Wrong priorities
The Union of Air France Pilots (SPAF) made their charges amid suspicion in parts of the aviation world that French investigators, the airline and the Airbus firm may be reluctant to pinpoint a design flaw as the cause of the disaster that killed 228 people.
Their view was reinforced today when Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, chief executive of Air France, suggested that pilots’ failure to manage weather radar correctly may have led to the June 1 crash of the Rio-Paris flight.
The underwater sonar search for the data and voice recorders from the crashed Airbus A330 is to be ended today but Mr Gourgeon said other methods would be used to hunt the hull and black boxes on the Atlantic floor.
In a letter to the French Civil Aviation Directorate and the European Aviation Safety Agency, the pilots’ union said the agencies had failed in their obligation to act to resolve known dangers. They referred to repeated incidents with faulty speed data on the A330/A340 long-range Airbuses over the past two years that were similar to the sequence that hit Flight 447.
“We consider that if the appropriate measures had been carried out by your respective agencies, the problem encountered by the crew of AF447…would have averted the start of the sequence of events that lead to the loss of control of the aircraft,” said the union, which is the second body representing AF pilots.
In a preliminary report last week, the Accident Bureau (BEA) confirmed that faulty speed readings had led the automatic pilot and computerised flight controls to disconnect – as in the other reported incidents.
Data on the failure started a cascade of alerts that the airliner sent automatically to its Paris base. However the investigators said that the unreliable speed data – apparently from ice on the external “pitot” sensors – was only an element in and not the cause of the disaster. The crew would have retained full control of a “flyable aircraft,” said the chief investigator.
The Bureau offered no explanation why the aircraft lost control over four minutes and fell belly-first onto the ocean 35,000ft below. However jet pilots say that the crew, flying at night in severe weather, were in an extremely tough predicament. An Air France A330 captain confirmed the view to The Times.
Mr Gourgeon echoed a theory that the crew erred by failing to divert around storm cells near the equator. The captain of Air France’s Sao-Paolo flight just behind AF447, reported steering round a storm zone that he said had been difficult to spot until he turned up his weather radar.
“Perhaps Flight 447 did not have the luck to have this first warning and perhaps was unable to avoid a very active storm zone,” said the airline chief. As a result, the airline is reviewing procedures for radar use “whether or not it was the cause of the loss of flight AF447,” he told le Figaro.
Mr Gourgeon defended Air France over the sensors. After a string of icing incidents starting in 2008, the airline was replacing them all its long-range Airbuses when the disaster occurred, he said. “No document from Airbus made replacement mandatory,” he noted. He acknowledged that “the day after the (447) accident, we said that perhaps there had been a problem with ice…”
Unhappy Air France pilots protested today outside the annual meeting of Air France shareholders in Paris. Half a dozen pilots from Alter, a minority union, handed out leaflets saying that pilots “have the painful feeling that not everything was done to avoid the crash of Flight 447″ and that “the confidence of the personnel in the company’s management is seriously affected.”
Holding back tears, Jean-Cyril Spinetta, the Chairman of Air France-KLM told the shareholders gathered in the Louvre museum that the company would get to the bottom of the crash “even if it is uncomfortable for the airline…There are injuries that never heal,” he said.
The criticism from the SPAF and ALTER unions represent a minority of more militant Air France pilots. The Air France division of the SNPL, the national pilots’ union, has raised serious concerns over the airline’s handling of the Airbus speed sensors but has stopped short of alleging dereliction or cover-up.
Even if no cause is officially determined, the absence of mandatory action over the pitot sensors and data systems is turning into the central question in the aftermath of the Airbus disaster.
The charges from the pilots’ union have added to calls from lawyers and safety experts for an explanation from the safety agencies on why no order was issued. Some have suggested that the long-range Airbuses should be grounded is its air data computers are flawed.
The United States Federation Aviation Administration is now becoming involved because the US accident agency, the National Transportation Safety Board, has formally opened an investigation into episodes of failed airspeed systems on two US-related A330 airbus flights over the past two months.
It has been disclosed that some three dozen sensor-failure episodes had been reported on the worldwide fleet of long-range Airbuses before the Air France disaster. Until AF447, crew had always succeeded in retaining control.
Other Air France pilots are using an internet site (eurocockpit.com) to counter what they say are attempts by Air France and the BEA to blur the truth about AF447. On Wednesday, they said that by following Air France procedures in the event of an airspeed failure, “it is reasonable to assume that the aircraft could have faced a high speed stall, without any possibility of recovery.”
The pilots added: “The case of flight AF447 has just begun, and we can announce today that it will be very difficult to hide the truth.”
Air France was also thrown on the defensive today by media leaks of a scathing internal report on sloppy piloting standards which was circulated to crew after the crash of an Air France Airbus at Toronto in 2005. No-one was killed in that crash but the aircraft was completely burnt after pilot errors led it to overshoot the runway on landing and break up in a field.
Mr Gourgeon said that all the recommendations in the post-Toronto report had been implemented, making Air France safer than ever. “Air France reaffirms its complete confidence in the competence of its pilots,” the airline said in a statement.
From The Times Air France and SPAF (Union of Air France Pilots)
July 18th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Tail of Airbus A330 made out of composite material like plastic. It is not durable as aluminum, simple crack may cause it to broke off in harsh turbulence. It happen once before in New York. Air France try to hide it now, they occupy all families of victims with their lawyers ( http://www.airfrance447truth.com ), families will get 10% of what they should to get or even less, and no investigation will be made other then Air France ones. It’s sad that other people now in great danger of flying those airplanes from Airbus. Airbus French based company, probably owned by same people as Air France. Euros rules, isn’t they? How many more people have to die?
July 20th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Hi Taras. I understand your concerns and do agree we must be vigilant. I am not so pessimistic as you however and I do think that for all sorts of reasons the investigation will be very complete. In the long run Airbus have too much to lose if they fudge this one.
Best Regards
Michael
August 30th, 2009 at 4:57 am
Air France Flight 447 Typified Why The Black Box Data Should Be Telemetered To The Ground
For the last ten years there hasn’t been a technical reason why the digital flight recorder data isn’t securely sent in real-time to the ground for storage (see the BBC/Equinox video “The BOX”, 4/2000, A look at the shortcomings found in black box flight recorders). During this ten year interval both the US and Europe have had the capability of implementing remote aircraft flight recording if only they had the will to do so. Using a remote aircraft flight recorder, within a couple of seconds, you have the planes position/location, its attitude, velocity, etc. safely stored on the ground and used for flight safety, aviation security and cost reduction. The data used in real-time could have also prevented 9/11 (see http://www.safelander.com).
On June 4, 2009 the Los Angeles Times put following information that I wrote into their LETTERS section: “There is no technical reason why digital flight recorder data are not sent in real-time to the ground. We have the technology to do this. Then, within a couple of seconds, we would have a plane’s position, altitude and velocity safely stored on the ground. This information could be used for flight safety, aviation security and cost reduction. We don’t know what went wrong on Air France Flight 447, but we would sure know where the plane went down, why it went down and possibly could have saved lives.” Getting to the crash site early may save lives, getting the DFDR can prevent recurring fatal crashes. It’s not just position that’s needed, it’s all of the data sent to the recorder that is critical to ascertaining the root cause of a crash and should be available to prevent some of the crashes from occurring.
The real-time use of the data recorders will save a substantial amount of lives, make our country safer and reduce the cost of flying. Telemetering the already digitized flight data to the ground in real-time would assure that we have the data. In some crashes the flight data isn’t recovered (e.g. 9/11, et al) or has errors in it since no one is looking at it, or using it in real-time to find malfunctions. Yet, this valuable digital flight recorder data (DFDR) data has been essentially left to the autopsy mode for post mortem simulations and not utilized proactively in real-time to save lives on cargo and carrier aircraft. We got the astronauts back from the moon by ground personnel monitoring the data in real-time. It was the ground personnel that found the problem and relayed back to the capsule the safe solution that saved the astronauts lives. It is now time to utilize this proven methodology for the good of the public.
A year prior to 9/11 at the International Aviation Safety Association meeting in New York, methods for preventing crashes like golfer Payne Stewart’s decompression crash were proposed. None of these methods were implemented by the aviation industry and we got 9/11 (hijacking is about ten percent of aviation fatalities) and the 2005, 100 fatality, Helios decompression crash. When a plane deviates from its approved flight plan, we now have the ability to securely take remote control of it and land it safely at a designated airfield. We presently have remote pilot vehicles (RPVs) flying over Afghanistan that are controlled/piloted from continental United States (CONUS). Currently we are utilizing secure high bandwidth communication networks (for our RPVs, submarines, AWACS planes, etc.) and there isn’t a logical reason for not making that technology available for cargo and carrier aircraft. The cost of 9/11 alone is ten times the cost of putting in a safe system and yet nothing has intentionally been done.
When a plane decompresses there is a good possibility that if we remotely bring it down in altitude to a point where there is sufficient oxygen and fly it remotely for 15 minutes, the pilot and passengers may regain consciousness. At that time the control of the aircraft could be returned to the pilot or remotely landing it to save the lives of the people who are onboard. This would have saved the lives of those aboard Helios.
Billions of dollars are wasted on unnecessary airport runway expansion and insufficient data programs to reduce fatal ground incursions. The lack of data has caused excessive verbal communication between the pilots and the controllers that is prone to errors. These ground incursions wouldn’t even occur if the flight data was shared so pilots and air traffic control had better visibility. But because the digital data isn’t shared automatically the pilot sees only a fraction of the information necessary to prevent a crash and the same holds true for the air traffic controllers (ATCs). Crashes such as Tenerife (583 fatalities), Comair (49 fatalities), etc. are directly caused by the lack of visibility due to not sharing the DFDR, ATC and airport runway data in real-time. Too many crashes are listed as pilot error when they are a direct result of a lack of visibility brought on by not sharing the digital flight data/Black Box in real-time to provide the necessary situation awareness. Many of the fatal in-air crashes fall into the same category. For example there was a crash where a plane ran out of fuel over JFK. The controller thought the pilot had more fuel left and the pilot who said his fuel was low didn’t use the correct emergency verbiage. Since the fuel supply is another black box input there is no reason why a red light, similar to the one on everyone’s car, doesn’t light up on the ATC display. The red low fuel light would reduce the controller’s work load and increase his situation awareness so that the people aboard a flight similar to the one that crashed would now live. Using the Black Box data decreases the work load of the pilot the air traffic controller as well as increases their situation awareness. By the lack of sharing the already digitized data in real-time we have egregiously curtailed the use of automation and expert systems technology for the prevention of crashes, increased the cost of flying and jeopardized our national security. The real-time use and sharing of the DFDR data to prevent crashes is more important then its present post mortem autopsy mode of operation.
The already digitized data used in real-time allows the use of automated expert systems to check many of an aircraft’s sensors prior to, and during, a flight to assure that everything is functioning correctly without having a person in the loop. When a malfunction is detected it can automatically inform the pilot and ATC as to the best way to work a round a malfunction. Using cross checks and correlation most of the sensors can be checked and work a round’s provided to the flight deck crew for safe transportation. It will also automatically notify the ground operational center of expected malfunctions and the safest work a round’s using a history file that should be followed. By so doing, the pilot’s work load will be reduced and his performance enhanced.
While pinpointing specific causes of a crash via the autopsy mode has merit it doesn’t address the broad generic systemic cause of most crashes namely not sharing the already digitized Black Box data in real-time for crash prevention. Piloting errors and mechanical failures will always occur but that is not a sufficient reason for the passengers to die. The fundamental reason for too many of the crashes is because the Black Box data has been denied from being utilized in real-time by the aviation industry out of fear for liability. We have operated commercial aviation in a dark age’s methodology. The aviation industry even fought against Black Boxes for many years. The Black Box technology came out of Australia. It was years and many fatal crashes later when it was embraced by the US and European aviation industry. Even when the US aviation industry embraced Black Box technology they severely limited the number of points that were allowed to be monitored. The net result we had recurring crashes such as the horrific USAIR, Flight 427, Aliquippa PA crash, in which my friend David Garber died, that was eventually solved by using British QAR (Quick Access Recorder) data. QARs weren’t utilized by US carrier aircraft. We must eliminate this liability fear of the airlines and pilots associations and enter into a new age of aviation enlightenment by utilizing the black box data in real-time to prevent crashes. The Black Box data should not be suppressed under the cover of industry private and parsed out begrudgingly. The Black Box data belongs to the public since it is necessary for their safety.
The Air France flight 447 crash is just the latest example of horrific crashes that possibly could have been prevented or saved lives. Using the Black Box data safely stored on the ground we surely would be able to minimize the anguish of the passenger’s families and recurring crashes. Ground storage eliminates the cost, time and risks associated with recorder recovery. The flight data used in real-time: reduces the cost of flying; prevents recurring fatal crashes; prevents a host of fatal crashes that aren’t directly related to Air France Flight 447, and keeps nations safe and secure. For the good of nation and its citizens, not only the flying public, we must utilize the Black Box data in real time.
Sy Levine
sylevine1@sbcglobal.net
(310) 559-2965
levines@wlac.edu
http://www.safelander.com
Remote Aircraft Flight Recorder and Advisory System (RAFT) patent #5,890,079, 3/30/1999
September 1st, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Much of sense in what you say Sy. Why is it the industry is so slow to move on this.
Cheers
Michael
September 4th, 2009 at 1:39 am
They may cry about sensors or other problems but the arlines and pilot associations fear of litgation far out ways passenger safety or even the flight crew safety. Their lobby organizations with their large political contributions have effectively blocked the real-time use of the flight data. The litigation fear has effectively killed thousands of innocent passengers. The public doesn’t have the lobby organizations to stop this industrial-government money driven partnership and thus they have born the brunt of these unnecessary fatal crashes. The aviation industry, through their effective lobby organizations, have large influence on who is selected to head the government monitoring agencies (i.e.: FAA, NTSB, etc.). Thus passenger safety is lower on the list of priorities.
The public doesn’t have effective lobby organizations and thus they are
January 11th, 2010 at 10:51 am
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