AF 447 Likely Crashed Because of Pilot Error

The first thing I did Friday morning was to go to BEA's website and read the most recent note about AF 447. For the first time the investigators published excerpts from the voice recorder of the downed A330-200. After reading the note it was pretty clear to me that major errors by the pilots caused this tragic accident in June 2009.

As already known, the pitot probes failed during the Airbus's flight through the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Experts believe that super cold water hit the tubes and froze on contact. The tubes failed and the Airbus suddenly did not have any reliable speed data. Consequently, the auto pilot and auto thrust disengaged. The A330 switched into alternate mode, giving the pilots full control of the plane. According to the transcript, the two first officers in the cockpit tried to call the captain, who was resting at the time, but he did not respond. Even though at least one of the first officers was pretty experienced on the A330, they failed to correctly interpret the computer's error messages. They were too consumed by figuring out what all the error messages meant to just focus on flying the plane.

Finally, the captain was back in the cockpit, but the situation worsened. The first officer pulled the plane up and it climbed from 35,000 feet to 38,000 feet, which was too high for the current situation in the ITCZ. Climbing also slowed down the plane and signals went off indicating that the Airbus was about to stall. At an altitude of 35,000 feet, the speed of a plane has to be within a very narrow limit, otherwise it will stall if the angle of attack is not adjusted. A difference of only 20 knots can cause a plane to stall. However, the first officers did not react correctly. The plane was still too slow and turbulence was rocking the plane to the sides.

With the fly-by-wire's envelope system down the first officers pushed the sidesticks too hard and the plane began to roll. Normally, the A330's fly-by-wire system would prevent that, but since it was down, there was no automatic protection anymore. However, and contrary to earlier reports, the Airbus was completely controllable. No primary flight systems failed. The envelope system was down, but the fly-by-wire system was still intact. The pilots had 100% control over the plane.

The first officers were not able to stop the stall. With very high vertical speed, the A330 shot toward the Atlantic. Ironically, one first officer increased thrust to 100%, increasing the plane's speed even more as it was heading toward the water. Pretty soon, the first officer realized he was not able to regain control of the plane. At 10,000 feet, he handed the controls over to the second first officer in the cockpit, who only had a few months flying experience on the A330. They must have realized they were doomed. Ironically, the pitot tubes worked again after less than one minute. The last words in the cockpit were "go ahead, you have the controls," when the first officer handed the controls over to the second first officer. A few seconds later they hit the water and were dead. And with them all 225 people on board flight AF 447.

So what happened? First, the Airbus's systems did not fail. The only thing that did fail were the pitot tubes. This is not really cause for a crash if pilots are well trained in these situations. Pitot tubes have frozen over before and never did a plane crash because of it. In this case, a chain of unfortunate events caused the accident. The following is a list of all the errors and issues that led to this terrible accident:

1) Instead of focusing on flying the plane, the two first officers were too focused on the computer's error messages. Flying the plane at an angle of 5 degrees with thrust at 85% would have been enough to fly without working pitot probes.
2) The first officers made the plane climb to 38,000 feet instead of descending. This decreased speed and caused the stall.
3) They were not well trained to regain control of the stalling plane. This had not been part of their pilot training.
4) They were not trained to realize that the frozen pitot tubes caused these problems.
5) The most experienced captain was not at the controls when the problems started.
6) At 10,000 feet - the most crucial phase of the accident - the least experienced first officer was in control of the plane.

In my opinion, well-trained pilots should have been able to handle this situation. In a BBC documentary from 2010, pilots encountered the exact situation in a simulator and managed the situation very well. Of course a simulator is not a real plane and the pilots in the simulator knew what was happening, but I strongly believe that all pilots should have the training to handle such a situation and a stall.

I am convinced that the crash of AF 447 will result in lots of troubles for Air France and Thales, the manufacturer of the pitot tubes, as they will be charged with manslaughter. Air France will be blamed for not training its pilots well enough and Thales will be blamed for building faulty pitot probes, even though the company claimed that they are able to handle all real-world challenges.

For Airbus, this is a result they can live with. The A330's fly-by-wire system was working and the plane is not to blame for the crash. But that's the only good news...

AF 447 Found in Atlantic

To be honest, I was not very hopeful that we would ever hear anything again about AF 447. So you can imagine how surprised and excited I was when I read the news two days ago about a submarine finding parts of the downed A330-200.

AF 447 was en route from Rio to Charles de Gaulle when it crashed into the Atlantic after passing a bad weather front in the ITCZ in June 2009. The emphasis here is on AFTER, not during - contrary to many media reports. Almost two years after the accident, even experts are still unsure about what happened to F-GZCP.

A popular theory is that the Airbus's fly-by-wire system, including all flight computers, broke down, rendering the pilots unable to fly the plane. Based on the automated messages AF 447 sent to the Airbus headquarters in Toulouse, this is not very likely. Another theory is that the pilots did not know the aircraft's exact speed, because the pitot tubes were jammed with ice (the plane was flying through a very moist bad weather front) and the Airbus did not receive any consistent airspeed data anymore. The automated messages confirm that this happened. However, this alone cannot be the cause of the crash. Yes, the pilots may not have had exact airspeed data, but they still had over-ground speed information based on GPS. This is not exact, but enough to fly the plane safely in a situation like this.

As in most cases, I strongly believe that many causes led to this fatal accident: Pilots who probably were not very familiar with the aircraft's computers and technology; a stressful and highly demanding situation they were not well trained for and never experienced before; multi-system failure; and it was in the middle of the night, so the crew probably couldn't see anything (contrary to earlier reports, the A330 has a manual horizon, so the crew always knew where up, down, right and left were).

Two years later, important questions remain, which make this accident so mysterious: Why didn't the crew radio to other planes traveling the same route that they were experiencing difficulties? They still had electricity and another Air France jet was directly behind them. A Lufthansa plane directly in front of them. Why did the Airbus hit the water belly first if the crew couldn't control it? Why was the captain not in the cockpit if it was a tricky situation?

Hopefully, in a few weeks from now, we will have answers to these questions. Fingers crossed that the search teams will find the black boxes!

Alitalia Takes Delivery of First A330-200

I have to admit, I am not the biggest fan of Alitalia, Italy's flagship carrier. I have been on five Alitalia flights in my life and they were absolute average. Service was okay (on a flight from EWR to Rome, all flight attendants completely disappeared for three hours), the planes were fairly old (the 767-300 that I was on to and from Dubai looked older than pretty much every plane I have ever been on) and the prices were not really cheap. So far, I would not have really recommended Alitalia to anyone.

However, Alitalia has made some pretty good decisions lately when it comes to the long-haul aircraft they ordered. Alitalia has placed an order for 12 Airbus A330-200 and another order for 12 A350-800. On July 15, Alitalia received its first A330-200, which will replace the airline's 767-300s. At this point, Alitalia does not have any outstanding orders with Boeing and it looks like the A350s will be used to replace Alitalia's 777-200s. Alitalia looks set to become an airline with an Airbus-only fleet soon. Italy's largest airlines is also currently replacing its MD-82s with aircraft of the A320 series. Maybe I should give Alitalia another chance...

To read the Airbus press release, please click here.

Air France 447 - One Year Later

June 1 marked the first anniversary of the crash of Air France flight 447. One year later we still don't have any answers whatsoever on why the Airbus A330 crashed into the Atlantic. Still, pretty much all scenarios are possible. Most journalists, and some experts, blame the crash on faulty pitot tubes or a bug in the A330's fly-by-wire system/avionics. None of this is confirmed. All is speculation. Even if the pitot tubes were not working correctly - that is not a good reason for a plane to crash. As mentioned several times before, all airplanes are equipped with GPS and still receive above-ground speed information even if the pitot tubes fail. A bug in the fbw system could potentially be the cause, but this has never happened before and would still not explain why no "mayday" signals were sent.

The search for the black boxes is still ongoing and the area where those boxes can be have been narrowed down to twenty-five square kilometers. Still, that is like finding two shoe boxes in an area half the size of Manhattan. However, I am still positive that the black boxes will be found and the mystery will be solved. I still don't really believe any of the current scenarios. Fingers crossed we will know more a year from now.

If you want to read more about the search and a documentary that is currently being produces, please click here.

CNN: A330 Crashed Because of Pilot Error

As I predicted, a pilot error likely caused the crash of an A330 in Tripoli, Libya, on Wednesday. Apparently - and contrary to what had been reported before - the visibility at Tripoli airport was not very good, caused by mist and sand. The pilot turned off the autopilot and tried to land the plane himself (as mentioned before, Tripoli airport is not equipped with ILS), but could not align the Airbus with the runway. He tried to switch on the autopilot again when he noticed he was in trouble. But before the A330 could gain enough thrust to pull up again, the plane crashed into the ground.

This is another example of the poor flying skills of African pilots in general. The continent has been hampered by accidents due to pilot error for a while. The crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 409 in January off the coast of Lebanon was also caused by pilot error. I can only recommend it again and again - whenever you book a flight, pick an airline whose pilots you trust. Not even a state-of-the-art Airbus equipped with world-class fly-by-wire can save you when your pilot doesn't know how to handle the plane in difficult circumstances.

To read the full CNN story, please click here.

Another A330-200 Crash within Less than One Year

It hasn't been a good year for Airbus. Within less than one year, two Airbus A330-200 crashed. The first one on July 1, 2009, on the way from Rio to Paris (I have written a lot about that crash; to read more about the Air France crash from June of last year, please click here) and the other one today, on approach to Tripoli airport in Libya. For both accidents, we don't know yet what really caused them. Those are the only two times the A330 ever crashed. And both times it was the 200 version of this wide-body plane.

Afriqiyah Airways flight 771 was en route from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Tripoli, Libya, when it crashed into the runway area of Tripoli's international airport in the early morning of May 12, 2010. During the more than nine hours of the flight, no incidents have been reported and the weather at Tripoli airport was excellent. So what caused the crash and could it be related to AF 447 last year?

I believe there is absolutely no link between the Air France crash last year and today's crash. Yes, it was the same plane, but I really believe this is a coincidence. The circumstances are just too different. AF 447 was in flight mode when it crashed; at an altitude of around 10 km. Afriqiyah Airways flight 771 was approaching the airport in flare mode already and didn't have any issues at its cruising altitude. According to recent reports, flight 8U 771 crashed parallel to the runway, missing it by around 900 meters. The question here is: How could the pilot miss the runway during good weather, no winds and with great visibility? True, the airport is not equipped with state-of-the-art ILS, but under those circumstances, every pilot should have been able to land.

First reports mentioned technical difficulties. This has not been confirmed, but it is possible. Later reports mentioned that the pilots radioed for ambulances to be ready and a passenger allegedly twittered that something was wrong with the plane's wing. None of this has been confirmed. In the end, there are only three possible reasons for the crash: pilot error, technical difficulties or a combination of both. After all, it is very confusing that the pilot made it to the airport (so he must have been in control of the plane), but crashed while missing the runway.

I am really not sure what caused this crash, but let me offer my personal opinion: I think it was a pilot error. The A330 is equipped with a state-of-the-art fly-by-wire system, but if the airport doesn't have ILS, then the A330's autopilot is not able to automatically land the plane. So maybe the pilots were tired? Fell asleep for a few seconds (well, it happens in cars all the time)? I really don't know. It is highly unlikely though that a technical error occurred only during landing and so short of the airport. If flaps don't work or engines are broken, pilots notice that fairly quickly into the flight, not during the last 30 seconds of a flight. It is also unlikely that the fly-by-wire system failed at such a late stage. This has never happened before.

I think we should not draw false parallels here to AF 447. I am convinced the causes of those crashes are very different. With flight 8U 771 I am, however, certain we'll have all answers soon, since the black boxes have already been found. I will keep you posted...

A330 Crash in Libya

An A330-200 crashed this morning while trying to land at Tripoli airport. Read more about the crash and first analysis later today on The Aviation Insider.

Reuters: Breakthrough in Air France Crash Black Box Search

Today is a good day - for those who lost relatives and friend in the crash of Air France flight 447 on June 1, 2009, as well as for everybody else interested in aviation. I am very sick of hearing that AF 447 crashed because of turbulence, bad weather or pitot tube malfunctions. I want to know what really happened to the Air France A330 almost one year ago.

The French defense ministry today announced the search teams have found what could be the first concrete clues to the location of black boxes missing from last year's Atlantic jet disaster, but warned on Thursday there was no guarantee the breakthrough would lead to their recovery. This allows experts to narrow the search to a few square kilometers from several thousand ahead of the anniversary of the airline's worst crash.

To read the full Reuters story, please click here.