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AF447

There are darker aspects too, in the way of casual attitudes to safety, evidenced by not being too bothered about deviating around a huge TS, the captain being in his bunk, reportedly after a “heavy night out”, despite knowing rough wx was expected. Similar to the Concorde crash discussed here.

You mean on crew side? I don’t recall there was any Concorde crash associated with human factors? or poor crew training?

Most pilots who flew Concorde had substantial track records (lot of skills in handflying and knowledge of systems)

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

There are darker aspects too, in the way of casual attitudes to safety, evidenced by not being too bothered about deviating around a huge TS, the captain being in his bunk, reportedly after a “heavy night out”, despite knowing rough wx was expected. Similar to the Concorde crash discussed here.

Airline pilots are just normal people too. Think of how many people you know who like to drink, voila, same with pilots. Having said that, nobody on a layover thinks about weather for a return flight 24+ hours later. „I’ll scrap dinner and beer tonight, there might be a CB around the ITCZ during tomorrow’s flight home“ doesn’t happen.
You take a look at those things during the flight preparation/briefing. Unless it is a 100 year hurricane event, nobody considers this at all.

I have been at 3 airlines, and airlines are normal companies, so it’s no wonder that I have witnessed

- below average pilots (being „protected“)
- nepotism, politics
- commercial pressure „exceeding“ safety boundaries

The really oversimplified reason for that crash:

The next time you read/hear an airline stating „safety is our priority“ ask them (after you have wiped down the tea coming out of your nose):

„How much simulator training above the minimum required by law are you offering your pilots“?

„How do you isolate people from self inflicted commercial pressure of the organisation? Example: How many flights exceeded minimum time tracks at the cost of reduced payload due to additional fuel“?

My „in a nutshell“ for today.

always learning
LO__, Austria

Most pilots who flew Concorde had substantial track records (lot of skills in handflying and knowledge of systems)

That’s not how airlines work. You don’t attain prestigious positions in airlines based on merit. That’s at best, a side effect, favored by the fact that indeed many airline pilots of that era were above average „sticks“.

always learning
LO__, Austria

You mean on crew side? I don’t recall there was any Concorde crash associated with human factors? or poor crew training?

Here. The French Concorde crash was entirely to do with human factors. On the crew side, heavy normalisation of deviance. Poor maintenance, too. But really you need to read the book.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The French Concorde crash was entirely to do with human factors. On the crew side, heavy normalisation of deviance. Poor maintenance, too. But really you need to read the book.

Poor engineering and dodgy (state sponsored) cover ups, I get that…still nothing to do with the pilots

I don’t buy Prob90 (or 100%) they were abusing Concorde fuel tanks with bad CRM habits so that when the tire brusts after hitting a random metal piece from the previous aircraft it overspill JetA everywhere (imagine reading a similar book for Challenger space shuttle), what about pilots not wearing their RayBans?

Last Edited by Ibra at 24 Jan 14:07
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Read the Mike Bannister book. Tailwind takeoff (disregarded, not even discussed), loads of luggage not accounted for in loading, load sheets disappeared, etc. The fire started 700m before hitting the piece of metal.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Haven’t read the book yet. If there is hard evidence that the fire started before hitting that piece of metal that’s quite some news, for me at least.

Private field, Mallorca, Spain

If there is hard evidence that the fire started before hitting that piece of metal that’s quite some news

Eye witness evidence from several aviation professionals. Initially discounted because (a) it didn’t fit the intended narrative and (b) (supposedly) because it was inconsistent – which turns out to be because the witnesses were in different places. It was accepted by the appeal and was one reason that the convictions of Continental and several individuals were quashed.

Also Bannister himself heard a strange noise on the CVR at the corresponding time, though it wasn’t until long afterwards that he realised it was the sound of an explosion.

LFMD, France

Bannister’s book about Concorde and Palmer’s book about AF447 are both excellent, have recently finished them.

Indeed on AF447 I learned quite a bit. My previous sketchy knowledge of the crash had been limited to the lunacy of the stall warner turning itself off if the airspeed got too low, but from this book I learned a whole lot about the control laws – in some circumstances (before you depart controlled flight) preventing you moving the control surfaces to a certain position is a great idea, but in others (e.g. once fully stalled) it actually prevents you saving yourself. The author’s broad conclusion – he’s an A330 training captain himself – is that once they were into Alternate Law 2 and fully stalled they were as good as dead. Even if they’d known what was happening and applied continual full forward stick, the Airbus fly-by-wire computer would never have moved the elevator into the max nose down position.

Then there’s other silly stuff that makes you wonder what the designers were smoking, like if the flight directors are lost momentarily and come back, they come back and give you directions to maintain whatever was happening (not what was desired) at the moment they were lost. They lost them while in a pilot-induced zoom climb at about 6,000ft per minute, so when they came back they gave instructions for same – max nose up.

Last Edited by Graham at 24 Jan 21:32
EGLM & EGTN

From my understanding it’s quite the opposite. Alternate law REMOVES some parts of the envelope protection and allows for more movement than normal law. There’s no reason that a pitch down would not have recovered the plane (provided it was aerodynamically recoverable of course, which is not a given in a fully developed stall).

France
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