I was reading some reports to what, (might have), happened to flight 447, (a doomed Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris).
I was reading an article about 'what really happened to flight 447', basically the aircraft got into some weather and the crew tried to climb out of it. The speed indicators got iced up, the crew then started the de-icing procedures, the autopilot disconnected because of the ice and they now had to fly the aircraft manually.
This started a chain of event that would cause a stall that the pilots did not get out of.
The sad part in this story is that the aircraft was never in any real danger, there was nothing wrong with it to begin with. The ice that cause the AP to disengage was not something out of the ordinary, you could even argue that all they had to do was fly straight for a couple of minutes while the de-icing was happening, (they knew it would take a few minutes).
A few minutes before the crash the captain had gone to rest, while the copilot and the second copilot were flying the bird, for some time there was a bit of confusion as to who was in command of the aircraft, (the younger, less experienced, of the two pilots was trying to climb while the other pilot was confused as to what was happening).
Eventually, when the more experience co-pilot finally took control, he seems to have been confused for a while, (and he kept on trying to pull up), when they finally realised what was going on, it was too late, (and the other pilot was still trying to climb anyway).
I am sure everybody has their own explanation as to what happened, from 2 co-pilots and no captain to the airbus stick no giving input if the stick is been pulled by the other pilot.
Personally I think the issue had more to do with the confusion as to who was in charge, who controlled the bird. You can try and blame Airbus as much as you want, but nothing was faulty, the plane was stalling and all the instruments clearly indicate that it was.
The more senior of the two pilot never knew that the other was pulling the nose into a stall, should the instruments display who is in command? Should there be an indication when the controls are been 'averaged'?
Amongst pilots it is often seen as taboo to point fingers at a fellow pilot, we often try to look for every technical reasons why there was a crash. But all the signs were there for them to see, maybe the training is what failed? Maybe they relied too much on the computers to fly them out of the problems?
Did the junior co-pilot panic and tried to climb against his better judgement/training? Did the more senior co-pilot forget some of his own basic training? Why did the captain, (when he finally arrived), not take control of the aircraft?
I guess we will never know what really happened, (or, to be more specific, why they did what they did), BEA has yet to finalise what actually happened on the flight, according to their interim report, they seem to be heavily leaning toward a human error, (given what I have read I tend to agree).
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