The French have announced the information to be released tomorrow will give "Factual elements on the operation of the flight that will establish the circumstances of the accident but not the causes" to correct "The partial and contradictory information published in the media".
I am all in favor of establishing circumstances and certainly think it should be done prior to laying any blame. However, dealing with forty to fifty major alarms in a four minute sequence is inherently dangerous particularly at night near turbulence in a situation that is neither taught nor simulated during the pilot's training. Pilot Error is one term that should often be prefaced with the phrase Design Induced. In the case of AF447 it should be Design Induced and Training Re-inforced Pilot Error.
The French announcement implies that the plane had already entered turbulent air prior to the throttle being reduced and the nose pitching up based on instructions derived from the pitot tube data. This has not necessarily been established. Partial and contradictory information is often the fault of the authorities, not the journalists.
...
What fools these journalists are! The press statement was just more incomplete data with obvious omissions.
Why do journalists keep discussing the fact that the chief pilot was on a rest break. So what? Each of the two pilots in the cockpit was a fully qualified and experienced pilot. The Chief Pilot arrived back in the cockpit about one minute after the event commenced but wisely did not immediately assume command of the aircraft.
Today's statement focused on actions taken by the Pilot Flying but never once compared those actions as to whether they were proper for what the instruments displayed or what was actually happening. A pilot immediately adding full power when he thinks there is a stall is fine and dandy. Student pilots learn that by their third lesson. Yet the pilot simultaneously commanding a nose-up pitch increase? In a stall? Of course the essential point is that a pilot for Air France is only trained on low altitude stalls at low power. Yet any pilot should know to get the nose down not up. Perhaps it was a question of which instruments to believe and which to disregard but soon each pilot agreed that they had "no indications" (of speed). They never escaped a deep stall and it seems never went to a sixty degree bank in an attempt to escape the deep stall. They were doing what they had been trained to do if they were "low and slow" and inadvertently stalled the aircraft. Everything in their training revolves around the FlyByWire system that will not allow the pilot to stall the aircraft but once the wildly divergent pitot sensor data caused the computer to trip out, the plane was in Alternate Law mode and while some protections are in place, stalls are quite possible. Computer control over the stabilizer trim tab is lost upon entering Alternate Law but pilots appear not to have known that which is understandable since they never really train for Alternate Law.
So weather really played no role in this as they made a simple deviation around the weather, it was the non-turbulent icing that was a problem for them. They had erroneous indications of dangerously slow speed and then no reliable indications of speed at all. The initial climb of several thousand feet was due to the added thrust when they went to TOGA power, this also increased the severe nose-up attitude due to the pilot's failure to consider stabilizer settings being now manually controllable but not computer controllable.
The first incident was icing of the pitot and static air sources. Soon thereafter the computer became aware of unreliable data. The problem is that at the point in time wherein the static air source became iced and therefore the airplane's speed supposedly fell from 275 to 60, it is clear that such an event could not have taken place without some sort of deceleration forces having been applied. Prior to sending a series of critical warnings to the pilot, how about a critical warning to the computer: airspeed is clearly erroneous so make no immediate adjustments.
The pilot seeing such an abrupt air speed change should have known it was erroneous and probably related to static air data and the pilot hearing the stall warning should not have assumed that it was already a stalled aircraft. The FlyByWire system had pitched the nose up but not gravely, speed was decaying but not gravely.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Casey Anthony Trial
They are off and running.
Right out of the gate, the defense plays the Sex Abuse card which quite frankly is the proper time to play it if he is ever going to play it. No 31 days. The kid drowned in the pool. The mother reacted badly due to a lifelong habit of dysfunctional performance and denial. Oh and by the way the Defendant's Father started right away screaming at her about lifetime in jail and cowed her into not calling 911 or proceeding properly. No allegation, however, that the drowning incident which was unwitnessed by the defendant was actually an unlawful act by the grandfather.
Prosecution of course simply proceeds as if the defense had not said a word, hoping the jurors will pick up on their attitude and adopt a similar stance. This is sort of similar to the way the prosecution keeps saying The Defendant instead of using her name, they hope the witnesses and the jurors will shortly depersonalize her too.
So far the evidence is simply that of a very amiable young woman who was a good mother and who after her circumstances changed was a cheerful roommate and helpful companion who went to her boyfriend's events and adopted a "den mother" attitude towards the otherwise vulnerable half-naked shot girls who might have been continually pawed by over-eager and overly lubricated young males. Nothing evil, vile or cruel shown at all.
The prosecution hopes the jury will view it as "she preferred nightclubs to wet diapers" and she liked "hot body contests" instead of she helpfully joined in a hot body contest to round out the field when only a few women were there for the event.
Well, I'd like to hear more about this Kronky Korpse guy who had just too many versions of what he saw and too much of a coincidence in where he wanted to take a leak.
I'd also be a bit curious to talk to that Grandfather who is a former police detective inhaling an unmistakable odor of death but who doesn't drive to a police station or forensics unit and makes no report of it, he simply drives home.
Prosecution wanted the jury to hear about "shovel" and "corpse" for its emotional value. It was to brief a time to have buried the corpse and the shovel was not returned in any sort of soiled condition, its hardly significant but for its emotional appeal to the jury.
That opening statement alluded to incest but it failed to definitively state whether the victim's dna established that incest had in fact taken place.
Today's testimony seemed to be a parade of friends and acquaintances who had no reason to think ill of Casey Anthony. One witness seemed to look askance on a little white lie being uttered in a social situation.
That grandfather was giving lectures, questions, comments, etc., just about anything other than a direct and responsive answer.
Commentary on Friday's testimony: Not really all that impressive. Lee Anthony's fiancee thought the mother-daughter interaction was amazingly loving. A tow truck driver claims to have smelled decomposition when the car was parked in the strip mall but the manager of the loan company it was parked at stood near the trunk to read the license plate and smelled nothing unusual.
Several videotapes introduced to show the defendant is of bad character even though she has not taken the stand and put her character into evidence. The tapes are supposedly introduced solely to disprove her contentions during police questioning that she was searching for Cayley and negotiating with kidnappers during the time period of her shopping in stores. I don't see why buying some beer is viewed as bad character.
Right out of the gate, the defense plays the Sex Abuse card which quite frankly is the proper time to play it if he is ever going to play it. No 31 days. The kid drowned in the pool. The mother reacted badly due to a lifelong habit of dysfunctional performance and denial. Oh and by the way the Defendant's Father started right away screaming at her about lifetime in jail and cowed her into not calling 911 or proceeding properly. No allegation, however, that the drowning incident which was unwitnessed by the defendant was actually an unlawful act by the grandfather.
Prosecution of course simply proceeds as if the defense had not said a word, hoping the jurors will pick up on their attitude and adopt a similar stance. This is sort of similar to the way the prosecution keeps saying The Defendant instead of using her name, they hope the witnesses and the jurors will shortly depersonalize her too.
So far the evidence is simply that of a very amiable young woman who was a good mother and who after her circumstances changed was a cheerful roommate and helpful companion who went to her boyfriend's events and adopted a "den mother" attitude towards the otherwise vulnerable half-naked shot girls who might have been continually pawed by over-eager and overly lubricated young males. Nothing evil, vile or cruel shown at all.
The prosecution hopes the jury will view it as "she preferred nightclubs to wet diapers" and she liked "hot body contests" instead of she helpfully joined in a hot body contest to round out the field when only a few women were there for the event.
Well, I'd like to hear more about this Kronky Korpse guy who had just too many versions of what he saw and too much of a coincidence in where he wanted to take a leak.
I'd also be a bit curious to talk to that Grandfather who is a former police detective inhaling an unmistakable odor of death but who doesn't drive to a police station or forensics unit and makes no report of it, he simply drives home.
Prosecution wanted the jury to hear about "shovel" and "corpse" for its emotional value. It was to brief a time to have buried the corpse and the shovel was not returned in any sort of soiled condition, its hardly significant but for its emotional appeal to the jury.
That opening statement alluded to incest but it failed to definitively state whether the victim's dna established that incest had in fact taken place.
Today's testimony seemed to be a parade of friends and acquaintances who had no reason to think ill of Casey Anthony. One witness seemed to look askance on a little white lie being uttered in a social situation.
That grandfather was giving lectures, questions, comments, etc., just about anything other than a direct and responsive answer.
Commentary on Friday's testimony: Not really all that impressive. Lee Anthony's fiancee thought the mother-daughter interaction was amazingly loving. A tow truck driver claims to have smelled decomposition when the car was parked in the strip mall but the manager of the loan company it was parked at stood near the trunk to read the license plate and smelled nothing unusual.
Several videotapes introduced to show the defendant is of bad character even though she has not taken the stand and put her character into evidence. The tapes are supposedly introduced solely to disprove her contentions during police questioning that she was searching for Cayley and negotiating with kidnappers during the time period of her shopping in stores. I don't see why buying some beer is viewed as bad character.
Monday, May 16, 2011
AF447 FDR and CVR data readable.
The data from the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder is readable.
I'm sure that as the French finally get around to releasing transcripts more precise information will emerge and much of the speculation will have been proven to be baseless. A good deal of it, however, will have been shown to be quite sensible.
Its well known that the French investigation is focused on avoiding any allocation of blame. With all the inter-linkages between Airbus, AirFrance and the French government it is clear that the BEA is actually investigating the French government. The level of disclosure tolerated by the French is abysmally low in comparison to what the NTSB would be revealing.
The fact that controllers in Senegal and also Air France lost track of the flight entirely and that therefore Air France was woefully late in launching any search effort has absolutely nothing to do with the cause of any difficulties the plane suffered but it is a clear example of the differences in the type of investigation that is being conducted. The BEA will make no statement critical of Air France or commenting on the elapsed time prior to the initiation of search efforts.
I do so hope the French attitude changes and that the BEA will adopt a more open and informative orientation.
ADDENDUM: After the initial downloading and review of the FDR and CVR data, Airbus has sent a No Immediate Issuance of Any Service Bulletin telex to the aviation community. All the telex really means is that there is no immediately discernible indication of a design fault that would require immediate or extremely prompt servicing. Le Figaro appears to be encouraging the viewing of this Airbus action as some sort of determination that it was pilot error and nothing but pilot error. This is not the proper viewpoint. It will probably be next year before we learn a more complete sequence of events. The computerized flight control system detected a severe difference in pitot indications and dumped the pilots into Alternate Law. What the pilots did as far as attitude, throttle and angle of attack adjustments becomes critical. What the weather impact on the plane was will be critical. Probably the most important question is whether the CVR will reveal a reason for a lack of storm related course deviations. Also of interest will be any indications of whether the radar was operational. The important thing to remember at this point in the process is that the action recently taken by Airbus simply indicates no immediately discernible indication of a design fault that must be attended to immediately. It is not an accusation against the pilots and it is not a declaration that a design defect or deficiency may not later appear.
I remind everyone of the Gimli Glider incident in Canada. An airliner full of passengers suddenly became a glider. Most airline pilots today could not deal with that situation because they not only are not glider pilots they are button pushers who don't really have much "hands on" experience in flying an airliner. The don't know the "feel" of the controls in normal situations much less in emergency situations. The pilot of the flight that suddenly ran out of fuel in mid-air near Gimli happened to be glider pilot. He flew unpowered planes for fun. He suddenly found himself flying an unpowered airplane full of passengers. It was not fun, but he knew what to do and could do it. If Airbus dumps you into Alternate Law mode there no time to figure out what to do and get into Direct Law mode by pressing the overhead buttons. You know how to do it instinctively or you don't. Most pilots don't fly airplanes, they push buttons yet when it comes to the computer having given up and the pilots being forced to fly the plane out of a thunderstorm's downwash you can't call out "checklist", you can't grab for a manual and madly flip pages to find the directions, you can't break open the safe and find the secret code numbers to enter. You have to know what overhead buttons to press and where they are. You have to be able reach them in an unusual attitude with annoying alarms going off, you have to be able to fly the plane when you have to suddenly fly the plane. A simple act of leaving one altitude and climbing to another is done by pressing buttons because it saves fuel for a computer to make hundreds of extremely minute control inputs than to have some heavy-fisted human pilot actually try to level out precisely at a certain altitude. The problem is that when the pilots only have the experience of pressing the buttons and don't have any experience in flying the aircraft, they have no time to learn how to fly. When the computer gives up, they have to know how to get into direct law mode and fly the darn plane by feel even if its the dead of night and they suddenly find themselves in a super cell. The real problem is that any passenger selected at random probably has an much experience actually flying the plane as any of the pilots do. All the pilots have done is push buttons on a computer panel. The pilots do not really get any experience in flying the darn aircraft.
ADDENDUM: One item I've been considering for quite some time is the concept of latency of state. If ice accretion on the pitot tubes did send wildly disparate data to the computers and a program therefore cut out and dropped the pilots into Alternate Law, what happens if the fluctuations in the various readings have moments wherein the coincide within the accepted reference range. Is there a resumption of a Fly By Wire state wherein pilots are restrained from certain control inputs? Even in Alternate Law mode there are some systems working and a tendency to have a pronounced pitch-up. Its night, its stormy, the pitot condition may not have been noticed until there was the sudden cut-out and the computers that had been trying to deal with the speed signals suddenly realized the signals were spurious. Pitch and throttle settings had been changed to deal with the erroneous data during the time such erroneous data was well within the acceptable parameters, but once the data discrepancy exceeded the established parameters the pilots were in Alternate Law mode and in an unusual attitude with an unusual power setting.
Further ADDENDUM: A formal announcement is expected near the end of this week that will reflect a preliminary statement regarding the pilot's failure to react to a stall indication as automatic adjustments to pitch and thrust were made pursuant to erroneous pitot data prior to the computer declaring the pitot data to be unreliable and putting the plane in Alternate Law mode. Essentially its an instantaneous mental overload for the pilots who don't know that there has been a dangerous pitch up due to declining static pressure and the iced-up erroneous pitot readings. That reduced thrust and high angle of attack situation needs immediate attention and the pilots were probably so overwhelmed with a flurry of error messages and unreliable instruments that they just didn't have time to sort things out before they simply totally ran out of time and altitude. When you train people to push buttons on a computer rather than really flying the airplane its difficult for them to do what is right when that computer suddenly turns itself off. Increasing thrust with underslung engines and a somewhat aft center of gravity won't help the situation much. If they didn't realize what had happened immediately going into alternate sixty degree banks should have worked but it would take time. They had 35,000 feet to sort things out. It turned out not to be enough.
I'm sure that as the French finally get around to releasing transcripts more precise information will emerge and much of the speculation will have been proven to be baseless. A good deal of it, however, will have been shown to be quite sensible.
Its well known that the French investigation is focused on avoiding any allocation of blame. With all the inter-linkages between Airbus, AirFrance and the French government it is clear that the BEA is actually investigating the French government. The level of disclosure tolerated by the French is abysmally low in comparison to what the NTSB would be revealing.
The fact that controllers in Senegal and also Air France lost track of the flight entirely and that therefore Air France was woefully late in launching any search effort has absolutely nothing to do with the cause of any difficulties the plane suffered but it is a clear example of the differences in the type of investigation that is being conducted. The BEA will make no statement critical of Air France or commenting on the elapsed time prior to the initiation of search efforts.
I do so hope the French attitude changes and that the BEA will adopt a more open and informative orientation.
ADDENDUM: After the initial downloading and review of the FDR and CVR data, Airbus has sent a No Immediate Issuance of Any Service Bulletin telex to the aviation community. All the telex really means is that there is no immediately discernible indication of a design fault that would require immediate or extremely prompt servicing. Le Figaro appears to be encouraging the viewing of this Airbus action as some sort of determination that it was pilot error and nothing but pilot error. This is not the proper viewpoint. It will probably be next year before we learn a more complete sequence of events. The computerized flight control system detected a severe difference in pitot indications and dumped the pilots into Alternate Law. What the pilots did as far as attitude, throttle and angle of attack adjustments becomes critical. What the weather impact on the plane was will be critical. Probably the most important question is whether the CVR will reveal a reason for a lack of storm related course deviations. Also of interest will be any indications of whether the radar was operational. The important thing to remember at this point in the process is that the action recently taken by Airbus simply indicates no immediately discernible indication of a design fault that must be attended to immediately. It is not an accusation against the pilots and it is not a declaration that a design defect or deficiency may not later appear.
I remind everyone of the Gimli Glider incident in Canada. An airliner full of passengers suddenly became a glider. Most airline pilots today could not deal with that situation because they not only are not glider pilots they are button pushers who don't really have much "hands on" experience in flying an airliner. The don't know the "feel" of the controls in normal situations much less in emergency situations. The pilot of the flight that suddenly ran out of fuel in mid-air near Gimli happened to be glider pilot. He flew unpowered planes for fun. He suddenly found himself flying an unpowered airplane full of passengers. It was not fun, but he knew what to do and could do it. If Airbus dumps you into Alternate Law mode there no time to figure out what to do and get into Direct Law mode by pressing the overhead buttons. You know how to do it instinctively or you don't. Most pilots don't fly airplanes, they push buttons yet when it comes to the computer having given up and the pilots being forced to fly the plane out of a thunderstorm's downwash you can't call out "checklist", you can't grab for a manual and madly flip pages to find the directions, you can't break open the safe and find the secret code numbers to enter. You have to know what overhead buttons to press and where they are. You have to be able reach them in an unusual attitude with annoying alarms going off, you have to be able to fly the plane when you have to suddenly fly the plane. A simple act of leaving one altitude and climbing to another is done by pressing buttons because it saves fuel for a computer to make hundreds of extremely minute control inputs than to have some heavy-fisted human pilot actually try to level out precisely at a certain altitude. The problem is that when the pilots only have the experience of pressing the buttons and don't have any experience in flying the aircraft, they have no time to learn how to fly. When the computer gives up, they have to know how to get into direct law mode and fly the darn plane by feel even if its the dead of night and they suddenly find themselves in a super cell. The real problem is that any passenger selected at random probably has an much experience actually flying the plane as any of the pilots do. All the pilots have done is push buttons on a computer panel. The pilots do not really get any experience in flying the darn aircraft.
ADDENDUM: One item I've been considering for quite some time is the concept of latency of state. If ice accretion on the pitot tubes did send wildly disparate data to the computers and a program therefore cut out and dropped the pilots into Alternate Law, what happens if the fluctuations in the various readings have moments wherein the coincide within the accepted reference range. Is there a resumption of a Fly By Wire state wherein pilots are restrained from certain control inputs? Even in Alternate Law mode there are some systems working and a tendency to have a pronounced pitch-up. Its night, its stormy, the pitot condition may not have been noticed until there was the sudden cut-out and the computers that had been trying to deal with the speed signals suddenly realized the signals were spurious. Pitch and throttle settings had been changed to deal with the erroneous data during the time such erroneous data was well within the acceptable parameters, but once the data discrepancy exceeded the established parameters the pilots were in Alternate Law mode and in an unusual attitude with an unusual power setting.
Further ADDENDUM: A formal announcement is expected near the end of this week that will reflect a preliminary statement regarding the pilot's failure to react to a stall indication as automatic adjustments to pitch and thrust were made pursuant to erroneous pitot data prior to the computer declaring the pitot data to be unreliable and putting the plane in Alternate Law mode. Essentially its an instantaneous mental overload for the pilots who don't know that there has been a dangerous pitch up due to declining static pressure and the iced-up erroneous pitot readings. That reduced thrust and high angle of attack situation needs immediate attention and the pilots were probably so overwhelmed with a flurry of error messages and unreliable instruments that they just didn't have time to sort things out before they simply totally ran out of time and altitude. When you train people to push buttons on a computer rather than really flying the airplane its difficult for them to do what is right when that computer suddenly turns itself off. Increasing thrust with underslung engines and a somewhat aft center of gravity won't help the situation much. If they didn't realize what had happened immediately going into alternate sixty degree banks should have worked but it would take time. They had 35,000 feet to sort things out. It turned out not to be enough.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
AF447 Recovery of corpses from seabed.
It seems the families are divided as to attempts to recover corpses. It would be difficult but one has already been recovered so it is certainly not impossible. I doubt the corpses have much evidentiary value. The Brazilian mortuary was overwhelmed but would not permit the French doctors to perform autopsies. The Brazilian medical examiner made comments and drew conclusions well beyond his sphere of expertise even suggesting that the passengers had assumed crash positions prior to impact. Given the large number of passengers who were not belted-in and the fact that the galley had not been secured it was quite likely that there had been no instructions to even fasten seat belts much less an instruction concerning severe turbulence and certainly no instruction to assume crash positions.
The damage and injuries on the earlier recovered corpses all show major impact forces on the underside of an intact fuselage. Nothing reflects instructions to cabin crew or passengers regarding imminent impact.
There has been alot of discussion regarding overspeed conditions and underspeed conditions. At 35,000 feet that "coffin corner" is still a pretty wide window. And a stall could begin at six or seven degrees at that altitude. Presumably the iced-up pitot tubes would create a differential airspeed reading that was well beyond the computer's parameters. Error messages would be sent as the flight director computers cut out and placed the plane in Alternate Law mode. If speed either decayed too far or increased to far, a stall would take place but it seems crew awareness and crew actions should have been able to deal with it. Surely from 35,000 to 0 would have taken some time. Initially the French searchers felt they should estimate continued flight along intended course for some time beyond the Last Known Position. Although this may have taken place and then been followed by a course reversal that was either commanded or most likely uncommanded, it is quite possible that descent was rapid and largely devoid of forward motion. I can only envision direct flight into a powerful supercell as doing that.
I look forward to the CVR showing us why there were no WX related course changes to thread the plane around the intense storms. I look forward to the FDR analysis even more, but I don't see the corpse recovery as providing critical information.
The damage and injuries on the earlier recovered corpses all show major impact forces on the underside of an intact fuselage. Nothing reflects instructions to cabin crew or passengers regarding imminent impact.
There has been alot of discussion regarding overspeed conditions and underspeed conditions. At 35,000 feet that "coffin corner" is still a pretty wide window. And a stall could begin at six or seven degrees at that altitude. Presumably the iced-up pitot tubes would create a differential airspeed reading that was well beyond the computer's parameters. Error messages would be sent as the flight director computers cut out and placed the plane in Alternate Law mode. If speed either decayed too far or increased to far, a stall would take place but it seems crew awareness and crew actions should have been able to deal with it. Surely from 35,000 to 0 would have taken some time. Initially the French searchers felt they should estimate continued flight along intended course for some time beyond the Last Known Position. Although this may have taken place and then been followed by a course reversal that was either commanded or most likely uncommanded, it is quite possible that descent was rapid and largely devoid of forward motion. I can only envision direct flight into a powerful supercell as doing that.
I look forward to the CVR showing us why there were no WX related course changes to thread the plane around the intense storms. I look forward to the FDR analysis even more, but I don't see the corpse recovery as providing critical information.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
AF447 CVR located and recovered.
The Cockpit Voice Recorder has been both located on the sea floor and successfully recovered from it by a robotic vehicle.
The device is under BEA seal and the data, if any, will be available to the BEA in about two weeks, though its release will surely be several months at the earliest.
The CVR will provide us with information regarding whether the lack of WX related course deviations was truly due to crew fatigue. There are many who believe this is not a WX related event and who interpret the ACARS data as showing two pilots present and alert in the cockpit. There seems little to indicate a malfunctioning or non-functioning WX radar aboard the aircraft and it would seem that if any such event took place the crew would not have engaged in continued flight into the ITCZ but would have returned and landed. It is likely that had there been any such non-functioning onboard radar system the crew would have at the very least issued a turbulence warning to passengers and crew. This would have resulted in an activation of the seat belt sign and the securing of the galley. Yet damage inspection and autopsy reports indicate that the galley was not secured and a high number of passengers did not have their seat belts fastened.
The device is under BEA seal and the data, if any, will be available to the BEA in about two weeks, though its release will surely be several months at the earliest.
The CVR will provide us with information regarding whether the lack of WX related course deviations was truly due to crew fatigue. There are many who believe this is not a WX related event and who interpret the ACARS data as showing two pilots present and alert in the cockpit. There seems little to indicate a malfunctioning or non-functioning WX radar aboard the aircraft and it would seem that if any such event took place the crew would not have engaged in continued flight into the ITCZ but would have returned and landed. It is likely that had there been any such non-functioning onboard radar system the crew would have at the very least issued a turbulence warning to passengers and crew. This would have resulted in an activation of the seat belt sign and the securing of the galley. Yet damage inspection and autopsy reports indicate that the galley was not secured and a high number of passengers did not have their seat belts fastened.
Monday, May 2, 2011
AF447 FDR's Data Module recovered.
The Data Module that apparently was dislodged from the Flight Data Recorder upon impact was located and roboticly recovered. It appears to be intact based upon gross examination but it is likely to be two weeks before it is known if data can be recovered from it. It is likely to be considerably longer, however, before any recovered data is released to the aviation community or the public. Shear forces on the bolts of the data module and the ultrasonic pinger are unknown but separation of the data module from the chassis of the FDR has taken place in prior crashes involving impact with water. The BEA has not released definitive data on the pinger but it is believed that signals were recorded by the French submarine involved in the search but not detected at the time by sonar operators. Later data scrubbing is said to have provided a computerized detection of the pings.
There are so many questions as to why the plane went into an unusual attitude and most particularly as to why there was no recovery despite there being 35,000 feet in order for their to be recovery from a stall. It is possible that a pilot's attempt to re-establish computerized flight control created an additional upset since there is a difference between the plane's attitude and the computer systems processing of the attitude information. Essentially it would be a physical recovery from the stall followed by a systems induced control input that re-established the stalled condition as an unrecoverable deep stall.
There has been much ado about extreme turbulence and the plane's presumed entry into a supercell whose location was masked by a radar detection of a smaller but nearer cell. The trouble with all this turbulent weather assumptions is that other planes transited the area without incident and nothing in the wreckage or bodily injury data indicates that the plane ever encountered severe weather. Galley equipment was not secured and dogged-down as it would be had there been a severe turbulence warning nor was there any indication that all passengers had seat belts securely fastened.
The ACARS system indicates pitot icing problems causing a discrepancy in the speed data the flight computers were receiving. As the computer put the plane into Alternate Law mode and therefore no computer would override pilot input, there would have to have been prompt and proper action by the crew. I can not envision a pilot attempting to re-engage computer controlled flight until the plane itself was known to have recovered from any stalled situation. There was massive loss of data to the pilots and massive cognitive overload as whatever data that was available was unreliable.
As yet, there has been no word concerning the other "black box", the Cockpit Voice Recorder.
There are so many questions as to why the plane went into an unusual attitude and most particularly as to why there was no recovery despite there being 35,000 feet in order for their to be recovery from a stall. It is possible that a pilot's attempt to re-establish computerized flight control created an additional upset since there is a difference between the plane's attitude and the computer systems processing of the attitude information. Essentially it would be a physical recovery from the stall followed by a systems induced control input that re-established the stalled condition as an unrecoverable deep stall.
There has been much ado about extreme turbulence and the plane's presumed entry into a supercell whose location was masked by a radar detection of a smaller but nearer cell. The trouble with all this turbulent weather assumptions is that other planes transited the area without incident and nothing in the wreckage or bodily injury data indicates that the plane ever encountered severe weather. Galley equipment was not secured and dogged-down as it would be had there been a severe turbulence warning nor was there any indication that all passengers had seat belts securely fastened.
The ACARS system indicates pitot icing problems causing a discrepancy in the speed data the flight computers were receiving. As the computer put the plane into Alternate Law mode and therefore no computer would override pilot input, there would have to have been prompt and proper action by the crew. I can not envision a pilot attempting to re-engage computer controlled flight until the plane itself was known to have recovered from any stalled situation. There was massive loss of data to the pilots and massive cognitive overload as whatever data that was available was unreliable.
As yet, there has been no word concerning the other "black box", the Cockpit Voice Recorder.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Ryan Ferguson: Jurors still absolutely certain.
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/may/01/ferguson-jury-rethink-decision
Although some jurors are doubtful it seems many of those country bumpkins still think that their interpretation of Charles Erickson's facial expression during a brief glance at the trial of Ryan Ferguson constitutes sufficient evidence on which to base a verdict of guilty. The interrogators provided all the facts about the crime to schizophrenic junkie, Chuck Erickson, but the jurors believed Erickson's clearly bogus confession of a slightly built 17 year old Ryan Ferguson attacking a 300 pound ex-football player and winning a long, drawn-out fight but sustaining no bruises during the encounter. No forensic evidence linked Ryan Ferguson to the crime. Considerable evidence pointed towards the co-worker.
Police never treated the last known person to see the victim, Kent Heitholt, alive even though that coworker is a large and powerful man with police training in unarmed combat. The police never viewed him or noted any bruises on him after the crime, since they thought a telephone call was adequate. The police never seemed worried about his ever changing stories about which car he drove and where he parked it. The police never compared the lug nuts on the coworkers car with the dents on the victims skull.
Chuck Erickson dreamed about the killing and the police latched onto a willing confessor despite the absurdity of the situation. It wasn't as if the cops had never learned basic interrogation techniques. It wasn't as if the DA didn't know how to evaluate evidence. This was no glitch in the system. It was all intentional.
ADDENDUM: AG, running true to form, files responsive pleading at end of final day allowed. http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/may/03/state-files-response-to-ferguson-appeal
Although some jurors are doubtful it seems many of those country bumpkins still think that their interpretation of Charles Erickson's facial expression during a brief glance at the trial of Ryan Ferguson constitutes sufficient evidence on which to base a verdict of guilty. The interrogators provided all the facts about the crime to schizophrenic junkie, Chuck Erickson, but the jurors believed Erickson's clearly bogus confession of a slightly built 17 year old Ryan Ferguson attacking a 300 pound ex-football player and winning a long, drawn-out fight but sustaining no bruises during the encounter. No forensic evidence linked Ryan Ferguson to the crime. Considerable evidence pointed towards the co-worker.
Police never treated the last known person to see the victim, Kent Heitholt, alive even though that coworker is a large and powerful man with police training in unarmed combat. The police never viewed him or noted any bruises on him after the crime, since they thought a telephone call was adequate. The police never seemed worried about his ever changing stories about which car he drove and where he parked it. The police never compared the lug nuts on the coworkers car with the dents on the victims skull.
Chuck Erickson dreamed about the killing and the police latched onto a willing confessor despite the absurdity of the situation. It wasn't as if the cops had never learned basic interrogation techniques. It wasn't as if the DA didn't know how to evaluate evidence. This was no glitch in the system. It was all intentional.
ADDENDUM: AG, running true to form, files responsive pleading at end of final day allowed. http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/may/03/state-files-response-to-ferguson-appeal
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)