yet another airbus plunged from the sky

[friendly_jacek]

Originally Posted By: Astro14

Your conveniently ignoring this point: The flight crew managed to regain full control and the flight landed uneventfully.


well, some lesser trained crew don't manage. to recover from that particular glitch the crew had to shot down TWO (2) Air Data Reference Units and keep only one operational. to me flying airbus is more about troubleshooting computers than actually controlling a plane.

Quote:
the loss of altitude had been caused by two angle of attack sensors having frozen in their positions during climb at an angle, that caused the fly by wire protection to assume, the aircraft entered a stall while it climbed through FL310. The Alpha Protection activated forcing the aircraft to pitch down, which could not be corrected even by full back stick input. The crew eventually disconnected the related Air Data Units and was able to recover the aircraft.


http://avherald.com/h?article=47d74074

 

[friendly_jacek]

Originally Posted By: Astro14

Stuff happens in airplanes all the time.

How about this one: http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19951220-1

Another Boeing crashes! It's the automation that killed them! They hit a mountain, when the computer turned them into it! They didn't even know!



nice try. in that incident crew mistakenly selected wrong destination in the navigation while flying in the valley.

 

[edhackett]

Controlled decent into terrain at ~3940 fpm. The question to be answered is why?

Ed

 

[kozanoglu]

Originally Posted By: marine65
If this plane were a car it would be a beater.
It had nearly 47,000 flights on it.
I think thats why it ended up in a second class cut rate airline.
I wonder if you can check how many hours and flights are on the next plane you fly on?


It is better we do not start talking about ages of airliners' fleets in the US.

Once, not long ago I was on a intra-US flight, the thing looked antiquated. Loud engine, I could smell exhaust fumes from the back seats. I do not know how and why they let those dinosaurs fly today.

 

[Evanson]

Germanwings is a low cost airline owned by Lufthansa.

Lufthansa has recently been facing strikes from it's employees who are unhappy that Germanwings was taking over Lufthansa routes and cutting costs as it did so.

 

[Lapham3]

I've always thought about the maintenance aspects of avaition. When I picked up the FAA A+P 40 years ago, the more 'interesting' , but low paying work was in the FBOs. The airlines with the unions were good paying, but for most employees, generally rather boring work=not much 'middle ground'. I understand the value of the unions to better the 'working world' of folks, but things have a way of swinging from one extreme to the other.
The off shore 'outsourcing' of magor A/C maintenence as 'cost savings' has always bothered me. Maybe these German airlines are not in that mode, but when a plane goes down in a 'strange' way, I can't help but think of what, where and when was the A/C recent maintenance.

 

[Mr Nice]

I'm surprised at the photos of this Airbus, it looks like it was put through a tree shredder. I was expecting to see bigger pieces of the fuselage and wings.

 

[GaleHawkins]

It looked like it was descending for maybe 5 minutes so it was not like it fell out of the sky. Sure was a bad place to search and remove.

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
I'm surprised at the photos of this Airbus, it looks like it was put through a tree shredder. I was expecting to see bigger pieces of the fuselage and wings.



500 MPH into rocks will do that....

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted By: friendly_jacek


To me flying airbus is more about troubleshooting computers than actually controlling a plane.



I see...

And how much time do you have in the Airbus? Any type rating in the A-320?

 

[757guy]

friendly-jacek,

The incident you quote above was a 757 that was flying into Cali, Columbia which did not have enroute radar following it at the time. You say the "computer" turned the aircraft into a mountain, but let me point out the aircraft was only doing what was programmed into the Flight Management Computers by the flight crew, by the direction of Columbian Air Traffic Control.

The fact is that Columbian ATC cleared the aircraft to a waypoint that they had just passed, and by doing so, the aircraft started to turn back to the waypoint - which the crew caught, but was unable to recover enough separation and altitude to clear the mountain peaks surrounding the arrival routing. (Very similar to the arrival into Anchorage Alaska through the Turnigan Arm area.)

In the incident you describe, that airplane would have made it except for the fact that during the high power climb, the spoilers will still deployed, causing some loss of lift. As it was, the aircraft almost cleared to mountain peak. And yes, spoilers are used on the 757 routinely during descents in order to meet crossing restrictions and speed constraints on arrival routings.

I flew the A320 for several years, and wouldn't hesistate to fly on one today. You previously mentioned problems with the A320 Angle of Attack probes, and you should know that problem has an associated procedure that is a memory item for all A320 flight crews.

There are several automation modes on the A320, and when all else fails, we can just turn everything off and fly it manually like a regular non-glass airplane - just like the DC-9's still out there flying today.

Hope the information helps,

757 Guy

 

[Astro14]

I apologize...I started that one, I know all about Cali...but was attempting to show how ridiculous the Airbus bashing can be. I tire of typing on the iPad, which precludes my usual detailed discussion...

Like you, I'm typed in the A320 and the B757/767.

And like you, I would fly them both anywhere.

 

[fdcg27]

Let's look at all of this in a broader perspective.
The dawn of the turbine age for airliners nearly sixty years back, not counting the false start that was the DH 106, brought a huge reduction in accidents, simply because these engines were so durable and reliable and required so little management in flight, unlike the later generation piston engines that required constant attention and had pretty regular in-flight shut-downs even so.
The turbines also had far more peak power, although the early turbojets and low-bypass turbofans would take awhile to spool up and deliver that power.
These were also very different aircraft with different operating characteristics. A straight wing propliner virtually levitates off the runway, while a swept wing jetliner requires a very positive rotation and a fairly steep one at that.
As commercial flying grew through the sixties and seventies, though, the sky continued to rain airliners. The next big improvment came not in the hardware but in the techniques used in operating it. Operating proceedures that were proven to work became standardized across the industry and the guy in the right seat (there would soon be virtually no guys in a seat behind the two up front) became an asset to employ in all cases, not just a spare body. This was called crew (or cockpit) resource management. It was taught, it became airline policy and its use was required.
By the late eighties, between the improved equipment that was universal by then as well as the improved operating proceedures and better use of the available crew, airline accidents began a steep decline that continues to this day.
You've focused in a layman's way on one aspect of Airbus operation. There are so many other factors that bear upon the operation of an aircraft all of which impact operating safety.
The bottom line is that commercial flying has never been safer.
This is proven by the fact that a hull loss accident of an aircraft carrying but 144 fares continues to headline the network news days later, so rare have these horrible events become.
Back in the day, a similar accident would have been news for maybe a day. I can even recall one American carrier losing two 707 in a single week.
Things like that just don't happen these days.

 

[Mr Nice]

Not to get off topic... but what are people going to say when the first 787 crashes ?

 

[fdcg27]

Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Not to get off topic... but what are people going to say when the first 787 crashes ?



Probably the same thing a Brit wrote in a book I read years ago.
"As long as aircraft fly, aircraft will come to grief"
or something close to that.
There will be a 787 hull loss sooner or later, given the huge number that will ultimately be in service.
There have been four 777 hull loss accidents to date, IIRC, none of which had anything to do with aircraft design, construction or maintenance.
One was shot down, one vanished, one was stalled in due to engine power problems possibly related to fuel icing and one was flown through a really bad visual approach.

 

[stranger706]

Multiple news sites reporting that one of the pilots was locked out of the flight deck during the crash.

 

[friendly_jacek]

sadly, when a Carrington-class disaster strikes the earth (the only question is when) all those fly by wire planes will suddenly drop from the sky. same with most cars, perhaps less deadly, as they will roll to stop.

 

[Nebroch]

Originally Posted By: stranger706
Multiple news sites reporting that one of the pilots was locked out of the flight deck during the crash.


Local media reports, that co-pilot probably crashed the plane deliberately. Sounds from the voice recorder tell that locked out captain tried to break the door without success.

Another source:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/26/us-france-crash-prosecutor-idUSKBN0MM1EG20150326

 

[friendly_jacek]

Originally Posted By: stranger706
Multiple news sites reporting that one of the pilots was locked out of the flight deck during the crash.



wow, i heard that on the news today. i think the industry will have to openly admit the problem of suicidal/terrorist pilots instead trying to sweep it under the rug.

BTW, all my criticism against airbus automation is very misguided and wrong. i apologize.

 

[kozanoglu]

French prosecutor says the co-pilot intentionally crashed the airplane and caused rhe death of 150 human beings. A vicious terrorist act. The pilot was Christian.

Andreas L.