Faulty data misled pilot in 2009 Air France plane crash: Report

naeem@coastaldigest.com (AP)
July 6, 2012

Pilot_error

Le Bourget (France), July 6: A combination of faulty sensors and mistakes by inadequately trained pilots caused an Air France jet to plunge into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009, killing all 228 people aboard in the airline's deadliest ever crash, French investigators said on Thursday.

Investigators are urging better instruction for pilots on flying manually at high altitudes and stricter plane certification rules as a result of a three-year investigation into what happened to Flight 447.

Airbus, manufacturer of the A330 plane, said in a statement that it is working to improve speed sensors known as pitot tubes and making other efforts to avoid future such accidents. Air France stressed the equipment troubles and insisted the pilots "acted in line with the information provided by the cockpit instruments and systems. .... The reading of the various data did not enable them to apply the appropriate action."


But the Bureau for Investigations and Analysis' findings raised broader concerns about training for pilots worldwide flying high-tech planes when confronted with a high-altitude crisis.

The report also could have legal implications: A separate French judicial investigation is still under way, and Air France and Airbus have been handed preliminary manslaughter charges.

The bureau's analysis lists a combination of "human and technical factors" behind the crash. The plane flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris slammed into the sea during a nighttime thunderstorm on June 1, 2009.

Some families of victims felt investigators didn't focus hard enough on the equipment problems, saying the two pilots at the controls were doing what they could while faced with a barrage of inaccurate information.

Ice crystals that blocked the pitot tubes were the "unleashing event" that set off the plane's troubles, chief investigator Alain Bouillard said. The plane's autopilot shut off and the co-pilots had to fly manually, while a succession of alarms were going off. The captain was on a rest break.

In one fatal decision, the report says, one of the co-pilots nosed the Airbus A330 upward during a stall - instead of downward, as he should have - because of false data from sensors about the plane's position. Mr Bouillard said that was an "important element" of the cause of the crash.

He said the two pilots at the controls never understood that the plane was in a stall. He said only a well-experienced crew with a clear understanding of the situation could have stabilized the plane in those conditions.

"In this case, the crew was in a state of near-total loss of control," Mr Bouillard said.

Robert Soulas, who lost his daughter and son-in-law in the crash, says investigators said the flight director system indicated the "erroneous information" that the plane was diving downward, "and therefore to compensate, the pilot had a tendency to pull on the throttle to make it rise up."

However, the plane was in a stall instead. A basic maneuver for stall recovery, which pilots are taught at the outset of their flight training, is to push the yoke forward and apply full throttle to lower the nose of the plane and build up speed. But because the pilot thought the plane was diving, he nosed up.

Some families of people who died in the crash showed sympathy toward the pilots, saying they were dealing with bad equipment in an exceptionally challenging situation.

Mr Soulas noted that manufacturers had known for years about problems with the plane's speed sensors freezing over, but didn't order the faulty models systematically replaced until after the crash.

Pilot Gerard Arnoux said, "A normal pilot on a normal airliner follows" the signals on the flight director system, which tells them to go left, right, up or down.

Central to this accident is the fact that when the automation failed, the pilots were presented with conflicting information which was obviously incorrect, said William Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia. But they were unable to look through this and understand what the aircraft was actually doing.

"Pilots a generation ago would have done that and understand what was going on, but (the AF447 pilots) were so conditioned to rely on the automation that they were unable to do this," he said.

"This is a problem not just limited to Air France or Airbus," Mr Voss said. "It's a problem we're seeing around the world because pilots are being conditioned to treat automated processed data as truth, and not compare it with the raw information that lies underneath."

The final report included a study of the plane's black box flight recorders, uncovered in a costly and extraordinarily complex search in the ocean depths.

Lais Seba, the mother of 31-year-old victim Luciana Clarkson Seba, said "it's going to be forever difficult" for survivors to deal with the loss of their loved-ones.

"We are surviving," she said. "We live one day at a time, with lots of pain, and always missing her."



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News Network
July 25,2020

Madrid, Jul 25: Spain is witnessing a new surge in virus" coronavirus infections with nearly a thousand cases daily, a month after lifting the pandemic lockdown.

The country is reinstating both voluntary guidelines and mandatory restrictions that it had lifted on June 21, The Washington Post reported.

Spain on Wednesday reported over 224 outbreaks and 2,622 virus" coronavirus cases. According to a report in Washington Post, the new surge is attributed primarily to seasonal farmworkers, people attending family get-togethers and nightclub partyers.

On Thursday, the health ministry reported an additional 971 cases.

"The majority are related to fruit collection and also to the spaces where measures to avoid contact are relaxed," Spain Health Minister Salvador Illa told parliament. "We have to call on citizens to not lose respect for the virus not to be afraid of it, but not to lose respect for it either."

The government of Spain lifted all restrictions put in place to combat virus" coronavirus on June 21 and declared 'a new normal'. 

The virus" coronavirus pandemic till then had killed 24,000 people and infected more than 2,70,166.

Countries around the world are witnessing the second surge of virus" coronavirus. The resurgence could threaten the economic bounce Spain was hoping to get from vacationers eager for summer fun.

The surge in cases has been greatest in the northeastern region of Catalonia with more than 7,953 new confirmed cases since July 10.

Spain's National Epidemiological Survey has predicted that the rate of increase more than doubled in the past three weeks.

Meanwhile, the Catalan government reverted to pre-June 21 confinement rules in Barcelona and a dozen other municipalities in the metropolitan area, as well as in Figueras, Vilafant, La Noguera and Lleida.

Authorities have ordered bars and restaurants to limit indoor occupancy to 50 per cent, reduced sports to fewer than 10 people, closed night clubs and gyms and blocked some cultural activities.

The epidemiologist in charge of the region's biggest hospital warned in an interview last week with the Spanish daily El Pais that the situation in the agricultural hub of Lleida, located about 100 miles west of Barcelona, "had clearly gotten out of hand."

"Nobody foresaw that there would be a number of people coming from abroad to pick fruit in unfavourable conditions and that they might be infected," said epidemiologist Magda Campins of Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona. "And when the infections began to be detected, it was hard to keep tabs on the cases and their contacts because some of them, although they should have been in isolation, got away because they needed to earn money."

Catalonia's Department of Labour, Social Affairs and Family is using a hotel in Lleida to quarantine fruit workers who test positive for COVID-19 but are unable to isolate at home.

In the capital of Madrid, which was the epicentre during the pandemic's first wave in the spring, authorities reported 710 new cases in the past week. The use of face masks is widespread, but the region has shied away from making them mandatory in public.

Madrid's regional health secretary, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, defended that position while citing an uptick in infections in the under-40 age group. He told young people not to let down their guard.

"We can't take even one step backwards. Young people have to be aware of the responsibility they have," Ruiz Escudero said in a news conference Thursday. "I ask them to use the face mask and to maintain a safe distance."

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Agencies
May 28,2020

Washington, May 28: US President Donald Trump has warned social media giants that his government could "strongly regulate" or "close them down" after Twitter fact-checked one of his tweets for the first time.

"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices," Xinhua news agency reported citing Trump as saying in a tweet to his 80 million followers on Wednesday.

"We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen."

Later in the day, he said that Twitter "has now shown everything we have been saying about them... is correct" and vowed "big action to follow".

The President's remarks came after Twitter slapped a warning label on one of his tweets on Tuesday, cautioning readers "Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud".

It was in response to Trump's tweet, without providing evidence, said: "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent."

Also Read: Obama was ‘grossly incompetent president’, says Donald Trump
It is unclear what regulatory steps the president could take without new laws passed by Congress, the BBC reported.

The White House is yet to offer further details.

Earlier, Trump has accused Twitter of interfering in this year's US presidential election scheduled for November, saying the company was "completely stifling free speech, and I, as president, will not allow it to happen".

With more than 52,000 tweets currently to his name, Trump is a prolific tweeter and relies on the platform to disseminate his views to millions of people.

He has used Twitter to launch attacks on opponents, with targets ranging from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to his political rivals in the US.

In 2017 he used anti-Muslim tweets aimed at London Mayor Sadiq Khan to serve a domestic political purpose of warning about immigration.

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News Network
June 15,2020

Dubai, Jun 15: The global tally of Covid-19 coronavirus infections crossed the 8 million mark on Monday, with recoveries at 4.13 million, and deaths at nearly 436,000.

As of 11.40am UAE time, there were 3.43 active Covid-19 cases globally, of which 54,460 were serious or critical.

The United States still leads the charts with 2.16 million cases and 117,858 deaths. Behind US, at a distant No 2, is Brazil with 867,882 cases and 43,389 deaths.

Russia, India, the UK, Spain, Italy, Peru, Germany and Iran complete the top 10.

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