This case is about what really happened in Air France 447 and what were causes of it.
After analyzing the only data available, which were cryptic set of communications, experts found out that mostly the crash happened because of human factors. The weather conditions were bad and after AF447 passed into clouds associated with a large system of thunderstorms, its speed sensors became iced over, and the autopilot disengaged. In the ensuing confusion, the pilots lost control of the airplane because they reacted incorrectly to the loss of instrumentation and then seemed unable to comprehend the nature of the problems they had caused. So neither weather nor malfunction or a complex chain of error caused this crash, but a simple but persistent mistake on the part of one …show more content…
Also, the misleading stall warnings tricked the pilots into resuming the wrong action when they were on the right track. Information that the flight is in alternate mode is limited which presumably led the pilots to think that the aircraft cannot be stalled.
Operational limitations: Air France was alerted to the problem of misbehaving pitot tubes by other crews and procedures were in place to repair or replace the pitot tubes on all its aircrafts. However this flight was allowed to fly without any modification, assuming there would not be any problem in the face of delay and money involved in grounding the entire fleet.
Lack of division of authority – As I stated earlier, lack of CRM was among crew members. They failed at cooperation. It was unclear to them who were responsible for what and that lead to misunderstanding between them. According to Nutter, it is natural result of having two co-pilots flying the plane. If the captain was there, it would be clear who is in charge. He has command authority and is responsible for everything. But in our case two first officers were in front and it caused
After analyzing the only data available, which were cryptic set of communications, experts found out that mostly the crash happened because of human factors. The weather conditions were bad and after AF447 passed into clouds associated with a large system of thunderstorms, its speed sensors became iced over, and the autopilot disengaged. In the ensuing confusion, the pilots lost control of the airplane because they reacted incorrectly to the loss of instrumentation and then seemed unable to comprehend the nature of the problems they had caused. So neither weather nor malfunction or a complex chain of error caused this crash, but a simple but persistent mistake on the part of one …show more content…
Also, the misleading stall warnings tricked the pilots into resuming the wrong action when they were on the right track. Information that the flight is in alternate mode is limited which presumably led the pilots to think that the aircraft cannot be stalled.
Operational limitations: Air France was alerted to the problem of misbehaving pitot tubes by other crews and procedures were in place to repair or replace the pitot tubes on all its aircrafts. However this flight was allowed to fly without any modification, assuming there would not be any problem in the face of delay and money involved in grounding the entire fleet.
Lack of division of authority – As I stated earlier, lack of CRM was among crew members. They failed at cooperation. It was unclear to them who were responsible for what and that lead to misunderstanding between them. According to Nutter, it is natural result of having two co-pilots flying the plane. If the captain was there, it would be clear who is in charge. He has command authority and is responsible for everything. But in our case two first officers were in front and it caused