Air France 447 black boxes

Ages ago when I was taking ground school, thinking I would get my pilot’s license, I asked my pilot friend some questions about the mechanics of flying. To my surprise my friend, a retired Eastern Airlines Boeing L-1011 pilot, could not answer my simple questions. I wondered to myself how a seasoned pilot could not know the basics. It seemed to me that, like many things people do in their jobs, the skill of flying a plane becomes second nature to many pilots and they no longer have to think about what they’re doing.

Except when they do have to think. Like in an emergency.

The news today is that investigators of the doomed Air France flight 447 have found evidence that pilots were pulling the nose up on the plane in reaction to the stall warning.

France’s BEA crash investigation agency said pilots pulled the nose up at crucial moments as the aircraft became unstable and the aircraft generated an audible stall warning.

“The inputs made by the pilot flying were mainly nose-up,” the BEA said in a timeline based on initial examination of the cockpit voice and data recorders.

A top aircraft industry safety consultant said the standard guidance in the Airbus pilot manual called for the pilot to push the control stick forward to force the plane’s nose down in the event of a stall, which can lead to a loss of control.

As any aviation student knows, this is exactly the opposite of what you should do in a stall. Why did the three pilots make this simple but deadly mistake? That’s one tale that the aircraft’s recovered black boxes won’t likely be able to tell.