Questions tagged [af447-accident]
Air France flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in mid-2009 after entering a stall from which the flight crew failed to recover.
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Why would the salience of the A330/A340's stall warning be decreased, rather than increased, by being an aural alert on a primarily-visual airplane?
Going back and reading through the AF447 accident report:
Furthermore, in alternate or direct laws as featured in the manufacturer’s manual (FCOM), the stall warning is described as being the ...
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How was it possible in the 2000's for two pilots on an international passenger flight to be so poorly trained (AF 447)? [closed]
Looking at the cockpit recorder transcript from AF 447, two things seem clear to me:
The two pilots flying (not the captain) did not know very well how to steer the airplane up and down, if the ...
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What does the autopilot do if activated in a stall condition?
I was thinking about Air France 447 recently and had a wonder:
What would happen if the pilots had re-engaged the autopilot and stopped all stick input? (If that's even possible in a stall condition). ...
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Is it practical to intentionally stall an aircraft to execute a fast, controlled descent?
An MD-11 had an onboard fire, but had to request more flying distance at least partly to execute a safe descent (and to dump fuel). It ended in tragedy.
In another accident, an A330 descended 30,000 ...
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Why did AF447 never return to normal law?
Air France Flight 447 degraded from normal law to alternate-2B law when its pitot tubes were temporarily filled with ice crystals, resulting in a loss of airspeed data. As a consequence of being in ...
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Why did Air France flight 447 fail to recover from the stall? [duplicate]
I have read the wikipedia entry about the accident but I don't understand why did the stall happen and why the plane couldn't recover from the stall.
Correct me if I am wrong but I would think a ...
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What is being depicted w.r.t. AoA in this video?
I was looking at this video of the AF447 crash simulation and at about 4:45 the angle of attack diagram shows a few things I don't understand (frame above).
I get the orientation of the airplane, ...
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Why is the A330/A340's angle-of-attack protection disabled in alternate law, even if the AoA vanes are operating normally?
Reading about Air France Flight 447, to quote Wikipedia (emphasis added):
... A second consequence of the reconfiguration into alternate law was that stall protection no longer operated. Whereas in ...
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People in a rollercoaster or falling elevator feel the rapid descent, so why don't pilots in the cockpit?
Judging from the CVR transcript, the AF447 pilots didn't realize for most of the plunge that they were stalled and rapidly losing altitude.
Why don't pilots in the cockpit get the same sensation of ...
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Did AF447 cross dangerous weather?
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Did the Air France 447 pilots endanger the passengers by not diverting around but flying straight through the weather system encountered and pictured below ? Or was this a defendable, ...
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What has Airbus done to address the dual input issue?
There have been a couple of fatal incidents involving Airbus aircraft, namely Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 and Air France Flight 447, that could have been prevented had the captains orders / input ...
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Why disable stall warning based only on low airspeed, rather than multiple criteria?
One of the factors that potentially contributed to the Air France 447 crash is that the stall warning was disabled when the airspeed fell below 60 knots.
I understand why this is -- you don't want to ...
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What other circumstances may cause the autopilot to trip out?
I recently watched Air Crash Investigation, Air France Flight 447.
The autopilot handed back control to the flight deck after the pitot tubes temporarily froze. The autopilot knew it was getting ...
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On Air France 447, what would have been the lowest altitude to initiate recovery after the stall developed?
What could the lowest altitude of Air France 447 have been to recover the (stalled) flight, where the co-pilot informed the captain that he was pulling up the whole time?
The co-pilot didn't inform ...
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Why did the pilot flying pull back in the moments after the auto-pilot disconnected on AF447?
In the AF447 disaster, one of the elements that contributed to the crash was an "excessive" nose-up input shortly after the disconnection of the auto-pilot.
This caused the aeroplane to climb and ...
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Would mechanical indicators have helped in the Air France 447 incident?
NB I am not an aviation professional.
I saw a documentary about the terrible Air France 447 disaster the other day.
I was struck, as were the experts in it, including David Learmount, who's known as ...
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AF447 stall and failure to recover [duplicate]
To my knowledge Air France Flight 447 experienced stall. How was the stall detected and why wasn't the crew able to recover?
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How can a pitot tube freeze when it's heated?
Reading Why turn off pitot tube heating?, it appears that the pitot tube heat can be switched off to extent its lifetime and also in case of short-circuit.
(Thales pitot-static probe, source BEA)
On ...
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Do Airbus pilots have to practice flying in alternate law?
I am sure when getting their type rating for Airbus FBW aircraft, pilots learn how to fly in alternate and direct law. After that, how much opportunity do they get to practice this skill?
On Air ...
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How much can falling down due to a stall influence the angle of attack?
I am trying to understand the af447 incident, more precisely, how a professional pilot having an attitude indicator available failed to understand that the angle of attack was too high. Was it that ...
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What could these possibly incorrectly translated numbers for aircraft speed have been?
Yesterday I was watching a show about Air Crash Investigation, the
Air France flight 447 case involving an Airbus A330-200.
I was watching it with Spanish voice dubbing and the weird part is that ...
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How often are aircraft flown by two FO's?
On Air France flight 447 the captain was on rest break and the a/c was being flown by two first officers. Most other instances I know of on long flights there is a relief crew of both a captain and an ...
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Could a rear center of gravity position cause an airliner to lose control when a pitch-up is commanded? [closed]
Modern aircraft cruise with the center of gravity close to the most rearward position to minimise trim drag, usually achieved with fuel in the tail surfaces. This is transferred forward before or ...
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Why Air France 447 could not reduce angle of attack?
I just finished reading this article and couldn't understand why in 3 minutes and 30 seconds even though there was no reliable speed data, pilot could not level the plane? Isn't the angle of attack ...
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Could passengers realize a possible emergency? [duplicate]
First, to clarify, I'm not looking for nightmare stories here. I'm not curious about the fears of passengers but rather about what's actually noticeable for them. It's pretty clear that passengers not ...
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What improvements did Airbus make as a result of the Air France 447 accident?
As far as I can tell, the following factors all contributed to this crash:
Pitot tubes susceptible to ice crystal blockage
Crew not aware that they can stall the airplane due to alternate law
No ...
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Could the GPS be used to aid the autopilot with speed?
In the AF447 incident, the autopilot system was offline due to the aircraft's pitot tubes being obstructed by ice particles.
Since the physical condition of the plane in air is cold and risky, the ...
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How does an A330 detect stall without airspeed?
On Air France 447 the crew had experienced complete failure of the pitot static system, which meant they lost their readings on their airspeed indicators, but according to the Mayday / Air Crash ...
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