This article is chapter 2, of the synthetic analysis and timeline that is derived from our Air France, Flight 447 Research. Target date to have all five chapters online is February 1, 2012. Photos and technical graphs are presented in a larger size than is usual for a web page so that details and small font text may be read as easily as possible. This web page was coded for 1280 x 800 monitor display which is a wide screen (landscape) format. Printout of Chapter Two will be about 35 pages in 11 x 8.5 inch format. Please bookmark this page and occasionally check back to remain current with the publication schedule for the AF 447 Project.
Comments and opinions in this article are the sole responsibility of Bennett Blumenberg and do not reflect the views of any organization, government or private, that are mentioned in this article. The author does not have any relationship, public or private with the corporations and organizations referenced or mentioned in this article.
This is a long article with several chapters and ~33 pages printout, A4 dimensioned and is the centerpiece of a planned book. A professional background is not requisite to understand most of this presentation. However, some of the text and graphs are technical, and they can be skipped over by those so inclined without much loss of information base and narrative. The situational awareness of Air France Flight 447 is complicated, that is the reality of this disaster, and there are several scenarios to be dissected and then interwoven. Contrary to some published analysis of this tragedy, it cannot be explained by pilot error. Elevating 'pilot error' to a position of priority and most importance only serves to erect a large screen that blocks out the multiple parameters that coalesced to produce this most awful commercial aircraft accident. Yes, the pilots in the cockpit of this Airbus A300 aircraft did make errors in judgment. They made decisions that in hindsight do not seem first rate, but then their situational awareness had been destroyed. In the dark of early morning hours, a crisis came upon F-CZCP that rapidly placed all lives at risk. The emphasis upon 'pilot error' is particularly insidious when used by the BEA of France. BEA is the rough equivalent in France of the National Safety and Transportation Board (NTSB), and is the government agency that conducts all investigations of incidents involving French aircraft and airlines when such an inquiry is warranted. BEA stands for B(bureau) E(nquiry) A(viation), which expands to Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile (BEA; English: Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety]. BEA is known and respected throughout the world, make no mistake about that as you read criticisms of their investigation of Air France, Flight 447. Parallel to the investigation of the BEA are those of Airbus corporate, which may never be released to the public; and Air France, where at least a summary is expected for press publication.
Pilots can read Fly-By-Wire status from the Primary Flight Display (PFD) and quickly determine which Aviation Law is operationl. However, when data display to 'systems' is corrupted, then this and most displays in the cockpit are either blank or very misleading amd the challenge to situational awareness is extreme.
2h 10m 51s (54secs after the disconnect) the stall warning triggered again and the PF applied max power and made another nose-up pitch input. From this point on the aircraft was stalled and remained stalled.
15 secs later (which would be at 2h 11m 06s) the speeds on the FDR showed 185kts (if they are correct the aircraft would still have been well and truly stalled) and the PF inexplicably maintained his nose-up inputs.
At 2h 11m 40s the captain re-entered the flight deck, all recorded speeds became invalid and the stall warning stopped (because the speeds were below 60kts and the measured AoA is ignored by the system). At this point the aircraft was at 35,000ft with the AoA exceeding 40 degs nose up and the vertical speed 10,000ft/min down.
Perhaps recovery from the stall was possible at this point because at 2h 12m 17s the PF made a nose-down pitch input and the AoA decreased, the speeds became valid again but the stall warning triggered again as the speed parameters had returned to a valid condition, this would have been most confusing. However, the AoA, when it was valid, always remained above 35 degs.
The aircraft hit the water with a vertical speed of 10,912ft/min down, a forward ground speed of 107kts and a nose up attitude of 16.2 degs, at 2h 14 m 28. This was 4mins 03 secs after the first speed anomalies, 3mins 17 secs after the first stall warning, and about 3 mins 02 secs after the aircraft was well and truly stalled, probably already in some kind of deep stall.
CLICK HERE for a more detailed narrative of the Air France 447 flight that used the information released in the 147 pp BEA, 3RD INTERIM REPORT, JULY 29 -AUGUST 4, 2011. This Report provides the most complete narrative available because it was written shortly after data was extracted from the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) which were retrieved from the ocean crash site in early May, 2011. "The method subsequently adopted to recover all the saved data in the voice recorders involved reading the binary contents of each memory component using the BEA’s memory reader. By analyzing the binary contents of the memory components, the value of the various pointers could be determined. These pointers were then used to reconstruct the file in its correct chronological order. The files compressed in the manufacturer’s format were reconstructed using software developed by BEA that was based upon information provided by the manufacturer. The files were then decompressed using the manufacturer’s official hardware and software. The 5 audio tracks obtained in this way were synchronized and their duration was found to comply with the expected values: more than 30 minutes for tracks 1 to 3 and more than 2 hours for tracks 4 and 5.”
The last radio contact from F-GZCP was at 01:33 UTC when it sent a routine message to Brazilian air traffic controllers as the aircraft approached the boundary of Brazilian air space and would soon enter Senegalese air space. Forty minutes later, a four minute long series of automated radio messages was received from F-GZCP indicating several serious problems. Shortly, thereafter the aircraft began a fatal dive towards the ocean. 216 passengers and 12 crew members were lost. The first recovery from F-GZCP was on June 6, 2009 when search and rescue operations retrieved two bodies and some debris 680 miles (1,0980 km) northeast of the Fernando de Noronha Islands which are off the northeast coast of Brazil. Search operations were conducted in difficult ocean and weather conditions and in the absence of the aircraft's flight recorders.
Much of the material in this section is drawn from - "Lessons from Flight 447 Undersea Search Operations", by Olivier Ferrante, Head AF447 Underwater Recovery Group [BEA], May 10-11, 2011. The search and retrieval missions were more extensive and complicated than most people realize. The Air France budget alone was in excess of $12.7 million. Many ships, AUVs and submersibles were utilized, and the several search phases were spread over three years.
BEA Interim Report No.3, July 29, 2011 (French), August 4, 2011 (English) updates and expands the narrative of Air France Flight 447 with significant new information because it is based upon recovery of the data in the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder. We highly recommend reading the chapter in this research report that closely follows the material presented in this report. The entire 114 page BEA report is online at the BEA web site and is worth the time to at least look over if not read through in its entirety.
The closest inhabited islands to the Air France 447 crash site are of those of Fernando de Noronha. They form an archipelago of 21 islands and islets 354 km (220 miles) offshore from the Brazilian coast and belong to the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago. Fernando de Noronha is an UNESCO World Heritage Site. The main island has an area of 18.4 sq km(7.1 sq mi) and had a population of 3,012 in the year 2010. They are 620 miles from Natal, which is Brazil's most northeastern city and they are the only place in the Atlantic Ocean where abyssal mantle is exposed above sea level.
On June 6, the Brazilian Air Force had located bodies and found debris in the water. On June 8, the aircraft's vertical stabilizer was found and it has since been the subject of intense discussion. Ships, remote submarines and submersibles from United States, Brazil and France continued the search along with a nuclear submarine from France. When the Brazilian Navy ended their search efforts on June 26,, 51 bodies including that of the Captain Marc Dubois had been recovered. The search for the all important Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR) – the 'black boxes' – continued with the French nuclear submarine, and US Navy listening devices that were towed behind two contracted ships from France. From late July to August 20, 2009, a French vessel towed a sonar array through an area that had a 75km radius from the calculated last position of F-GZCP .
Airbus announced that beginning on May 6, 2010, it would fund an extensive search for the 'black boxes', following the clues and evidence developed by the French nuclear submarine in the summer of 2009. The search was unsuccessful and ended on May 24, 2010. A Fourth Search Phase started in February, 2011 and as the world knows, the voice recorders were found. The French government chartered three vessels and an American ship – the MV Alucia – which is an American privately owned, state-of-the-art oceanographic research vessel. On board, the Alucia was a Remora 6000, a remotely operated submersible which excels in deep water photography. The crew for this mission were personnel experienced in aircraft recovery for the United States Navy. The chassis for the Flight Data Recorder was found at the end of a 12 hour search on April 26, 2011. The FDR memory unit was found on May 1 and remarkably, it had suffered only minor corrosion. The F-GZCP voice recorder was found at 2150 UTC on May 2, 2011 as efforts to recover the newly discovered bodies began. On May 7, 2011 the fight recorders were placed under judicial seal and transferred to the French Navy patrol boat La Capricieuse for journey to the port of Cayenne. From there, the recorders were flown to the BEA office in Bourget for data analysis. One engine and an avionic's bay that contains the on board computers were also brought to the surface. Using multibeam, bathymetric sonar, a team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (Massachusetts, USA) discovered a small, compact debris field in a flat and silty part of the ocean floor at 3800 – 4000 metes with engines, wing parts, landing gear, and additional bodies lying in remnants of the fuselage.
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FDR MEMORY MODULE CHASSIS - A100 TAPE PROTECTION
Photos - BEA Technical Report / Flight Recorders The small unit to the right of the memory module is the Underwater Locator Beacon.
Flight Data Recorder memory was raised from from the debris field on the ocean floor that was 10,000 sq metres in area on May 1, 2011. The FDR chassis had been found prior to the BEA announcement on April 27, 2011. The Cockpit Voice Recorder was found and brought to the surface a few hours after the FDR. The memory module from the FDR was readable, and that from the CVR was also determined to be intact according to the BEA press release. Although BEA estimated that some information might be available in as little as two weeks after recovery, an announcement from BEA on May 13, stated that a report on the data gleaned from the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder will not be available for eight months, that is early in 2012. With all due humility, this project is attempting some degree of sensible interpretation in advance of the BEA 2012 report. BEA is The Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile (Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety) is an agency of the French government, responsible for investigating aviation accidents and making safety recommendations based on what is learned from those investigations. It is headquartered on the grounds of Le Bourget Airport in Le Bourget, near Paris. As with all accidents involving French aircraft, BEA plays a central role in the ongoing investigation of the Air France, Flight 447 tragedy.
This article is Chapter Two from our Air France Flight 447 project. Each of the 'chapters' in the AF 447 'ebook' can be read as a 'stand alone' article. Chapters and appendices in this ebook are released out of sequence so as to make them available at the earliest possible date.
The second chapter in this eBook discusses the search for the wreckage of Air France, Flight 447, and the recovery of the Flight Deck Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder. The third chapter reviews the last five minutes of Air France, Flight 447. The fourth chapter examines the design and function of the pitot-static and angle of attack sensors whose data is essential to the Fly-By-Wire computer system interaction with flight control surfaces. There is a consensus that iced over pitot tubes rendered the Airbus 330 computer system unable to properly instruct flight control surfaces because the data stream the conveyed essential parameters about the flight envelope was either absent or corrupted from a critical time point forward. The fifth chapter will look at the vertical stabilizer of Airbus 330 aircraft, review the problems inherent with carbon-resin components in aircraft design, review aviation incidents in which tail components detached from the aircraft fuselage, and attempt to assess the contribution to the Air France FLight 447 tragedy that was made by the loss of the vertical stabilizer.
The sixth chapter will look at 'hypercomplexity' as inherently problematic in aircraft design. The seventh and last chapter will attempt an integrative scenario - synthetic analysis - to explain the AF 447 tragedy. Several suggestions for changes to aircraft design and pilot training will be offered. Target date to have all chapters and appendices online is February 1, 2012, at which point this ebook can be read in a coordinated sequence. Photos and technical graphs are presented in a larger size than is usual so that details and small font text may be read as easily as is possible. The design of these web pages is optimized for a monitor
resolution of 1440 x 900. If your monitor is set to display smaller dimensions, horizontal scrolling of these web pages will be necessary. Please bookmark this page and occasionally check back to remain current with this publication schedule.
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F-GCZP FLIGHT RECORDER SECURED in LOCKED TANK 
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