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Who Was Flying Flight 447?
During its final minutes, while the jet was flying through a horrendous storm, the crew was content with the autopilot in control. The Daily Beast’s aviation expert Clive Irving reports on the fatal error.
As I reported in The Daily Beast on Wednesday, data describing a cascade of technical failures on Air France Flight 447 came from a computer, not the pilots. Now one piece of that data is raising questions about the pilots. Ten minutes after the last message received from the crew—that they were flying through black, electrically charged clouds with violent winds—the computer, known as Aircraft Condition Monitoring System, or ACMS, signaled that the autopilot had been disengaged.
This is stunning. It indicates that for those 10 minutes, while the Airbus A330 was flying through some of the most challenging weather in the world, the crew was hands-off, content to let the autopilot remain in control. Under normal conditions in highly automated cockpits like this, the autopilot, already programmed with the optimum flight path (direction, height, speed), has digital reflexes faster than human responses and trims the airplane in micro-second bites.
But these were anything but normal conditions. They called for human intervention and old-fashioned “seat of the pants” flying where the pilot and machine bond in a visceral way—just as Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger did when he made his Miracle on the Hudson landing. And Sullenberger was flying an Airbus—the smaller A320, but with identical “fly-by-wire” controls to those of the A330. And he had no engine power, it was a spectacular example of fly-by-wire-and-seat-of-pants.
In a horrendous storm—of a kind that is familiar on the route between Brazil and the West African coast—the pilot can see and hear things the autopilot cannot. Seeing, hearing, and feeling are basically what piloting is all about.
On February 25, a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737 crashed in Amsterdam—killing nine people including the pilots—when the pilots failed to hear that their engines had gone to idle because the autopilot assumed, through instrument error, that it was on ground approach when, in fact, it was still at 2,000 feet. They weren’t looking and they weren’t listening.
That’s what piloting is all about: situational awareness. Navigating through high turbulence and electric storms needs total alertness. So the handling of Flight 447 again raises the question of whether pilots have become over-reliant on autopilots. Another detail from the ACMS data sent from the A330, that the airplane may have been flying too slowly, is hard to explain. Sensors that rely on the outer slipstream to gauge speed might well have been misguided by the storm’s winds, including updrafts as high as 100 miles per hour. If so, that is just one more reason why you need pilots who represent the last resort of airmanship, the instincts to feel when something is badly wrong. The human factor is irreplaceable.
Clive Irving is senior consulting editor at Condé Nast Traveler, specializing in aviation.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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It's really something that in short order we have one case of fabulous pilotage (Sullenberger), one case of poor pilotage (Calgon in Buffalo) and this case which may end up in the latter category. Sullenberger shocked me that he said that he wouldn't recommend his children to become pilots - perhaps the pilots union and aviation industry have fallen down on the job by focusing on the now and not the future of the pilot trade.
Long hours and horrible pay for rookies... who WOULD recommend it to their children? Blame the airlines, our regulators, and our demand for cheap fares... it costs money to pay for good pilots, and $100 from NYC to LA ain't gonna cover it!
When did you make up the word "pilotage"?
Actually, if you look it up in the dictionary it is there:
The technique or act of piloting.
Don't be lazy and not look for your self before making critical comments
Is there any possibility that there was a glitch that prevented the autopilot from dis-engaging? Could the pilot and co-pilot have been frantically trying to get control of the plane back from the autopilot during those last 10 minutes? I can't imaging them sitting there, letting the autopilot take them through a severe storm.
Mr Owen,
The use of the autopilot is not such an easy choice as you make it. We use the autopliot to reduce work load during abnormal and emergency procedures. You are correct , that good airmanship might dictate that you not use the autoplilot in SEVERE turbulence. But the choice get muddled when you have a modern autopilot that incorporates "gust alleviation" logic specifically intended to reduce loads on the airframe. Until the press better understands the conditions and problems that these pilots were truly faced with, I suggest that they refrain from disparaging their reputations and professional integrity.
Sincerely,
PO
Thanks, Captainono--Your comment was more enlightening than the article.
Agreed 100%. There is not enough information for an expert to make any sort of judgement, let alone whomever wrote this piece of ill-informed slander. This "journalist" is already making judgements on whether or not the pilots should have been using their auto pilot without even knowing the situation/conditions the pilots were facing or even if the auto pilot was really on.
To compare this situation to what Sullenberger was facing is just plain stupid. As a scientist, I really get angry when some idiot writes a piece about some new medical finding or something similiar and makes it clear they have no understanding of what they are writing about. As a pilot I would be furious reading this piece.
Thanks, Sky King.
I know you are trying to be a smart ass, but you are only getting the second half right
How far is the
Alleged crash site
From the Bermuda Triangle?
A very long way... lol :D
Maybe the Bermuda Triangle moved? (lol)
Better question: how long has it been since anyone got near your Bermuda Triangle? My guess is that Eisenhower was in the White House when it happened. Oh, if I had the time, I would have broken this comment up into three or four-word lines, but I couldn't be bothered.
I'm curious why they would fly the plane through a storm like that rather than diverting around it. I thought most storms might be very high, but not necessarily that wide. Maybe I'm wrong. Couldn't they at least have diverted around the worst part?
I dunno. Ask one of the fake pilots commenting here.
Totally fly by wire commercial airliners aren't airworthy.
Right, because a total of 2 fatal accidents over 17 years of flying round the clock isn't enough to prove that fly by wire is safe.
Hehehe.. you're what they used to call a "hanging judge" back in the old days...
I am not so sure that the human factor is so replaceable. For every Sullenberger landings we have, how many crashes have we had due to pilot error? Wikipedia Aviation accidents, and you will see far far more accidents officially attributed to pilot error than accidents attributed to manufacture defect or failure of Fly-by-wire controls. It is far easier to find accidents because of loss of spatial orientation (vertigo), incorrect aircraft configuration (wrong flap settings), and dumb pilot error (Buffalo, NY flight the pilot overrode the stall recovery input by the computer).
Will we have crashes if we replaced pilots with computers? Yes, but I will not be surprised if there will be less fatal aircraft accidents if the pilot is removed from the cockpit.
...just remember, when everything is computerized, nothing can go wrong, nothing can go wrong, nothing can go wrong, nothing can go wrong...the infamous computer loop.....OOPS!
Maybe we'll have a real life "LOST"....but when will the mysterious island appear? You know they have never solved the Amelia Earhart mystery either, in fact some claimed to have seen her after the infamous plane crash in the Pacific.
Unfortunately we make bigger and bigger cars, bigger and bigger aircraft, and now the airlines are cramming even more seats onto an airplane...all for profits. If you've ever seen one of these Airbus airplanes...I'm not sure they are safe. The 737 was one of the most dependable and safest airlines in the sky, but they are getting old, worn out....egad, mgf new ones!
If they know the truth will you ever hear it? They claim nobody on the Titantic relatives ever recovered a dime in lawsuits. It's all about money...
Personally I think we need to disarm the pilots and let an air marshall protect the passengers. I want my pilot and co-pilot flying the airplane...not shooting!
I agree 100% with Captainono. This author is speculating about areas in which he has very little knowledge. I am a Captain of a Boeing 777 with 30 years experience in the air and leaving the autopilot engaged in severe turbulence may well be the SOP on this aircraft for precisely the reasons that he stated in the previous paragraph - "digital reflexes faster than human responses and trims the airplane in micro-second bites". Faster than human responses. And as another reply stated - gust suppression and yaw damping technology used by the autopilot could make for a far safer ride through such conditions.
As to wrestling control AWAY from the autopilot - highly unlikely. Disengaging an autopilot is a single button-push away from either control yoke.
I suggest you let the experts untangle this. I doubt that there is a single easy explanation to the cause of this accident. There were likely multiple contributing causes.
I'm glad there's a person like you too, who thinks this author is an idiot for writing this piece. I don't know a lot about the 777 (or the Airbus that crashed), but I assume you have a similar AFCS panel on the C-17 where we have an AP/AT turbulence button which puts the throttles and flight monitoring/controls into a CLAMP mode to prevent the over-G'ing of the aircraft
Clive Irving, no offense, you're no longer in the "game" (i.e. you don't know what you're talking about). The "visceral way" of pilot bondage to the autopilot that you described in reference to the pilots not disengaging the autopilot during the bad storm, clearly shows you know nothing of being a pilot when making an ocean crossing.
NOT ONCE, have I or any other fellow pilots disengaged the autopilot while flying through a storm. The most we have ever done was using our weather radar to navigate through the holes and breaks in the storm, while keeping the autopilot engaged.
The only dilemma that could have arisen during this ocean crossing was that the aviation management generally has a "lean-forward" attitude about getting the aircraft to its final destination (Paris) despite the inherent risks of penetrating a thunderstorm and the extra financial burden of returning to Brazil. So there probably was a thought by the pilots to turn around and return to Brazil due to the line of storms being too thick to penetrate, but the "lean-forward" attitude pushed by management may have caused the death of 228 people.
So please, Clive Irving, I implore you to email me before posting such a bold and inaccurate piece.
I am a C-17 pilot, and Mr. Irving, you can email me at Jahara.Matisek@amc.af.mil
Clive - it's shocking how you can make these kind of statements clearly without knowing the full story really appals me. To lay the blame on the pilots is completely premature. I've read numerous reports stating the exact opposite - that teh autopilot in fact cut out. Here's one for example: http://is.gd/QfEW.
"Seeing, hearing, and feeling are basically what piloting is all about."
I'm not a pilot but I do know that the opposite is more true. Pilots are warned not to trust their senses as they can be easily deceived. After a number of crashes by the F117 the military installed a panic button to automatically right the plane when it was determined that crashes were being caused by pilots vectoring into the ground believing they were flying at a different pitch/angle.
But I would more generally agree that the queasy feeling many civillians have about the increased reliance on Pilot Bob (autopilot) seems to have merit. Pilots are drilled to be remorseless in their checks and supervision but they're as human and as lazy as all of us and simpler handing over or flipping the switch is a guaranteed trend maker towards negligence.
This "magical panic button" you speak of amuses me as there is no such button in existence (at least in the Air Force inventory). However, it is cute that the public thinks Air Force aircraft have a "panic button" that automatically rights the aircraft.
Again, the autopilot saves more lives than a pilot hand-flying the aircraft non-stop.
You are focusing on the wrong things here, the pilots flew into a terrible tropical storm, and we learn everyday in pilot training that the most dangerous thing to do is to penetrate a thunderstorm.
Hey C17Pilot, question: I heard that they were developing what they referred to as a "deadman's stick" in fly-by-wire systems, especially within the fighter force so that if the pilot goes into G-lock the plane would sense no input from the flight controls and if sensing an out-of-parameter attitude, the system would in fact take over and at least get the aircraft back to a straight-and-level status. Has this been achieved? I have heard conflicting reports. Thanks, I enjoy your input on things of this nature.
To critics of Clive Irving's writing I must say Bravo to him for the joining of both flying public and flying pilots here into the fray.
Any pilot worth his salt knows how to objectively discern "news media" aviation from "industry media" aviation anyway. Plus, kind pilot Sirs, these folks are your customers. They're not supposed to know everything. Words like horror and terror and fear sell papers and websites but it's the pilots that have to put their emotions aside in order to simply fly the aircraft.
Until more information is known for us all, I still have a lingering question; Did the autopilot run out of control authority first or did the aircraft break-up in flight first?
Whenever we fly through turbulent weather and storms, the autopilot has occasionally "kicked-off" itself due to the plane being unable to maintain a straight-and-level flight path trajectory. This is actually a good thing, because the aircraft could actually damage itself by attempting to maintain straight-and-level flight (i.e. the wings or fuselage could be damaged by the stress loads placed on it when pulling G's; usually in excess of 3 G's).
*The best theory our workplace has as to what happened was that the aircraft went through an extremely violent storm, and probably got bounced around so much that it initially damaged some avionics, and then probably just tore off a wing, causing the depressurization and the whole airplane to explode.*
I wish journalists like Clive Irving would not make ridiculous assumptions about things we have absolutely no information about it just makes you sound very ignorant and starts incorrect and unsubstantiated rumors that tarnishes the reputation of pilots. You have no right to do this Mr Irving.
Thank you.
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