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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มิ.ย. 2024
- In the dead of night on the 1st of June 2009, an Air France flight was monitored by Atlántico Air Traffic Control as it crossed the Atlantic at 35,000 feet. It was enroute to Paris, having departed from Rio De Janeiro earlier in the night. On board were 216 passengers and 12 crew.
Numerous attempts were made by controllers to contact the flight. But it had seemingly vanished. And when estimated to be entering radar coverage, it didn’t show up.
View the Accident Report here - www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp...
Crash Animation - • Animation déroulement ...
/ 3greens
CREDITS
Voice Actors
Captain - Ryan Haugen (Twitter @rhnarrates)
First Officer - Nick Bean
Relief First Officer - Ryan Haugen (Twitter @rhnarrates)
ATC - Nick Bean
Cabin Crew - Katabelle Ansari
Music
www.purple-planet.com
Sim Footage
Prepar3D
Camera System - ChasePlane
Ground Services - GSX
Airbus A330 - Thomas Ruth
0:00 Intro
1:52 The Search
4:02 CVR Simulation
9:36 Accident Sequence
14:52 Analysis
#aircrashinvestigation #AF447 #Airbus
This one really hurts... To have him pulling back while the stall warning blares like that .. hurts, almost physically
This crash would not have happened if the aircraft was a Boeing, fact.
@@rickt.1870 This crash would not have happened if the aircraft was a Boeing, fact.
@@daviddenham1511 average Boeing boy
@@augb.b.3522 ?
@@augb.b.3522 Well they are right.
I always thought it most amazing that the FDR and CVR yielded near-perfect data after two years submerged in the sea.
So lucky it did because otherwise we wouldn't have a clue what happened.
This used to be a regular flight of mine when I was younger and I believe it was serviced by the same plane for many years. The plane itself is the reason why the A330/340 is still my favourite to this day. The crash was heart wrenching to learn about as one easily could imagine oneself and family in those same seats. Thank you for covering it in this video.
Yeah one thing any pilot should take away from this: if there is a stall warning just take it to be correct and act accordingly, overspending may cost a lot of maintenance hours for checking the airframe but falling out of the sky won’t be fixed with maintenance any time soon.
"We've tried everything!" No, actually, you've tried nothing.
1000 subs! Thanks to all who have supported the channel so far. It’s been a pleasure growing this little hobby so far, and I look forward to growing it even more with you all ❤️
Thank you for the quality content!
Good content!keep it up!!😃
Lol 1000 was just 2 months ago. Now you’re almost to 7k. I like your videos because you seem to cover flights I don’t see on other aviation channels. I’m not even in aviation, I just find these stories fascinating. I even download and watch them on planes! My girlfriend thinks I’m nuts.
Almost 10k
Congrats
I was actually watching the news with my family the very morning that the alert came across the screen that the black boxes had been recovered. I also remember the day it went missing...and that's always one of those situations where you wonder when and if it will ever be found. In my recent research on AF447, it was stated that now that all recovery efforts have officially concluded, all but 70 bodies have been recovered from the ocean floor. I'm amazed that they recovered as many as they did... but still heartbroken that there are 70 people lost there forever. I watched a very sad documentary about this flight that told the story of one French family and their newly-wed daughter and son-in-law were on that flight. The son-in-law's body was recovered, but their daughter was sadly never found.
I’ve seen that also, very good and interesting doc to watch, very gripping
Air France crash on Ronin Hughes channel
*stall stall* "I know let me just keep pulling back on the stick"
That guy surely got that job by accident.
Came here after running out of Mentour Pilot and Mini Air Crash videos. A good new subscribe. I’m always proud of the world for how much effort we put into recovering data recorders and sometimes even complete airframes. It’s kind of the only area we do that. Maybe it’s because most people are secretly terrified of flying on a subconscious level. If I have to die in a crash, for some reason I really wouldn’t want it to be in the ocean.
The incompetence is stunning.
Almost evert time pilots start thinking they’re right and the instruments are wrong, we see disasters. This is also another example of why “startle” training is going to be instituted, especially long haul pilots who might only experienced a go around as little as once every ten years. They’re so unused to unexpected alarms that “partial incapacitation” is often observed and leads to things like this. That’s another new training procedure that is going into effect. Recognizing non-obvious signs of partial incapacitation (like a pilot freezing / becoming disoriented). Relief pilot should have taken controls quickly as it seemed the FO was disoreinted. At first he seemed to have a much better handle on the situation, but then let the FO’s panic consume him too.
Here too, we have an example of the PM (Pilot Monitoring) KNOWING that the PF was having a hard time and failed to take over until very late in the scenario (when it was arguably too late to be able to save the flight). There are some cultural issues at play here in regards to taking over from the PF.
It should be understood that at least a dozen other aircraft at a variety of airlines had similar scenarios with loss of airspeed, AP & FD disconnection while in weather at ITCZ latitudes. Most were good enough pilots to simply maintain level flight while hand fling the airplane. In all cases (including AF447) instrument indications regained accuracy within a minute. Unfortunately, AF447 had gained 3000 feet, lost 90 knots, and was on the verge of stall within that time, meanwhile the pitch trim ran to full nose up to try to meet the demands of the pitch attitude commanded by the crew. Important to note that due to the active flight control law did NOT require sustained pitch up inputs - as the pitch law would hold the pitch all by it self, and with stall protection gone, and speed stability gone with unreliable airspeed, the airplane attempted to maintain 1g with the commanded pitch. Sustained pitch up input was made later while the airplane was falling at about 20,000 ft/min and probably past the point of possible recovery.
Indeed there are many lessons to learn from this accident and it has changed training for those that fly it.
It’s also interesting to note that the A350XWB’s design, (built after this accident) addresses every element of this accident: “weather ahead” warnings, airspeed is still available even with triple pitot tube failure/clogging, autopilot remains engaged and will attempt to return the airplane to the normal flight envelope when it is exceeded, Alternate law is virtually identical to Normal law. However it’s still and airplane and every airplane needs skilled aviators to be in command - and that is perhaps the biggest lesson here: Sometimes you’ve gotta fly the airplane and you’d better be able to when it’s dropped in your lap unexpectedly. That rarely happens on a clear blue day. It happens in the weather, at night, with alarms going off. Training matters. Fly the Damn Airplane!
True, you see so many of these when the technology slightly lets them down the pilots seem lost and don't know how to react and start flying using their gut instincts instead of relying on the instruments and seem unable to recover the plane from easily recoverable positions..
@@dannicatzer305 If they had any gut pilot instincts it would have been to pitch down when the stall warning sounded.
We have a failure to treat an A330 like the airplane that it is - which requires skilled aviators to operate.
the instruments were in fact wrong: the pitot tubes delivered incorrect airspeed.
14:25
Even when Roberts tries to recover from stall in last 8K feet remaining, Bonin(despite claiming that he relinquish control) pull his stick down to nose up, cancelling out Roberts elevator command, that's why captain exclaim "u r pitching up", which is basically the state where Bonin "left" the control.
I don't know if 7k is enough to came out of stall, but who knows..if Bonin truly left his stick, they might have better survival chances.
He was a maniac.
In a transatlantic flight it's extremely important to have two experienced pilots versus one with less experience. The two younger pilots didn't sound like pilots they were totally lost in the cockpit. I find a whole lot of aircraft accidents or crashes of foreign aircraft is largely due to not enough recurring training in the flight simulator so the instructors can provide various different scenarios that require extra thinking and alternative procedures to not crash. American pilots are treated far different and they're not authorized to miss their required training calendar. In some cases if you do you are grounded until completion. I served 29 years in the Air Force and 25 of those years was working in Air transportation of cargo and troops/passengers. As I was uploading cargo I remember seeing the crew members with their manuals doing necessary checks according to their jobs in and out of the aircraft. Whenever there's a crash or an aircraft mishap in a foreign country most of the time they will call the FAA to send the NTSB because we have the best crash investigators and researchers to find out what actually happened.
Well said Daniel. Accidents like this, due to stupidity, really piss me off.
I understand that Air France had particularly bad training which resulted in a spate of crashes. Pilots learnt too much about flicking buttons on a computer and not enough about flying planes. I hope training has improved now.
@@sarahpiaggio2693 Training improved Sarah? I hope so but probably not. Airlines, desperately seeking pilots, have what is called ab initio (from the beginning) training. They take a young pilot with credentials as a pilot but with little to no real experience. They put him through ground school then simulator training then dump him into the right seat of a giant airliner with 300 total hours. He knows nothing except as you well said; how to push a few buttons.
Somehow I have to bring up how American Pilots are encouraged to practice hand-flying far more frequently and for longer durations than other countries. Everyone is so hell bent to automate everything and save a few pennies that when their precious nanny-bots can't handle the job, the poor bastards at the yoke have forgotten as much as they might remember and aren't in much better shape to do it either... AND you get sh*t like this.
A couple of channels have acknowledged how the flight culture is very different between the US and almost every other country because we use the computers and flight aids as tools for convenience and still depend on our own actual skills, while everywhere else, "Eliminating the human factor" seems to be the gamble of the year(s)... I'd like to see that change, but I don't think I'll be holding my breath. ;o)
@@sarahpiaggio2693 "I understand that Air France had particularly bad training which resulted in a spate of crashes." Indeed. Back then, Air France was notorious for putting their pilots though simulator training that was of a repetitive nature and predetermined. It did not test how pilots reacted to the unexpected and did not include surprises.
This edit is your best yet. I remember watching your first video thinking the channel would blow up soon despite many other youtubers in this field. Onwards to 100k!
Minute ticks, I can dig it!
Awesome gem of a channel, thanks for the quality content.
someone sure as hell did not know what they were doing. sounds like no one had ever flown that plane before.
Fantastic video! Keep up the superb work!
Yeah,the greatest example of pilot error in aircrash history
It was very frustrating listening to their conversation.
It was an organisational failure. Inadequate training principally.
Amazing video!! Awesome explanation and great job with subtitles
I definitely prefer this channel to the "big" ones. On the same level as Mini Air Crash and others. Good stuff as always, I'm subbed and always look forward to new vids.
The big ones now rely far too much on the drama factor and the "shock and awe" with colourful graphics. This channel is well made and the voice over is nice too.
So glad I discovered your channel: Great animations and videos ;)
3 incompetent pilots, the plane is screaming stall and they still couldnt figure out what the problem is. Its ironic that this would never happen in a 737max, that plane would push the nose down no matter what, over riding the incompetent pilots. Its sad all those passengers perished in the crash, they deserved better.
This seems to be a common thing with some airline pilots; as soon as the autopilot disengages they completely forget the most basic concepts of flying an aircraft.
Actuallyu i'm pretty sure it would happen on the MAX. AFAIK the MAX needs functioning airspeed indication for the anti-stall, same as the Airbus.
Really good video! A really interesting flight to talk about!
Very sad case which in my opinion goes down to FOs state of mind early in the flight. A purely catastrophic one.
Bonin had a very poor psychological profile and most likely was not properly tested for that. For me it is obvious that the crisis actually started when Bonin saw they were going trough a storm, even before the captain went to rest. He then entered a state of mind fixed on the idea that something wrong is going to happen and they will crash because of the storm. His actions afterwards are clearly guided by this state of mind.
When the autopilot cut itself out, the scenario already laid out in Bonin mind seem to become real: "we are going down, we are crushing because of the storm". So losing the contact with reality he acted instinctively instead of logically in trying to make the plane go up as to avoid the crush that in his mind was a iminent. People in this state of mind not only create the reality they think they are in (confirmation bias) but they tend to transmit that state to others. Then no matter what the others do, people affected by this state won't stop their actions towards confirming they're state of mind until it is confirmed or disproved by the events they themselves are generating.
It is a catastrophic way of thinking and reacting to which sadly I was a witness more than one time. And is almost impossible to stop once it starts to manifests itself. The only way to avoid is by not allowing people who are prone to it to have critical decision positions in highly stressful situations. Which sadly again is a very difficult thing to do.
Could be, but the loss of reliable flight parameters, and the system triggering the stall warning when pitching down, but not when pitching up, definitely wouldn't help any crew, no matter how brave and sober minded.
What an unbelievably extreme level of incompetence. How did that person got a job there? He kept pulling for no reason and didn't even realise that? What is wrong with French???
The right question to ask instead was “what was wrong with the flight crew?” Don’t blame all the French because a few people from France screwed up.
I saw your add in a mini air crash investigation video so I suscribed
Thank you for this great video once again! Explained in details as usual.
I love yah 3 green Aviation thank you for sharing and posting your videos
Whatever people think of Bonin performance here his actions around 11:31 are completely incomprehensible. He pitched the nose up and the plane audibly gives him stall warnings (as it should) and he just proceeds to completely disregard this. Utterly baffling
I tend to lean towards the theory that he thought it was physically impossible to stall the plane and didn't actually realise what had happened until impact
Bonin had a very poor psychological profile and most likely was not properly tested for that. For me it is obvious that the crisis actually started when Bonin saw they were going trough a storm, even before the captain went to rest. He then entered a state of mind fixed on the idea that something wrong is going to happen and they will crash because of the storm. His actions afterwards are clearly guided by this state of mind.
Great work. I thought I wasn't as interested in such thinks until i hear about your channel on Reddit.
Great video
As someone who knows rudimentary aerodynamics and aeronautics after watching so many disaster episodes, I cannot fathom pulling back in a stall. All the way to the ground? Is this the meme where the guy riding the bike puts the stick in the front wheel and falls over? Was he on another goddamn planet? I honestly-- almost don't blame the more experienced pilot for missing it as his fellow copilot verbally stated he was pushing forward. To continue pulling back, it's something so unthinkably dumb that he didn't even consider it a possibility-- and since he had already gotten the verbal that his copilot was pushing forward, he was busy trying other options while pulling back. His mistake was trusting his fellow copilot too much to double check he was actually pushing forward on his controls, and getting flustered in his panic. Would bet also some amount of sleep deprivation involved. That copilot should never have been certified.
He may have thought it was impossible to stall the plane
I remain amazed that any pilot could feel comfortable about pulling maximum pitch up for an extended time. Even a low time pilot would have internalised the expectation that doing that would result in a stall. Was Bonin one of these people who does everything by rote? Clearly he had no business at the sharp end of a passenger airliner.
One big issue is that they would never had heard the "STALL STALL" before. The Airbus logic will not give it out unless in the very special protection-less mode the crew landed their a/c in due to the missing speed sensor data. The French are usually not good with English in the first place either.
@@Itapirkanmaa2 I would expect them to have encountered it in the simulator.
@@sylviaelse5086 That scenario apparently was considered unlikely and not in the syllabus.
At least for the L-1011 there is a special unreliable airspeed procedure that calls for certain engine power and attitude depending on the airframe weight, from a table.
@@Itapirkanmaa2 They had stall training in the simulator, but not in their 330 transition training, not at high altitude (nor did any other airline at the time) only on their previous equipment (a320) which is similar.
@@BillPalmer ok. What is the source for that?
They were also trimmed nose up all the time all the way by the tailplane. I don't know what the trim logic is and how would the trim have changed if/when they had pointed the nose down.
Autopilot Suddenly Goes off and Pilots MANUALLY Flying Over 30,000ft Over The Ocean in The Pitch Dark Night Through a Storm...Sounds Like a VERY Difficult Situation
I've studied this incident and crash for years and cannot comprehend why the FO took the high angle at that altitude, if speed is in question, set at a low descent to get to better thicker air, and set engine thrust to about half or less based on your experience typical for any descent while vectoring from weather. Going up puts you closer to amen corner and a stall...when in doubt, trust your experience and just fly the plane.....
Key factors are the mode of the flight directors as they turned off and then back on , combined with the handling characteristics in degraded fly-by-wire flight control laws. Want to know more? Check out my book “Understanding Air France 447”
(I’m a former A330 capt/instructor)
@Ken Fullman It's also known as coffin corner for a reason..
Stall avoidance….the same everywhere….
Lower the nose increase speed.
Where did mr pull-up for hours get his license?
He doesn't even know what a stall is!!! He is only trained to set the auto pilot 😅
@@BillPalmer ..thread just popped up and I saw your comment, thanks, what's the exec summary of your analysis, this is such an unusual incident...
I didn't know that the French conversed amongst themselves in American .
Of all the things to distrust, its pretty conclusive that the stall warning stick shaker is never wrong
I believe in the Aero peru accident this is exactly what happened they got Stall and overspeed warning simultaneously again at night. All because of blocked static air ports. So in that case the Stall was both incorrect at the start but correct at the end of the sequence. Very confusing.
NICE SHOW
A 2 year old plane flown by a captain and 2 INTERNS with poor fly skills. A total evitable tragedy. RIP
For those wondering why they didn't pay attention to the stall warning: They did follow the procedure that was in the Airbus FCOM for stall recovery. Sadly, it didn't work, for multiple reasons: the warning came too late + the procedure was meant for low altitudes (at that point, Airbus procedures didn't take into account stalling at high altitudes - those came following this crash)
More over, there was also another glitch in the system: when pitching down they got the stall warning and when pitching up the warninh would stop. This probably determined the pilots to wonder if the warning is to be trusted at all.
I've seen this covered in-depth on another channel and they explain the reason - something to do with Airbus logic not being able to make proper sense of the situation if I recall correctly.
man this was hard to watch, even though i already knew the outcome. But great video, congrats
Here before the channel blows up
This is the flight that made me no longer fly over the ocean at night.
I think their reactions had to do with the fact that the pilots partied in Rio. My opinion.
Great video, thank you very much! I have a question though: Why are the altitude readings affected/altered by the speed-readings?
Thanks mate. Good question. The static pressure which is measured with the pitot tube is also used to indicate the plane's altitude. Since pressure decreases as altitude increases.
@@3Greens That makes sense, thanks for the explanation.
In the event of autopilot failure and loss of true air speed. Pilot in control must immediately trim pitch up +5 degrees and set throttle to 85% thrust. These two inputs will ensure a level flight. Then you troubleshoot other problems. I'm not even a pilot, just a flight simmer. I even know this and have ran Simulations of failures.. At the time of this tragic accident. There was a lot of or lack of proper pilot training. training based on mainly monitoring controls. Air France prior to this crash had a bad reputation amongst general aviation on lack of proper training. It is easy to blame Bonin, when it was Air Frances ignorance that there own Airbus was indestructible...
Baffling actions by Bonin. He seemed to be very concerned by the weather prior to the main incident, so I suspect that his initial intention was to climb out of it as soon as possible.
He failed 'Step 1' of what to do when an issue occurs in the cockpit.
Step 1: Fly the plane.
Pilots who are this bad.air france shame on your training and supervisors...
A case of the crew not working as a team.
In an emergency the first thing you should do is nothing.
One thing to mention is the Captain didn't see the pilot putting the nose up so high until too late because the lever was by his side which was not in plain view until below 4000 ft. I think the Captain realised what was going on just too late to pitch down and gallop speed for flight again. Humans are bad at thinking clearly when sudden events happen that contradict and confuse. What other things have been missed whilst we attempt to merge automation and pilots flying planes? Is there a way of having a passive device in the cockpit to show the orientation of the plane relative to 2 or 3 vectors.
Air France Flight 447 was a flight, in my eyes, that lacked pilots with efficient problem solving capabilities, but I don't at all blame them and I have my reasons not to. Even the most seasoned of pilots make mistakes like this, and if you want an example of this, check out Birgenair Flight 301, on 6 February 1996.
Me personally, as a major part of the aviation community, I blame Air France and Airbus Industrie for this accident, and generally the aviation community as a whole at this time. I will explain why, and then I will explain my theories on this accident and then back them up with hard facts.
*Why you should blame Air France and the aviation community:
As most may know, back then, there was indeed a common belief amongst pilots, that Airbus planes on their flight protections could not be stalled no matter If you pulled the stick back to it's full aft stop or not. There weren't even any stall recovery or upset recovery procedures for the A330/A340 fleet because these types of planes were thought to be so advanced, and it would both prove to be correct, and wrong in a sense.
*Why would they be wrong in saying the aircraft is too advanced?*
There was just an accident almost a year before, in November 2008, when an Airbus A320, operating XL Airways Germany Flight 888 Tango, flew briefly without it's flight protections entered an aerodynamic stall during flight testing just off the coast of Perpignan in the Mediterranean Sea, because the pilots entrusted the Airbus to handle the low speed issue itself. It didn't do that.
*Why would they be right in saying the aircraft is too advanced?*
The first Airbus A320 that was meant to enter passenger service was destroyed in Habsheim, France, when the A320 operating as Air France Flight 296 failed to climb away from a forest in the aircraft's path. This was because the flight computers, instead of pitching the aircraft up, pitched the aircraft's elevators down, in an attempt to get the nose to lower, because the aircraft detected an incoming stall.
So, as a result of the beliefs, and nobody having learned from the 2008 accident yet, Air France's flight school never properly trained these guys to properly handle that aircraft without its flight protections (aka, alternate law) at such a high altitude.
*Why you should blame Airbus:*
The stall warning in the A330 at the time activated based on a set pitch limit, and a Mach number that would change based on the altitude (example: 6 degrees aircraft nose up, speed M 0.60 at 34,000 feet). The stall warning would only briefly activate because of the pitch angle, and then again activate for the rest of the flight, again, because of the pitch angle.
*Summarizing the accident, theories I have, and things that were overlooked about this accident:*
Before the stall, Captain Dubois left Relief First Officer Robert and First Officer Bonin with each other in the cockpit, in the middle of just entering a rainstorm. Nobody knew who was in charge, as there was no discussion about it, and it would be assumed that Bonin would be in charge, as Robert was only the Relief First Officer. The communication gap would really come into play during the stall.
When the autopilot disengaged, Bonin immediately took control and counter-banked in contrast to the A330's increasing right bank, causing an overcorrection to the left. Bonin would then counter-bank to the left, and then the right again, for the next 30 seconds. At one point, I believe, the roll rate of the counter-bank had become a tad bit too much for Bonin, disorientating him, and causing him to put the aircraft into a steep climb. It was either that, or the fact that the aircraft had descended almost 300 feet below its assigned cruise level and Bonin accidentally made a huge overcorrection and held it there because once again, he may have been spatially disorientated with the aircraft's rapid movements.
Audible alerts in the cockpit would sound to warn Bonin that the aircraft was deviating from it's set altitude, and the stall warning briefly triggered twice because the aircraft had passed the threshold for the stall warning to activate, and the stall warning would not sound again for another 54 seconds, until the aircraft's sensors (possibly falsely) detected that the aircraft had reached 6 degrees nose up.
The aircraft's speed, pitch, and other readings, would not become valid until the aircraft began its fateful descent in the aerodynamic stall. I believe the reason why Bonin continued to pull the aircraft up was because the Pilot Not Flying (PNF) continued to shout things at him like the words "up" and "down", without explaining what he meant by these. Nobody really learned a lesson on communicating properly until Air Asia Indonesia Flight 8501 happened in 2014, involving another Airbus A320. This accident would happen in near identical aerodynamic circumstances to Air France Flight 447.
It became clear that the pilots did not understand what was going on, as the aircraft began to descend. Nobody knew what to do, and most importantly, nobody could communicate properly. This is evident by the fact that Robert seemed focused on getting the Captain back into the cockpit, but Captain Dubois would not re-enter the cockpit until the Airbus A330 descended back below 35,000 feet with an abnormal pitch up attitude. At this point, the aircraft was in a deep stall.
Even after the pitot's de-iced, the flight computers were still showing very conflicting information, with not one of the 3 computers showing the same thing, and even because of this too, the pilots would have had to have flown by hand anyway, as the aircraft was stuck in alternate law 2B.
The aircraft did not seem to respond to any of Bonin's inputs as it had slowed down below its minimum control speed, prompting Bonin to say "Damn it, I have no control of the plane", or at least something very much along the lines of that.
During the descent, it should be noted that the aircraft didn't register the speeds and the pitch valid at one point because the forward speed was so low, that when the aircraft was pitched up, the stall warning did not activate, but when the aircraft pitched down, it would activate, possibly because the speed had dropped to the point where the flight computers would consider the aircraft to be on the ground. This would mean that the stall warning would not be able to sound.
The cockpit environment was in fact very stressful for both Robert and Bonin, and eventually, the Captain as well, as he had to manage the cockpit environment as part of his PIC duties. Robert, for the first 1 minute or so of the situation, did not seem fully focused on the issue, and instead continued to try to call the Captain back into the cockpit to see if he would have some sort of understanding on the issue. Of course, not even he could figure it out, even with multiple alarms going off at once (for example, the stall warning, the c-chord warning for altitude alerts, and the dual input warning as both pilots were exerting inputs on the controls), as he had literally just got there. It was even considered that the aircraft was flying too fast, when Bonin asked if he should extend the speedbrakes after quoting, "I'm under the impression that we have some crazy speed".
*It is well worthy to factor in that the human brain is also very easily stressed out when it hears a lot of sounds go off at once. The structural integrity of the crew resource management was breaking down at this point as the flight crew could not properly communicate with each other about what they were thinking as they were preoccupied on trying to find out what was already happening in that moment, and very likely because of all the sounds, Bonin likely went into something that we call "cognitive incapacitation", which is basically when you tune everything out and do what seems most important in your judgement.*
Bonin couldn't tell if he was descending or climbing for most of the ordeal, as the vertical speed indicator could not show the true vertical speed (the max recorded was -18600 fpm). He also did mention the vertical speed indicator multiple times.
And along with the above statement, Bonin's original intention when with the Captain was indeed to climb up to avoid the bad weather anyway, as indicated when one of the pilots pointed out the recorded max altitude that the aircraft could fly at and asked if the other wanted to climb.
BEA had even made it common belief with their findings that the aircraft had somehow exceeded 40 degrees nose up when that was never the case at all, and in reality, the aircraft had only barely touched 20 degrees.
But anyway, it was then clear that both pilots flying wanted to climb as the aircraft had descended far past the point of recovery. "Climb, climb, climb, climb", Robert said to himself, as he too would pull back on the stick in a desperate attempt to get the aircraft to magically recover from its situation. When Bonin revealed that "I have been at full back tilt since a while ago", it was only then that Captain Dubois had realized that this was what was causing the descent. He didn't know what was causing the aircraft to stall, but now, he did. After Bonin relinquished control to Robert, Robert too began to pull up, as he watched the aircraft's altitude go lower and lower. They were already below 7,000 feet at this point. By the time the GPWS began to warn the crew that the ocean was fast approaching, it had already seemed like the pilots had given up on trying to save the plane, as they knew they were already going to die, with these final words:
Robert: "Fuck, we're going to crash, this can't be true."
Bonin: "But what's going on?"
Robert: "We are dead."
Dubois: "10 degrees pitch attitude."
Put yourself in the shoes of the pilots and consider what they had to go through during the situation. Hell, it was even found that these guys didn't really get that much sleep.
This crash would not have happened if the aircraft was a Boeing, fact.
@@daviddenham1511 If indeed the Boeing did end up stalling similarly to Air France 447, it would have also crashed. The stall happened at a near flat angle, therefore basically meaning that it was unrecoverable. Multiple times, the nose did fall over and the aircraft did regain airspeed, but it continued to fall very quickly.
One small mistake of one person will cause 200 lives. Pilots have so much in their shoulders.
Mistake? He was pulling back intentionally. Idiotic move
The plane should have reverted automatically to normal law once the pitot tubes started working again therefore resolving the unreliable speed issue. With normal law, the pilot pulling the stick wouldn't have stalled the plane.
REC MAX is not shown on the PFD. It’s shown on the PROG page of the MCDU. Future readings of the voice recordings should read “0” as “zero” instead of “oh,” especially in ATC comm. All other aircraft on that route, both in front and behind AF447 deviated. With the tropopause averaging over 50,000 feet, they would not have been able to climb above that storm no matter what the outside temperature.
The stall warning is going off and may declare that they don’t know it’s stalling, but they pushed the thrust levers to TOGA which is what was taught as the stall recovery at low altitude, but is useless at high altitude. That’s why they say “but we’re in TOGA, eh?” And cant’ understand why that isn’t working. They’ve apparently forgotten the most basic fundamentals of stall recovery - it’s an angle of attach problem not a pitch or power problem.
For more info look up “Understanding Air France 447”
1. The stall warning wasn’t on for most of the time.
2. The stall recovery drill has always been to reduce pitch first.
@@peteconrad2077 Well, the stall warning was blaring for almost a minute as the stall progressed - and indeed that would have been the time to point the nose down!
The stall warning was inhibited only momentarily by the inop speed due to clogged pilots - but clogged pilots only lasted about 40 seconds.
The warning “STALL STALL STALL” ran on for almost a minute, they reacted pretty much as they were taught back then - push the power to TOGA - which of course is useless at FL380. It was at the first indication of the stall that they needed to push the nose over, not wait until they were falling at 20,000 ft/min.
It was only after the angle of attack started to approach 45º in their post apogee plummet (driving indicated airspeed to very low levels) that the stall warning became disabled for most of the time. By then it many not have been recoverable anyway.
@@BillPalmer yes, the stall warning is inhibited below 60kts. The first action of stall recovery at that time wasn’t just TOGA.
@@peteconrad2077 well they were trained at (simulated) low altitude, apply power and pitch down with a minimum loss of altitude.
It’s crazy, right, it’s what every pilot learns on their first or second lesson.
Especially egregious because Bonin was also glider pilot (at least to some extent) and gliders don’t’ have stall warnings (nor power, of course)
I read your comment regarding the stall warning and the crew's actions during the Air France 447 accident with great interest. As an experienced A330 pilot and author delving deep into the technical details of this tragedy, your perspective carries immense value. However, I must respectfully disagree with certain aspects of your analysis.
You rightly point out that the "STALL STALL STALL" warning blared for nearly a minute as the stall progressed, and that this should have been the critical moment for the crew to decisively push the nose down. Your observation that the stall warning was only momentarily inhibited due to the inoperative speed indications is also accurate. However, I would argue that the mere presence of the stall warning, while undoubtedly a crucial cue, does not necessarily encapsulate the full complexity of the situation the crew faced.
As you know, the transition to Alternate Law 2 due to the loss of reliable airspeed data significantly altered the aircraft's handling characteristics and flight control logic. The pilots were grappling with a highly degraded and unfamiliar mode of operation, where the usual protections against stalling were disabled. Additionally, the reduced aerodynamic damping at high altitudes exacerbated the roll instability, further compounding the challenges in maintaining control.
In such a rapidly deteriorating scenario, with multiple conflicting inputs and cues, it is conceivable that the crew's cognitive capacities were overwhelmed, leading to a breakdown in their ability to prioritize and respond appropriately to the stall warning. The psychological phenomenon of "startle effect" and the associated temporary incapacitation could have played a significant role in their delayed and ultimately ineffective actions.
Moreover, while you correctly note that pushing the thrust levers to TOGA (Take-Off/Go-Around) was likely an ineffective response at that altitude, it is important to consider the crew's training and experience. If their training primarily focused on low-altitude stall recovery techniques, their instinctive reaction to apply maximum thrust may have been a manifestation of that ingrained muscle memory, even if it was ultimately detrimental in this specific high-altitude scenario.
It is also worth considering whether the airline's training programs and organizational culture adequately prepared pilots for such highly unusual and complex situations. The transition from traditional flight control systems to fly-by-wire architectures and the associated changes in handling qualities may have necessitated more comprehensive and scenario-based training to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application under duress.
While hindsight analysis can easily identify the optimal course of action - pushing the nose down promptly upon stall warning - we must acknowledge the multitude of factors that can impede human performance in such high-stress, time-critical situations. Cognitive overload, startle effect, ingrained training biases, and the sheer unfamiliarity of the degraded flight control mode could have coalesced to create a perfect storm of confusion and delayed reaction.
That said, your insights into the specific timing and duration of the stall warning, as well as the aircraft's behavior during the latter stages of the descent, are invaluable contributions to our understanding of the sequence of events. Your expertise in analyzing the technical aspects of this accident is great, and it is through a constructive exchange of perspectives that we can collectively forge a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of this tragedy.
We should be exploring not only the technical dimensions but also the human factors, training paradigms, and organizational influences that may have played a role. By synthesizing our collective knowledge and experiences, we can extract the most profound lessons from this catastrophic event, ultimately enhancing aviation safety and preventing similar occurrences in the future.
Your Intro sounds like the vecnas grandfather clock in stranger things s4 lol 😂
Bonin with nearly 3000 hrs, still didn't know how to react in a stall, mind-boggling.
I hate to say it but if the captain was still in his seat ,or someone of the same calibre I can't see this ending how it did.
Robert was the most experience Airbus pilot of the 3 and he WAS in the seat. But, he failed to take over from Bonin (the least experienced) even though he knew Bonin was having trouble controlling the airplane. That takeover is rarely practiced in airline training, He finally did, but not until it was already far too late.
This presentation provided an incomplete explanation of relevant events!
Primary Failure:
Deviation from trained and required actions in response to initial loss of airspeed indications commencing with memory items by both pilots. Followed by unnecessary, erroneous and inappropriate response by F/O Bonin to aircraft attitude. The subsequent stall warning ought to have compelled hm to cease pitching up and more appropriately pitch down to increase over wing airspeed thus recovering stall.
Unbelievably he did the opposite which ultimately doomed them all, as evidenced by the PIC's response to to Bonin's announcement “I’ve been holding it (side stick) back the whole time” when then aircraft was below 8000ft MSL. It is heartbreaking to hear and appreciate the PIC's response as he manifests the completely accurate mental model of what ought to have been an entirely recoverable event from the beginning.
This was captured by the CVR in the final moments before impact as he realised unalterable confirmation of their demise.
F/O Bonin's actions were a consequence of one f two factors, perhaps a combination of both.
Either:
A. A psychological phenomena Cognitive Incapacitation which occurs following a startle incident particularly when fatigued. Given that the flight crew were at their Circadian Low factoring in time of morning in their home base time zone. At least a degree of this combined phenomenon may be contributory as typically complete Cognitive Incapacitation precludes one from maintaining Situational Awareness and clear logical dialogue whilst enacting inappropriate and erroneous control inputs be they automation adjustments or manual. Bonin demonstrated a sound ability to engage in logical conversation despite his obviously overwhelmed disorientation and degradation of Situational Awareness.
B. His responses exhibiting appalling airmanship were a consequence of training and/or intellectual deficits exacerbated by overconfidence in Airbus overrated automation.
Secondary Failures/Factors:
Attributed entirely to deplorable Airbus flight deck ergonomics.
1. Inadequate advice of automation downgrade to ‘alternate law' and loss of overrated 'flight envelope protection' Airbus pilots develop a false sense of trust and security with.
2. Stall warning extremely passive and non-threatening.
3. Inadequate advice of dual inputs. Unbelievably Airbus’s insane response to this high threat action is to average out the inputs of both pilots, then fly that profile!
4. Obscured visibility of opposite pilot’s side stick and most importantly their side stick inputs.
On a central flight control column with yoke, the input is duplicated in front of each pilot, making respective inputs unambiguous.
The senior F/O, David Robert, would have immediately recognised the inappropriate nose high inputs being made by his RHS seat colleague and corrected him, they would have safely landed in Paris following a momentary loss of Airspeed Indications along with an Inflight Upset event.
Miscellaneous Considerations:
Both pilot’s devolving and opposing mental models and failure to stop, reassess and regroup with a matching mental model facilitated a departure from effective CRM.
A number of factors appears to have contributed to the collapse of CRM based teamwork including F/O Bonin taking exception to F/O Robert's seniority and subsequent authority in the absence of PIC Dubois, as evidenced by Bonin's tone and responses captured on the CVR.
Despite F/O Bonin being PF and Robert the PNF, Bonin failed to relinquish control to Robert when he requested it, perhaps his ignorance may have been circumvented had Robert used the appropriate and more assertive command “My Aircraft”.
Consequently the dual and opposing inputs provided by both pilots that Airbus automation will remarkably accept by averaging out both inputs then flying that average-modified profile, mortally preventing Robert's nose down inputs from being achieved which would have recovered the stall with plenty of available altitude.
The permissibility of dual inputs is totally illogical, it is antithetical to safe aviation. Numerous Aviation Safety specific Psychology research continuously reveals that in high threat scenarios stimulating the autonomic nervous system's hyperarousal/acute stress response aka 'Fight/FlightFreeze', warnings or information that is text-based or aesthetic flashing diodes is completely unseen by the acutely refocused mind, so too are passively or comfortably spoken words that become washed out as extraneous noise.
Precisely for this reason high threat visual and auditory alerts on Boeing aircraft for example are loud attention capturing, highly assertive voice instructions along with obvious flashing lights in the central field of vision all combine to effectively convey the required message requiring an immediate response. The antithesis of Airbus’s poorly designed and arrogantly unchanged or updated systems, their frequent egotistical response is pilot onus and error.
The Airbus passive Master Warnings are manifestly inadequate and easily ignored in high stress, high workload environment particularly with increasing confusion and threat awareness.
This is way US manufactured aircraft feature loud assertive aural advisories, including two other tactile attention focusing protections ie the Stick Shaker followed by the Stick Pusher.
This frustrating accident had its doom sealed right back when Airbus designed the A320 with their ridiculous, quite dangerous and disadvantageous Side Stick, along with its obscured position and absence of synthetic feedback/reproduction of opposite pilot's inputs.
Their insane extremely arrogant automation system and its multiple shortcomings is another in-depth discussion altogether.
Astonishingly this is accepted by the regulators as incidents are deemed uncommon enough to warrant improvement!
Had the flight crew recovered the aircraft from its aerodynamic stall as they ought to have been able to and safely landed in Paris, a review of events would certainly have followed. Likely they would have been provided specific remedial retraining on memory items and QRH checklist actions appropriate to their initial event. Given that aN established procedure existed for it!
That would also prompt a company-wide issuance of a Flight Crew Notification Update reminding ALL flight crew of appropriate actions in such an event along with required Memory Items and QRH Reference.
Frustratingly this was an entirely preventable accident particularly with more practical flight deck layout/ergonomics.
Agreed and very well written. I would also add a Visual Ecam message of blocked or malfunctioning pitot tubes not just unreliable airspeed and Alternate law messages. In a startle effect environment alternate law could be very confusing and difficult to diagnose. Also i believe at this time EU commercial pilots were being trained to "minimize" Altitude loss in stall recovery which seems counter intuitive in this scenario. I believe this has been rectified now.
This one really bugs me. The plane is OBVIOUSLY stalling but the right seat guy keeps pulling back on his stick. As the Airbus sticks are just gamer joysticks not connected together in any way, the left seat guy had no feedback this was happening. And NONE of them recognized a stall when they were in one all they way down from FL350 to MSL. So bad design and worse training.
How STUPID was that pilot??
Even I know to push down when a stall alarm goes off.
So sad rip
The First Officer kept thinking over speed but actually stalled the aircraft until it was at such low altitude that it never recovered. The First Officer only had to drop the nose and maintain. The Capt was not aware and he never noticed coming from a sleepy state that the wheel was still being pulled back.
Everyone says FO Bonin was a terrible pilot and panicked but I still think it was intentional. While communication was bad, there were 7 clear requests for him to not touch controls, which he ignored and kept pulling back. There is no emergency that calls for a 5 min pull back reaction so I’m left thinking he did it on purpose
I've seen Mayday Air Disasters on this one and like everyone, it's hard to hear. It sounds like the flight crew was baffled but there's no indication that the actual ride was scary / out of control. It's like the plane's automation was able to let the plane fall out of the sky and still somehow maintain a smooth, comfortable ride as it dropped into the ocean. I wonder if the passengers had any clue they had dropped 35000' when the plane hit the water.
Wow, some of these incidents are scary but this one is the worst I think. I'd never have believed that a team of professional pilots could lose control over their plane so quickly and completely and have no mental image at all what the plane is doing. I'm baffled.
and the communication was terrible....they sounded like a bunch of bumbling boobs in there.
Captain is giving orders, but not using names.....and everyone is repeating him but replying to him.....just crazy. What were they, a bunch af Frenchmen or something?
Really sad
0:40 instant moment of doubt about the credibility of this channel, when the actor reading the position report pronounces "0133" as "oh one three three".
The voice actor for the captain I swear sounds like David Bateson which is the voice of agent 47 in the hitman games.
That's not what happened, the co pilot was holding the side stick in a nose up position, until the aircraft stalled.
Just saw this channel. Video of Qantas over Singapore.
".....it can never happen again". If man makes it then man can break it!
Peato tubes stopping up is ridiculous, there should be another way to check speed...
Definitely the best in my view. I know it's probably annoying for a viewer to suggest, and it is probably a hassle to obtain them and cue them up, but the actual cockpit voices are far more than phrases. The vocal nuances often fill in the pats of the mystery. The new AI voices just don't do it. Not you, but the AI voice glut has resulted in drek.
Must be difficult in the dark, but still can't understand why you would yank back on the side stick. Surely flying relatively stright is how you would fly manually? Maybe things might have been different if this was daytime
the voice
In all the years I’ve followed plane wrecks pitot tubes have been involved in quite a few accidents. You’d think they’d devise something a little more reliable.
There is an alternative: small winglets attached to the fuselage. The leading edge of any wing is exposed to the onrush of air, and the result is a strain on the attachment between the wing and the fuselage. It happens with the actual wings: but the problem there is that these elements (like the rudder and the elevators) are attached so firmly that the moment produced would be relatively difficult to measure (i.e. there is almost no movement). But a winglet designed specifically for this purpose would produce a measurable bending moment which would be directly proportional to the force produced by the onrush of air. It would be more accurate than a Pitot tube. It would still be affected by this supercooled water, however: if ice formed on the leading edge this would affect somewhat the force registered. So they would have to be heated. Pitot tubes are pretty reliable, and their intermittent failure due to supercooled water was absolutely NOT the cause of this accident of course. What this illustrates is that airspeed is an absolutely critical value for the correct functioning of the autopilot, and I basically agree with you that there should be Pitot tubes AND winglets with strain gauges.
17:20 - You insinuating Airbus pilots do stall training in Boeing sims? 😆
Do the flight crew really say 'oh' instead of zero?. It all sounded a bit odd with all the 'ohs' and then the occasional zero in the replay.
The origin of this flights doom, was the fact the idiot Pilots attempted to fly through a severe Tropical Storm with tops of 50,000 feet. They had to fly around the storm or return to Rio. Additionally, the Weather Radar System was not used correctly whereby the morons did not realize the severity of the storm. The stupid captain left the cockpit for his break and upon returning, he failed to immediately take control of the flight by sitting down in the left seat and telling the other imbecile first officer to do nothing, unless instructed. The Side Stick Control was kept in a Pitch-Up position the whole time causing the aircraft to experience a 'Full Aerodynamic Stall' with a vertical/downward speed of probably 300 m.p.h. from which it could not recover. As usual "90% of all Commercial & General Aviation Accidents/Losses are due to 'Pilot Error'.
Did Commercial Pilots fly planes in there qualification training? Its so poor , nose down and all had survived . Never pull untill ground.
Hi, I just came in your channel because of your advertisement
Thanks for coming sir!
I think that's how I found out as well
@@SP-sy5nq, hehehahh
@@3Greens, :D
I think this is pure stubborness... Him pulling up n a stall warning, stubborn...
With out a trace?
They found debris within days, so without a trace is inaccurate.
It certainly didn't dissappear without a trace.. Wreckage was found on the surface...
What a horrible year 2009 was
when man losses control
I'm not flying at night ever again
it took 2 years to find this?
seem easy...
imagine MH370
I could never see the justification for having the auto-pilot bail at the first sign of trouble, abruptly dumping basic control of the aircraft into the hands of the pilots. If it had maintained current pitch and wings level, it could have warned the pilots about the loss of reliable airspeed, giving them time to think about what to do before they needed to take control (if they ever did).
The autopilot can only fly the parameters it’s been given. If they’re out of range then it has to give control to the pilots.
@@peteconrad2077 That tells us how it's designed. It doesn't explain why it's designed that way.
@@sylviaelse5086 if the aircraft is outside it’s flight envelope then something has gone seriously wrong. In those circumstances you can’t really program an autoflight system to cover every possibility, you need a human on the job as were much more versatile and can adapt to novel situations.
This is bazaar. Why didnt the pilots listen to their plane, and why did they not notice the altimeter.
Those tubes seem very old school and prone to freezing up. Why is GPS not used as a backup to help with working out air speed?
you're mixing up airspeed with groundspeed, but true, a rather basic GPS could at least give an indication.
@@l.d.t.6327 as a last resort maybe they should have it in there planes?
The better the automatic, the worse off the pilots are, when forced to take over ...
Tesla: hu-hu, any opinion on this?
The stall alarm went off the entire time and they never acknowledged it?
Actually, they did follow an actual procedure that was in the Airbus FCOM for stall recovery.
We are judging them by today's procedures, but they were thought differently back then.
Not to mention the shock to discover that the uncrashable plane that could be flown even by monkeys, is in fact very crashable.
Not joking here... Many pilots out there putting too much trust in automation and not prepared for the unexpected.
There was a recent incident with an Air France flight were one of the recommendations in the final report was to include training programs for pilots on how to handle the startling effect.
Climb, go down, climb nobody actually communicated what or why
These guys clearly never played flight games.
13:16 having watched AF447 docs so many times I so want the Captain to say after what are you doing? And the FO replies, idk, I want Captain to say it’s ok it’s prob the pitot tube iced up give it a couple of minutes and it will be fine 😢😢😢
The main reason why they crashed is simple!! They were going down but never yelled “Timber” 😂😂😂😂😂😂
This aircraft is in coffine corner. The engin instruments are much better airspeed indicator