speed. He panicked and started screaming. I just showed him my airspeed indicator, the standby airspeed indicator and the FMS ground speed. Then he calmed down.
@@tomstravels520 The aircraft was a737.
Yes, I remembered the unwanted side stick input, but wasn’t the situation also brought about through the less experienced pilots waiting far too long to call the captain back to the cockpit to deal with the situation, and the captain’s choice to fly through the bad weather rather than go around it and thereby avoid the icing opportunity. Interesting video though.. much appreciated.
4 minutes and 38 seconds of intro and ads on a 16:27 video. What are you, legacy media or something?
Video not worth the trouble to watch.
it is actually exactly what airbus is trying to do. On one hand we complain that the computer sets the limits but on the other hand if a Pilot is pulling back the joke full IN THE COFFIN CORNER - A PILOT MISTAKE ONLY A FIVE YEAR OLD SHOULD DO - then we ask for the plane to do something about it. The pilots could see on the artificial horizon where the nose is, still the second in the cockpit didn't do anything right hence why do we think if he felt it on the joke the second in the cockpit would have done the right thing?
I am 100% sure that with Sully in the cockpit this would not have happened. But the main reason for that is that Sully is also flying private planes - especially gliders - from which he knows what to do. Now if I have the choice between a computer flying the plane or some pilots with a bus driver mentality and no real interest in their craft....I'll go with the computer (preferably from Airbus)....
By the way ...not a single bad word about you, Maximus 🤗 because I like what you do. Just keep on doing it 👍👍👍
A bit disappointing from you to hear airbus is trying to cut costs by not using the same synch tech used in Gulfstream
Earlier flights diverted around the known storms avoiding the frozen pitot tube situation. The commanding pilot took this decision before going on his scheduled rest break which would of course also give passengers a very bumpy ride but saving fuel for AF costs.
AF hull loss is not the best record in the industry. Air Farce don't just lose your bags for you more than other airlines.... best avoided if you want a good aviator in the cockpit that can do their real job which is to fly in the rare occasion a pilot has to do the thinking not a computer....
Canadian First Air 6560, the Captain of the 737 inadvertently moves the yoke, disconnecting the autopilot lateral guidance... the plane drifts from the course and ends up hitting nearby terrain... now you can do a video against Boeing yokes...
Didn't something similar happen in spring 2022 when an Air France Boeing 777 was about to arrive in Paris from New York?
This sounds like a Boeing representative attempting to perform a hatchet job on Airbus. It hasn’t aged well after the 737 Max crashes that were much more a fault of the aircraft design than this crash.
Maximus, I am a big fan of your channel, however this episode hugely disappointed me. Did you at least read the final report from the BEA? This video is full of inaccuracies that are not minor and end up misrepresenting what happened that night. To name 2: "The pilot cannot disconnect the FBW but the FBW can disconnect itself". Incorrect. The pilot can downgrade the control laws from normal to alternate and to direct law. "The FBW went to direct law". No, it didn't. It went to abnormal alternate law, which is very different. The pilot inputs would have ended in a stall, and in not recovering from such stall, in a A330, a B777 (FBW too) a Boeing 737 (not FBW) or a Piper Cub. The main difference is that what the pilot flying was doing would have been more obvious for the other pilot, increasing the chances that the other pilot recognizes the situation and takes appropriate action. So I agree with that. For the rest, Airbus FBW control laws and cockpit design philosophy (compared with for example Boeing's) had little to do with the accident. There are other interesting things to discuss about how technology influenced the outcome, like the lack of an alternative way to determine speed, the AP just giving up with no previous notice, the FD remaining active but giving wrong cues, the thrust lock mode, and the AoA warning stopping working at very high AoAs. Although these factors are common for most planes not just Airbus, it is something that can be improved. I am not writing this comment with any hate, intention to start a heated debate, or anything like that. As I said, I am a big fan of your channel and I have been subscribed for some time, and I will remain subscribed. I am just trying to help. Please respond to this comment if you want to discuss off-line.
I remember watching a documentary on this and every bit of the hour was needed to explain how the super cooled precipitation had overwhelmed all of the pito tubes and how confusing it was in the cockpit and how the crew had not taken appropriate action when all airspeed indicators were lost to set a specific trim and thrust setting to maintain level flight. It also mentioned how the Airbus had actually sent automated maintenance data during the incident that investigators later found. This episode oversimplified the situation.
@@CajunJosh ... I don't have so much trouble with the simplification, but some parts are straight factually incorrect.
Just more misleading information from Maximus
Thanks for watching and yes I read the report. The bottom and what you say is true but, the bottom line is they never should have gotten in the stall in the first place.
@@maximusaviationchannel One topic absent in the video is the decision of the pilots to fly the plane into bad weather. The plane can fly in such weather, but it is normal practise to avoid it and the pilots had every opportunity to fly around the bad wather. This was the first mistake they made in the events that did lead to the crash.
Maximus you are wrong , it was not the airbus sidestick design that led to the crash , it was pilot error , the first officer failed to see that he was in a stall and kept pulling the nose of the plane up. its simply physics going up a hill will always slow you down . All the pilot had to do was to look at his instruments and fly the plane. One thing I know for sure is you always fly with the instruments in the dark , don't ever use visual references cause you make get disoriented.
However, if Airbus wants the biggest profits they can try to reduce labor costs by eliminating as many pilots as possible. This is the course some Las Vegas casinos use to eliminate bartenders with automated drink dispensers.
It was a 228 person shame that the pilots didn't seem to even have basic flying skills. If you look at the artificial horizon (Plenty available on the Airbus 330), you would have probably seen a 20 or 30 degree nose up attitude. Jets fly with idle power all the time while in a decent (nose down attitude). In fact, if they were to fly nose down with full power, the plane would soon reach overspeed condition and start ripping off plane parts on the way down. That is why us GA pilots were taught early on to lower the nose during a stall. The same flying principles hold true whether you are flying a Cessna C-172 or an Airbus A380. Fly the airplane. Aviation, navigate, communicate.
Too bad that's not why it fell out of the sky. Bonin was task saturated, confused, etc. but it wasn't his control input that made that plane crash.
@@karlchilders5420 whowas it then
@@kirilmihaylov1934 the plane encountered a deep stall, and the airbus software has no idea how to detect such a thing much less get out of it. It's easier to blame a dead pilot rather than say that airbus design allowed this to happen. Keeps share prices up and insurance payouts small.
@@karlchilders5420 that's certainly not true . IT was Bonin that made it to stall
@@karlchilders5420 and it was Boring who killed 346 people for money not Airbus
The whole damn thing is one big yoke
F-16 is FBW and the stick doesn't move. So much for the _feelings_
You also have only one pilot.
Hmmmm. I think you "verballed" Sully. He said it would have been "much less likely" in a Boeing. Not what you said in your summary.
It was nice to see Marco, but we demand to see the man behind the voice! Take that mask off Maximus! 😁
The copilot shouldn't have been pulling back in the first place. Airbus has a great cockpit design.
Well, as a rated A330 pilot I beg to differ. One small look at the engine instruments, would have informed them that the autotrottle had disconnected. As it should.
If you’re a rated A330 pilot I’m ashamed you called it autothrottle
@@tomstravels520 Whatever
2:55 Maximus’ brother!
You win first place lol!
Fully agree…the mini side stick just gives no feedback to the pilot…it is a ridiculous design
This is a very sensationalist title for the video... the fact that the design of the Airbus cockpit made more difficult for the pilot monitoring to see the actions of the flying pilot doesn't imply it was the root cause of the accident.
I would say the pilots inability to identify the stall situation and react accordingly was a far more pressing matter...
I've been saying this for years! The crash was caused by Bonin and the inability of the other pilots to see what he was doing because of that damn sidestick. The sidestick is responsible for at least one other crash. French arrogance is the problem.
Not seeing what the other pilot is doing does not mean a crash has to happen. Other pilot should have pressed the takeover button as taught in training and lock him out from the controls the recover himself. Better still Bonin should have known how to maintain straight and level flight even with loss of airspeed
Would like to know how many 737 Max Airplanes that have been delivered and are in storage new and old since it has been certified to fly last year.
Maybe Maximus or anyone can answer this.
Dropping at nearly 10000 feet per minute which is going down close to 110 mph. Forgetting the 2 pilots as they were strapped in. But couldn’t the captain recognize that walking into the cockpit nearly weightless?
No. Not if the 10,000 fpm was a steady descent rate. Weight would decrease while they were accelerating into the descent, but once it was established, if it was steady, apparent weight would be normal.
I've never piloted anything bigger than a glider, but the idea of side sticks seems so wrong I can't believe anyone installed them. That the two side sticks don't operate in tandem is amazing. As for Boeing, they invented MCAS to save money, then waited for a 2nd crash before acting, so forget them. They & the FAA teamed up against basic safety culture.
Scariest of all, United Airlines has recently announced a diversity program for new hires.
The 777 was designed as a fly by wire, side stick airplane. After complaints from scared senior pilots, Boeing moved to the control wheel/column. Fear led the day. Note: when checking the 777 back drive actuators, you must ensure hydraulics are off. Let that sink in.
There are documented cases of pilots panicking with control columns, one pushing forward and the other pulling back.
The Airbus side sticks have been contributing factors in several accidents and incidents. It was a bad idea.
The challenge in a cockpit is to show the pilots not as much information as possible, but relevant information. The more relevant the information, the less likely the chances of human errors. Whenever a pilot is confused, you can always argue that one more data point would have given him the solution out of the confusion and aviod the accident. Yet showing as much information as possible won't decrease the amount of accidents, rather than increase it. The pilots had information that the plane was into a stall, alarms are there for a good reason. While alarms might be false, they had to consider a stall and they didn't.
For this reason it is quite hard to blame the plane, neither the way it was functioning, nor the design of it. While I see the potential of force feedback as a way to convey information to the pilots... if pilots act like clowns they will manage to get a plane into trouble.
The pilots:
- Flew the plane into bad weather where there was no need to fly into bad weather.
- Did misinterpret the plane going into alternate law and took action where there was no need.
- You can get away with pulling the stick backwards under normal law because the plane is able to correct the pilot, but avoiding stalls are pilot basics and any proper educated Airbus pilot knows that you cannot recklessly pull the stick back in alternate law.
- There are many possible ways to get a clue that a stall is happening, besides the alarms, for example low ground speed (a simple look at the GPS data) is a good clue.
... leaves only one conclusion: A plane flown by idiots. Would it have happened on a Boeing? No, not in this way. But... it is way easier for idiots to crash a Boeing than an Airbus.
I always wondered if the pilot landing an Airbus just seconds before touchdown was suddenly incapacitated....how would the other pilot be able to respond in time especially if it caused a wrong input during the incapacitation?
he has an override button that he can press, so only his sidestick is effective. this button is straight in front of him.
Also if the other pilot suddenly inputs and he counteracts it, the plane will take the middle option of the two inputs as far as I know, so he could at least neutralize the wrong commands until he had pressed the button to take command to his sidestick completely.
@@louissikkema5399 that's a lot to do in a split second when you are just touching down. I guess they train on it.
@@semperjr I mean... what would happen if a Boeing pilot fell unconscious at the last second during short final and slumped over onto the yoke, pushing the nose down? It's a bad situation either way.
Dang, I thought when I saw the guy in this video it was Maximus making a cameo.
Ahhh, yes that was gonna happen BUT then were would the mystery be when I do finally reveal myself. The rugged handsomeness is too much to just spring on you. )
Please, don´t blame the sidestick design for this accident. The sidestick is there since 1987. Blame the pilots lack o experience and trainning. That accident is the only A330 accident with casualties until now (correct me if I´m wrong). Suddenly it seams to apear many concerns about Airbus planes. First was the painting in the Quatar Airwais A350, without results. Now, is an event that occurred im march 2009 (It was wrong CRM). I must remind tha this accident changed many procedures in the commercial aviation. (I follow this channel for some time and I like it. But I think that in this case, you are a little biased. I read the previous comment about Atlas Air 3591 (they had yokes). Please, don´t feel offended. As I said before, I like your channel. Greetings
Afriqiyah Airways 771