What happened to Air France flight 447

[Mr Pointy]

It seems the pilots flew a perfectly serviceable aircraft into the sea & had no idea what was going on:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/print-t ... 7?page=all

[Bravo73]

It seems the pilots flew a perfectly serviceable aircraft into the sea & had no idea what was going on:

WTF? Your statement is wrong on so many counts. :roll:

Would I trust 'Popular Mechanics' for information regarding an air crash? Absolutely not. In the same way that I wouldn't trust the Sun or the Daily Mail for an unbiased opinion on current affairs.

[scarto]

I found that really interesting. I don't know how accurate it was but it's scary to read such an account.

[scarto]

It seems the pilots flew a perfectly serviceable aircraft into the sea & had no idea what was going on:

WTF? Your statement is wrong on so many counts. :roll:

Would I trust 'Popular Mechanics' for information regarding an air crash? Absolutely not. In the same way that I wouldn't trust the Sun or the Daily Mail for an unbiased opinion on current affairs.

Fair point but what do you believe is true (if anything?). Assuming the transcript from the black box is accurate, it does indicate that there was, at the very least, some lack of communication or real authority in the cockpit at a crucial time.

[Crispin]

Fascinating and scary - I'll keep to 747's while they are still flying.

Another report:

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/point ... ontentBody

[stooo]

Very interesting.

[NikosF]

It seems the pilots flew a perfectly serviceable aircraft into the sea & had no idea what was going on:

WTF? Your statement is wrong on so many counts. :roll:

Would I trust 'Popular Mechanics' for information regarding an air crash? Absolutely not. In the same way that I wouldn't trust the Sun or the Daily Mail for an unbiased opinion on current affairs.

Having read several write-ups of the crash (almost all based on the official investigation), it seems that Popular Mechanics got it exactly right.

Plane was losing speed, and basic flight training should have taught them to push down and gain speed (and hence lift). THey did the opposite - pulled back, dropped speed and therefore lift.

Seems like AF had under-trained pilots that should have known better and lots of people paid with their lives.

[Seabadger]

I love a post that poses a question:

What happened to Air France flight 447 [?]

and then immediately answers it:

It seems the pilots flew a perfectly serviceable aircraft into the sea & had no idea what was going on

Maybe some acope for discussion about the pitot tubes, pilot training and the risk of even the best pilots to make critical errors when they're essentially deprived of most usual sensory input, but other than that you seem to have solved your own riddle there.

[Chris_in_the_UK]

Airbus :shock:

I avoid them if possible following this:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1FKAIrb0fQ

Seems like a crap safety record since?

[Christian]

Hmmm...not a bad article, but there is a bit of conjecture at the start that I don't think is that relevant. Fortunately it got better after that.

It does sound like more aircraft handling training could have helped the junior crew...flying body angle, known power settings, AOA and GPS altitude is probably the only way to get you out of a situation where your airspeed and altitude is deemed unreliable. On a dark night with unreliable pitot-static indications, I can understand how confusion could get the better of them...this isn't the first case of this happening and I suspect the aircraft quite happily sat in a relatively benign attitude in the stall with a huge rate of descent.

[Argee1977]

Reading that, it does appear that pilot error was the cause, but more down to confusion and panic rather than one person.