'Contact lost' with Malaysia Airlines plane

Lysander said:
At the root of it, it was pilot error. Yes, the pitot tubes froze over giving inaccurate readings but it was still very possible for the pilots to maintain control of the aircraft. However, due to ignoring the stall warning, keeping the stick held back, failing to cooperate and general panicking they crashed the damn thing.
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This - when the most experienced pilot came back into the cockpit he seems to have realised almost immediately what the two co-pilots were doing wrong and called out the correct action to take. But he was too late.
 
no chance of any survivors basically impact sends the whole 60 rows of seats to the front of the plane and everyone is squashed to pulp.

Pretty instant death (if you are lucky)

Poor relatives waiting at the airports they are the only ones suffering.
 
Meridian said:
This - when the most experienced pilot came back into the cockpit he seems to have realised almost immediately what the two co-pilots were doing wrong and called out the correct action to take
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If by 'almost immediately' you mean over two minutes, you'd be right. When the pilot came back he also had no idea what was happening, chiefly because his co-pilot failed to impart that he had the stick back the whole time. The captain didn't notice this from his position and he didn't think to ask. When his co-pilot finally tells him this vital piece of information, the captain orders him to descend and takes control of the plane, putting the nose down to regain control, by which time it's too late. The weird thing is that no-one mentions the word 'stall' throughout the entire exchange.
 
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So:with 447 they were dropping because they lost forward speed and by trying to climb they actually inadvertently maintained the low speed while still falling and did not realise until it was too late?

If when they still had altitude they had lowered the nose the plane would have gained forward flight speed and would have been able to level out and then climb back to a suitable altitude once the speed was gained to do so?
 
Terrible thing when a plane crashes, such a safe mode of transport but even so an enormous loss in one incident gives the impression of greater danger.
 
Hitman_Leon said:
So:with 447 they were dropping because they lost forward speed and by trying to climb they actually inadvertently maintained the low speed while still falling and did not realise until it was too late?

If when they still had altitude they had lowered the nose the plane would have gained forward flight speed and would have been able to level out and then climb back to a suitable altitude once the speed was gained to do so?
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Exactly. The insane thing is that after being told not to climb, and after the captain puts the nose down - probably due to being spooked by the new hazard warning of the fast-approaching sea - the co-pilot, panicking, takes the stick and pulls it back again.
 
Hitman_Leon said:
So:with 447 they were dropping because they lost forward speed and by trying to climb they actually inadvertently maintained the low speed while still falling and did not realise until it was too late?

If when they still had altitude they had lowered the nose the plane would have gained forward flight speed and would have been able to level out and then climb back to a suitable altitude once the speed was gained to do so?
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Yes, a textbook stall recovery. By doing the opposite, the co-pilot was merely making a bad situation worse and closing the window of opportunity for recovering control of the aircraft with each passing second.
 
So sad...really makes you think. You take a flight not even thinking you might not make it to the other side..and it just happens, nothing you can do.

I normally take a few flights most years (5-10) and you always think...yea it won't happen to me. I bet those on board thought that too :(

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
 
A2Z said:
So sad...really makes you think. You take a flight not even thinking you might not make it to the other side..and it just happens, nothing you can do.

I normally take a few flights most years (5-10) and you always think...yea it won't happen to me. I bet those on board thought that too :(

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
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About to book our tickets to the UK, wife is of course now a little nervous.

Strange how something like the size of an airplane just disappears, even with all the technology.
Weather was absolutely fine apparently, even the winds at the altitude were checked and all reports stating completely calm.
Nothing can be ruled out just yet.
 
Hitman_Leon said:
So:with 447 they were dropping because they lost forward speed and by trying to climb they actually inadvertently maintained the low speed while still falling and did not realise until it was too late?

If when they still had altitude they had lowered the nose the plane would have gained forward flight speed and would have been able to level out and then climb back to a suitable altitude once the speed was gained to do so?
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Bingo!

Lysander said:
Exactly. The insane thing is that after being told not to climb, and after the captain puts the nose down - probably due to being spooked by the new hazard warning of the fast-approaching sea - the co-pilot, panicking, takes the stick and pulls it back again.
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And in the Airbus the flight controls are not linked between the two pilot seats. So one pilot might not have known that the other was holding the stick back the entire time, and when the pilot finally went nose down (unless he said outloud what he was doing) the co-pilot might not have known!
In the Boeings the two sides of the cockpit are linked, so even if the pilots aren't talking to each other they can see what they're doing.
 
Westyfield2 said:
Bingo!
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I got that from the transcript as a total layman so the question is: when forward speed is unreadable but you have a stall warning and also can see a descent in altitude despite nose up to climb this would indicate a vertical drop from the stall, why did they being experienced air crew not see this?

The stall warning could have been a false positive due to the unreadable air-speed but combined with a drop in altitude should have prompted immediate action to recover from the stall?
 
Hitman_Leon said:
I got that from the transcript as a total layman so the question is: when forward speed is unreadable but you have a stall warning and also can see a descent in altitude despite nose up to climb this would indicate a vertical drop from the stall, why did they being experienced air crew not see this?

The stall warning could have been a false positive due to the unreadable air-speed but combined with a drop in altitude should have prompted immediate action to recover from the stall?
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Because the co-pilot panicked. He actually had all the necessary data to fly the plane properly. However, in panicking he thinks he is in TOGA and can climb away to safety. The pilots are used to doing most of their hand-flying at low altitude and, being disorientated, the co-pilot reverted to flying the plane like it was nearer the ground, when at 37,000 feet the air is much thinner and the wings give less lift.
 
Lysander said:
Only to be expected. Now the long process of finding out what the hell happened. I only hope it doesn't take donkey's years to find the black box like in Flight 447 [yes the two craft are different and we know a lot about pitot tubes now which we didn't one day after 447 disappeared. The fact that both vanished with no initial signs as to what happened is the only comparison I'm drawing between the two at this point. Whoever wishes to question my reference to this can sod off since I will continue to compare the two in this thread regardless].
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so basically it's like nearly every single aviation crash at sea.
 
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