Air France Black Box ResultsPilot Error

James Robinson wrote:
"vaughn" wrote:

"The pilots of an Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean
two years ago apparently became distracted with faulty airspeed
indicators and failed to properly deal with other vital systems,
including adjusting engine thrust, according to people familiar with
preliminary findings from the plane's recorders."

An unfortunate rush to judgement on the part of the media. The aircraft
appears to have had major systems fail, and the pilot is blamed for not
being able to deal with it. There is even some question that Air France
trains the pilots on how to handle such problems.

Maybe system failure or inadequate training is more to blame, and the
pilots were simply the victims?


The PBS NOVA TV series aired an episode in February that attempted to apply
accident forensics on the facts then known. This being nearly two years
after the crash, with the not unreasonable assumption that the recorders
would never be recovered, they could not be accused of leaping to
conclusions.

If the preliminary indications from the recorders are as claimed, then it
appears the NOVA experts did a remarkable job in determining the most
probable accident sequence sans recorder data.

The NOVA show can be viewed online here (I thought it well done for its
target audience):

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/c...light-447.html