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447 occurred from a design flaw in Airbus aircraft that have independent joysticks instead of the Yoke available on Boeing fly-by-wire. The first officer who ha

447 occurred from a design flaw in Airbus aircraft that have independent joysticks instead of the Yoke available on Boeing fly-by-wire. The first officer who had more experience than the pilot flying the plane was unaware that the pilot was pulling back on the joystick. If the plane were properly designed as Boeing fly-by-wire craft were designed, eg, 777 at the time, then the accident wouldn't have happened because the first officer would have realized the pilot was pulling back on the yoke for the stall. A principle in safety is that you want things encoded in the "hardware", eg, you can't put your car in reverse without putting your foot on the brake, even though you are taught this in driver's ed. The Airbus designers forgot this major principle by using independent joysticks, a lesson not forgotten by the Boeing fly-by-wire craft.

rKarpinski 3y ago
Sure it was a design flaw but again the captain wasn't at the controls. The first officer and the relief first officer were the ones who were at the controls. The relief first officer (who was the most experienced with that airplane of the pilots) wasn't aware the first officer (the most junior of the pilots) was pulling up on the stick because of the independent inputs.
dssdsdods 3y ago
Certainly it was a design flaw, but also a major fault in training. Any properly trained pilot should have been able to detect a stall situation and pushed stick forward.
chgs 3y ago
> you can't put your car in reverse without putting your foot on the brake I rarely put a car in reverse while putting a foot on the brake. Handbrake on sure, but my foot is almost always on the accelerator when reverse engages, same as with forward gear
lucioperca 3y ago
You can absolutely try switching to reverse at 200km/h in a manual transmission. car at cost of your tranmission and potentially your bones in you hand. If you do it while rolling forward it will make funny sounds. Apart from that the pilot flying the aircraft was totally confused and pulled the nose up while having stall warning and actually stalling. That is quite some remarkable screw up not understanding to stall and thinking having your nose at an high attack angle while having 100% engine thrust will solve anything in this situation. Sure with non-independent joysticks the other might have called the non nonsensical maneuvers earlier and prevented it. But the lack of awareness in instrument flight of that pilot is quite remarkable.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Thing is, pulling the nose up silenced the stall warning. In the end, the flying crew was, wastly over-simplyfied, convinced to get out of a stall by pulling up. That alert behavior was changed by Airbus. Blaming the pilots, or flatout stating that one design pholosophy is better than the other, is just ignorant. That's worse than all those soccer coaches knowing everything better on subdays, or whatever the US equivalent is, because at sport no lives depend on it. And regardless of the latest Boeing fuck ups, everyone in aerospace knows that. And the people designing those planes and systems are fully aware of that, and know what they do. Edit: The Vanity Fair piece also focuses on the stick behaviour and fly-by-wire systems. I cannot emphasize it enough, that pullong up silenced the stall alarm. The issue was that flight crew never realized that they were still in a stall. Pilot training aroubd that particular edga case, including simulator training, was ammended. As was the stall alarm behaviour. Fly-by-wire and stick behaviour had not much to do with it. On a different note, for everyone blaming the pilots for being clueless amateurs (I exagerate, but I do get the impression): they died too on that flight. Inclusing the family of one of those pilots. Flight crew had as much skin in the game as possible. And before people start crying for remote controlled planes, how much risk does a pilot sitting in cubicle hubdreds of miles away from the plane actually take?
  - davidf18 3y ago
    "Blaming the pilots, or flatout stating that one design pholosophy is better than the other, is just ignorant." I work with safety, I study it. The Airbus was poorly designed. You want to have forcing functions in the hardware, not depend of operator training, the "software" in safety terminology. Airbus should have had the proper design philosophy so that the forcing function was in the "hardware", eg, the yoke of Boeing. The poor choice of having independent joysticks brought the plane down. Not certain why the FAA, which does know better, approved of the Airbus design. That alone is worthy of a study. Was it politics? In summary, safety guidelines mandate putting safety in the "hardware" of real forcing functions and not "software" -- training. That is the reality. 447 crash occurred because of poor Airbus design and the FAA for approving this design that goes against safety principles.
  - lucioperca 3y ago
benhurmarcel 3y ago
> you can't put your car in reverse without putting your foot on the brake I've never seen that kind of protection. I've only driven manual cars though. > The first officer who had more experience than the pilot flying the plane was unaware that the pilot was pulling back on the joystick To be fair he had a light flashing in front of him and a repeated "dual input" sound to tell him just that.
p_l 3y ago
On physically connected controls this can happen as well. It is why some flight instructors actually carried a hefty stick into cockpit - sometimes the best solution was to physically hit the trainee pilot to get them out of nervous hold on controls that you couldn't always overpower.

rKarpinski 3y ago

Sure it was a design flaw but again the captain wasn't at the controls. The first officer and the relief first officer were the ones who were at the controls. The relief first officer (who was the most experienced with that airplane of the pilots) wasn't aware the first officer (the most junior of the pilots) was pulling up on the stick because of the independent inputs.

dssdsdods 3y ago

Certainly it was a design flaw, but also a major fault in training. Any properly trained pilot should have been able to detect a stall situation and pushed stick forward.

chgs 3y ago

> you can't put your car in reverse without putting your foot on the brake I rarely put a car in reverse while putting a foot on the brake. Handbrake on sure, but my foot is almost always on the accelerator when reverse engages, same as with forward gear

lucioperca 3y ago

You can absolutely try switching to reverse at 200km/h in a manual transmission. car at cost of your tranmission and potentially your bones in you hand. If you do it while rolling forward it will make funny sounds. Apart from that the pilot flying the aircraft was totally confused and pulled the nose up while having stall warning and actually stalling. That is quite some remarkable screw up not understanding to stall and thinking having your nose at an high attack angle while having 100% engine thrust will solve anything in this situation. Sure with non-independent joysticks the other might have called the non nonsensical maneuvers earlier and prevented it. But the lack of awareness in instrument flight of that pilot is quite remarkable.

hef19898 3y ago
Thing is, pulling the nose up silenced the stall warning. In the end, the flying crew was, wastly over-simplyfied, convinced to get out of a stall by pulling up. That alert behavior was changed by Airbus. Blaming the pilots, or flatout stating that one design pholosophy is better than the other, is just ignorant. That's worse than all those soccer coaches knowing everything better on subdays, or whatever the US equivalent is, because at sport no lives depend on it. And regardless of the latest Boeing fuck ups, everyone in aerospace knows that. And the people designing those planes and systems are fully aware of that, and know what they do. Edit: The Vanity Fair piece also focuses on the stick behaviour and fly-by-wire systems. I cannot emphasize it enough, that pullong up silenced the stall alarm. The issue was that flight crew never realized that they were still in a stall. Pilot training aroubd that particular edga case, including simulator training, was ammended. As was the stall alarm behaviour. Fly-by-wire and stick behaviour had not much to do with it. On a different note, for everyone blaming the pilots for being clueless amateurs (I exagerate, but I do get the impression): they died too on that flight. Inclusing the family of one of those pilots. Flight crew had as much skin in the game as possible. And before people start crying for remote controlled planes, how much risk does a pilot sitting in cubicle hubdreds of miles away from the plane actually take?
- davidf18 3y ago
  "Blaming the pilots, or flatout stating that one design pholosophy is better than the other, is just ignorant." I work with safety, I study it. The Airbus was poorly designed. You want to have forcing functions in the hardware, not depend of operator training, the "software" in safety terminology. Airbus should have had the proper design philosophy so that the forcing function was in the "hardware", eg, the yoke of Boeing. The poor choice of having independent joysticks brought the plane down. Not certain why the FAA, which does know better, approved of the Airbus design. That alone is worthy of a study. Was it politics? In summary, safety guidelines mandate putting safety in the "hardware" of real forcing functions and not "software" -- training. That is the reality. 447 crash occurred because of poor Airbus design and the FAA for approving this design that goes against safety principles.
- lucioperca 3y ago

benhurmarcel 3y ago

> you can't put your car in reverse without putting your foot on the brake I've never seen that kind of protection. I've only driven manual cars though. > The first officer who had more experience than the pilot flying the plane was unaware that the pilot was pulling back on the joystick To be fair he had a light flashing in front of him and a repeated "dual input" sound to tell him just that.

p_l 3y ago

On physically connected controls this can happen as well. It is why some flight instructors actually carried a hefty stick into cockpit - sometimes the best solution was to physically hit the trainee pilot to get them out of nervous hold on controls that you couldn't always overpower.