Re: Germanwing Aircraft Crashes in French Alps
 

Maybe, I don't know. We had 2 big crashes though at my time at LHR. The Virgin 340 and one I was heavily involved in, the BA 777. Unfortunately, the pics of the 777 are all on my old phone, but I guess everyone saw the pics on the news. The worst injury was a broken leg where the floor buckled up from the gear being pushed up underneath. Incidentally, there's a great YouTube clip of the immediate aftermath of that crash of the tower comms. The guy is as cool as a cucumber. You can also hear my old unit calling to enter the runway. That was an exciting day at work (I think I can say that as no one died)

Re: Germanwing Aircraft Crashes in French Alps
 

BBC (and others) reporting that the second black box was recovered yesterday (Thursday). Apparently the difficulty in locating it was that it was a) very badly damaged, almost unrecognizable from the photos, and b) it was camouflaged as it was almost the same color as the rocks it was lodged in. I always thought these were brightly colored. Despite the damage, it appears the data is still retrievable and they seem to be getting to it very quickly...reports that the copilot deliberately increased the rate of descent during the final few minutes.

Re: Germanwing Aircraft Crashes in French Alps
 

At this point, and for several days already, the story with respect to the aircraft is complete, no data or investigation is going to fundamentally change our understanding of what happen over southern France and on a French Alp.

IMO All the interesting news is coming from the cluster in Germany where apparently a suicidally depressed young man managed (deliberately finagled) to retain his job as an airline pilot. :eek:

Re: Germanwing Aircraft Crashes in French Alps
 

Sure, I was just closing the loop on the missing (or not) FDR.

Maybe you should email the investigators and tell them they can put the FDR in the recycling and stop wasting their time.....:rolleyes:

Re: Germanwing Aircraft Crashes in French Alps
 

Sorry. :o Yes it was interesting that they found it and has put a stop to the stories that the data storage unit was "missing". From a purely technological stand point it will be interesting to hear if just set it on autopilot and sat back and watched or if he flew it more actively - the early reports suggest that he did at least change the settings.

I can't help but wonder if there isn't some rudimentary software fix that could be made to stop the autopilot be used to destroy the plane? :unsure: If cars can be made, as they now can, to apply the brakes to avoid rear-ending another vehicle, surely it should be possible to stop the autopilot being set for a catastrophic collision with the ground? :confused:

Re: Germanwing Aircraft Crashes in French Alps
 

What will CNN do now, well after another week or so.

Re: Germanwing Aircraft Crashes in French Alps
 

Is there a celebrity trial coming up? :unsure:

Re: Germanwing Aircraft Crashes in French Alps
 

Aurora shooting?

Re: Germanwing Aircraft Crashes in French Alps
 

[QUOTE=Pulaski;11610067]Don't apologise - It's not often I get the chance to hit you with a ":rolleyes:":rofl:

I wonder whether there are any lessons to be learned on "recoverability". Yes, this terrain ws pretty severe, but it was also pretty sparse from the look of it - not a lot of vegetation cover. If the recovery took so long here, what would it be like in, say jungle, rainforest etc. If, as mentioned earlier, the pinger only activates on water contact, maybe there is scope for adding something that activates when it loses "main" power. Or maybe there already is something like that?

From what I have read, it appears that the autopilot was still flying the plane, but that he was adjusting the settings as it went, rather than him actually flying the plane manually. While the outcome is the same, setting the autopilot, sitting back and closing eyes to wait for the inevitable is a different mindset to eyeballing the plane all the way into the mountainside. Not that it made a jot of difference....

My 13 year old is coming up with different fixes daily for the cockpit door lock conundrum...not hit on the answer yet!

As for the autopilot....I seem to remember reading something after a previous crash that planes have a stall warning override (stick shudder to alert pilots and apply power?), but don't recall anything about a ground proximity correction, although I'm sure the ground proximity alarms were screaming at him to pull up right until impact. The problem is, anything that is put in as an automatic correction is probably going to have to be over-ridable by the pilots.

Re: Germanwing Aircraft Crashes in French Alps
 

[QUOTE=Yorkieabroad;11610096]You live by the :rolleyes:, you die by the :rolleyes: :lol:

Re: Germanwing Aircraft Crashes in French Alps
 

Indeed. :rolleyes:

Re: Germanwing Aircraft Crashes in French Alps
 

I was thinking about this and the apparent fixes, which are all pretty much flawed. An idea I had would be to enable the control tower to to disable the door locks, thus overriding the copilot locking out the pilot.

Some people have been blaming the guy's girlfriend because she knew he was depressed, believing that telling the airline would have grounded him. In the real world, I think they would give her a polite brush-off and let him fly.

Re: Germanwing Aircraft Crashes in French Alps
 

So all you would need to open the door is a transmitter and the code?

Perhaps just take the doors out?