Aviation News

A confused Air France cockpit crew without proper training flew toward high-altitude disaster with wrong-headed manoeuvres, a report by France’s accident investigation agency says.

Screeching stall alarms and incoherent speed readings from faulty sensors, bad weather in a darkened sky and growing stress make up the chaotic cockpit scenario in the final moments of the Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009.

All 228 people aboard the plane were killed.

Friday’s third report by the accident investigation agency, or BEA, lays out almost second-by-second technical data on the flight’s deadly trajectory but cannot answer the ultimate question – whether pilot error, equipment failure or other still unknown factors caused the crash.

The BEA’s findings raised worrisome questions about the reactions of the cockpit crew – two co-pilots – as the A330 went into an aerodynamic stall and their ability to fly the A330 manually as the autopilot disengaged.

The report expressed broader concern about the state of training of today’s pilots flying high-tech planes when confronted with a high-altitude crisis.

BEA officials said they are bringing together a bevy of experts, from psychologists to physiologists, to try to reconstitute the scene from the crews’ point of view – the human factor which could include potential disorientation.

Those findings would be included in the final report expected early next year.

Many of the crews’ actions “seem contrary to logic and we’re seeking rational explanations,” chief BEA investigator Alain Bouillard told a news conference, adding that the cockpit crew even seemed unaware the plane had gone into an aerodynamic stall.

“We understood how the accident came about,” Bouillard said.

“Now we must learn why it came about.”

Friday’s 117-page report, based on a full reading and analysis of the flight and data recorders dredged from the ocean depths, recommends mandatory training for all pilots to help them fly planes manually and recover from a high-altitude stall.

With the captain of Flight AF447 on a rest break, the report also expressed concern over “non-optimal task sharing” between the two co-pilots.

Among the BEA’s 10 recommendations, it wants authorities to further define criteria for appointing a relief captain to ensure better synergy among relief crews.

When the captain of the Air France flight returned in the midst of the crisis, “neither of the two co-pilots gave a precise accounting of the problems encountered nor of actions undertaken, except that they had lost control of the plane and that they had tried everything,” the report said.

The captain had “implicitly” appointed the younger co-pilot as his relief before taking his regulation nap.

Experts caution against laying blame on the pilots – all experienced and qualified to fly the aircraft.

“The information they’re getting from the brain of the airplane, the thing that they’ve been trained to trust, is sending them all off on tangents,” said John Goglia, a former US National Transportation Safety Board member and an expert on airline safety.

“They’ve got bells and whistles going off, they’ve got a face full of lights,” Goglia said.

And yet, “the pilots had an awful lot of information denied to them to help them deal with the situation” because of malfunctioning computers.

The crew had less than 4.5 minutes to act to correct an aircraft that was sounding alarms and giving sometimes false readings.

However, BEA chief Jean-Paul Troadic said that, at the start at least, “the situation was salvageable”.

The chilling scenario as described by the voice and data recorders began at 2 hours, 10 minutes and 5 seconds into the overnight flight, when the autopilot and auto-thrust disengaged and a stall warning sounded twice in a row.

The recordings end at 2 hours, 14 minutes and 28 seconds.

The co-pilot designated by the captain quickly took over manual controls of the aircraft, and nosed the plane upward – the opposite of what was needed to give the plane lift.

A basic manoeuvre for stall recovery, which pilots are taught at the outset of their flight training, is to push the yoke forward and apply full throttle to lower the nose of the plane and build up speed.

But he nosed up throughout much of the impending disaster and the plane reached a maximum height of 38,000 feet (11,582 metres).

The report confirms that external speed sensors obstructed by ice crystals produced irregular speed readings on the plane.

Since the accident, Air France has replaced the speed monitors on all its Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft.

The BEA’s report noted that Airbus warned pilots in 2008 that incorrect speed readings from the Pitot tubes could cause erroneous stall warnings.

But Bouillard, the chief investigator, maintained that the pilots should “always respect a stall warning”.

Passengers, finishing dinner or napping, were never advised of the plane’s plight.

“From what we’ve been told, nobody realised what was going on. On that level, for my mental and moral comfort I am very pleased to hear this, when you know you had two people on board who were dear to you,” said Corinne Soulas, whose 24-year-old daughter Caroline and son-in-law were aboard the flight.

The alarms – computer-generated voices screeching “stall … stall … stall” sounded numerous times, and once for a full 54 seconds.

Incomprehension and growing tension ensued.

At an alarm sound, the co-pilot not flying said at one point “What’s that about?” Curiously, the crew made no reference in cockpit exchanges to the warnings, the report said.

As described by the BEA report, several calls were made to the captain.

The pilot not flying expressed concern several times at the captain’s absence, a concern that “probably raised the stress level of (that) pilot as he faces a situation he doesn’t understand”.

The flying pilot twice said he had lost control of the plane.

Then, 27 seconds later the pilot not flying takes control but the designated pilot retakes control “almost immediately without any announcement”.

A minute and a half later, the captain arrived, but with no pertinent information from the co-pilots and a lack of information from the control panel he appears not fully aware of the situation – and did not ask questions to better understand.

The report said that “multiple stops and reactivation (of the alarm) probably added to the confusion and disturbed his diagnosis of the situation”.

There has been a silent tug-of-war between Air France and Airbus, the plane’s constructor, over the crash.

Both were charged last March with involuntary homicide following the accident.

In a statement, Air France said there was no reason to question the crew’s technical skills.

The airline said the report showed that a series of unlikely failures led to the stall and crash.

The president of an association of Brazilian victims’ family members criticised the latest report.

“If the pilots were not well-trained, how can France allow them to work on an overnight international flight with passengers on board?” said Nelson Farias Marinho, who lost a son on the flight.

“I completely disagree with this report and I am against it because it is full of contradictions,” he said.

Two Delta Air Lines planes collided on the taxiway at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport yesterday, the fourth incident in four months involving the carrier’s aircraft.

Delta Flight 2207, which was scheduled for Minneapolis, and Flight 1777, headed to Atlanta, had a “taxiway incursion,” said Delta spokeswoman Chris Kelly Singley. She didn’t know the full extent of the damage to the aircraft.

After the incident, which occurred about 7:30 p.m. local time, the passengers of both planes were removed and rescheduled on other Delta flights or those of another airlines last night and this morning, Kelly Singley said. No injuries were reported, said Karen Pride, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Department of Aviation.

“Delta’s No. 1 priority is safety,” Kelly Singley said in a telephone interview.

Earlier this month, a Delta wide-body plane struck the tail of a smaller jet from regional partner Atlantic Southeast Airlines as they prepared for takeoff from Boston’s Logan Airport.

In April, a Bombardier CRJ-700 from Delta’s Comair unit was clipped by the wing of an Air France Airbus SAS A380 superjumbo at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, spinning the smaller plane and 66 occupants through 90 degrees.

A month later, the wing of a Delta Boeing 737 struck the tail of another at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, Delta’s hometown hub.

“Each of the incidents is being looked at individually, and by no means do we believe we have a trend,” said Kelly Singley.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/

The Caribbean Airlines jet that broke apart after a botched predawn landing in Guyana Saturday, without any fatalities, represents the type of accident international air-safety experts recently have been working the hardest to prevent.

The four-year-old Boeing 737 with 163 people aboard careened off the end of the Georgetown runway in rainy weather, crashed through a fence and broke into two pieces, highlighting the persistent hazards of airliners being unable to stop on slick strips.

Similar accidents and incidents may account for as much as 45% of the overall safety risks facing the global industry, according to Gunther Matschnigg, the top safety official of the International Air Transport Association, representing most of the world’s airlines.

Passengers on flight 523, which originated from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and made a stop in Port of Spain, Trinidad, recounted screams and the smell of fuel in the cabin before they scrambled down emergency slides.

The jet’s crumpled nose came to rest short of a deep ravine, with dozens of passengers receiving medical care but, according to local officials, less than a handful requiring hospitalization. One passenger told the Associated Press rescue crews were slow to appear, and a taxi driver charged $20 to drive her to the terminal.

The Boeing 737 crash, according to safety experts, comes after an encouraging six-month period marked by a year-over-year improvement in the global rate of major accidents involving modern Western-built passenger aircraft.

Recently, regulators and safety groups have focused on preventing runway accidents in which poor pilot decision-making results in landing aircraft being unable to stop safely.

Nonetheless, the latest crash illustrates the persistent hazards of so-called runway excursions: accidents and serious incidents in which airliners careen off runways, often because pilots landed too fast, touched too far down the strip, or didn’t recognize the difficulty of stopping on wet, slushy or snow-packed surfaces.

But the Guyana accident, according to safety experts, also could involve other factors. Pictures and preliminary reports suggest that movable panels on the front and top of the Boeing 737′s wings, and perhaps also near their rear edges, may not have been extended or failed to operate properly. The devices are designed to help planes decelerate before and after touchdown.

Investigators are bound to look for possible mechanical problems or pilot mistakes that could have made it difficult to stop the plane.

John Goglia, a former member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, said on Sunday that “one of the first things investigators will determine is whether the plane was configured properly for landing,” or if any systems failed. The front wing panels, for example, automatically retract during certain kinds of hydraulic failures.

The Associated Press quoted a top aviation official in Guyana saying that the airport is in the process of upgrading landing aids to provide more-precise guidance for aircraft.

The weekend’s developments again shine the spotlight on air-safety challenges confronting Latin America and the Caribbean region, where annual commercial-aircraft accident rates typically have been significantly higher than in the U.S., across Europe and throughout certain parts of Asia. The major accident rate in Latin America and the Caribbean last year, for instance, was more than four times the rate in Europe and northern Asia, and three times higher than the 2010 rate recorded by countries that made up the former Soviet Union.

In August 2010, amid a thunderstorm, an Aires Airlines Boeing 737 crashed 260 feet short of the runway on the Caribbean island of San Andres, resulting in two fatalities and more than 100 injuries. Preliminary findings suggest the pilots of the Colombian carrier failed to react appropriately to strong and shifting winds during the final approach, according to safety experts.

According to statistics compiled by manufacturer Boeing Co., all types of runway accidents involving Western-built aircraft, including excursions during takeoffs and landings, accounted for more than 970 fatalities from 2001 to 2010. A report released last year by European air-traffic control officials cited runway excursions as “the most common type of accident reported annually” in the region and around the world, with landing overruns accounting for some 77% of all such accidents in that category.

The NTSB will assist Guyana in the investigation. The airline said it dispatched a team of executives and technical staff “to offer full support to the injured,” but didn’t provide details about the event. A Boeing spokesman said the company also would assist, but declined to discuss the accident.

For U.S. carriers, previous runway overruns prompted significant safety analyses and some operational changes.

These highly publicized accidents included a Southwest Airlines Co. jet that landed in windy conditions and ran off the end of a slushy Chicago strip in December 2005.

Four years later, an arriving American Airlines Boeing 737 equipped with enhanced visual-landing aids landed long and hurtled off the end of a Kingston, Jamaica, runway made slick by standing water. Nobody aboard either plane was killed.

Still, the crashes prompted re-evaluations of safety margins— particularly for pilot handling and braking performance—affecting big jets landing on contaminated runways.

Source: http://online.wsj.com

New York (CNN) — Attorneys for the family of a 9/11 victim said they will push forward with a wrongful death lawsuit against United Airlines and a private security company despite a federal judge’s decision to dismiss the Massachusetts Port Authority from the suit.

The lawsuit, originally filed in Manhattan federal court, alleges that Massport, United Airlines and security company Huntleigh USA were responsible for the security breaches that led to the death of Mark Bavis, 31, who was aboard United Flight 175 when it crashed into the World Trade Center’s South Tower on September 11, 2001.

Donald Migliori, an attorney for Bavis’ family, said that Wednesday’s dismissal of Massport — the agency that owns and operates Boston Logan International Airport — from the lawsuit was a disappointment, but that it narrows the case’s focus around security on the airplane itself.

“It will be very targeted to United Airlines,” he said of the lawsuit. “United failed wholesale at keeping the American public safe.”

The suit claims that security screeners at Logan International had trouble communicating in English, were unable to detect weapons such as the chemical spray Mace, and were operating under a general manager who was unaware of the al Qaeda terrorist threat.

“This was a tragic event and we are actively working to resolve this case,” said United Airlines spokeswoman Megan McCarthy.

From the start, the defendants have said they are not liable for the attacks.

Massport filed a motion to dismiss in May, claiming that the Federal Aviation Administrations regulations for screening passengers and their baggage was the airline’s responsibility, not the airport’s.

Massport was dismissed from the suit on Wednesday.

“The entire Logan airport community will forever carry in its heart the events of September 11, 2001,” said Massport interim CEO David Mackey in a statement released after the dismissal. “Our thoughts and prayers will always be with the victims of that tragic day and their families.”

The Bavis family is one of 96 families who opted not to settle through the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, Migliori said. Their lawsuit, which is the last remaining suit brought by family members of 9/11 victims, was filed in 2002.

“There are lessons that can be learned from this and they want those lessons to be viewed and not buried,” Migliori said.

The trial is set to start November 7.

Source: http://www.cnn.com