The Union of Air France Pilots (SPAF) have accused French and European safety bodies in failing to prevent the crash of Air France flight AF447 because they ignored a history of dangerous failures in the Airbus speed probes.
A lot suspicion has risen ever since the crash of flight 447. Many people, including a lot in the aviation world, really believe that Air France, Airbus, and French investigators are reluctant to pinpoint the design flaw of the Airbus as the cause of the crash that killed the 228 people.
The views of the Union of Air France Pilots were reinforced today when Air France CEO, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, suggested that the pilots’ failure to manage weather radar correctly may have led to the deadly crash on June 1.
The pilots’ union said that the French Civil Aviation Directorate and the European Aviation Safety Agency failed in their obligation to act to resolve the known dangers. The union referred to repeated incidents with faulty speed information on the AIrbus A330/A340 aircraft over the past two years.
“We consider that if the appropriate measures had been carried out by your respective agencies, the problem encountered by the crew of AF447…would have averted the start of the sequence of events that lead to the loss of control of the aircraft,” said the union, which is the second body representing AF pilots.
The preliminary report that was released on July 2 confirmed that incorrect speed readings led the automatic pilot and computerized flight controls to disconnect - just like in the other reported incidents in past two years. Investigators said that the incorrect speed data was only an element, and not the cause of the crash.
{ 59 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello,
I wondered if anyone contributing to this discussion speaks fluent French and English, and would kindly be prepared to provide a summary of the article headed ‘AF447: BEA’s investigation can leave the Bouillard?’ dated 8 July on http://www.eurocockpit.com My translation is too crude to understand the necessary finer points.
Thank you.
Natasha,
There is an English version of the document on the same page (bottom half): http://www.eurocockpit.com/archives/indiv/E009458.php
I praise the pilots for their action!
AirFrance says that the faulty equipment was just an element and not the cause… What is that?!! If it was the element that started the whole thing, it’s the element that caused the accident. If it was functioning properly, it would not have happened. From today onwards I’m asking what plane I’m flying.. if it’s one of these faulty Airbuses, I won’t go. That’s it. I’ll look for another company where I’ll feel safer. One that willingly uses part of the money they make, to do proper, responsible and honest maintenance.
Thank you Jonathan.
Hallo, after revealing the 24 messages sent from AF447 at its last moments which conveyed to us among other things an electrical & power failure, could the black boxes (if ever found!!) have been able to find the power resource to record those very last tragic moments?
I have been following the Air France story with great interest and with all due respect to the unfortunate crew and passengers onboard AF447 would it not be in Air France’s and Airbus’s best interests for the black boxes to remain undiscovered? Presumably if that is the case the investigators will roll out “human error” as the cause of the crash with the pitot tube failure being a managable malfunction. This I presume would be a good result for Air France and Airbus but not for the victims’ or their families. I have a feeling the underwater wreckage will never be found but the “recovery ” operation to continue for weeks if not months to come.
On another note, as the Captain of the flight has been recovered is there anyway of ascertaining that he was actually at the controls of the aircraft when it crashed? I would have assumed he would have been strapped into his seat for an aircraft to be entering an area of turbulence.
I am sure flight crew will be entitled to breaks on long haul flights but as far as I am aware the possibilty of this having happened has not been discussed as yet.
It’s obvious from the messages the plane transmitted before crash and on various analysis done so far that the plane would have either crashed due to over speeding before disintegrating (as per earlier version of investigators?) or stalled and fell intact into the ocean (recent version of the investigators??) due to improper functioning of the speed sensors. In order to protect Air france due to its negligence on its part to investigate into previous such failures and take action, investigators do not seem to show interest in the investigation. Even they are seem to be bothered to search / find the rest of the bodies of crash victims, forget about the black box. It’s really anguishing!!
My hearful condolence to all those kith and kin of those victims.
The preliminary report was released on “July” 2 and not “June” 2 which would have been just one day after the crash. Come on people, slow down and take a moment to proof read what you write. How can one trust that the big things are being reported correctly if you can’t make sure you have the basic stuff right?
Natasha and Jonathan:
Jonathan, good job on the translation.
If you read the blog in French, you probably also got all of the sarcasm and the “Canard Enchaine” kind of rhetoric.
Remember that it is not an objective blog but one more or less supported by Union pilots opposed to the company.
——————————-
C.
Unfortunately, you don’t know what you are talking about.
It has nothing to do with Airbuses.
Boeing also use the pitot tubes like any other airplane in the world.
Boeing planes have also been lost in the past due to pitot icing.
Just for your info:
Those tubes were invented by a Sieur Pitot, a Frenchman scientist working for the King of France who was asked in 1732 to measure the speed of the Seine river in Paris.
Now, think about this:
We rely on a 1732 device mounted on zillion dollar jets to provide one of the most essential pieces of information, airspeed.
That we have not found another way to measure airspeed yet is scary.
P.
Air France vs. Airbus:
1. The Pitot tube issue has been known for quite some time and Airbus had addressed it many moons ago.
2. When icing occurs, and the cockpit alarm sounds a “Stall Alert”, the Airbus instruction manual does recommend to assume the alarm due to pitot icing and therefore to be ignored. After a while, the pitot resumes its normal operation. This has happened in other airplanes with no negative impact on the continuation of the flight.
3. However, Air France manual of operations does ask the pilots to do exactly the opposite, and NOT ignore the alarm. Instead the pilots are asked to take it seriously and therefore increase or decrease throttle with devastating (fatal effects).
4. The conjuncture here is that it might have been what happened to AF447. The incident would have been dramatic enough if happening in broad daylight but maybe not fatal. The pilots might have been able to recover. However, this happening in the middle of the night, with no ground control, in a middle of major turbulences, with maybe adding exceptional and catastrophic circumstances could only be a recipe for total disaster.
5. The blog article mentioned above also makes a point that it is very likely AF447 had altered course 10 nautical miles west to go around the worst of the storm as did a Lufthansa 747 10 mns before. They base that theory on the analysis of all messages (automatic or not) sent until the crash.
However, the plane would have experienced turbulences and icing might have occurred.
P.
There is a very modern ground speed indicator on these planes - the GPS… but remember, when the pitots failed (iced up ?) and confused the navigation systems, they went off line taking with it the GPS ground speed along with all references to up / down leaving them “flying blind” quite literally.
Again, software changes should be made so they don’t give up the ghost just because they get confused.
Thanks for the info. Pat. I’ll agree with you about being scary that we still rely on a XVIII century device. On the other hand, there are a lot more things in our modern world (that we rely on) that were developed, thought of, conceived during the XVII and XVIII centuries (without mentioning Roman inventions still in daily use.. but I digress). If it works it works…in the case of the Pilot Tubes (why did Airbus released a note telling the companies to change that particular one? It doesn’t seem to be a problem with this device in general but with the ones fit in the A330-340s). Now, I am not against Airbus. Not at all! I just said I will use my right of choice. And if I am paying for a service I am entitled to choose. I choose not to go on one of those A330-340, that’s all (be it AirFrance or any other company). Unless, of course, I can be sure that they have new pilot tubes (which will come from a trusting company.. no names mentioned). From what I have read, there are even discussions about the composite material they use nowadays for building airplanes. I understand that you, that seems to know a lot about planes and the technology involved in building and flying them, want to keep things clear. I think it’s very nice of you to give your time to help us (the less knowledgeable) understand (I appreciate that), but please don’t try to make it all look like it’s all normal. We’re said because of what happened and concerned about what might happen in the future. I repeat, I am not against Airbus or in favour of Boeing or against AirFrance. I am in favour of honesty and responsibility. Their business deal with lives. A mistake (even a small one) from their judgment might cost lives. It’s a fact that Airbus issued a note telling the companies that there was a problem with the pilot tubes and that they should be changed. In my opinion Airbus did its part responsibly, recognizing that there was a problem and alerting the companies. AirFrance, obviously to save money, DIDN’T do their part. They kept putting crew and passengers in serious risk. Even if at the end they show that the cause was something else, AirFrance still acted irresponsibly by not changing the faulty device and should be accountable for the lack of seriousness.
They are pitot tubes, not Pilot tubes (pilot tubes are a term used for the plastic tubing running to the outside for relieving yourself of fluids on a long flight when you can’t / don’t want to land. Here’s a NASA write-up on pitot tubes.
sorry for the typos.
I don’t understand why are these air plane manufcaturers still rely on a stone age technology for measuring air speed (Pitot tubes), whose performance is weather dependable. It’s highly ridiculous that these high-fi aircraft manufacturers rely on such an unreliable system therby putting air passengers’ lives at risk. Unlike any land based vehicles, there’s no safety for air passengers on air travel. To complicate further, these people still employ/rely on outdated technology.
There are so many other reliable technologies in use that can be used / designed for air speed like GPS, doppler effect, etc, in addition to pitot tubes. These technologies are proven and very much in use, especially in marine and other applications. Otherwise, they should work on evolving new technology, at least.
Although, so many air crafts are flying all over the world, every now and then, when there is any failure of measuring instruments or controls in an aircraft, then the aircraft becomes unsafe and the history of recovery from these failures is negligle, means safety on air travel is minimal. Even, air crafts are unsafe from small birds, not to mention the thunderstorms / lightnings. Unlike ship or road travel, the chances of survival is minimal on air travel. Hence, air craft manufacturers should take into account all these when designing aircrafts that are yet to be produced and make use of advanced technologies to make safe planes. After all, human lives are invaluable!!!
It is unsure right now whether aircraft failure, pilot error or weather resulted in the loss of this flight.
Strong indications point to the air speed indicators but no conclusive proof can be obtained which means any legal action against Airbus or Air France would not be possible.
Also out of court settlements will not be made public so we will never know what transpired between Air France, Airbus and the families of the victims.
In conclusion, if you do not feel safe using a product or service, then dont use the product or service, but I can asure you all the major airlines makes use of either Boeing or Airbus equipment, so dont expect to find an honest carrier or service provider or hardware vendor.
GPS simply is not capable of showing AIR speed, but only Ground speed. The wing simply does not care what speed its shadow is making across the ground. The winds aloft can and often do exceed 100 mph, so your Ground speed would put you into very unsafe attitudes if that was your measure for Air speed. So, what technology can we use? Pitot tubes have worked quite reliable for over 100 years in most cases. Doppler is marginal if there is something for the radio waves to reflect off of. What about clear air? I doubt you’ll get accurate Air speed information from the returns in clear air. Another problem with Doppler is wind gradient. That is, the air speed of the air the wing will pass through can be quite different from the air speed of the air the Doppler is bouncing off some distance ahead of and below / above the path the wing will follow.
The problem is, at 35,000 feet, the margin between stall and over speed is slim and these other technologies do not offer the accuracy of AIR speed needed for safe flight. A pitot tube does as long as you keep it hot enough that ice does not plug the tube. The replacement tubes AF should have put on this plane dozens of months before has 50% more heat…
In 1996 and Air Peru flight was lost when ground maintenace crew forgot to remove the tape that they used to cover the pitot tubes during aircraft cleaning. Does anybody know if the investigation team has followed up this avenue?
In the Air Peru crash, the pitot tubes were covered with tape in flight resulting in the on board computers reporting incorrect speed, actually in the Air Peru crash to the best of my knowledge the on board computers reported a stall.
Ultimately the crew could not gauge they alititude or air speed and flew into the ocean.
Very similar type of scenario.
The real truth will only come out searchers are able to recover parts of the plane, where the pitot tubes are installed. Even with finding of black boxes will not reveal the real truth. It may indicate incorrect speed but cannot indicate the route cause as probability of icing (of pitot tubes) is more in this case as the plane encountered cumulus storm weather condition before crash.
The pitot tubes are designed to become iced up and then to melt the ice once the pilot turns 0n the power to the electric heating element in the tube, so finding them will not show if they were iced up. Finding them could show if the heater element was failed, but this is not why Airbus wanted them replaced.. they found that they needed 50% more heat in some cases.
Interesting comment about the pilot activating the pitot tube heating elements once they have been iced up.
Lets assume they flew into the storm with the heater elements in the off position, and whilst in the storm they get struck by lightning and they suffer a circuit burnout on the pitot tube heater elements, how would they then de-ice the pitot tubes?
Ok I agree all three systems (typically critical aircraft functions are in tripple redundancy) would have to be destroyed, but that has happended before.
Basically if ice in the pitot tubes was one of the elements, finding the cockpit and checking the settings or switches for pitot tube de-icing might go a long way to solving this mystery.
Then once the iced up pitot tubes have been established they would need the CVR (cockpit vioce recorder) and FDR (flight data recorder), black boxes, to tell how this icing up of the pitot tubes affected the handling of the aircraft at altitude and what the on board avionics was thiking and telling the crew.
So to prove or disprove the iced up pitot tube mystery will require recovery of the cockpit and black boxes.
I hope they are sucessfull i retrieving these as the 330 is a very popular long haul aircraft.
Slight mis-understanding… we typically do not wait for them to become iced before turning on the heat. In the winter (I’m in the great lakes area) I turn on my pitot heater at engine run-up. Icing can happen any time of year, so in the summer, I would not typically have it on.
That said, each part 121 airline has their own procedures for nearly every detail of flight, including the pitot heaters. It is probable they simply turn them on automatically when the outside air temp it near freezing. Remember, this plane is top draw for automation and integration so the flight management computers could be programmed to turn them on automatically. We already know from the automated messages sent that all 3 flight systems lost air speed info and when off line along with the 2 backup systems. Lightning strike taking out the pitot heaters ? could be. With these poor guys flying blind the stress of knowing they were totally hosed could have prevented them from finding the root cause.
Every turbo-jet / turbo-fan aircraft I am aware of has no ice protection equipment on the wings except for a small area in font of the engine intake to prevent FOD (foreign object damage) - but most aircraft don’t have the jet down wind of the wing, the AB 340 included.
The reason is simple - Icing of the wings is not an issue at the speed they fly. Also the shape of the wing does not lend itself to ice formation (sharp thin leading edge as opposed to the thick rounded shape found on nearly all prop aircraft. The Pitot tube, radar dome, and wind screen are a different story and have anti-ice protection.
“Unknown User”
Do you have aluminum foil rapped around your head ? Have you actually read what you posted on icing? Its a bunch of “mumbo - jumbo”. For example, you stated that ” … ice doesn’t form at 38 meters per second…”
Sir, that is around 90 mph… simply not a true statement. Ice forms exceeding well at 90 mph right up into the hundreds of miles per hour. Somewhere above 200 mph it stops forming. I do not know the threshold, but jets fly in that realm and don’t have ice forming on their wing.
Another factual error (among many) in your mumbo-jumbo, Ice forms on the leading edge of a wing, not the trailing edge, if it forms at all.
Hello,
A other opinion from a ex AF professional pilot:
http://af447.20minutes-blogs.fr/archive/2009/07/05/airbus-af-447-la-france-les-a-tues.html
Regards.
I am an expert about Civil Aviation Safety. I usually do not support conspiratory theories. I think too much is being said on negligence without taking into account that this case is the first time some one dies in an Airbus 330 in commercial flight (nobody has died in an Airbus 340 with the same Pitots) and that Air Frace has an outstanding safety record for the last 30 years (7 fatalities in a hijack in 1994 and 3 in an airshow in 1988), if we exclude the Concorde accident.
But now I am starting to see a clear conspiratory possibility: talks by “unknown user” have absolutely no sense. It looks like Airbus or Air France, feed up with the absurd polemic, may be trying to blow up the blog!
Nonsense to fight nonsense?
And courageous Dave still try to argue!.
Of course, all my regret about the people that lost their lives in this sad happening. Lets hope we gather enough information to keep improving safety in the right direction.
TV… how many people do you think is necessary to die, for you to consider it bad enough to talk about negligence? How many times does it need to happen? You are right, this was the first time… and it shouldn’t have happened… and definitely should NOT happen again. That’s why it’s important to talk about all the possibilities and find out as much information as possible to figure out what happened. .. In my opinion the negligence started when a pilot (correct me if I’m wrong.. I read this somewhere on a news channel) died still in the testing process because of the pitot tubes… if this is true, it’s incredible that they let it go out to the market like that… just adding a note in the manual about how to deal with the situation if they get wrong speed readings…. That is already negligence. We could talk about negligence way before this accident… way before anybody died.. if just ONE person dies, it’s more than enough to talk about every possibility…. it doesn’t matter how safe an airline is…. accidents can and do happen, but it’s very bad when they happen for a reason that could and should have been addressed… there’s no way out. The pitot tubes are a big part, and as far as I can see are the reason, for this accident. Airfrance didn’t fulfill its obligation, a moral obligation… guarantee to the best of its capability the safety of its customers’ (we’re talking about lives.. it’s not a pair of jeans you don’t like and bring back to the shop.. it’s about lives!)… They knew there was a problem that could cause a disaster and they did nothing.
Just wondering if there are engineers that have studied how lightening trasfers through carbonfibercompounds ? There was a helicopter brought down by lightening , the tail roter was replaced from aluminum to CFC , when that chopper was hit by lightening the roter exploded ! Could the same thing have happened to this plane ? There are many questions I have , if the plane had speed or ice problems , then how is there recovery of human bodies and big pieces of the plane ? i would think a fall from the sky would destroy almost everything ??? The other question I have is the answer of airspeed came way before a determination could be made ! It seems to me to be an easy answer to something much more complicated !!!!!
More news this week
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-brazil-plane,0,5216933.story
Dear C,
The problem is somehow more complex than saving a life or not. It is a matter of choices. Suppose you have one million dollar and have to take the decission:
Would you spend that money in solving an issue that would save a life or on another that would save a hundred lives?.
The real difficulty is discrimating wich is the important issue before an accident happens. Afterwards it is easier (and I am not talking about this one, I think
there is still research to be done in order to properly assess the happening). Believe me, all the people in the aircraft industry would like to foresee wich one are
the key issues. No one wants one of their planes crashing. Even if you think they are only interested in economics, it gives you much more economic return to spend
awfulls amounts in safety than having an airplane crashed.
Nevertheless, spending all the money that can be affordable in safety, it will be really dificult to reduce the number of actual fatalities (about 2000 per year).
Against us is the fact that the number is small in realation to the traffic and that the traffic is increasing 5% per year. In fact there are about 400,000 fatalities
per year in the car traffic and the same money we spent would reduce more the car traffic fatalities than the aircraft ones. But that is another issue that also has a
coherent explication out of the scope of this blog.
About curiosities:
There was a crash in a test flight in 1994 during the developement of this aircraft in which 7 people died. The closer to the pitot issue was that one of the 8
factors leading to the crash was inhability to understand the mode the autopilot would engage. But there was no disengage because of discrepancy from pitots.
After that and before this accident, only in 2000 there was a fatality and was not on board. He was a hijacker that jumped in a homemade parachut after having robbed
the pasengers.
This is the fatalities record of Airbus 330 and its pitots in about 3 million comercial flights. If there was a danger greater than the fact of putting a vessel at
35000 ft I did not appreciate it. I hope the research on this last crash give us more knowledge for the future, but do not dismiss the actual knowledge. With such an
amount of people and efford into safety lets leave negligence judgenments for a much better informed moment in the future.
About Midway question, lightning is a very much studied issue. Compounds ussually have external and internal ways of conduting the light strike. It has to be a very inusual strike to create problems. One of the tests to get airnavigation certification for an airplae is to put it into an electrical storms in a test flight and see if there are problems. After the flight you can see the skin painting pierced in multiple locations of the test airplane.
Dave, thanks for the news link.
Sorry for the long message. I do not usualy contribute to blogs, but may be I am getting old and I start to tell histories like a grandfaher
Regrads to all and regrets about the sad accident.
No problem TV
As a certified security expert, I can add an important factor to your analysis of how to spend the million… that is you must also weight the probability for the 2 events - so if is very likely the one person will die if you don’t spend the money on that issue, but extremely unlikely the hundreds will die, you should spend it for the one.
That said, it is usually not possible to predict anything more precise than “Low” probability.
FRANCE KILLED THEM!
Here: http://af447.20minutes-blogs.fr/archive/2009/07/05/airbus-af-447-la-france-les-a-tues.html#more
Thanks Dave, that further clarifies the point I wanted to rise.
Yes, I’m sure companies have no interest in loosing an airplane. That’s obvious for obvious reasons. Also, I’m sure they don’t want to have people dying in their flights. Companies are run by business-humans after all. They have to decide where to invest the billions they make, many safety programs, researches and tests. Well, in this case it would have been cheaper, they knew already that there was a problem (and one that had and has a big chance of causing accidents), and they got that information without having to spend in any test or program… so, it was just a matter of fixing it. And don’t tell me the reason not to change the pitot tubes was because they thought it was more important to put the money in some research. That would have been stupid, which they are not. I’m sure the cost of changing the devices was not going to interfere with any program; I don’t believe they would have to sacrifice anything. Sure it costs money, but that is part of any business (sometimes you profit sometimes you loose). Maybe it was a gamble, waiting a bit longer before they changed it (since the Airbus 330 has a good safety record)… but you don’t gamble with lives. When you don’t know, you don’t know.. when you know there’s a risk, it MUST be dealt with, it MUST be resolved.
I have no interest in putting more fire on this subject but I’m sure we all want to make sure this doesn’t slip away without having brought all the (ir)responsible to account.
Search is underway by the Pourquoi Pas…
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/07/10/brazil.air.france.search/index.html
Dear C,
I completely agree on bringing all the responsible into account. The only thing is that I do not know by now if there are responsibles for the happening. Some society systems are very oriented in “there has to be a guilty one” but often reality is not that simple.
Let me ask you a tricky question. Lets supose there is a guilty one.
How much money would you spent in prosecution that could be spent in improving other safety issues and save lives?
You can say that prosecution saves lives, but I bet you have not made a number on what would save more lives.
Please, do not take this question as a personal issue. I am just triying to indicate that decisions are not simple.
The truth of the matter is :
1. Air France has a bad safety record over the past 20 years when compared with other airlines in its category (Lufthansa, BA, KLM etc).
2. Air France cockpit management procedures (how they train aviators to manage flights) has also been questioned in the past and now again.
3. The relationship between Air France and Airbus is too close for the seperation between commercial interest and passenger lives to be maintained.
Last week I spoke to another pilot and it appears in the pilot community, informally the belief is forming that some of the events which resulted in this loss of life could have been avoided in multiple ways (both technically and management).
The answer is clear to me and also happended with JAL (Japan Airlines) in the 80’s :
1. Bring the truth out into the open.
2. The general public using Air France might choose another airline/carrier
3. Air France will be forced due to commercial pressures to change its ways.
Y Man, I suppose you are talking about the past and I suppose you agree on considering Concorde out of usual airlines operations.
Then lets see what you consider the truth:
“Air France has a bad safety record over the past 20 years when compared with other airlines in its category (Lufthansa, BA, KLM etc).”
Last 20 years of operations: 1989-2008
Lufthansa: 7 fatalities in two crashes (both in 1993)
British Airways: 1 fatality in a refueling (actually the refueling guy) (2001)
KLM: 3 fatalities in a crash (1994)
Air France: 7 fatalities in a hijack (4 hijackers + 3 passangers) (1994)
If we consider that hijack is a security and not a safety issue, I do not see that bad record you are comenting as the truth of the matter.
In addition, Lufthansa and Air France are larger than the rest (Lufthansa more pasangers flown, Air France more miles flown)
Your statistics seems to ignore the runway overrun in Torronto (also strangely enough with an Airbus), oh and lets not forgot the spectacular fly by crash at the Air Show with the unveiling of an Airbus aircraft, strange that does not appear in your thread as an incident. I guess you only want to report the facts that agree with you.
Believe what you what, you cant hide from the facts.
Y Man, About Toronto overrun:
I do not understand your point. All the airlines I commented had more safety occurences than the ones on my previous message. I just reported the ones with fatalities.
Why you do not blame me for not reporting the Lufthansa crash of 07 NOV 2004 (Boeing 747 written off, 0 fatalities) or the British Airways crash of 17 JAN 2008 (Boeing 777 written off, 0 fatalities) or the KLM crash of 28 NOV 2004 (Boeing 737 written off, 0 fatalities)?
About the Air Show accident:
That was in 1988, out of the 20 years you commented. But just for one year!. Ok, if you want to add it to the count you are not being completely fair and even though Air France would have less fatalities in crashed airplanes than Lufthansa. In that Air Show crash there were 3 fatalities.
So, adding a crash in an Air Show (dificult to justify as ussual commercial fligh) and aout of the 20 years lapse, we arrive to the same crash fatilities than KLM and half of those of Lufthansa. Do you really think I am trying to hide from the facts?.
Please, be fair with me
More Pitot tubes and AirFrance.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-eu-air-france-incident,0,6161998.story
http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/sns-ap-us-air-france-emergency-landing,0,5797491.story?obref=obnetwork
“Please, stop the nonsense”,
What are you trying to say now.? Don’t try to support Air France on its negligence on safety measures. Even after the worst incident, still they want to play with the lives of innocent people. Pls. check this blog and you will come to know the real face of Air france. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/5933035/Air-France-pilots-claim-foolproof-speed-sensors-introduced-after-Brazil-plane-crash-are-faulty.html
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-eu-airbus-pitot-tubes,0,359225.story
Another interesting blog http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-eu-airbus-pitot-tubes,0,359225.story
Mr.X
Are you stating seriusly that Air France or any other European company is negligent on safety measures!. That can only be stated if you do not know the civil aviation environment. Things that make safety responsibles in these airlines siver and have nightmares are details that still keep aviation safety as the highest standard in safety.
What we are facing is a media fooling trick:
1-A safety campaign to change pitots that have been aborad for 3 million flights wihtout accidents is started before the AF 447 accident, just as an improvement.
2-Public opinion is pussed to blame the AF 447 accident on the pitots as the most important cause before a final report is issued, just because they where being changed.
3-An incident with the new pitots is related with the manufacturer of the pitots. The only solution is clear, use other manufacturer
All of this are good news for Goodrich.
The papers you mention show no expert opinion. They puss further the public opinion for Goodrich saying that their pitots have no complains.
There are no proof that they are better. Accidents can be mentioned with their pitots. All have explanation, like not swiching on the anti-icing or icing over the specifications of the airworthiness requirements, but AF 447 may have simmilar explanations
Examples of accidents due to other pitots erratic airspeed indication (while thales pitot did not have any complain):
02 MAR 1994 (MD-82 substantial damage, 0 fatalities) icing on pitot tubes
02 OCT 1996 (Boeing 757 written off, 70 fatalities) masking tape on pitots
06 FEB 1996 (Boeing 757 written off, 189 fatalities) obstructed pitot tube
10 OCT 1997 (DC-9-32 written off, 74 fatalities) icing on pitot tubes
07 APR 1999 (Boeing 737 written off, 6 fatalities) icing on pitots
17 OCT 1999 (MD-11 written off, 0 fatalities) clogged pitot tube drain holes
03 JUN 2006 (Dornier 328Jet-300 substantial damage, 0 fatalities)blocked pitot system
You may say they are mostly old accidents, but the Airbus 330 was already fliying with the “polemic” pitots
May be they should all have changed to Thales pitots then?
Are we doing a seriusly thought change on the name of safety after a careful investigation or is this a campaign in the name of profit?
And I do not mean only Goodrich profit.
- Is AF changeing too fast the probes to avoid losing pasengers?
- Is Airbus making recomendations too fast to avoid losing airplanes sells?
- Are compeitors pussing the public opinion to sell more?
Come on!, stop the nonsense and let experts finish their work. There is nothing like a horrible danger and negligence in airplanes that have 1 crash with fatalities in 3 million flights!
Statistics of other planes like Boeing 737-800 or Boeing 767 are worst and we are using them wihtout complain!
Another set of failures discovered on the speed sensors made by Thales Corp., fitted on North West Airlines fleet of A330s.
This indicates the quality of speed sensors manufactured by Thales Corp., mainly responsible for Airfrance’s 447 crash into the Atlantic.
I still wonder how the European Airbus company, known to be using hi-technology, didn’t test these speed sensors before incorporating into its advanced Airbus aircrafts!!!!!
Pls. read this blog: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090808/ap_on_go_ot/us_planes_speed_malfunction.
http://www.startribune.com/business/52674772.html
Just a couple of question for the moderator of this thread. Pure curiosity.
What is the value that you find in the contribution from “Unknown User”?
Why you do not discard them?
It’s real bull shit that’s being dumped on this blog!!
I agree with TV completely about the garbage posted by “Unknown User”. Lately it much of it appears to be random fractions of sentences strung together with some large number - something a virus would to pollute your BLOG.
I have posted technical corrections to his/her/its posts, but it appears this is only a broadcast from Unknown. I bet what ever is posting this crap is a script and no person from that user is reading anything.
nice to see another load of horse crap from “Unknown User” that the lovely moderator of this site ignores our many complains about.
Seriously, does anybody besides me think these ramblings are from anything but a virus or a mentally challenged person ?
Dave, I haven’t seen Jonathan (I think he’s the moderator) posting here for some time… that’s strange… I agree with you about “Unknown User”, and from his very first postings here, I wondered why the moderator was not reacting.
Nice to see that the garbage that was being dumped by “Unknown user” all these days has been completely removed from this thread.
Anyway, thanks to Jonathan!!!
Dave, I also felt that it cannot be human, as no human could post such a large amount of crap without reading thru’ before what he/she is posting.
Hey guys.
I’m sorry I haven’t kept the site up. I still see the news, but just haven’t had the time to post updates. I apologize for letting “unknown user” post that garbage. His comments have been removed and he as been added to the spam list.
Thanks Jonathan !!! We appreciate all you have done. Its a bit fustratiing to not see news (google searches) on what they are seeing in Phase 2 and more news about phase 3 if needed. I would think they have seen something, if only sea trash. Sure would be nice to know something about the search…
Yeah! Thanks Jonathan for keeping this site going.
You’re all welcome. If anyone is interested in writing/keeping the site up to date, send me an email.
I would be very interested in doing it, problem is I dunno where to look!On google I really can’t find anything beside this, which is really crazy!Anyone knows where to look??
Anyway, I would really like to watch a simulation of the flight, the stuff I found on youtube was real real bad and not even complete, so I’d like to know if anyone made any or if there is a place where I can find one.
Claudio ! You are absolutely correct. The lack of news on this is unbelievable ! Where is the “Free Press” ?? There has got to be something somewhere going on. Why was there no coverage of Phase 2 beyond a mention that it started and that it ended? Where are the photos of the sea trash they found ? Of the “sites of interest” they talked about? Someone somewhere needs to leak something to keep the masses (called “We The Sheeple in the US”)