The last minutes of Air France flight 447

[Murph]

This must have been horrific. No heat in the pitot tubes, I thought that was a major thing every pilot trained to do was make sure they were heated? Not taking on enough fuel? Error after error it seems.

Death in the Atlantic: The Last Four Minutes of Air France Flight 447 - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

[groovyone]

Ugh. Horrible. I am with you, I thought that was on the checklist. Seems like it was just a complete bad day.

[d2creative]

More than 200 tons of metal, plastic, kerosene and human bodies smashed into the sea. The sheer force of the impact is described in the forensic report, which lists in graphic detail how lungs were torn apart and bones were shredded end to end. Some of the passengers were sliced in half by their seatbelt.

Lovely.

[jeffclow]

Sad - but fascinating - reading. Thanks for sharing.

[Murph]

Yeah. I was suprised that Airbus/Air France does not have manual control backup like Boeing does on their airliners. That just seems to me to be a bad choice if the computer packs up to have no manual control.

Originally Posted by groovyone

Ugh. Horrible. I am with you, I thought that was on the checklist. Seems like it was just a complete bad day.

[daveb]

So if they were in a thunderstorm environment (which equals known icing the way I was taught) was the pitot heat ( as well as wing and airframe anti-ice) not on. Im just saying...

Having had some experience with the French DGCA (their equivalent of the FAA ) I know for a fact that they have a theory ... if it is a French airplane and a non French crew blame the crew because the airplane is perfect. If it is a French airplane and French crew blame the airplane because the crew is perfect.

[lfmerrell]

>>Many years ago, a Boeing 727 on a flight from NewYork to Buffalo entered a spin as it climbed through 24,800 feet. It crashed 83 seconds later, (the average descent rate was 17,000 fpm) killing everyone on board. The flight data recorder showed that the pilots were deceived by erroneous airspeed indic- ations caused by an ice blockage in the pitot-static system. The airspeed had increased steadily during the climb, which encouraged them to raise the nose further to reduce the airspeed. This process continued until the aircraft’s attitude was nearly 30o nose-up before it stalled and entered a spin.<<

My understanding is the flight crew broke their checklist instead of starting from square one the started with the item after pitot heat.Above is a copy paste from Vector, July / August 2003 A New Zealand flight crew publication. This issue dealt with Pitot-Static Systems, Fire Protection vs Ozone Protection Airmanship, Discipline Point of No Return.

I can not get a clean link, google-ing the on first sentence should get a hit to the downloadable .pdf file.