April 27, 2020 • 33 mins
Sources:
https://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601.en/pdf/f-cp090601.en.pdf
Understanding Air France 447 by Bill Palmer
Documentary: Chaos in the Cockpit - Airfrance 447
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Pilot_Flying_(PF)_and_Pilot_Monitoring_(PM)
https://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601.en/pdf/f-cp090601.en.pdf
Understanding Air France 447 by Bill Palmer
Documentary: Chaos in the Cockpit - Airfrance 447
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Pilot_Flying_(PF)_and_Pilot_Monitoring_(PM)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Warning, the following podcast may containdescriptions that some listeners may find distressing.
Listener discretion is advised. Any viewsare all our own and do not in
any way reflect the places where wework. Hello and welcome to mad or
Bad. My name is Rachel andI'm Neil, and today we bring you
the story of Air France Flight fourfour seven. On the night of May
(00:24):
thirty first, two thousand and nine, Air France four four seven, an
Airbus A three thirty two hundred,departed from Real dision Ero with its intention
to arrive in Paris, France.This was said to be a twelve hour
flight. A mere four hours later, the flight encountered expected icy conditions as
well as thunderstorms, which cause theirair speed indications to be lost. The
(00:47):
autopilot and auto thrust mechanisms disconnected asa result, and the pilots lost control
of their plane. At nearly thirtyfive thousand feet with both engines running at
full speed, The flight plunged tothe below in only three minutes. Two
hundred and twenty eight souls on boardthat night all sadly died. With more
(01:07):
than six hundred of this model ofairplane being used around the world. It
became an important task to find outwhat happened that fateful night, what caused
one of the most technically advanced airplanesto crash. We will attempt to uncover
the mystery that has flight four fourseven. There were three pilots on board
the flight that night, Capting MarkDubois age fifty eight, who had been
flying aircraft since nineteen seventy four.He had nearly eleven thousand flying hours under
(01:33):
his belt, which means basically,he's a very experience what's the amount of
hours that you need to like abe a part of no idea? I
know he is very experienced. Soanyway, he's had like like he's literally
been flying for for at that time. Yeah, yeah, so he's got
eleven thousand hours. First, obviouslyDavid Robber the co pilot, so each
(02:00):
thirty seven he'd be sat in theleft seat. He had sort of six
and our thousand flying hours. Finally, the most well, the least experienced
crew member first officer pre Cedric Bonning, We'll say, so he's the co
pilot, he's in the right seat. He was thirty two at the time,
and he had just under three thousandflying hours. Which again you know,
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it's nowhere near as experienced as theother two, but he's not a
novice. So Captain mart Dubois hewas classed as p n F, so
that stands for pilot not flying,which essentially means he was not responsible for
flying of the aircraft on that fly. Instead, he would monitor the flight
management and aircraft control actions of thePF, so the pilot flying and carry
(02:49):
out support dues such as communications andchecklist reading. First Officer Pierre Cedric Bonn
Bonnin was classed as PF pilot flying, so he's as it's there's an easy
charge of the flying the aircraft,although he was that's despite he was the
least experience of the three pilots.So the reason there was three pilots on
board was to provide the pilots withbreaks during the long flight, as it
(03:12):
was twelve hours. In the cabinwere nine flight attendants and two hundred and
sixteen passengers. The majority of passengerswere French, Brazilian and German citizens,
and there was some notable passengers aswell. There was somebody who was third
in succession to the abolished throne ofBrazil, going by the name of Prince
Pedro. Oh, you know you'vegot an abolished I mean, I'm not
(03:34):
I don't know how polished, brazilabolished. Not that notable, I guess.
So he was returning home from Luxembourgfrom a visit to his relatives and
Rio de Janeiro. There was alsoa composer and former conductor of the symphony
orchestras of the Claudio Centaurro National Theaterin Brazil, Brazilia's capital in it Is.
(04:00):
So his name was Silvio Barbato andhe was on route to I don't
know, but he was on routeto Kia for engagements there. And last,
but certainly not least, Pablo dreyFuse from Argentina. He was a
campaigner for controlling illegal arms and theillegal drugs trade. Good man, I
(04:21):
know sounds of it. So theflight took off from Rio de Janeiro at
twenty twenty nine hours local time,So yeah, off eight in the evening,
obviously, and at twenty thousand feet. First Officer Rober left the cockpit
for three hour break. As Richardjust said, you know, it's twelve
(04:42):
hour flight. I never got anythree hour break on twelve hours shift to
two I know, it's different whenyou're flying a plane, but you be
nice, no break, no break, no mine three hours but obviously yeah,
and and there's going to be verystrict on these breaks, aren't they
record kind drive exactly? Yeah,would be the exact same thing. They
(05:03):
have to don't know, you can'tthere's no an employee wanted to like a
lot of employees do wanted to workthe knots off, Yeah or him,
Yeah, they wouldn't be able toknow. Captain Dubar was in the left
seat, First Office Bonn in andsay, given every time first officer at
Bonning, he's a thirty two yearold, the least experience. Yes,
(05:25):
he was to his rights. Aswe just said, he's the pilot fly
in the PF. The flight continuedto climb to its cruising altitude of thirty
five thousand feet. Essentially, theplane was flying in an area between controllers
and it failed to communicate with theDHAKA communication system at this point. So
basically what that means is you're flyingyour airplane, you have different controllers or
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different communication points that you hit.So there's I think there was like four
or five of them on their course. So they had logged off from one
which was like on the coast ofBrazil, and they tried to log onto
an there that was the daker one, but there wasn't. They couldn't like
gone to it for some reason.I don't know why. But basically what
it means was they were in apoint where there was no communication between these
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points. So it's kind of likelike a silent part of the course,
right, so there's no But willthey be able to talk to someone though
at the time they did with highfrequency speak, Yeah, obviously, but
they wouldn't And that's normal though,like that's an unexpected thing as far it
was just what it is. Imean, the world's a big places,
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and I suppose I don't know whetherthis was over the sea, yeah so,
and I guess over more densely,like if you're flying from say,
I don't know, Moscow to London. Yeah, Like obviously you're going to
be covered all the way, wouldn'tyou get Yeah, so sorry to me.
(06:56):
So so a quarter to two inthe morning, the aircraft and an
area of weather, and the crewdiscussed the possibility of climbing a further twenty
thousand feet to stay clear of theweather. So, so if you went
to I mean, I'm no isyou know, interesting aircraft mainly military.
I'm not explaining this. If theywent to twenty thousand, I don't think
that possible to even go. It'skind of like space. Yeah, I'm
(07:19):
pretty sure you can't do that.But they did discuss the possibility of it.
According to my sords, well,there's quite a few So normally pilots
would either fly over or around.I think they usually fly around because it's
more risky to fly higher. Andit wasn't class as a particularly challenging flight.
This was quite a normal thing tohappen, especially on that course.
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It's normal to have those weather fronts. It's normal to have the lightning and
all that kind of stuff because they'reactually flying over the equator and there's a
lot of weather that happens because obviouslyit's it's a difference, isn't it.
Yeah, yeah, I don't knowwhat the signs behind that is. Look
into a boat. It is aknown thing that there's a lot of weather
fronts around that area. And theCaptain Dubois, if it's seven year old,
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he's got nearly one thousand flying flyingwhat was it thirty five years at
this point. Yeah, he wasquite like a regular on this, Yeah,
absolutely veteran, like had done itlike so many times for years and
years and years he had flown thiscourse amongst other ones obviously, but yeah,
so it wasn't particularly class as beingchallenging or anything. And several other
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flights that evening did actually divert aroundthis storm as well, so they weren't
just the only one who were obviouslyin that air space and the weather thing
as well. And presumed that whenthis Captain Dubois or the other two part,
when he'd been on this route manytimes before, I'm sure many times
before, he would Yeah, yeah, definitely. So First Officer Bonnen,
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that was the guy on the rightwho was in charge of flying the plane,
the youngest fellow and the youngest becausethere's a lot of names in this
and it's it's kind of hard tokeep up with people, I think,
so he basically took the decision todim the lights of the cabin control and
turn on the landing lights. Andthis wasn't to ensure that basically they could
see as best as possible when comingthrough the weather front. He actually exclaimed
(09:13):
in quotes, it looks like weare entering the cloud cover, it would
have been good to climb now,So presuming at this point and this contact
with the what was it called dhaka? Yeah, communications up the morning.
No, No, it's on theblack he's speaking to on the high frequency
radio. Du what in the inthe cabin? This is what he's saying
to his co worker. Do weknow we said that because black box?
(09:39):
Yeah or something? Yeah. Afew minutes later, the captain exclaimed,
quote, it's going to be turbulentfrom my rest. So Captain Dubois notices
a phenomenon in the cock pits cockput Saint Elmo's fire and this is basically
a lightning phenomenon caused by heavily dischargedelectricity, so it kind of lights up
the sky. The flag continued.The pilot's prepared to fly through the weather
(10:01):
front, and again they know thatit's going to be, you know,
rough. But how many times areyou even on a fly whether you say,
you know, pretty much every flightI've ever been on. And they're
going over the equator, aren't they? In this song ms was that an
eighties film solo? I think so, yeah, that's a different thing.
But and again they would have seenthis before they want to be panicking,
(10:24):
you know, it just be well, I think the two more experienced pilots
were not panicking. I'm not sureabout Bonning. I feel like he didn't
quite understand because there is a documentthere's a documentary, isn't they one?
No, it's on YouTube, butit's called Chaos in the Cockpit and and
(10:48):
and and the younger fellow. Yeahthat's what's his name again? But then
so he's a fellow with the leastexperience. Yeah, you could they on
this documentary as well. We're watchingwatching, Yeah, they've got actors to
do the Yeah, but it soundsbut the first words from the black box,
yeah, yeah, exact, Andhe does sound a bit kind of
(11:09):
well, he's just like he didn'tknow about the Saint Alimo's fire thing.
You know, he'd never come acrossthat before. He's just less experienced.
I think that's you know, that'sall we can really say about it.
Yeah, he's just less experience.So at two a m. So they're
about, you know what he tookoff off a so they sort of halfway
(11:31):
sort of yeah, yeah, FirstOfficer Robert returned from his break. Captain
Dubois then left for his three ourbreak. It seems the first fatal mistake
occurred here. It was Officer Duboiswho was in charge of the flight.
So he's the PF pilot flying,and as we've said, bon En had
(11:52):
the least amount of experience, andhe was essentially certainly the wrong seed.
What I because I wrote this,what I mean by him sitting in the
wrong seat is he should be inthe left seat doing all the communication,
all the background work, because he'sthe least experienced. When the main captain
goes off on a break, Duboisthe fifty whatever. When Dubois on the
flight deck and he's not on hisbreak, it's okay, well yeah,
(12:13):
probably, but what yeah, whatI'm trying to explain is that when he's
gone, it should be the secondthe second in command, the second most
experienced person should be in the rightseat because to the right of the right
seat is the actual lever that theyuse to control the plane. So if
they're not in autopilot, that needsto be the person sitting in the right
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seat needs to be basically the onewho is the pilot flying. So from
what information we've glean it should bethe chat that so it's a Robber it
should be him who was flying theplane, and then and Bunin who was
doing the communications. But for whateverreason, they decided between themselves that Bunnin
would fly the plane. Basically.Yeah, so it's also strange that Captain
(12:56):
Dubois would for his three I wasat this busy time in the flight.
But then again, I insight it'sa wonderful thing. Again, you know,
he's very experienced. You know,we've not seen his flyer log has
probably been on these He's probably beenin that exact same situation numerous time before.
Yeah, and he's thinking, well, I don't get my break now
when I'm not going to get mybreak. Yeah, you know, but
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obviously it's easy to say these things. It is, but it's you know,
a decision that all three pilots wouldsoon regret. Unfortunately, six minutes
later, the two first officers informedthe crew that there will be Tablen's head
in about two minutes time. Theflight then encountered an updraft and a sound
which would be typical of ice crystalsitting the fuselage was heard. I love
that word fuselage, could just sayit fuselage, fuse, fuse, fuselage.
(13:43):
Yeah. The cruising speed was reducedby bon end as Pe guidelines.
This automatically reduced the engine speed fromone hundred percent to eighty four percent due
to the ice crystals then encountered atthe pittop tubes, so they measure as
speed. They clogged in the lefthand side. They're kind of tubes,
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aren't that come. They're little tubesthat basically the air goes into them and
it measures the air. It measuresthe air hitting their little tubes that kind
of hang down from the well,they don't really, I don't think they
hang down. I think they're kindof they're straight like that, so that
when the air comes into them,it measures it. What I mean,
Yeah, yeah, yeah, butyou obviously yeah yeah. The left sign
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indicated that the air speed it woulduse from two hundred and seventy five knots
to sixty knots incorrectly. So obviouslysixty knots the massive dangerous stalling here.
Yeah. And the thing is,actually there was nothing wrong with the plane
other than this was incorrect Yeah.The tube. Yeah, I mean they
had you know, they were stillon the same air speed. They hadn't
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changed altitudes or anything. It wasjust some you know, an error in
the instrumentation. Yeah, so theautopilot also disconnected, which was as policy
to allow the pilots to take thatcontrol because the autopilot's thinking, well,
we haven't got the correct information hereto fly this plane. We need a
human to do it for Yeah,because a lot of you know, from
(15:09):
taking off, landing, taking actionon autopilot, isn't it when they flying
they put the course in, don'tthey? Yeah? And absolutely, you
know, rather than like flying abomb in the Second World War where literally
the pilot for ten hours over Berlinor something, he's got a pilot it
for ten hours. Yeah, alot of it is automated. Yeah,
yeah, So the autopilot's disconnected,it's gone back to the pilots to take
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control. So it's a safety mechanismbasically. Yeah. Due to the two
is being clogged and therefore indications beingincorrect, internal automate to corrections were automatically
recalculated as if there's as if theplane was flying at a lower speed than
it actually was. So this resultsin new false readings regarding the altitude.
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Essentially, the pilots should have donenothing and realized THESP was in Bonnen was
inexperienced and panis we will never knowwhy responded in the way he did.
So he's thinking at this time,he's basically taking it, taking it for
face value. Yeah, so he'sthinking, I need to increased speed.
I need to go higher and increasethe speed. Yeah, definitely. So
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Benin began hand flying the plane.He reported, quote, I have the
controls. beIN in struggle to regaincontrol over the plane. Attempts were made
to call the captain back. Attwo ten am as he was on break,
the star warning also began to sound. Robert said, quote, but
we've got the engines. What's happening? The flight began to descend regardless of
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pilot input and started to pull consistentlyto the right. So Benin pulled back
on the control stick, which causedthe aircraft to climb. The aircraft instruments
showed a loss of altitude, whichwere all false readings. As we've already
said, Benin decided trust the instrument'sreadings. However, at seven thousand feet
a minute, going to very thinair, the aircraft started slowing down.
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Another alarm stall warning commenced as theaircraft was going too slow. This happens
when the aircraft is climbing too fast, too high. It essentially stalls,
just like a carwood if you pushedit quickly up a hill, climbing too
high, too fast, too high, too fast. Yeah, so to
prevent the plane from falling, butit needed to act quickly, he should
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have pushed forward on the side stick, get that speed back up and putting
the nose down and going downhill.But in fact he doesn't do this.
He continues to climb and literally doesthe exact opposite of what he needed to
do. So one of three speedsensors started working here again, but they
didn't believe the reading due to allthe other false readings. So it was
just all really confusing and really panicky, and, as the documentary says,
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just chaos in the cockpit, andquite chillingly, Bunin announced at two eleven
am quote, I don't have controlof the airplane anymore. Now I don't
have control of the airplane at all. The descent increased to ten thousand feet
per minute. Eventually, the captainDubois entered the cockpit again from his break.
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The captain asked, what are youdoing? The airplane continued to descend
a proper handover an explanation of whathad happened since the storm was not even
given to Captain Dubois. And thiswas a really crucial time actually, because
he was a set of fresh eyes, wasn't it. He could have come
back and if he had the rightinformation, he probably would have been able
to have troubleshooted it and realized whatwas happening. Yeah, with his experiences,
(18:34):
yes, definitely, But because ofthe poor communication, they didn't give
him the handover of all the eventsthat had happened. Scrappening another Rachel,
just explain where the plane's So basicallythe plane is falling. Yeah, because
Bonen has his hand on the controlsystem and he's trying to put the plane
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too high. Does that make sense. Yeah, he's put watching the plane
too high and too fast at thesame time, which is causing the plane
to stall, which is actually causingthe plane to fall because the lecture speed
is obviously if he's stalling, thespeed's massively reducing. But his buddy's instruments
are still saying he's believing his instruments, which I'm saying he's falling and that
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he's at a different altitude than heactually is. Oh so it's really confusing
because obviously it's there's a lot oftechnical information, but basically he's doing the
exact opposite of what he needed todo. And why do we think he
didn't understand the situation? It wasit was just inexperience. But is that
not a better I mean, I'mnot being critical of you know, I
(19:42):
mean, because I don't. Butsurely what I'm going to say is it's
inexperience, but it's also there isa lack of training, which we will
come on too as well, becausethink about it, these pilots, a
lot of the newer pilots especially,they've only ever really flown planes with a
lot of automated stuff going on,so they're not used to Actually Rose Dubois,
(20:06):
I mean he's I mean, heprobably has more experience of doing that
you would one would presume. Okay, So by two twelve I am,
they're descended through ten thousand feet,so they're going down. Basically, they're
going down. First Officer Robert respondedto Captain Dubois by saying, we've lost
all control of the aeroplane. Wedon't understand anything. We've tried everything.
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Soon after this, Robert said tohimself climb four times. Bonnen heard this
and replied, but I've been atmaximum nos up for a while. When
Captain Duboi heard this, he realizedBonning was causing the stall and shouted no,
no, no, don't climb,no no no. This is interesting
because he kind of realizes what's goingon here. Yeah, but it's not
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clear, like he didn't communicate itclearly enough, and al to no one's
listening to him. It's really strange. They're all panicking. No one's communicating
clearly, and for that reason,nothing happens. When First Officer Robert heard
this, he told Bonnin to givethe control of the airplane to him.
In response to this, Bonnin woultemporarily give the controls to Robert. The
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main issue here was the communication betweenRobert and Bonin. Bonnin still had control
of the control stick to his rightside. However, Robert was unaware of
this and could not see it asit was to Bonnin's right side hidden away.
Bonin should have relinquished full control ofthe plane to Robert, but essentially
panicked and kept control despite Robert askinghim to do so, asking him to
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give the control to him. Yeah, Robert pushed his side stick forward to
try to regain lift for the airplane to climb out of the stall.
However, the aircraft was now toolow to recover from the store. Shortly
thereafter, the ground proximity warning systemsounded and alarm walling the crew about the
aircraft now imminent crash into the ocean. So that's the one that's like pull
up. We've all heard that before, I mean, but yeah in bons
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on end. Without informing his colleagues, Paul is side stick all the way
back again and realizing the situation wasnow hopeless, said we're going to crash.
This can't be true, but what'shappening? The flight data recording stopped
at two fourteen then twenty eight secondsi AM or three hours forty five minutes
after take off. All two hundredand twenty eight passengers and crew died as
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a result of trauma due to theimpact. Attempts were made to contact the
aircraft, which were unsuccessful. Therefore, initially an aerial search was conducted to
try and locate the aircraft. Thiswas conducted by the Brazilian Air Force by
their Maritime Patrol aircraft. Do youknow that aircraft cattered two through five,
(22:42):
you're kind of into Yeah, butas well as the US Navy lockeed Martin
P three Orion Antisubmarine Warfare Maritime Patrolaircraft what a mouthful records which found two
days later, and subsequently, onthe six of June, bodies began to
surface from the wreckage. The searchcontinued for the Herbus black box and flight
(23:06):
data recorder. The missing black boxwould solve the mystery. A French nuclear
sub was deployed out with the searcheIt will be able to pick up ultrasonic
beacons that the black box emits.There was thirty days to find it.
Then the battery eyes. I didn'trealize that, did you not realize that
only every thirty days and then basicallythe ultrasonic whatever beacons they stop, and
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then you're kind of screwed because youjust actually have to physically look for it.
Then thirty days pass without any success, so they don't find it.
And the search effort up to thatpoint was up to twenty five million pounds.
It costs a lot of money,but then again, when you look
at how many of the aircraft werealready out there, they needed to find
it. So, yeah, ifthere's something really wrong then that could happen
(23:52):
again, six one hundred aircraft inthe world, definitely. Yeah, So
Watson until two years later that theblack Box would actually be located. It
was the same team that actually locatedthe Titanic that found the shattered fuselage initially
thirteen thousand feet down. They alsofound one hundred and four bodies still stropped
in their seats, and then theysuccessfully located the black box. So basically
(24:14):
there is seventy four bodies that arestill missing to this day actually, which
is quite horrible and many bodies.Yeah, and the black box recording show
the precise sequence of events, sothe final terrifying minutes leading up to the
crash. So this was obviously amassive find for them and you know,
really uncovered the mystery of actually whathappened. So there was an investigation from
(24:36):
the BA, and there was lotsof different factors going on, so there
was technical and human factors and alsothe pitot failure, which was not the
first speed measuring the air speed,but it wasn't actually the first time that
this had happened. It had actuallybeen recorded before on different aircrafts to sit
on different aircraft, so air buses, I'm not sure well on the aircraft,
(24:57):
so we need to know, isn'tit. Yeah, And also it
had not been reported that some crewshad actually difficulty in understanding these situations when
there was a pitop failure as well, so they were going to look at
actually phasing in better instruments, butthis had not happened to a full degree.
(25:17):
So I think they had some ofthe airbuses that had the new pitots,
but a lot didn't, so thiswas kind of in process at the
time. But when they looked atthe safety requirements, the older pitots did
actually meet the safety requirements, soit's kind of a weird one. Really.
They did actually retest after the accidentand they still met the requirements.
(25:38):
However, since August twousand and nine, all the new pitots have actually been
replaced, which is good to know, and they have looked at stall alarms
and instrumentation improvements as well, becausethey did say that the flight director was
quite confusing in that specific situation,and they wanted to obviously make that less
confusing. So airbus as pilots ignoredsome of the operational policies and should have
(26:03):
turned off the flight director at thispoint as well. Obviously I can't comment
on that because you know, it'sa very kind of technical thing, but
the investigation did recommend additional training forpilots. So pilots, you know,
they're using a lot of these automaticsand they might actually lose a lot of
their manual flying skills as time goeson, because things just become more and
more automatic, don't they. Sosince then they actually the Air France themselves
(26:26):
have actually introduced more training as wellas regards these specific incidences which pilots can
be faced with. So in Marchtwenty eleven, a French judge filed preliminary
mansorter charges against their france An airbusover this crash. On the fifth of
July twenty twelve, the BA releasedits final report on the accident, and
there was loads of different preliminary reportsas well. The accident resulted from the
(26:51):
following succession of major events, sotemporary inconsistency between the measured speeds likely as
a result of the obstruction of thePITA tube. So we already spoken about
that the crew made inappropriate control inputsthat destabilize the flight path. The crew
failed to follow appropriate procedure for theloss of air speed information, the crew
(27:11):
were late and identifying and correcting thedeviation from the flight path. Crew lacked
understanding of the approach to stall,and the crew failed to recognize the aircraft
had stalled and consequently did not makeinputs that would make it possible to recover
from the stall. So we've talkedabout the airplane stall a lot. I
think we've already explained what it is, but just to remind you, an
airplane stall, it's basically an aerodynamiccondition in which an aircraft exceeds its given
(27:36):
critical angle of attack and it's nolonger able to produce the required lift for
a normal flight. So basically it'sfalling through the mid air because it can't
maintain itself. The two copilots tasksharing was weakened both by the incomprehension of
the situation at the time, butalso by poor management of the startle effect,
so that it kind of leaves themvery emotionally challenge, you know,
(27:57):
very emotionally. Yeah, it's it'san emotionally charged situation. But their job,
they have that job to remain calmin that situation. That's literally their
job to do that. Yeah,you know what I mean, because it's
also polo all the way until somethinggoes wrong, isn't it. And it's
when something goes wrong that actually theyare the ones that need to recognize what's
(28:19):
happening, take charge and remedy thesituation. Yes, as we saw with
this, So they didn't do that, and that's not just a human failure.
I do think that's like more ofa systemic failure of lack of training.
Again, looking at training, especiallyin regards to manual you know,
flying in and there's kind of threethings that we spoke about is they didn't
(28:40):
follow policy to appoint whatever the manualor whatever. The startled effect. Yeah,
and then but they didn't recognize theissue to begin with. Yeah,
yeah, that's they didn't recognize issuesto begin with. They didn't follow kind
of policy the community as well betweenthem, Yeah, the communication, the
(29:03):
startle effect, and also also withthe with the air speed indicate the air
speed, Yeah, well that's amajor factor. But I also think the
fact that Bonen literally kept charge ofthe flight even though he was told not
to anymore, was doing that.He pant he believed the indicators, so
(29:27):
he said they're pushing down and he'sgone what the fuck you didn't we need
to go higher? So the kindof ones doing yeah, literally, and
you know that is you just can'teven there's no excuse for that, is
though, really no, no,it's gone to sit and it went to
ship lads. Shortly after the crash, France changed the number of the regular
(29:51):
Riojniro to Paris flight from a Ffour four seven, which it was,
to a F four to five.I don't know what I was going to
suppose the gonna flight to be honest, Well, the next time we're flying
from mwere in Rio and needs togo to Paris. Ye, so but
(30:11):
that route air France still uses Airbusthirteen yes, yeah, yeah, just
for anyone who's going and more trainingyeah yeah yeah. And then and I
mean obviously as Air France, they'regoing to have a big contracts. I
mean they made him to lose,aren't the airbors that's worthy? Yeah,
I didn't know that that's worthy.Yeah. The French company Air France and
(30:33):
Airbus have been investigated for manslaughter sincetwenty eleven, but in twenty nineteen,
prosecutors recommended dropping the case against Airbusand charging Air France with manslaughter and negligence,
concluding quotes the airline was aware oftechnical problems with the key air speed
monitoring instrument on its plane so thePITTOD two, but failed to train pilots
(30:55):
to resolve them and quotes. Thecase against Airbus was dropped on twenty second
Lie the same year. The caseagain say France, was dropped in September
twenty nineteen, so six months orso. My magistrates said there was not
enough grounds to prosecute. It's reallyinteresting, though, I kind of yeah,
I mean it was. It wasa real challenge to research this because
(31:18):
obviously there was so much technical stuff. Yeah, and I'm like, I'm
not a pilot. I don't knowwhat that means. So there was a
lot of googling terms trying to figurethings out. And we're doing a podcast
on it, you know what Imean. You know, we haven't got
charts and things we can show.No, I don't have any charts,
and you know, it's yeah,it has been difficult, and there's probably
a couple of mistakes in here ofof you know, technical things. So
(31:41):
if there's any pilots or engineers ormechanics, please don't judge us. I'm
not a freaking pilot. But ithas been really interesting. We've done it
on a level, aren't we?And it is a different thing for mad
or bad, isn't it. Itis definitely because saying the pilot, the
pilots or any of the crew,or it's just something goffer him to do.
And I might actually do another oneat some point. I do have
(32:05):
a strange fascination with aircraft investigations.When I was working a long time ago
in a nursing home, I usedto work like the early kind of morning
shift till the afternoon, and mything was always to come home and it
would be about like half two threeo'clock. I used to let you sit
there watch your crash investigation, thenfall asleep and have enough after my copper
(32:25):
tea and my cheese and ham sandwich. I am one for routine. Yeah,
So I do love that safe journeyfor anyone that's going on the parish
to one will be going anywhere withthis bloody coronavirus, especially that Paris or
Italy, there won't be at themoment. And when this comes well,
(32:49):
when this comes out, though,it's going to be May, and I
wonder what things are going to belike then that will be really interesting.
Well your Rae sisters, well meantto be coming over from America, but
from America. Yeah, so Ithink that's gone to shoot it probably any
moment meant to be coming from Ireland. But you know, you just keep
(33:10):
people safe, don't wait more thananything. Oh yeah, that's important thing
anyway. So yeah, that's itfor this episode. Thank you, thank
you for listening. We didn't annoyyou too, Moore, goodbye. As
always catch us on Facebook dot com, Forward slash mad or Bad. You
can catch us on Twitter. Ourhandle is at mad or about the pod.
(33:32):
And also we now have a Patreonaccount, so please go look us
up at as Patreon dot com,Forward slash mad or Bad. You can
access exclusive content. We have exclusiveepisodes only available to Patreon supporters, so
m yeah, go find us
Warning, the following podcast may containdescriptions that some listeners may find distressing.
Listener discretion is advised. Any viewsare all our own and do not in
any way reflect the places where wework. Hello and welcome to mad or
Bad. My name is Rachel andI'm Neil, and today we bring you
the story of Air France Flight fourfour seven. On the night of May
(00:24):
thirty first, two thousand and nine, Air France four four seven, an
Airbus A three thirty two hundred,departed from Real dision Ero with its intention
to arrive in Paris, France.This was said to be a twelve hour
flight. A mere four hours later, the flight encountered expected icy conditions as
well as thunderstorms, which cause theirair speed indications to be lost. The
(00:47):
autopilot and auto thrust mechanisms disconnected asa result, and the pilots lost control
of their plane. At nearly thirtyfive thousand feet with both engines running at
full speed, The flight plunged tothe below in only three minutes. Two
hundred and twenty eight souls on boardthat night all sadly died. With more
(01:07):
than six hundred of this model ofairplane being used around the world. It
became an important task to find outwhat happened that fateful night, what caused
one of the most technically advanced airplanesto crash. We will attempt to uncover
the mystery that has flight four fourseven. There were three pilots on board
the flight that night, Capting MarkDubois age fifty eight, who had been
flying aircraft since nineteen seventy four.He had nearly eleven thousand flying hours under
(01:33):
his belt, which means basically,he's a very experience what's the amount of
hours that you need to like abe a part of no idea? I
know he is very experienced. Soanyway, he's had like like he's literally
been flying for for at that time. Yeah, yeah, so he's got
eleven thousand hours. First, obviouslyDavid Robber the co pilot, so each
(02:00):
thirty seven he'd be sat in theleft seat. He had sort of six
and our thousand flying hours. Finally, the most well, the least experienced
crew member first officer pre Cedric Bonning, We'll say, so he's the co
pilot, he's in the right seat. He was thirty two at the time,
and he had just under three thousandflying hours. Which again you know,
(02:25):
it's nowhere near as experienced as theother two, but he's not a
novice. So Captain mart Dubois hewas classed as p n F, so
that stands for pilot not flying,which essentially means he was not responsible for
flying of the aircraft on that fly. Instead, he would monitor the flight
management and aircraft control actions of thePF, so the pilot flying and carry
(02:49):
out support dues such as communications andchecklist reading. First Officer Pierre Cedric Bonn
Bonnin was classed as PF pilot flying, so he's as it's there's an easy
charge of the flying the aircraft,although he was that's despite he was the
least experience of the three pilots.So the reason there was three pilots on
board was to provide the pilots withbreaks during the long flight, as it
(03:12):
was twelve hours. In the cabinwere nine flight attendants and two hundred and
sixteen passengers. The majority of passengerswere French, Brazilian and German citizens,
and there was some notable passengers aswell. There was somebody who was third
in succession to the abolished throne ofBrazil, going by the name of Prince
Pedro. Oh, you know you'vegot an abolished I mean, I'm not
(03:34):
I don't know how polished, brazilabolished. Not that notable, I guess.
So he was returning home from Luxembourgfrom a visit to his relatives and
Rio de Janeiro. There was alsoa composer and former conductor of the symphony
orchestras of the Claudio Centaurro National Theaterin Brazil, Brazilia's capital in it Is.
(04:00):
So his name was Silvio Barbato andhe was on route to I don't
know, but he was on routeto Kia for engagements there. And last,
but certainly not least, Pablo dreyFuse from Argentina. He was a
campaigner for controlling illegal arms and theillegal drugs trade. Good man, I
(04:21):
know sounds of it. So theflight took off from Rio de Janeiro at
twenty twenty nine hours local time,So yeah, off eight in the evening,
obviously, and at twenty thousand feet. First Officer Rober left the cockpit
for three hour break. As Richardjust said, you know, it's twelve
(04:42):
hour flight. I never got anythree hour break on twelve hours shift to
two I know, it's different whenyou're flying a plane, but you be
nice, no break, no break, no mine three hours but obviously yeah,
and and there's going to be verystrict on these breaks, aren't they
record kind drive exactly? Yeah,would be the exact same thing. They
(05:03):
have to don't know, you can'tthere's no an employee wanted to like a
lot of employees do wanted to workthe knots off, Yeah or him,
Yeah, they wouldn't be able toknow. Captain Dubar was in the left
seat, First Office Bonn in andsay, given every time first officer at
Bonning, he's a thirty two yearold, the least experience. Yes,
(05:25):
he was to his rights. Aswe just said, he's the pilot fly
in the PF. The flight continuedto climb to its cruising altitude of thirty
five thousand feet. Essentially, theplane was flying in an area between controllers
and it failed to communicate with theDHAKA communication system at this point. So
basically what that means is you're flyingyour airplane, you have different controllers or
(05:47):
different communication points that you hit.So there's I think there was like four
or five of them on their course. So they had logged off from one
which was like on the coast ofBrazil, and they tried to log onto
an there that was the daker one, but there wasn't. They couldn't like
gone to it for some reason.I don't know why. But basically what
it means was they were in apoint where there was no communication between these
(06:13):
points. So it's kind of likelike a silent part of the course,
right, so there's no But willthey be able to talk to someone though
at the time they did with highfrequency speak, Yeah, obviously, but
they wouldn't And that's normal though,like that's an unexpected thing as far it
was just what it is. Imean, the world's a big places,
(06:33):
and I suppose I don't know whetherthis was over the sea, yeah so,
and I guess over more densely,like if you're flying from say,
I don't know, Moscow to London. Yeah, Like obviously you're going to
be covered all the way, wouldn'tyou get Yeah, so sorry to me.
(06:56):
So so a quarter to two inthe morning, the aircraft and an
area of weather, and the crewdiscussed the possibility of climbing a further twenty
thousand feet to stay clear of theweather. So, so if you went
to I mean, I'm no isyou know, interesting aircraft mainly military.
I'm not explaining this. If theywent to twenty thousand, I don't think
that possible to even go. It'skind of like space. Yeah, I'm
(07:19):
pretty sure you can't do that.But they did discuss the possibility of it.
According to my sords, well,there's quite a few So normally pilots
would either fly over or around.I think they usually fly around because it's
more risky to fly higher. Andit wasn't class as a particularly challenging flight.
This was quite a normal thing tohappen, especially on that course.
(07:44):
It's normal to have those weather fronts. It's normal to have the lightning and
all that kind of stuff because they'reactually flying over the equator and there's a
lot of weather that happens because obviouslyit's it's a difference, isn't it.
Yeah, yeah, I don't knowwhat the signs behind that is. Look
into a boat. It is aknown thing that there's a lot of weather
fronts around that area. And theCaptain Dubois, if it's seven year old,
(08:05):
he's got nearly one thousand flying flyingwhat was it thirty five years at
this point. Yeah, he wasquite like a regular on this, Yeah,
absolutely veteran, like had done itlike so many times for years and
years and years he had flown thiscourse amongst other ones obviously, but yeah,
so it wasn't particularly class as beingchallenging or anything. And several other
(08:28):
flights that evening did actually divert aroundthis storm as well, so they weren't
just the only one who were obviouslyin that air space and the weather thing
as well. And presumed that whenthis Captain Dubois or the other two part,
when he'd been on this route manytimes before, I'm sure many times
before, he would Yeah, yeah, definitely. So First Officer Bonnen,
(08:50):
that was the guy on the rightwho was in charge of flying the plane,
the youngest fellow and the youngest becausethere's a lot of names in this
and it's it's kind of hard tokeep up with people, I think,
so he basically took the decision todim the lights of the cabin control and
turn on the landing lights. Andthis wasn't to ensure that basically they could
see as best as possible when comingthrough the weather front. He actually exclaimed
(09:13):
in quotes, it looks like weare entering the cloud cover, it would
have been good to climb now,So presuming at this point and this contact
with the what was it called dhaka? Yeah, communications up the morning.
No, No, it's on theblack he's speaking to on the high frequency
radio. Du what in the inthe cabin? This is what he's saying
to his co worker. Do weknow we said that because black box?
(09:39):
Yeah or something? Yeah. Afew minutes later, the captain exclaimed,
quote, it's going to be turbulentfrom my rest. So Captain Dubois notices
a phenomenon in the cock pits cockput Saint Elmo's fire and this is basically
a lightning phenomenon caused by heavily dischargedelectricity, so it kind of lights up
the sky. The flag continued.The pilot's prepared to fly through the weather
(10:01):
front, and again they know thatit's going to be, you know,
rough. But how many times areyou even on a fly whether you say,
you know, pretty much every flightI've ever been on. And they're
going over the equator, aren't they? In this song ms was that an
eighties film solo? I think so, yeah, that's a different thing.
But and again they would have seenthis before they want to be panicking,
(10:24):
you know, it just be well, I think the two more experienced pilots
were not panicking. I'm not sureabout Bonning. I feel like he didn't
quite understand because there is a documentthere's a documentary, isn't they one?
No, it's on YouTube, butit's called Chaos in the Cockpit and and
(10:48):
and and the younger fellow. Yeahthat's what's his name again? But then
so he's a fellow with the leastexperience. Yeah, you could they on
this documentary as well. We're watchingwatching, Yeah, they've got actors to
do the Yeah, but it soundsbut the first words from the black box,
yeah, yeah, exact, Andhe does sound a bit kind of
(11:09):
well, he's just like he didn'tknow about the Saint Alimo's fire thing.
You know, he'd never come acrossthat before. He's just less experienced.
I think that's you know, that'sall we can really say about it.
Yeah, he's just less experience.So at two a m. So they're
about, you know what he tookoff off a so they sort of halfway
(11:31):
sort of yeah, yeah, FirstOfficer Robert returned from his break. Captain
Dubois then left for his three ourbreak. It seems the first fatal mistake
occurred here. It was Officer Duboiswho was in charge of the flight.
So he's the PF pilot flying,and as we've said, bon En had
(11:52):
the least amount of experience, andhe was essentially certainly the wrong seed.
What I because I wrote this,what I mean by him sitting in the
wrong seat is he should be inthe left seat doing all the communication,
all the background work, because he'sthe least experienced. When the main captain
goes off on a break, Duboisthe fifty whatever. When Dubois on the
flight deck and he's not on hisbreak, it's okay, well yeah,
(12:13):
probably, but what yeah, whatI'm trying to explain is that when he's
gone, it should be the secondthe second in command, the second most
experienced person should be in the rightseat because to the right of the right
seat is the actual lever that theyuse to control the plane. So if
they're not in autopilot, that needsto be the person sitting in the right
(12:35):
seat needs to be basically the onewho is the pilot flying. So from
what information we've glean it should bethe chat that so it's a Robber it
should be him who was flying theplane, and then and Bunin who was
doing the communications. But for whateverreason, they decided between themselves that Bunnin
would fly the plane. Basically.Yeah, so it's also strange that Captain
(12:56):
Dubois would for his three I wasat this busy time in the flight.
But then again, I insight it'sa wonderful thing. Again, you know,
he's very experienced. You know,we've not seen his flyer log has
probably been on these He's probably beenin that exact same situation numerous time before.
Yeah, and he's thinking, well, I don't get my break now
when I'm not going to get mybreak. Yeah, you know, but
(13:18):
obviously it's easy to say these things. It is, but it's you know,
a decision that all three pilots wouldsoon regret. Unfortunately, six minutes
later, the two first officers informedthe crew that there will be Tablen's head
in about two minutes time. Theflight then encountered an updraft and a sound
which would be typical of ice crystalsitting the fuselage was heard. I love
that word fuselage, could just sayit fuselage, fuse, fuse, fuselage.
(13:43):
Yeah. The cruising speed was reducedby bon end as Pe guidelines.
This automatically reduced the engine speed fromone hundred percent to eighty four percent due
to the ice crystals then encountered atthe pittop tubes, so they measure as
speed. They clogged in the lefthand side. They're kind of tubes,
(14:05):
aren't that come. They're little tubesthat basically the air goes into them and
it measures the air. It measuresthe air hitting their little tubes that kind
of hang down from the well,they don't really, I don't think they
hang down. I think they're kindof they're straight like that, so that
when the air comes into them,it measures it. What I mean,
Yeah, yeah, yeah, butyou obviously yeah yeah. The left sign
(14:26):
indicated that the air speed it woulduse from two hundred and seventy five knots
to sixty knots incorrectly. So obviouslysixty knots the massive dangerous stalling here.
Yeah. And the thing is,actually there was nothing wrong with the plane
other than this was incorrect Yeah.The tube. Yeah, I mean they
had you know, they were stillon the same air speed. They hadn't
(14:46):
changed altitudes or anything. It wasjust some you know, an error in
the instrumentation. Yeah, so theautopilot also disconnected, which was as policy
to allow the pilots to take thatcontrol because the autopilot's thinking, well,
we haven't got the correct information hereto fly this plane. We need a
human to do it for Yeah,because a lot of you know, from
(15:09):
taking off, landing, taking actionon autopilot, isn't it when they flying
they put the course in, don'tthey? Yeah? And absolutely, you
know, rather than like flying abomb in the Second World War where literally
the pilot for ten hours over Berlinor something, he's got a pilot it
for ten hours. Yeah, alot of it is automated. Yeah,
yeah, So the autopilot's disconnected,it's gone back to the pilots to take
(15:33):
control. So it's a safety mechanismbasically. Yeah. Due to the two
is being clogged and therefore indications beingincorrect, internal automate to corrections were automatically
recalculated as if there's as if theplane was flying at a lower speed than
it actually was. So this resultsin new false readings regarding the altitude.
(15:54):
Essentially, the pilots should have donenothing and realized THESP was in Bonnen was
inexperienced and panis we will never knowwhy responded in the way he did.
So he's thinking at this time,he's basically taking it, taking it for
face value. Yeah, so he'sthinking, I need to increased speed.
I need to go higher and increasethe speed. Yeah, definitely. So
(16:17):
Benin began hand flying the plane.He reported, quote, I have the
controls. beIN in struggle to regaincontrol over the plane. Attempts were made
to call the captain back. Attwo ten am as he was on break,
the star warning also began to sound. Robert said, quote, but
we've got the engines. What's happening? The flight began to descend regardless of
(16:41):
pilot input and started to pull consistentlyto the right. So Benin pulled back
on the control stick, which causedthe aircraft to climb. The aircraft instruments
showed a loss of altitude, whichwere all false readings. As we've already
said, Benin decided trust the instrument'sreadings. However, at seven thousand feet
a minute, going to very thinair, the aircraft started slowing down.
(17:04):
Another alarm stall warning commenced as theaircraft was going too slow. This happens
when the aircraft is climbing too fast, too high. It essentially stalls,
just like a carwood if you pushedit quickly up a hill, climbing too
high, too fast, too high, too fast. Yeah, so to
prevent the plane from falling, butit needed to act quickly, he should
(17:26):
have pushed forward on the side stick, get that speed back up and putting
the nose down and going downhill.But in fact he doesn't do this.
He continues to climb and literally doesthe exact opposite of what he needed to
do. So one of three speedsensors started working here again, but they
didn't believe the reading due to allthe other false readings. So it was
just all really confusing and really panicky, and, as the documentary says,
(17:52):
just chaos in the cockpit, andquite chillingly, Bunin announced at two eleven
am quote, I don't have controlof the airplane anymore. Now I don't
have control of the airplane at all. The descent increased to ten thousand feet
per minute. Eventually, the captainDubois entered the cockpit again from his break.
(18:12):
The captain asked, what are youdoing? The airplane continued to descend
a proper handover an explanation of whathad happened since the storm was not even
given to Captain Dubois. And thiswas a really crucial time actually, because
he was a set of fresh eyes, wasn't it. He could have come
back and if he had the rightinformation, he probably would have been able
to have troubleshooted it and realized whatwas happening. Yeah, with his experiences,
(18:34):
yes, definitely, But because ofthe poor communication, they didn't give
him the handover of all the eventsthat had happened. Scrappening another Rachel,
just explain where the plane's So basicallythe plane is falling. Yeah, because
Bonen has his hand on the controlsystem and he's trying to put the plane
(18:56):
too high. Does that make sense. Yeah, he's put watching the plane
too high and too fast at thesame time, which is causing the plane
to stall, which is actually causingthe plane to fall because the lecture speed
is obviously if he's stalling, thespeed's massively reducing. But his buddy's instruments
are still saying he's believing his instruments, which I'm saying he's falling and that
(19:22):
he's at a different altitude than heactually is. Oh so it's really confusing
because obviously it's there's a lot oftechnical information, but basically he's doing the
exact opposite of what he needed todo. And why do we think he
didn't understand the situation? It wasit was just inexperience. But is that
not a better I mean, I'mnot being critical of you know, I
(19:42):
mean, because I don't. Butsurely what I'm going to say is it's
inexperience, but it's also there isa lack of training, which we will
come on too as well, becausethink about it, these pilots, a
lot of the newer pilots especially,they've only ever really flown planes with a
lot of automated stuff going on,so they're not used to Actually Rose Dubois,
(20:06):
I mean he's I mean, heprobably has more experience of doing that
you would one would presume. Okay, So by two twelve I am,
they're descended through ten thousand feet,so they're going down. Basically, they're
going down. First Officer Robert respondedto Captain Dubois by saying, we've lost
all control of the aeroplane. Wedon't understand anything. We've tried everything.
(20:26):
Soon after this, Robert said tohimself climb four times. Bonnen heard this
and replied, but I've been atmaximum nos up for a while. When
Captain Duboi heard this, he realizedBonning was causing the stall and shouted no,
no, no, don't climb,no no no. This is interesting
because he kind of realizes what's goingon here. Yeah, but it's not
(20:49):
clear, like he didn't communicate itclearly enough, and al to no one's
listening to him. It's really strange. They're all panicking. No one's communicating
clearly, and for that reason,nothing happens. When First Officer Robert heard
this, he told Bonnin to givethe control of the airplane to him.
In response to this, Bonnin woultemporarily give the controls to Robert. The
(21:12):
main issue here was the communication betweenRobert and Bonin. Bonnin still had control
of the control stick to his rightside. However, Robert was unaware of
this and could not see it asit was to Bonnin's right side hidden away.
Bonin should have relinquished full control ofthe plane to Robert, but essentially
panicked and kept control despite Robert askinghim to do so, asking him to
(21:33):
give the control to him. Yeah, Robert pushed his side stick forward to
try to regain lift for the airplane to climb out of the stall.
However, the aircraft was now toolow to recover from the store. Shortly
thereafter, the ground proximity warning systemsounded and alarm walling the crew about the
aircraft now imminent crash into the ocean. So that's the one that's like pull
up. We've all heard that before, I mean, but yeah in bons
(22:00):
on end. Without informing his colleagues, Paul is side stick all the way
back again and realizing the situation wasnow hopeless, said we're going to crash.
This can't be true, but what'shappening? The flight data recording stopped
at two fourteen then twenty eight secondsi AM or three hours forty five minutes
after take off. All two hundredand twenty eight passengers and crew died as
(22:22):
a result of trauma due to theimpact. Attempts were made to contact the
aircraft, which were unsuccessful. Therefore, initially an aerial search was conducted to
try and locate the aircraft. Thiswas conducted by the Brazilian Air Force by
their Maritime Patrol aircraft. Do youknow that aircraft cattered two through five,
(22:42):
you're kind of into Yeah, butas well as the US Navy lockeed Martin
P three Orion Antisubmarine Warfare Maritime Patrolaircraft what a mouthful records which found two
days later, and subsequently, onthe six of June, bodies began to
surface from the wreckage. The searchcontinued for the Herbus black box and flight
(23:06):
data recorder. The missing black boxwould solve the mystery. A French nuclear
sub was deployed out with the searcheIt will be able to pick up ultrasonic
beacons that the black box emits.There was thirty days to find it.
Then the battery eyes. I didn'trealize that, did you not realize that
only every thirty days and then basicallythe ultrasonic whatever beacons they stop, and
(23:30):
then you're kind of screwed because youjust actually have to physically look for it.
Then thirty days pass without any success, so they don't find it.
And the search effort up to thatpoint was up to twenty five million pounds.
It costs a lot of money,but then again, when you look
at how many of the aircraft werealready out there, they needed to find
it. So, yeah, ifthere's something really wrong then that could happen
(23:52):
again, six one hundred aircraft inthe world, definitely. Yeah, So
Watson until two years later that theblack Box would actually be located. It
was the same team that actually locatedthe Titanic that found the shattered fuselage initially
thirteen thousand feet down. They alsofound one hundred and four bodies still stropped
in their seats, and then theysuccessfully located the black box. So basically
(24:14):
there is seventy four bodies that arestill missing to this day actually, which
is quite horrible and many bodies.Yeah, and the black box recording show
the precise sequence of events, sothe final terrifying minutes leading up to the
crash. So this was obviously amassive find for them and you know,
really uncovered the mystery of actually whathappened. So there was an investigation from
(24:36):
the BA, and there was lotsof different factors going on, so there
was technical and human factors and alsothe pitot failure, which was not the
first speed measuring the air speed,but it wasn't actually the first time that
this had happened. It had actuallybeen recorded before on different aircrafts to sit
on different aircraft, so air buses, I'm not sure well on the aircraft,
(24:57):
so we need to know, isn'tit. Yeah, And also it
had not been reported that some crewshad actually difficulty in understanding these situations when
there was a pitop failure as well, so they were going to look at
actually phasing in better instruments, butthis had not happened to a full degree.
(25:17):
So I think they had some ofthe airbuses that had the new pitots,
but a lot didn't, so thiswas kind of in process at the
time. But when they looked atthe safety requirements, the older pitots did
actually meet the safety requirements, soit's kind of a weird one. Really.
They did actually retest after the accidentand they still met the requirements.
(25:38):
However, since August twousand and nine, all the new pitots have actually been
replaced, which is good to know, and they have looked at stall alarms
and instrumentation improvements as well, becausethey did say that the flight director was
quite confusing in that specific situation,and they wanted to obviously make that less
confusing. So airbus as pilots ignoredsome of the operational policies and should have
(26:03):
turned off the flight director at thispoint as well. Obviously I can't comment
on that because you know, it'sa very kind of technical thing, but
the investigation did recommend additional training forpilots. So pilots, you know,
they're using a lot of these automaticsand they might actually lose a lot of
their manual flying skills as time goeson, because things just become more and
more automatic, don't they. Sosince then they actually the Air France themselves
(26:26):
have actually introduced more training as wellas regards these specific incidences which pilots can
be faced with. So in Marchtwenty eleven, a French judge filed preliminary
mansorter charges against their france An airbusover this crash. On the fifth of
July twenty twelve, the BA releasedits final report on the accident, and
there was loads of different preliminary reportsas well. The accident resulted from the
(26:51):
following succession of major events, sotemporary inconsistency between the measured speeds likely as
a result of the obstruction of thePITA tube. So we already spoken about
that the crew made inappropriate control inputsthat destabilize the flight path. The crew
failed to follow appropriate procedure for theloss of air speed information, the crew
(27:11):
were late and identifying and correcting thedeviation from the flight path. Crew lacked
understanding of the approach to stall,and the crew failed to recognize the aircraft
had stalled and consequently did not makeinputs that would make it possible to recover
from the stall. So we've talkedabout the airplane stall a lot. I
think we've already explained what it is, but just to remind you, an
airplane stall, it's basically an aerodynamiccondition in which an aircraft exceeds its given
(27:36):
critical angle of attack and it's nolonger able to produce the required lift for
a normal flight. So basically it'sfalling through the mid air because it can't
maintain itself. The two copilots tasksharing was weakened both by the incomprehension of
the situation at the time, butalso by poor management of the startle effect,
so that it kind of leaves themvery emotionally challenge, you know,
(27:57):
very emotionally. Yeah, it's it'san emotionally charged situation. But their job,
they have that job to remain calmin that situation. That's literally their
job to do that. Yeah,you know what I mean, because it's
also polo all the way until somethinggoes wrong, isn't it. And it's
when something goes wrong that actually theyare the ones that need to recognize what's
(28:19):
happening, take charge and remedy thesituation. Yes, as we saw with
this, So they didn't do that, and that's not just a human failure.
I do think that's like more ofa systemic failure of lack of training.
Again, looking at training, especiallyin regards to manual you know,
flying in and there's kind of threethings that we spoke about is they didn't
(28:40):
follow policy to appoint whatever the manualor whatever. The startled effect. Yeah,
and then but they didn't recognize theissue to begin with. Yeah,
yeah, that's they didn't recognize issuesto begin with. They didn't follow kind
of policy the community as well betweenthem, Yeah, the communication, the
(29:03):
startle effect, and also also withthe with the air speed indicate the air
speed, Yeah, well that's amajor factor. But I also think the
fact that Bonen literally kept charge ofthe flight even though he was told not
to anymore, was doing that.He pant he believed the indicators, so
(29:27):
he said they're pushing down and he'sgone what the fuck you didn't we need
to go higher? So the kindof ones doing yeah, literally, and
you know that is you just can'teven there's no excuse for that, is
though, really no, no,it's gone to sit and it went to
ship lads. Shortly after the crash, France changed the number of the regular
(29:51):
Riojniro to Paris flight from a Ffour four seven, which it was,
to a F four to five.I don't know what I was going to
suppose the gonna flight to be honest, Well, the next time we're flying
from mwere in Rio and needs togo to Paris. Ye, so but
(30:11):
that route air France still uses Airbusthirteen yes, yeah, yeah, just
for anyone who's going and more trainingyeah yeah yeah. And then and I
mean obviously as Air France, they'regoing to have a big contracts. I
mean they made him to lose,aren't the airbors that's worthy? Yeah,
I didn't know that that's worthy.Yeah. The French company Air France and
(30:33):
Airbus have been investigated for manslaughter sincetwenty eleven, but in twenty nineteen,
prosecutors recommended dropping the case against Airbusand charging Air France with manslaughter and negligence,
concluding quotes the airline was aware oftechnical problems with the key air speed
monitoring instrument on its plane so thePITTOD two, but failed to train pilots
(30:55):
to resolve them and quotes. Thecase against Airbus was dropped on twenty second
Lie the same year. The caseagain say France, was dropped in September
twenty nineteen, so six months orso. My magistrates said there was not
enough grounds to prosecute. It's reallyinteresting, though, I kind of yeah,
I mean it was. It wasa real challenge to research this because
(31:18):
obviously there was so much technical stuff. Yeah, and I'm like, I'm
not a pilot. I don't knowwhat that means. So there was a
lot of googling terms trying to figurethings out. And we're doing a podcast
on it, you know what Imean. You know, we haven't got
charts and things we can show.No, I don't have any charts,
and you know, it's yeah,it has been difficult, and there's probably
a couple of mistakes in here ofof you know, technical things. So
(31:41):
if there's any pilots or engineers ormechanics, please don't judge us. I'm
not a freaking pilot. But ithas been really interesting. We've done it
on a level, aren't we?And it is a different thing for mad
or bad, isn't it. Itis definitely because saying the pilot, the
pilots or any of the crew,or it's just something goffer him to do.
And I might actually do another oneat some point. I do have
(32:05):
a strange fascination with aircraft investigations.When I was working a long time ago
in a nursing home, I usedto work like the early kind of morning
shift till the afternoon, and mything was always to come home and it
would be about like half two threeo'clock. I used to let you sit
there watch your crash investigation, thenfall asleep and have enough after my copper
(32:25):
tea and my cheese and ham sandwich. I am one for routine. Yeah,
So I do love that safe journeyfor anyone that's going on the parish
to one will be going anywhere withthis bloody coronavirus, especially that Paris or
Italy, there won't be at themoment. And when this comes well,
(32:49):
when this comes out, though,it's going to be May, and I
wonder what things are going to belike then that will be really interesting.
Well your Rae sisters, well meantto be coming over from America, but
from America. Yeah, so Ithink that's gone to shoot it probably any
moment meant to be coming from Ireland. But you know, you just keep
(33:10):
people safe, don't wait more thananything. Oh yeah, that's important thing
anyway. So yeah, that's itfor this episode. Thank you, thank
you for listening. We didn't annoyyou too, Moore, goodbye. As
always catch us on Facebook dot com, Forward slash mad or Bad. You
can catch us on Twitter. Ourhandle is at mad or about the pod.
(33:32):
And also we now have a Patreonaccount, so please go look us
up at as Patreon dot com,Forward slash mad or Bad. You can
access exclusive content. We have exclusiveepisodes only available to Patreon supporters, so
m yeah, go find us
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