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.

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.

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.

AF447 Search: Phase 5.

The FDR was found but only the chasis was located the Data Memory Module was not attached and is thought to have separated at impact. There are some other crashes wherein this separation has taken place. 04/27/11.
..................................................

The final phase of the search for the "black boxes" will be getting underway. The Alucia considered its mission complete and departed the area on April 9th. Any delay in getting the successor search vessel on scene was due to the high level of breaks in submarine cables after recent seismic activity.

The debris field is very close to the Last Known Position despite all the earlier reliance on mathematical modeling of winds and currents.

The tail section has been located. It is thought that this presently contains the FDR and CVR that would normally be found there. Recovery of the black boxes is highly probable, recovery of information from them is less certain but there is a generally high expectation that data will be recovered. Its not yet known just why the ultrasonic pingers were not detected during earlier searches.

So it becomes the usual: wait and see.

Addendum: I've been informed that the initial attempt will be tomorrow April 22nd. BEA representative is aboard even a psychologist to deal with ships crew who have difficulties dealing with the images.

AF 447 Air France flight lost over the Atlantic

I just learned that NOVA will have a special tonight on the AF 447 flight. There are so many interesting aspects to this puzzle. Primary amongst them is the Airbus concept of a computer flying the aircraft and over-riding pilot input in certain modes. Also involved are sensor design issues, conflicting data resolution issues, pilot attention issues, international cooperation issues, search operations issues and use of maintenance data as an alternative to the unrecovered Black Boxes.

I'm uncertain if the plane deviated for severe weather or not. I think the primary problem was overspeed resulting in a deep stall at high altitude resulting in a near vertical descent with little forward speed. It would be a problem of how to evaluate fluctuating data from multiple sensors.

The flight into a severe thunderstorm may well have taken place although the pilots may have believed they were above the storm. In most stalls the rule is simple: lower the nose immediately and add power immediately. This simple rule usually results in greater air flow over the wings to generate lift. Wings are usually designed to stall from the inboard area first so that the pilot has time to react before the stall reaches the outboard areas of the wing and the control surfaces become stalled. In a deep stall, moving the control surfaces has no effect because there is no airflow over the control surfaces. Adding power may be a problem if there was a sudden and unexpected ingestion of super-cooled rainwater into the engines. If it was not just pitot tube icing but an engine flame-out, no power may have been available to the pilots even if in their information overload state of mind they realized they desperately needed to add power.

Analysis of the flight from the ACARS maintenance data transmissions is not ideal. The information is designed to give maintenance crews an indication of what systems will need to be tested when the plane lands and what tools and parts should be on hand for the task. Such maintenance data is not an alternative to a Flight Data Recorder. There are also problems since the ACARS messages are held in a one minute suspense window and are grouped by item and priority. Certain message evaluation rules are clearly compromises. A fault detected by a system is considered more serious if it relates to a separate system than if it is a self-detected internal fault. A fault is deemed to be hard if it persists for thirty seconds whereas a fault is deemed soft if it is detected for less than thirty seconds. Such rules do make sense in most circumstances.

The loss of satellite uplink carrier signal during a critical time is one argument against replacing physical black boxes with constant electronic transmission of the FDR and CVR data. The cost of such transmissions is a major problem also.

I'm sure it will be an interesting program and I look forward to viewing it. I hope all my many readers (LOL) will enjoy it.

By the way, the most relevant incident to compare AF447 with is the Gimli Glider incident. That plane ran out of fuel half way through its flight and all the design errors, pilot errors and ATC errors were countered by one thing alone, pilot expertise. The pilot had a hobby of flying gliders, so when he suddenly found himself flying a huge ungainly glider full of passengers, he still knew what to do and how to do it. He had flown gliders before. He knew to make his S turns toward his objective and not lose sight of it. He knew how to do skids. He was flying the airplane rather than monitoring computers but everything turned out okay because he was used to actually flying the airplane rather than monitoring computers. That is a rare skill nowadays.

With AF447 when things turned so bad that the computer entered Alternate Law mode the computer would no longer override disapproved pilot inputs and would allow the pilots to fly the aircraft as they saw fit. Unfortunately, the pilots were not very experienced at actually flying the aircraft and were not able to do it in situations of high informational overload, high insecurity as to the reliability of their instruments and unusual attitudes. When Fly-By-Wire ended and Alternate Law started, the situation was already critical and the pilots desperately needed a learning curve. Unfortunately, there is no learning curve during such an event. If you've entered even the fringes of a supercell at night and are experiencing electrical overloads, have circuit breakers popping all over the place, are losing some instruments and have utterly lost faith in all your instruments, the situation is hopeless for a pilot who really doesn't know how to fly an airplane without a computer.

Every flight using a computer to change altitude saves on fuel costs over a heavy handed pilot trying to manipulate the throttles, but every such flight deprives the pilot of real flying experience. Just as the Gimli Glider incident involved a sudden transition the AF447 undoubtedly involved a sudden transition even though we don't know the cause. Initial lightning seems insufficient. Iced-up pitot sensors can have any number of causes. Auto Pilot and Auto Thrust are different systems and some confusion may have existed as to speed selection and the rapidity of speed adjustment attempts that were required.

If there was a deep stall, I just wonder what attitude is required for it. Note: A Deep Stall is one wherein no manipulation of power or control surfaces will have sufficient effect. A pilot in the deep stalled plane is as utterly helpless as a pilot on the ground who might be observing the incident. The pilot on the ground will push a non existent throttle lever, the pilot in the plane will push an actual throttle lever however the effect will be the same. A pilot on the ground will push an imaginary steering yoke, a pilot in the plane will push a real steering yoke yet the results will be the same. No effect whatsoever. A deep stall with or without a flat spin would mean a high speed vertical descent with little forward momentum.

NOTE: On Feb 28 2011, the Alucia arrived, fresh from a Seattle overhaul, at the Pacific waiting area for transiting the Panama Canal to begin its three phase search for the Black Boxes using remote controlled submersibles.

NOTE: This Phase 4 search continues. IF there is a Phase 5, Recovery Phase, a different ship and different equipment will be used. So far, no debris field has been discovered much less the "black boxes". (April 2nd, 2011).

Debris Field found. Learmount of Flight International being quoted on theory of crew fatigue induced fixation on minor problem while plane was in an unnoticed gentle descent resulting in a collision of an intact and controllable plane with the sea. He does not believe there was any deep stall. Merely pilots having lost so many instruments that they did not believe what few instruments remained.