Air France 447: Stalled Plane Goes Into Freefall

I like the style of this documentary. I've only got as far as flying solo in a Cessna... but I can still understand most of the techy details. Most documentaries fail to give technical details, preferring dramatic music and emotional phraseology. I appreciate this rather more educational approach.

It bears repeating that Mentour Pilot always treats these incidents with the dignity and gravitas they deserve. May this channel flourish and may future generations learn from it.

I drank super cooled water before and let me tell you it was the most refreshing water I ever drank in my entire life. I live in a climate that during the winter, if you leave a water bottle in your car overnight and you are very careful about opening and tilting the bottle back, you can infact drink the super cooled water, but and sudden movements or jolt and it will immediately turn to ice. Fun experiment. Must try.

Last minutes had to be horrific for pilots, they never fully understood what was happening, situation was keep going more and more confusing. last seconds of flight when relief pilot stopped descending and went into full climb is insanely sad, they was in irrational situation,. It probably felt like a nightmare, like they are just sleeping and thats why nothing makes sense.

The first officer killed every one on that flight

Hello Petter! Was there any sort of communication from the pilots back to the cabin and the passengers after the disconnection of the autopilot? I can imagine It must have been real horror back there during the event from the stall to hitting the water. Especially if there where no words from the flight crew. I wonder what went trough the passenger and cabin crews head during the time…

Don't send someone to kill me for saying this. (1) The two controls in the cockpit have to be locked out to ONE. (2) hang a weight from a string or a cross on a necklace or anything like that from the cabin top. THAT will always reliably show you if you're level or Climbing or Descending. I learned that from a fighter pilot. It costs nothing and it works better than the computer and instruments. Several pilots have said they wish there were fewer computers flying the aircraft. Let the pilot control the aircraft. 2 and then 3 pilots fighting each other and calling "go up, go down" is simply "bad control." Does what they say mean more speed or change the angle of climb? There was bad communication between pilots and between people and computers. ONE competent pilot must be able to fly the aircraft by the seat of his pants. Obviously, the more computers get involved the worse these problems become. Ultimately I think the computers crashed the airplane. I have NO confidence in "Artificial Intelligence" in future aircraft. If the weather is that bad, fly around it or wait until the weather passes. I'm not a pilot but I watch a lot of this and other teaches about control have taught me to think this way. I apologize if I've insulted anyone.

Bullshit first officer. Maybe I am a novice.

I've seen dozens of these episodes and this one has got to be the most unbelievable. All of these unfortunate events occurred in about 3 minutes flat. Unbelievable.

Id still always rather die in this scenario than the scinario of the max 8 flying vertically to the ground, that must of been terrifying knowing and seeing whats about to happen :(

As someone who is looking to start his aviation journey in the next couple of years. I thought these videos might scare me in a sense, but they, in fact, provide highly educational tips on how to avoid situations like this from occurring.

Quite simply too much technology and needless complexity, changing the way the aeroplane behaves in response to the controls depending on multiple factors. It’s akin to following a sat-nav in a car but half thinking “I don’t agree with that turning” - the nav then continually “fighting” the driver trying to get back to its route. Success is achieved only either a) by following the nav or b) switching it off and driving solo. In the same way, I think the pilots should be completely locked out from flying the aircraft apart from by programming the auto-pilot. In the event of a problem then the pilot should fly the aeroplane completely manually, with no computer “help” whatsoever. This hybrid system is lunacy.

My God, I could not even imagine the horror that each passenger went thru the last 5 minute's of their life. Rip.

I've watched several documentaries about flight 447. I know nothing about flying a plane. I understand that you being a pilot that you may not wish to judge or criticize another pilot. Isn't it very obvious this accident was solely due to pilot error(s)?
I've read that some investigators totally said pilot error, and one said all they had to do was fly the plane. The passenger's last few minutes of life had to be a total nightmare. Very sad situation. Rip to all that were killed. Thanks, John

I am thinking why captain didn't took over the control instead of giving instructions 😮😮😮

maybe Bonin was suicidal

Their should never have a çàptin they should work together Equality

I look forward to the day robots are flying the planes. Humans are far too prone to error.

Excellent video as usual. It's like a horror movie. 😢

🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷

سبب هذا الحادث سوء تدريب الطيارين ..من المؤسف ان الناس مازالو مستمرين في شتم الظابط الأول 😢

lol at computer going 'pull up pull ujp' the pilots were probably laughing

I've wondering why a simple plumb bob on the dashboard couldn't help these guys to understanding their situational awareness

My take on this is, the plane was probably stalling harder when pitching up due to high angle of attack.
The FO probably didn't take into account that the plane was indeed losing altitude, but that could have been picked up by noticing (not so easy to do) that when the nose was pitching up the lost speed, the engines performance would decrease and that would possibly suggest a stall, BUT, in this case the plane's systems would cease due to "unreliable" readings, those readings being due to the increased angle of attack in the first place, that again could still correctly suggest a stall.
The pilots probably didn't anticipate that a great angle of attack could have the pitot not working reliably, but in the end, probably with experience they could have kept in mind such scenario.

Although the stall warning didn't work when pitching up (systems not working due to unreliable readings due to extraordinary conditions upon sensors), the chances of reversing the stall would "only" exist when the plane was pitching down, but unfortunately when they pitch down the nose of the plane that's when the warnings would kick in, if the had anticipated that they were stalling either way and had no chance of reversing it pitching up, they would have had better (more secure) control of the plane and gain altitude.
The Captain had some sense of this and possibly the relief pilot too, unfortunately the FO did take into account the warnings cues or lack there of, that the stalling that indeed was taking place.
Had the FO understood that they were losing altitude, how/why the airbus system stops the stall warnings, and that when pitched down the engines had better performance (indicating that the plane was stalling all along irrespective of system warnings), he would have understood that pitching up was indeed just making things worse.
He could have also trusted his colleagues judgement of the situation, but I completely understand that tensions were high.

Well this put me into full anxiety panic mode 👀That said…Brilliant video

This is one of the most disturbing air crashes out there- “Titanic of the seas” is pretty accurate. Crashing into the Atlantic in the middle of the night, all alone, is just so eerie.

This (the FO) is just anger inducing. A case of "slap someone silly" has (probably) never been more applicable.

So did the Airbus put a visual stall warning after this accident?

Why didn't the caption try to grab the FOs arm and hold it in place in order to prevent him inputting anything

I was yelling commands at my monitor as if i could help... ☠

It's ridiculous how badly these pilots behaved. Violates pretty much every rule that exists. If you hand over control to the pilot next to you, you must not continue to jerk with the joystick. Even a hobby pilot would have been able to see that you were in a stall. So sad and unnecessary.

This make me wonder, what type of training does the FO had. I'm just a CPL, not an airline pilot. To the best of my knowledge, low speed = pitch down, idle. The FO did exactly opposite as it is his go to move, pitch up and full power. I have been trained so hard to be aware of the secondary stall when adding power after a stall.

I don't know if there is any training or certain procedure that require pitch up and full power (TOGA) apart from the GPWS warning, unless intentional stall or aerobatic moves.
I had been in upset even a down draft, and have been trained to put pitch at 0-2.5 degree. This is to prevent the stall.

Although this is a very sad accident, I have to say, one of he most beautiful Thumbnails abut this subject.

Captain went to rest while they are entering a storm! Wouldn't it be sensible an appreciable if he suggested the junior officers on how to tackle situation... Captain looks like a regular senior corporate guy who avoids providing KT to new joiners and escape at the cost of project.

stall warning comes on
FO: time to go up
🤦

Wondering why we don't get to hear any audio from the flight data recorders in any of the videos that Flight Mentor does...

Excellent videos I have already watched T-H-R-E-E of them :)

Now I really don’t like airbus and its pilots.

If you go to Google Maps, you can see in the same location just how much of the sea floor they mapped in that area. Sad thing to say, but crashes like this are one of the few ways that money is spent analyzing the sea floor in detail, which goes into a public database. Most of these areas are random lines through the ocean, but in this case, the area mapped is bigger than nearly a quarter of all countries!

The content on this channel is world class. I wish this kind of stuff existed 40 years ago.

What an absolute tragedy! Air France, suffered two (2) horrendous Aviation Disasters, in a span of (9) years. There was the Air France Commercial Jetliner, operating as the beautiful, luxurious, and sleek, [Concorde], that was caught on a dashcam camera, on FIRE, as it departed Charles de Gaulle Airport, in France, on July 25, 2000, that killed around 108 passengers, plus (5) people on the ground.😔 There were [no] survivors. From what I understood, that it cost passengers $10,000, to fly on the Concorde.

Now, the beautiful Air France 447 Airbus, which indeed looked like the "Titanic In The Sky," crashed on June 1, 2009, with no survivors, and went down in the Atlantic Ocean, which is where the Titanic, is resting on the Ocean floor, at a depth of 12,500 feet.😣 The Air France 447, was so beautiful, and luxurious.

I still remember, where I was, and what I was doing, when I heard the news about both of these devastating Aviation Disasters. My prayers, and condolences, are [still] with the families, of the passengers, who perished in both of these Aviation Disasters, even though it has been (14) years, since the Air France 447 crash, and (23) years, since the Concorde crash.🙏 R.I.P.

Why isn't GPS used for backup speed and altitude???

As much as pilot error was the obvious cause, the way that switching between normal law and alternate law effectively results in flying two completely different aircraft certainly doesn't help. The last thing you want during an emergency is getting thrown into hand-flying a plane that you have almost no experience in.

May i ask, are you from Sweden? 😊