[planes] The Human Factor … long-read on the crash of Air France Flight 447 in 2009 by William Langewiesche … ‘Bonin continued to pull back on the stick, jerkily pitching the nose higher. Was he yearning for the clear sky he believed was just above? Was he remembering an “unreliable airspeed” procedure that is meant for low altitude, where power is ample and the biggest concern is to climb away from the ground? Did he think that the airplane was going too fast? Evidence emerged later that he may have, but if so, why? Even if he did not hear the stall warning, the nose was up, the available thrust was low, and with or without valid indications, high-speed flight in those conditions was physically impossible. A renowned cockpit designer at Boeing-himself a transport pilot-once said to me, “We don’t believe there are any bad pilots. We believe there are average pilots who have bad days.” He called this a principle that underlies Boeing’s cockpit designs. But if Bonin was an average pilot, what does that say about the average?’

William Langewiesche on the crash of Air France Flight 447

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2014 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Aircrash.

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