News Germanwings Flight 4U9525 (Airbus A320) crash in Southern France (24 March 2015)

Urwumpe

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This one would be a much better example:

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990"]EgyptAir Flight 990 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

---------- Post added at 12:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:56 AM ----------

What if he waited for another pilot to get out of the seat, then pushed the stick hard?
The sudden negative Gs would slam everyone standing head-first into the ceiling, breaking their necks (or at least knocking them out).

Is that a plausible scenario?

The limit protection would largely prevent this. Also, you can only force the plane into a 15° dive, so even if you push it fully forward, the effect would be largely disappointing in the end.

So, first of all, you have to get into direct law and disable the autopilot - that removes a lot of the surprise.

Also: The flight path as observed does not show such maneuvers.
 

DeskOrbinaut

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It is fairly atypical for a suicidal person to take someone else with them, much less a hundred strangers.

Yes. No airline pilot would kill himself with a fully loaded airplane. He wouldn't even crash the airplane if someone would try to force him with a weapon. That's why the 9/11 attackers killed the pilots first.

Going straight into a movie script territory...
What if he waited for another pilot to get out of the seat, then pushed the stick hard?
The sudden negative Gs would slam everyone standing head-first into the ceiling, breaking their necks (or at least knocking them out).

Is that a plausible scenario?

Pulling or pushing the side stick doesn't have a direct effect on the control surfaces and movement of the airplane. The inputs go to the flight control computers first. The software checks whether the inputs the pilots are doing make sense or not. They prevent the exceedance of the load limits and unusual attitudes.
 

Urwumpe

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CA8MlqyUUAEXKOp.jpg:large


The fairly damaged CVR, but the crown jewels are still intact.

---------- Post added at 01:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:51 PM ----------

Yes. No airline pilot would kill himself with a fully loaded airplane. He wouldn't even crash the airplane if someone would try to force him with a weapon. That's why the 9/11 attackers killed the pilots first.

Wrong - it did happen.
 

DeskOrbinaut

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Wrong - it did happen.

Maybe one time in the entire aviation history. But maybe not. I should have added healthy or rationally behaving. No one knows what led to Batoutis behaviour. Mental disorder can led to mental incapacity.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_Airways_Flight_191"]JetBlue Airways Flight 191 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
 

Urwumpe

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I should have added healthy or rationally behaving.

No healthy or rationally behaving human being has ever committed suicide, so this argumentation is pretty misleading.

Also, just to remind you: No real human acts always rationally. We all have the spark of the irrational in us.

Suicide is always the fatal end of a lengthy process of small and large irrationality.

Not rational logic. Spock might have glorified the idea of rational suicide, but its an irrational form of rationality - it only is rational within a context of irrationality.

The problem: Irrationality can't be understood rational. You can model it like quantum physics, with the observer changing the observed (Studying economics is really helpful sometimes :lol: ) and with concepts like decisions by uncertain probabilities.

And now, the most important argument of mine here:

Why the hell are we discussing suicide without a single observation even suggesting it?

Sorry, but I find it a bit really sick. Next we can also discuss about God pushing the aircraft into the mountains for punishing the infidels. Or about the aircraft flying into the mountain because somebody played X-Plane on his smartphone.
 

DeskOrbinaut

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No healthy or rationally behaving human being has ever committed suicide, so this argumentation is pretty misleading.

Agreed. Let me say it this way: under normal circumstances no healthy airline pilot would kill himself and his passengers.

Pilot suicide is a rather unlikely event. I'm wondering why suicide theories always arise these days.
 

Urwumpe

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I wonder about something else there....

What if the pilot wanted to program the autopilot for a descend to 10,000 ft and then passed out while turning the altitude selector knob and turned it a few digits further? I would need to research how much motion is needed for 5000 ft in an Airbus A320 cockpit, but the altitude is changed in 1000 ft steps then and the EXPED ("expedite") option would be selected for more rapid descent.

EDIT: Checked the manuals... one click on the knob is 1,000 ft and one turn of the knob has 32 clicks - so 5,000 feet lower is just 5/32 * 360 = 56.25° more rotation.

"EXP DES" mode (expedite descent) aims for Mach 0.8 or 340 knots IAS and holds this speed by pitch control in IDLE thrust. Would need more data to check this, but I believe that the groundspeed measurements are not yet contradicting it, would need some comparison data of other aircraft in that region to calculate the TAS and IAS.

EXP DES is the most rapid descent possible while under autopilot control.
 
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DeskOrbinaut

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I wonder about something else there....

What if the pilot wanted to program the autopilot for a descend to 10,000 ft and then passed out while turning the altitude selector knob and turned it a few digits further? I would need to research how much motion is needed for 5000 ft in an Airbus A320 cockpit, but the altitude is changed in 1000 ft steps then and the EXPED ("expedite") option would be selected for more rapid descent.

If they used the auto pilot.

There was no communication between the cockpit crew and ATC. So they where very busy with the airplane or indeed unconscious. If they where unconscious then a rapid depressurization or fumes are possible causes. 8 minutes is more than enough time to become unconscious. Germanwings already had problems with burnt smell in the cockpit of a Airbus A319 in 2010. The first officer even became unable to perform his duties. It happened during landing. The cause was never found...

---------- Post added at 02:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:23 PM ----------

EDIT: Checked the manuals... one click on the knob is 1,000 ft and one turn of the knob has 32 clicks - so 5,000 feet lower is just 5/32 * 360 = 56.25°

Demonstration of how quick you can dial new altitudes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bc1HGLKXSA&feature=player_detailpage#t=649
 

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I wonder about something else there....

What if the pilot wanted to program the autopilot for a descend to 10,000 ft and then passed out while turning the altitude selector knob and turned it a few digits further? I would need to research how much motion is needed for 5000 ft in an Airbus A320 cockpit, but the altitude is changed in 1000 ft steps then and the EXPED ("expedite") option would be selected for more rapid descent.

80cb5df4b1f231d65ec5c289520d0fe4.png

(source: flightradar24.com - Tabular data as linked earlier)

On average during the descent, the plane descended at a v-speed of ~50 feet/sec, or 3000 feet/min. That's quite a quick vertical speed, which would confirm EXPED mode.
 
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Urwumpe

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Warning!

A helicopter pilot in the French Air Force based in Orange, 30 minutes away from the site of the crash, told IBTimes UK witnessesin the crash investigation told him "they had heard an explosion and seen smoke".

Anonymous witness speaks about other anonymous witnesses.

Sorry - but that is most likely another media fabrication by terror hungry tabloids.

---------- Post added at 05:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:32 PM ----------

The audio files on the CVR have the expected size and are complete, the full analysis will take a few months now, but preliminary results can be expected soon.
 

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How many Gs are black boxes certified to withstand?
I only saw one recovered BB, and it looked pretty awful.

Edit
OMG, Wikipedia says 3400G!!
 
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Urwumpe

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How many Gs are black boxes certified to withstand?
I only saw one recovered BB, and it looked awful.

3400g for 6.5 ms according to EUROCAE standards.
 

DeskOrbinaut

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Warning!

Anonymous witness speaks about other anonymous witnesses.

Sorry - but that is most likely another media fabrication by terror hungry tabloids.

Smoke doesn't necessarily correlate with terrorism.

The audio files on the CVR have the expected size and are complete, the full analysis will take a few months now, but preliminary results can be expected soon.

Way sooner than in case of MH17...
 

Urwumpe

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Smoke doesn't necessarily correlate with terrorism.

It does. Not because terrorists did that. But because explosions, fire and smoke invoke terror in the reader and sell more copies of the newspaper.
 

Urwumpe

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OK, I was wrong about the procedure in that case, the first actions before descending to 14000 ft are:

EMER DESCENT » + PA « RAPID DESC ».
• Altitude 2 turns & pull.
• Hdg 2 turns & pull.
• Speed pull.
• Read FMA.
• Speedbrakes ½, then FULL*.
• Adjust ALT – HDG – SPEED.
« ECAM ACTIONS

Would need to research further, what effects the actions have, especially the first three, but it looks like there is a special "konami code" for initiating a rapid descent.
 

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Remember the 3400g rating is for the armored bit where the tape containing the recording is held.

Nowadays it's more because it's smaller and has SSD inside. AND the SSD's chips are configured in an interleaved fashion so that if some get damaged the data is on the remaining chips in its entirety.
 

Artlav

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Nowadays it's more because it's smaller and has SSD inside.
I'm not really sure how SSD can be more reliable than tape.
It's a silicon chip - one crack, and it's gone completely. Does not take much Gs to crack it.
Tape, on the other hand, should survive a huge amount of abuse before becoming completely unrecoverable, and having some damage does not destroy all data.
 

Urwumpe

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The first action (Altitude 2 turns and pull) initiates an open descent mode by pulling, still no idea about the two turns.
The second is different.... pulling engages the HDG mode, but the two turns are still unknown to me.

---------- Post added at 09:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:10 PM ----------

It's a silicon chip - one crack, and it's gone completely. Does not take much Gs to crack it.

It takes a lot of g to crack a IC. No mechanic parts that require motion, lots of volume free around the IC for additional foam protection to reduce the gs.
 
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