How one confused pilot killed over 200 people..

[Beegs]

Originally Posted by Steve1968LS2

Actually the second most senior pilot let the low guy keep command when the Captain left..

I like how Boeing ties the controls together.. this "averaging" deal seems flawed.

SEEMS flawed? Holy crap....when I read that I about fell over!!!! I can't BELIEVE they are set up that way. If they had been synced...the reaction most likely would have been: "WTF are you pulling back so much for????"

I hope someone here can shed some light as to why being "averaged" is a good idea...

[James OLC]

Originally Posted by Steve1968LS2

Actually the second most senior pilot let the low guy keep command when the Captain left..

I like how Boeing ties the controls together.. this "averaging" deal seems flawed.

Actually, the Captain left the most junior pilot in command when he left:

At approximately 2 am, the other co-pilot, David Robert, returns to the cockpit after a rest break. At 37, Robert is both older and more experienced than Bonin, with more than double his colleague's total flight hours. The head pilot gets up and gives him the left-hand seat. Despite the gap in seniority and experience, the captain leaves Bonin in charge of the controls

[Spiffav8]

That's messed up. I knew about the sensor icing, but had never read the CVR transcripts.

I see this in two ways. The first being that Airbus takes the piloting out of their airplanes in a lot of ways. With the flight controls in manual and set to "Dual" the airplane averaging the two inputs is just stupid if you ask me. Airbus programs all kinds of funky logic (if you want to call it logic) into their aircraft. Is it unsafe? No. Manned by a well trained and experienced flight crew that understand how the aircraft thinks, works and knows the limitations, it's not a problem.

The second thing is the flight crew. It appears that an inexperienced pair where put together in what's called a "green on green" situation with no clear line of who was the PIC (Pilot in Command) while the Captain was resting. The airline is to blame for that. Both pilots failed to see the reality of the situation after the airspeed failure (obviously) and put the aircraft into a falling leaf type stall. Easy to get out of if you're paying attention. I'd bet that they where under the impression that the aircraft was having more than one type of failure and ignored the warnings as such. Basically, they didn't trust or believe what the instruments where telling them. The break down in basic CRM is unforgivable.

I can honestly say that in all my flying I have never seen this type of situation with flight crews. Not even in the SIM while training on all types on emergency's including that types of a stall. I should note that I am not type rated in any Airbus. Huge fan of Boeing though and have flown a few. The 757-200 being my favorite. I like to describe it as the ZR1 of airliners.

Greg & James....just stick to U.S. carriers and you're fine.

[James OLC]

Originally Posted by Spiffav8

Greg & James....just stick to U.S. carriers and you're fine.

I do when I can Curtis but from time to time I have to fly on a Caribbean carrier who does tend to make me a little bit nervous.

[Musclerodz]

Sounds very much like vertigo got the best of them. Still the safest form on transportation in the world today.

[Rybar]

Wow that is just nuts, I've been wondering what happened with this crash for some time. Had no idea they found the black boxes...

That is a very scary read. I think they should put video recorders in cockpits to better understand what happened vs just voice recorders.

RIP to the people who died on board.

[jon72vega]

That's a very interesting article.