spl440
Everybody's Fool
Supposedly the flight track from the A/C that went down earlier today. Sudden airspeed drop does not look good. Very sad. Has been very hard year in the Aviation world.
Germanwings flight.
- Thread starter spl440
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Riddler
Project EH-Body
Where did you get this graph? Can it made bigger?
Riddler
Riddler
spl440
Everybody's Fool
received it from a friend who is to remain nameless. tried to upload larger but not very computer literate to do so.
spl440
Everybody's Fool
Found a current AD ( Airworthiness Directive ) 2014-25-51 on that type A/C. It is for the AOA , angle of attack sensor freezing, causing a sudden pitch down of the flight controls from the auto pilot, without being able to be corrected by the pilot inputs. Not sure if it has anything to with what happened but makes for some interesting reading. Again prayers go out for the families involved.
roadrunnerh
Well-Known Member
No distress call? I smell a muslim.
Or you could just jump to conclusions without considering ANY of the facts, sure.
The plane was set up on a descent to lose ~3,500 to 4,000 feet per minute. While fairly steep, it's very controllable. In fact, it's a descent profile that's inline with something pilots would intentionally set if there was a cabin pressure change or problem.
The decrease in altitude began just a couple minutes after reaching peak cruising altitude at 38,000 feet. Also known as the point when the pressure outside the plane and inside the plane would have been at the highest gradient.
The altitude of the plane decreased until ~10,000 feet, leveled off slightly, and then decreased slightly again. All while the airspeed remained relatively constant, and then decreased slightly. The airspeed on that graph is in red, and the axis scale is fairly narrow, so that speed decrease is not substantial or dangerous by itself. The final decrease in speed is also when the plane is still descending, and only took the plane down to 380 kts, which is still plenty fast. The altitude dropped over 30,000 feet, but the speed never wavered by more than 100 kts. In fact, during the first 20,000 feet of descent the speed didnt change more than 20 kts. What does all that mean? It was a controlled decent, by someone that knew how to do it. Not kinda knew how to do it, but really knew how to do it.
If you just nose it into the ground, you dump altitude and GAIN airspeed. Lots of it. If you're fighting for control, your flight profile doesn't look like that. If you're trying to auger the plane into the mountains, your flight profile doesn't look like that. Why the heck would you set a descent that will take over 8 minutes if your goal is to crash the plane? That's just 8 minutes for someone to change the course of events. Even you lost ALL power in an A320, your glide slope doesn't even look like that. A non-power glide with trim for max altitude in an A320 is closer to a 1,500 ft/min descent, A320's are pretty efficient aircraft.
Its all up to the data recorder and flight deck recorder now. The lack of a distress call is unusual, but not unheard of. Your training tells you to make the call, but your instinct is to deal with the issues at hand. And if the issue at hand is dire it could involve everyone on the flight deck, and task saturation sometimes means that call doesn't get made. The descent looks like a response to a cabin pressure or cabin atmosphere issue. And the continued descent below a safe altitude, while obviously tragic, would also fit with a crew that was struggling with cabin pressure or atmosphere issues, like oxygen deprivation, smoke inhalation, etc. Or a mechanical issue causing the plane to lose altitude.
There are obviously a lot of possibilities, and I'm sure there will be a thorough investigation of all of them. But quite possibly the ONE thing that flight profile DOESN'T look like is terrorism. What it does look like is a trained response to a mechanical issue, after which the crew either lost awareness of either the plane's or the terrain's altitude, lost avionics on the terrain, or were simply unable to do anything further about it.
Regardless, it's a tragedy for all of those families. And it has been a lousy year in the commercial aviation world.
This is a larger version of the graph. It's a from a flight tracking website called FlightRadar24, which tracks civil aviation flights throughout the world. Also, not as accurate as the information that will come from the plane. You can actually see an interactive version here, which will link the altitude and flight speed in the readout. http://www.flightradar24.com/data/airplanes/d-aipx/#5d42675
65LoveAffair
Whovian
Or you could just jump to conclusions without considering ANY of the facts, sure.
The plane was set up on a descent to lose ~3,500 to 4,000 feet per minute. While fairly steep, it's very controllable. In fact, it's a descent profile that's inline with something pilots would intentionally set if there was a cabin pressure change or problem.
The decrease in altitude began just a couple minutes after reaching peak cruising altitude at 38,000 feet. Also known as the point when the pressure outside the plane and inside the plane would have been at the highest gradient.
The altitude of the plane decreased until ~10,000 feet, leveled off slightly, and then decreased slightly again. All while the airspeed remained relatively constant, and then decreased slightly. The airspeed on that graph is in red, and the axis scale is fairly narrow, so that speed decrease is not substantial or dangerous by itself. The final decrease in speed is also when the plane is still descending, and only took the plane down to 380 kts, which is still plenty fast. The altitude dropped over 30,000 feet, but the speed never wavered by more than 100 kts. In fact, during the first 20,000 feet of descent the speed didnt change more than 20 kts. What does all that mean? It was a controlled decent, by someone that knew how to do it. Not kinda knew how to do it, but really knew how to do it.
If you just nose it into the ground, you dump altitude and GAIN airspeed. Lots of it. If you're fighting for control, your flight profile doesn't look like that. If you're trying to auger the plane into the mountains, your flight profile doesn't look like that. Why the heck would you set a descent that will take over 8 minutes if your goal is to crash the plane? That's just 8 minutes for someone to change the course of events. Even you lost ALL power in an A320, your glide slope doesn't even look like that. A non-power glide with trim for max altitude in an A320 is closer to a 1,500 ft/min descent, A320's are pretty efficient aircraft.
Its all up to the data recorder and flight deck recorder now. The lack of a distress call is unusual, but not unheard of. Your training tells you to make the call, but your instinct is to deal with the issues at hand. And if the issue at hand is dire it could involve everyone on the flight deck, and task saturation sometimes means that call doesn't get made. The descent looks like a response to a cabin pressure or cabin atmosphere issue. And the continued descent below a safe altitude, while obviously tragic, would also fit with a crew that was struggling with cabin pressure or atmosphere issues, like oxygen deprivation, smoke inhalation, etc. Or a mechanical issue causing the plane to lose altitude.
There are obviously a lot of possibilities, and I'm sure there will be a thorough investigation of all of them. But quite possibly the ONE thing that flight profile DOESN'T look like is terrorism. What it does look like is a trained response to a mechanical issue, after which the crew either lost awareness of either the plane's or the terrain's altitude, lost avionics on the terrain, or were simply unable to do anything further about it.
Regardless, it's a tragedy for all of those families. And it has been a lousy year in the commercial aviation world.
This is a larger version of the graph. It's a from a flight tracking website called FlightRadar24, which tracks civil aviation flights throughout the world. Also, not as accurate as the information that will come from the plane. You can actually see an interactive version here, which will link the altitude and flight speed in the readout. http://www.flightradar24.com/data/airplanes/d-aipx/#5d42675
Thank you for the intelligent and detailed response to the FACTS of the situation, and not mindlessly jumping to conclusions as others would have us do. I appreciate the information.
adriver
Blazing Apostle
I smell a copilot.
What jumped out at me was the lack of radio.
For eight mins?
Nothing, nada, zilch, nitchs?
Then an unscheduled contact with ground.
Woop Woop Pull Up Terrain.
What jumped out at me was the lack of radio.
For eight mins?
Nothing, nada, zilch, nitchs?
Then an unscheduled contact with ground.
Woop Woop Pull Up Terrain.
rtee007
Deplorable Texan
Well looks like pilot was locked put of cockpit according to flight recorder. Seems like another "peaceful" religious experience.
Hemioutlaw
Make America Great Again!
Co-pilot drove plane into the ground, just announced he had a recent sex offender case for exposing himself to a woman and had been told by the airline he was going to be fired after this flight which would be his last. How incredibly stupid could a company be to allow someone with emotional distress pilot an aircraft....This will be a slamdunk in the courts when the lawsuits start pouring in and hopefully bankrupt the company which they absolutely deserve for being so fricken stupid.
Bulldozer
free ice cream sandwiches
Even more ignorant to tell him he was about to be fired before letting him get back behind the wheel instead of after his last shift. How stupid
65LoveAffair
Whovian
Do you have a link to this? I can't find this info anywhere. All sites I've seen just say they have no idea why he would do this.
Old Man Mopar
Righteous Dude
If that is true, Lufthansa has some splaining to do!
65LoveAffair
Whovian
This is a link to the Fox News story about the co-pilot intentionally crashing the plane. It says nothing about him being investigated for a sex offense or that he was going to be fired.
Hemioutlaw
Make America Great Again!
Heard it on Fox news this morning.
65LoveAffair
Whovian
Wow, okay. I'm not doubting you. I just hadn't heard this at all. It makes this so much more tragic than it already was. Thanks.
69_340_GTS
Well-Known Member
By Lori Hinnant, Associated Press
Posted: 03/26/15, 8:37 AM EDT
PARIS >> The co-pilot of a Germanwings flight that slammed into an Alpine mountainside intentionally sent the plane into its doomed descent, a French prosecutor said Thursday.
Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said the commander left the cockpit, presumably to go to the lavatory, and then was unable to regain access. In the meantime, he said, co-pilot Andreas Lubitz manually and intentionally set the plane on the descent that drove it into the mountainside in the southern French Alps.
It was the co-pilots intention to destroy this plane, Robin said.
The information was pulled from the black box cockpit voice recorder, but Robin said the co-pilot did not say a word after the commanding pilot left the cockpit.
It was absolute silence in the cockpit, he said.
During the final minutes of the flights descent, pounding could be heard on the door as alarms sounded, he said.
In the German town of Montabaur, acquaintances said Lubitz was in his late twenties and showed no signs of depression when they saw him last fall as he renewed his glider pilots license.
He was happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well, said a member of the glider club, Peter Ruecker, who watched him learn to fly. He gave off a good feeling.
Lubitz had obtained his glider pilots license as a teenager, and was accepted as a Lufthansa pilot trainee after finishing a tough German college preparatory school, Ruecker said. He described Lubitz as a rather quiet but friendly young man.
The Airbus A320, on a flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, began to descend from cruising altitude after losing radio contact with ground control and slammed into the remote mountain on Tuesday morning, killing all 150 people on board.
Lufthansa has not identified the pilots but said the co-pilot joined Germanwings in September 2013, directly after training, and had flown 630 hours.
The captain had more than 6,000 hours of flying time and been a Germanwings pilot since May 2014, having previously flown for Lufthansa and Condor, Lufthansa said.
David Rising in Berlin and Alan Clendenning in Madrid contributed to this report.
Posted: 03/26/15, 8:37 AM EDT
PARIS >> The co-pilot of a Germanwings flight that slammed into an Alpine mountainside intentionally sent the plane into its doomed descent, a French prosecutor said Thursday.
Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said the commander left the cockpit, presumably to go to the lavatory, and then was unable to regain access. In the meantime, he said, co-pilot Andreas Lubitz manually and intentionally set the plane on the descent that drove it into the mountainside in the southern French Alps.
It was the co-pilots intention to destroy this plane, Robin said.
The information was pulled from the black box cockpit voice recorder, but Robin said the co-pilot did not say a word after the commanding pilot left the cockpit.
It was absolute silence in the cockpit, he said.
During the final minutes of the flights descent, pounding could be heard on the door as alarms sounded, he said.
In the German town of Montabaur, acquaintances said Lubitz was in his late twenties and showed no signs of depression when they saw him last fall as he renewed his glider pilots license.
He was happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well, said a member of the glider club, Peter Ruecker, who watched him learn to fly. He gave off a good feeling.
Lubitz had obtained his glider pilots license as a teenager, and was accepted as a Lufthansa pilot trainee after finishing a tough German college preparatory school, Ruecker said. He described Lubitz as a rather quiet but friendly young man.
The Airbus A320, on a flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, began to descend from cruising altitude after losing radio contact with ground control and slammed into the remote mountain on Tuesday morning, killing all 150 people on board.
Lufthansa has not identified the pilots but said the co-pilot joined Germanwings in September 2013, directly after training, and had flown 630 hours.
The captain had more than 6,000 hours of flying time and been a Germanwings pilot since May 2014, having previously flown for Lufthansa and Condor, Lufthansa said.
David Rising in Berlin and Alan Clendenning in Madrid contributed to this report.
If it's true that Germanwings informed him he would be fired after the flight that airline is done. That's beyond egregious, that's straight up negligence. It would be bad enough if they didn't know he was facing charges and just let him assume he would be fired. But to actually tell him before the flight?!
It also appears that Germanwings doesn't do any psychological testing (another article), which I find really strange. I had to do a full psychological eval to become a firefighter. But not an airline pilot?
It's horrifyingly ironic that the reinforced, locking cabin door actually allowed this series of events to play out. I mean, seriously. The cabin doors, before 9/11, were pretty flimsy and didn't lock, or at least not very securely, for a reason. But instead we just assume that everyone is a terrorist, and install doors that can't be overridden from the outside if someone on the inside so chooses, and are reinforced so the can't be easily broken down. Well, here's one reason that's a really bad idea. If someone inside the cabin wants to crash the plane, what do you do? Heck, if a terrorist takes the cabin and locks themselves in, what do you do? Ignorant, uninformed decisions will make terrorists more successful than they could have ever dreamed.
It also appears that Germanwings doesn't do any psychological testing (another article), which I find really strange. I had to do a full psychological eval to become a firefighter. But not an airline pilot?
It's horrifyingly ironic that the reinforced, locking cabin door actually allowed this series of events to play out. I mean, seriously. The cabin doors, before 9/11, were pretty flimsy and didn't lock, or at least not very securely, for a reason. But instead we just assume that everyone is a terrorist, and install doors that can't be overridden from the outside if someone on the inside so chooses, and are reinforced so the can't be easily broken down. Well, here's one reason that's a really bad idea. If someone inside the cabin wants to crash the plane, what do you do? Heck, if a terrorist takes the cabin and locks themselves in, what do you do? Ignorant, uninformed decisions will make terrorists more successful than they could have ever dreamed.
69_340_GTS
Well-Known Member
Here is something the Europeans might think about changing:
"Airlines in Europe are not required to have two people in the cockpit at all times, unlike the standard U.S. operating procedure, which was changed after the 9/11 attacks to require a flight attendant to take the spot of a briefly departing pilot."
"Airlines in Europe are not required to have two people in the cockpit at all times, unlike the standard U.S. operating procedure, which was changed after the 9/11 attacks to require a flight attendant to take the spot of a briefly departing pilot."
I'm sure it will probably change. But, in practice, will it make much of a difference? Maybe in some cases, but if the flight attendant is 5' nothing and weighs 100 lbs soaking wet, is it much of a deterrent?
For that matter, if the pilot is 5' nothing and 100 lbs soaking wet, does the pilot even need to leave the cabin? Sure, it makes it easier just to lock them out. But if you're really intent on crashing the plane you lock the door and subdue the other pilot/attendant.
The ability of the person/persons in the cabin to completely isolate themselves from the rest of the plane is only a good idea in the case that the "bad guy" is outside of the cabin. If that changes, the ability to isolate the cabin from the rest of the plane becomes a decided advantage. Which is why they didn't lock, or not as securely as they do now.
Absolutely.
Bulldozer
free ice cream sandwiches
I haven't heard one iota from on any news channel about that in the last 2 hours. I think that may have been a false report and tossed in the dumpster
Jlcaptain24
Well-Known Member
I'm an airline pilot for a living for a major carrier.
When we do the "bathroom shuffle" the flight attendant that comes up front to replace the pilot hardly ever sits down....like almost never. Technically, they're not allowed to as they're not "current and qualified" in the seat. They stand by the door.
They're one job in life at that point is to open the door for the other pilot in the event something goes wrong: loss of pressurization, medical event of remaining pilot, and I guess we can add batsh*t crazy to that list as well.
In any point, how we do things would have most likely prevented this....or at a minimum discouraged el nutbag from trying it.
When we do the "bathroom shuffle" the flight attendant that comes up front to replace the pilot hardly ever sits down....like almost never. Technically, they're not allowed to as they're not "current and qualified" in the seat. They stand by the door.
They're one job in life at that point is to open the door for the other pilot in the event something goes wrong: loss of pressurization, medical event of remaining pilot, and I guess we can add batsh*t crazy to that list as well.
In any point, how we do things would have most likely prevented this....or at a minimum discouraged el nutbag from trying it.
roadrunnerh
Well-Known Member
"a trained response to a mechanical issue" HAHAHAHAHAHA
Try suicide/homicide....
Well Mr. Bigshot, the facts show your theory was dead wrong as well.
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