Air France flight 447 Rio to Paris June 2009

[singveld]

'Damn it, we're going to crash, it can't be true!': Terrified final words of pilot on doomed Air France jet
Flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris went down in Atlantic Ocean with loss of 228 lives


The final words of three terrified pilots on board an Air France jet which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean have emerged today for the first time.

In a scandal which is set to shock all those who work or travel on commercial flights, they reveal absolute panic and ignorance among those in charge of the aircraft.

The exchange is from the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) on Flight 447, which went down in a tropical storm with the loss of 228 lives while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in June 2009.

'Damn it! We're going to crash. It can't be true,' says one of the pilots.

'But, what's happening?' another replies, seconds before the Airbus 330 plunged into the water, killing everyone on board including five Britons and three Irish doctors.

Until now only selected excerpts from the conversation between David Robert, 37, Pierre-Cedric Bonin, 32, and Marc Dubois, 58, the captain of the plane, have been released.

Air accident investigators kept the rest hidden, saying they did not want to upset families of the pilots lost in the worst crash in the company's history.

But now Jean-Pierre Otelli, a veteran French flying instructor, has written a book in which he lays the dramatic moments bare.

Rio-Paris Crash: A Collection of Pilot Errors describes how the men failed to deal with a loss of lift.

Mr Dubois, who had 11,000 flying hours behind him, was on a routine break when it happened, leaving his two subordinates in charge.

'So, is he coming?' Mr Robert is heard muttering, even swearing in frustration when Mr Dubois takes a full minute to get back to the cockpit.

'Hey, what are you...' Mr Dubois is heard to say when he gets back, to which Mr Robert replies: 'What's happening? I don't know, I don't know what's happening.'

Instead of lowering the plane's nose to deal with the stall - as they should have done according to normal procedures - they raised it.

Mr Bonin is heard saying: 'I've got a problem I don't have vertical speed.

I don't have any indication,' before his captain replies: 'I don't know, but right now we're descending.'

Air France argues that the pilots were baffled by numerous confusing signals from the Airbus, while the plane manufacturer insists that it was responding properly.

As the plane approaches the sea, the crew began conversing in short, panicked questions.

'What do you think? What do you think? What should we do?' said Mr Robert, while the plane rocked from side-to-side.

'I don't have control of the plane, I don't have control of the plane at all,' Mr Bonin replied, as a stall alarm resounded for the sixth time in two minutes.

According to an official report released earlier this year, the last words were from Captain Dubois who said: 'Ten degrees pitch.'

But in his new book Mr Otellis asks who will be held responsible 'for this mess'.'It is a training problem, fatigue, lack of sleep, or is it due to the fact the pilots are confident than an Airbus can make up for all errors?,' he writes.

France's air accident investigation unit, the BEA, reacted angrily to the publication of the book, with a spokesman saying printing the conversation showed a 'lack of respect to the memory of the crew who died'.

Air France has denied that its pilots were incompetent, but has since improved training, concentrating on how to fly a plane manually when there is a stall.

Both Air France and Airbus are facing manslaughter charges, with a judicial investigation led by Paris judges already under way.

A judge has already ordered Air France to pay some £120,000 in compensation to the families of each victim, but this is just a provisional figure which is likely to multiply many times over.



THE FINAL MOMENTS

Marc Dubois (captain): 'Get your wings horizontal.'

David Robert (pilot): 'Level your wings.'

Pierre-Cedric Bonin (pilot): 'That's what I'm trying to do... What the... how is it we are going down like this?'

Robert: 'See what you can do with the commands up there, the primaries and so on…Climb climb, climb, climb.'

Bonin: 'But I have been pulling back on the stick all the way for a while.'

Dubois: 'No, no, no, don't climb.'

Robert: 'Ok give me control, give me control.'

Dubois: 'Watch out you are pulling up.'

Robert: 'Am I?'

Bonin: 'Well you should, we are at 4,000.'

As they approach the water, the on-board computer is heard to announce: 'Sink rate. Pull up, pull up, pull up.'

To which Captain Dubois reacts with the words: 'Go on: pull.'

Bonin: 'We're pulling, pulling, pulling, pulling.'

The crew never discuss the possibility that they are about to crash, instead concentrating on trying to right the plane throughout the final four minutes.

Dubois: 'Ten degrees pitch.'

Robert: 'Go back up!…Go back up!…Go back up!… Go back up!'

Bonin: 'But I’ve been going down at maximum level for a while.'

Dubois: 'No, No, No!… Don’t go up !… No, No!'

Bonin: 'Go down, then!'

Robert: 'Damn it! We’re going to crash. It can’t be true!'

Bonin: 'But what’s happening?!'

The recording stops.

Wreckage: Brazil Navy sailors recover debris from Air France flight 447. A new book on the crash has revealed pilots panicked as the plane lost altitude

Doomed: Flight captain Marc Dubois, left, was not in the cockpit when the plane stalled. Right, Pierre-Cedric Bonin said he had lost control of the aircraft

Inexperience? One of the plane's flight data recorders on the ocean bed. Recordings made in the cockpit have revealed the two co-pilots were too panicked to tell the captain what was happening

Disaster: The aircraft was in an aerodynamic stall, but the pilots failed to push the nose down to correct it

 

[singveld]

Air France Crash Book Shows Transcript of Pilot Confusion

The first book investigating the Air France 447 crash into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009 supports official conclusions that the pilots took the wrong measures to avert disaster that killed all 228 on board. Source: Forca Aerea Brasileira via Bloomberg

The first book investigating the Air France 447 crash into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009 supports official conclusions that the pilots took the wrong measures to avert disaster that killed all 228 on board.

Publishing what he says is the first full transcript of the pilots’ voice recordings, French aviation author Jean-Pierre Otelli describes a scene in the Airbus SAS cockpit that is dominated by confusion, a lack of coordination, and denial among the flight crew as the jet plunged through the night sky toward the ocean surface. Otelli, who specializes in aviation safety, publishes his book “Piloting Error, Volume 5” today.

Aviation investigators have been able to piece together the last hours of the June 2009 flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris after retrieving the flight and data recorders from the ocean ground following a two-year search. France’s BEA investigator has published two reports that contained only select transcripts. The reports showed the crew pulled the jet into a steep climb until it slowed to an aerodynamic stall before slumping into the sea.

“This accident, and the mystery surrounding it, elicited huge emotion in France as well as in Brazil,” Otelli writes. “Beyond the questions raised about modern air safety and pilot training, the crash of the Rio-Paris flight will remain a case study in the annals of air transport.”
Ice-Blocked Tubes

The BEA accident investigation bureau said it ’’strongly condemns’’ the disclosure of the full transcript. The mention of personal conversations between the crew members “have no bearing on the event, which shows a lack of respect for the memory of the late crew members,” the bureau said.

The BEA will issue a final report on the accident June 2012 following meetings of experts that will examine pilot behaviors in stressful situations. An interim report from a criminal probe earlier this month broadly endorsed the findings by the BEA in a report in May, which showed ice-blocked speed sensors shut down the aircraft’s autopilot and the crew reacting incorrectly.

The French aviation safety authority earlier this year released only limited portions of pilots’ conversations to help shed light on what occurred in the cockpit. Air France SA said yesterday that the information in the book was ’’non-verified, and non-verifiable,’’ saying it brought “no new elements.”
Meat Cargo

“At this stage, the analysis done by judicial experts and the technical investigation led by the BEA don’t permit any definitive conclusions to be drawn,” the Paris-based airline said in a statement commenting on Otelli’s book.

Otelli’s presentation of the night’s events showcase the relative inexperience of the pilot who was controlling the plane. At 32 years of age, he was the youngest and least tested, with less than a third of the flight hours of the captain who was almost twice his age, and only a handful of flights to South America.

When the captain prepared to leave the cockpit for routine crew rest, he asked the young pilot if he had a full airline pilot’s license, rather than just a commercial pilot license, Otelli’s account shows. The captain returned to the flight deck in the last moments of the flight, but never resumed control.

Anyone for Whisky?

As the plane hurtled vertically toward the sea, time to salvage the aircraft quickly ran out, Otelli writes. Aggravating the situation was the fact that neither of the co-pilots appeared entirely sure at times who had the controls of the plane.

The book acts as a fly-on-the-wall account that reveals some of the more trivial banter in the cockpit in the hours before the deadly impact.

At one point, a flight attendant enters the cockpit to inquire if the temperature in the baggage hold could be lowered to protect the meat she’s brought back in her suitcase from Brazil, Otelli’s transcript says. The pilot acquiesces, joking that they’d send her the bill for the extra fuel consumed.

Earlier in the flight, the captain and the younger co-pilot are enjoying music from a portable player after dinner, prompting the junior pilot to joke that “all we need is whisky,” Otelli writes.

Air France and Airbus were charged in March with manslaughter in the criminal investigation, an interim status that does not mean they will stand trial. Both companies deny the charges. Lawyers for Air France, Airbus and the crew did not return messages left at their offices and on their mobile phones for comment.

“It reflects what has already been published by the BEA,” Airbus spokesman Stefan Schaffrath said by e-mail.

“Piloting Error, Volume 5,” is published by Altipresse, based near Paris, for 24 euros ($33).

 

[singveld]

 

[singveld]

Air France Flight AF 447

Families of victims of the AF 447 crash two years ago say that a technical defect could be to blame for the catastrophe.

Airbus believes pilot error caused the crash of Air France flight AF 447 two years ago. But the families of some victims think it might have been a technical defect. They have filed a petition with a Paris court which could result in a temporary grounding of all A330s.
Info

An initial report released by the French aviation accident investigation agency BEA, based on a preliminary analysis of flight AF 447 data recorders, provided plenty of insight into the causes of the Air France crash into the Atlantic Ocean two years ago. But plenty of questions remain open -- and they have provided fuel to an intense debate currently raging among Air France, Airbus and the families of crash victims.

The central questions are clear: Did the pilots react incorrectly once the speed sensors on the outside of the plane iced up and the automatic pilot disengaged? Or was an additional technical error to blame?

Lawyers and technical experts for the families of German crash victims suspect that a hidden software error in the automated flight control system -- specifically concerning a vital stabilizer flap on the plane's tail -- doomed to failure all pilot efforts to regain control of the plane. They are demanding that the Parisian court investigating the crash take action. "We petition that appropriate action be taken to prevent a catastrophe similar to that which befell AF 447 from happening again," reads the letter submitted to Judge Sylvie Zimmermann, which SPIEGEL has obtained.

The families' attorneys are demanding that the court require Airbus to undertake "technical improvements" so that "speed sensors can no longer ice up in the future." Should that not be possible, then Airbus planes must be "outfitted with software for the electronic flight control system that precludes the sudden occurrence of an uncontrolled flight situation."

The letter also raises the possibility that the entire fleet of Airbus A330s as well as that of the sister model A340 might have to be temporarily grounded. More than 1,000 planes would be affected by such an order.

A Strange Anomaly

The Hanover legal practice of Ulrich von Jeinsen, which composed the letter, and the Berlin aviation law expert Elmar Geimulla made mention in the letter that there could be "criminal consequences" should indications of a software error not be thoroughly investigated and another Airbus crashes for the same reason.

Von Jeinsen's motion is primarily based on the expert opinion of Gerhard Hüttig, a professor at the Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Technical University in Berlin. Just over a year ago, Hüttig recreated the Air France crash in a flight simulator. In the course of the exercise, Hüttig noticed a strange anomaly in the plane's reaction once it goes into a stall. The trimmable horizontal stabilizer, a flap instrumental in keeping the plane on an even keel, automatically adjusted to push the nose of the plane skyward.

Hüttig, a former Airbus pilot himself, and other pilots present for the test were unable to push the nose of the airplane down and thereby escape the stall.

When the BEA released its preliminary report last Friday, Hüttig immediately zeroed in on data relating to the trimmable horizontal stabilizer. During the final minutes of flight AF 447 as it plunged toward the Atlantic, the flap moved from a 3 degree deflection to a 13 degree deflection, almost the maximum possible. "The phenomenon is startlingly similar," he told SPIEGEL.

A Quiet Reaction

Hüttig passed along his simulator findings to Airbus, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and to BEA. On Oct. 27, 2010, Hüttig received a response from EASA which said that Hüttig's theory was inconsistent with the "current state of knowledge." "We suspect that the anomaly you found originated with the simulator you used in the study rather than with the airplane model A330," the response read.

Hüttig and Jeinsen told SPIEGEL that the data recovered from the wreck of flight AF 447 would now seem to have corroborated the simulator findings. Furthermore, Airbus has quietly reacted to the safety loophole. In a communiqué to airlines, Airbus provided a new version of pilot instructions for dealing with a stall. Furthermore, in the January issue of its internal safety magazine, there is a mention of manually trimming the horizontal stabilizers.

In response to a SPIEGEL query, Airbus rejected Hüttig's theory. The company has said that the deflection of the stabilizers can be explained by pilot attempts to pull up the nose of the aircraft.

Other European airlines have begun analyzing the data from flight AF 447 in an effort to identify potential dangers to aircraft of the same model in their own fleets. A final and comprehensive report from the BEA is scheduled for release at the end of July. Aviation experts predict that the report will do little to forestall a brewing fight among the investigators, Airbus and Air France over who, ultimately, is responsible for the crash, which resulted in 228 deaths.

Below the Waves

Meanwhile, the recovery of the bodies lying 4,000 meters (13,100 feet) below the ocean surface continues. In addition to recovering the data recording devices from the Air France jet, tissue samples were taken from two bodies. After a laboratory in Paris was able to identify the bodies using DNA samples, the French government made the decision to recover as many bodies as possible.

Families of Brazilian victims, who are still waiting for death certificates for their loved ones, would also like to see the remains brought to the surface. Many families of European victims, however, have asked that the bodies be left on the floor of the Atlantic.

A total of 75 bodies have thus far been brought to the surface. About 100 more remain below the waves. Search teams recovered 51 bodies from the ocean in the aftermath of the accident.