Search didn't show this as already having been posted.....

(edited) Apparently the didn't follow commands as they tried to land at CDG and had to initiate a go-around and were able to land on the 2nd attempt.

https://youtu.be/avVvgYQtDiI

Avherald is reporting the aircraft didn’t follow commands. That would be something else than controls being unresponsive. Could be automation related.

Such a shocking safety culture. Speaking French on the radio at an international airport so every other plane on the frequency has no idea what’s going on, that alone is just ridiculous. I know it’s one of the ICAO languages but you don’t get MEA speaking Arabic in Beirut. As for the incident itself, reminds me of a similar situation with badly mishandled automation on an AF 777 landing at CDG that nearly led to a crash.

https://news.aviation-safety.net/2014/0 ... oeing-777/

This is for an incident in 2011 and a report issued in 2014 - sounds like somebody is trying to resurrect a story to make Air France look bad.
The report, in my reading, shows that the crew were monitoring the situation.

Scoreboard wrote:

This is for an incident in 2011 and a report issued in 2014 - sounds like somebody is trying to resurrect a story to make Air France look bad.
The report, in my reading, shows that the crew were monitoring the situation.

that is what I originally thought (because the news.aviation-safety.net link. That. link refers to an incident that occurred on a flight from Caracas to CDG, back on 2011. Flight AF471 ). This is a new incident, on a flight from JFK to CDG. Flight AF 011.

"The crew of AF11 from New York JFK to Paris CDG had to deal a serious issue at very low altitude this morning Tuesday 5 April 2022"

cedarjet wrote:

Such a shocking safety culture. Speaking French on the radio at an international airport so every other plane on the frequency has no idea what’s going on, that alone is just ridiculous. I know it’s one of the ICAO languages but you don’t get MEA speaking Arabic in Beirut. As for the incident itself, reminds me of a similar situation with badly mishandled automation on an AF 777 landing at CDG that nearly led to a crash.

https://news.aviation-safety.net/2014/0 ... oeing-777/

I am Belgian and French is my mother tongue. I kind-of agree ... I am just PPL SEP and we learn english phraseology and pass EPL (english proficiency) test in Belgium. With our EPL only, we are not supposed to be proficient in French. Although I learned french phraseology as well, I am not certified and should therefore stick to English ... which means I should only land on controlled airports that allow the use of English (so forget about most small airfield with auto-info) ... it's a bit ridiculous, so we end-up using french anyway and it seems no one really cares about the EPL line on our license...
Ayway, on larger airports, I always prefer English over French when I'm not alone in the circuit. When you fly in France, you often share the circuits with brits, germans, dutch, etc.... I like to understand what's going on around me, so I guess the others will appreciate that too.
I guess airliner pilots with thousands of hours and used to fly in and out of French airports end up understanding the french phraseology anyway...

I didn't try flying in Spain so far, but I guess that will be interesting too for me as it is one other ICAO language and my spanish is kind of limited to ordering food and drinks

I thought that one is permitted to speak in the native language of the country involved, particularly in an emergency. (If only the AA guys in Cali had spoken to the controller in Spanish, there likely never would have been an accident.) Give it a rest, guys. There was a go-round. Probably fighting the automation. Likely pilot error. Plane landed safely. Who cares?

airbuster wrote:

Avherald is reporting the aircraft didn’t follow commands.

It's a translation issue. "Commands de vol" is what they were saying. That means "flight controls" in English. "Les commandes de vol d'un avion englobent l'ensemble des dispositifs dans le poste de pilotage et les liaisons mécaniques, hydrauliques ou électriques qui permettent d'agir sur les gouvernes."

Revo1059 wrote:

Search didn't show this as already having been posted.....

(edited) Apparently the didn't follow commands as they tried to land at CDG and had to initiate a go-around and were able to land on the 2nd attempt.

https://youtu.be/avVvgYQtDiI

Sound like quite an incident. Question: did the air controller treat this as a mayday even though the pilots didn't call it out as such. The controller must have heard all the bells and whiles and must have known something was seriously wrong.

Dutchy wrote:

Revo1059 wrote:

Search didn't show this as already having been posted.....

(edited) Apparently the didn't follow commands as they tried to land at CDG and had to initiate a go-around and were able to land on the 2nd attempt.

https://youtu.be/avVvgYQtDiI

Sound like quite an incident. Question: did the air controller treat this as a mayday even though the pilots didn't call it out as such. The controller must have heard all the bells and whiles and must have known something was seriously wrong.

The video is a little unclear, but it sounds like he at least held a departure (presumably on 26R) and cancelled the approach clearance of the following aircraft. That’s at least a de facto “yes” to your question.

Can someone with knowledge in the 777 systems please give us a hint what is the signification of the alarm sounds in the flight deck which can be heard in the video?

hitower3 wrote:

Can someone with knowledge in the 777 systems please give us a hint what is the signification of the alarm sounds in the flight deck which can be heard in the video?

Autopilot disconnect wailer.

AllNippon767 wrote:

hitower3 wrote:

Can someone with knowledge in the 777 systems please give us a hint what is the signification of the alarm sounds in the flight deck which can be heard in the video?

Autopilot disconnect wailer.

Dear allnippon767,

The sound at 0:43 is similar to a configuration warning sound. Could you confirm this?
1:02: AP disconnect, as you stated.

Thank you & kind regards,
Hendric

We obviously can't comment on what happened until an investigation is complete but the ATC comms with the warnings repeatedly going off in the background and the stressed pilots is not a comforting sound at all. Glad it ended well.

As for the comments about language, it is common for pilots flying in their own country to speak their language. Any emergency call would be called in English by ATC and/or the aircraft as well.

Revo1059 wrote:

(edited) Apparently the didn't follow commands as they tried to land at CDG and had to initiate a go-around and were able to land on the 2nd attempt.

The joke going around (pardon the pun) is they spoke to the aircraft in French, and it could only understand English.

Wow, sounds scary.. I'm not a pilot, but I thought automation systems disengage immediately in the event of a fault. Sounds like this plane momentarily took on a mind of its own.

This sounds like a big deal!

What engines do the AF 777s use?

Dear allnippon767,

The sound at 0:43 is similar to a configuration warning sound. Could you confirm this?

Yes that alarm at 0:43 accompanies the Master Warning (not be confused with Master Caution which is 4 beeps). Master Warnings would have also displayed in red whereas Cautions would be in yellow.

D L X wrote:

This sounds like a big deal!

What engines do the AF 777s use?

It's a 777-300ER so it is only powered by the GE90-115B. Their -200ERs are also GE powered with the -90B2 variant if I'm not mistaken.

Revo1059 wrote:

Search didn't show this as already having been posted.....

(edited) Apparently the didn't follow commands as they tried to land at CDG and had to initiate a go-around and were able to land on the 2nd attempt.

https://youtu.be/avVvgYQtDiI

No, this is a bad reading and understanding of what happened and what was said.

They aborted the landing because they flight controls (commandes de vol) were not responding as they should, pilot indicated that flight controls were erratic.

AllNippon767 wrote:

D L X wrote:

This sounds like a big deal!

What engines do the AF 777s use?

It's a 777-300ER so it is only powered by the GE90-115B. Their -200ERs are also GE powered with the -90B2 variant if I'm not mistaken.

That's correct

sekant wrote:

Revo1059 wrote:

Search didn't show this as already having been posted.....

(edited) Apparently the didn't follow commands as they tried to land at CDG and had to initiate a go-around and were able to land on the 2nd attempt.

https://youtu.be/avVvgYQtDiI

No, this is a bad reading and understanding of what happened and what was said.

They aborted the landing because they flight controls (commandes de vol) were not responding as they should, pilot indicated that flight controls were erratic.

According to a Tweet from BEA : "Instability of flight controls on final, go-around, hard controls, flight path oscillations "

The plane landed safely. Does anyone know why the flight controls were unstable?

Listening to the vid, it is clear something happened to the flight controls. They DID listen to ground control. Whether they missed something... Well BEA is investigating, so how about we await their conclusions?

As for the language issue, it is common, though not ideal that locals speak in their native language to ground control. And yes, ICAO includes French as an official language. I recall crew speaking Schwizertütsch in Zurich (very rarely, mind you) and French in Geneva (less rarely) to GC. I do agree English as a standard is better to keep others appraised of the situation.

gadFly wrote:

As for the language issue, it is common, though not ideal that locals speak in their native language to ground control. And yes, ICAO includes French as an official language. I recall crew speaking Schwizertütsch in Zurich (very rarely, mind you) and French in Geneva (less rarely) to GC. I do agree English as a standard is better to keep others appraised of the situation.

It is absolutely normal for French airlines to speak to ATC in French in France. This is done every day.

MrBretz wrote:

The plane landed safely. Does anyone know why the flight controls were unstable?

That's what the investigation will reveal. Wait for the report.

zeke wrote:

gadFly wrote:

As for the language issue, it is common, though not ideal that locals speak in their native language to ground control. And yes, ICAO includes French as an official language. I recall crew speaking Schwizertütsch in Zurich (very rarely, mind you) and French in Geneva (less rarely) to GC. I do agree English as a standard is better to keep others appraised of the situation.

It is absolutely normal for French airlines to speak to ATC in French in France. This is done every day.

DCA350 wrote:

Wow, sounds scary.. I'm not a pilot, but I thought automation systems disengage immediately in the event of a fault. Sounds like this plane momentarily took on a mind of its own.

In general, yes, but it is a bit more complex than that. For starters, the fault would need to be detected by the system logic. Autoflight and flight controls are complex, integrated systems with dozens of modes and convoluted logic trees.

Just to take a generic example, say two out of three air data systems are giving erroneous but identical information. The correct third system could be voted out, meaning the flight control system would then be fed incorrect information.


With the caveat that I have no idea what happened here, in many cases, if the pilots are "fighting the controls", there has been a misunderstanding of what the automation is doing. Rarely is the system actually faulty. If there is an issue with autoflight, the philosophy is generally to revert to a simpler autoflight mode, and if that doesn't solve things, revert to hand flying.

cedarjet wrote:

Such a shocking safety culture. Speaking French on the radio at an international airport so every other plane on the frequency has no idea what’s going on, that alone is just ridiculous. I know it’s one of the ICAO languages but you don’t get MEA speaking Arabic in Beirut. As for the incident itself, reminds me of a similar situation with badly mishandled automation on an AF 777 landing at CDG that nearly led to a crash.

https://news.aviation-safety.net/2014/0 ... oeing-777/

While it can be a bit disconcerting the first time, this is not a safety issue per se. As mentioned, French on the radio at CDG is normal. The controllers and French-speaking pilots have as good comms as if they are speaking English.

Maybe a bit more talkative than most english language comms?

This is a classic report though perhaps not quite standard phraseology:

"l'avion a fait à peu près n'importe quoi"
=
"the plane did whatever"

Then the controller catches himself babbling and cuts off with "enfin bref" = "Anyhoo..."

AllNippon767 wrote:

Dear allnippon767,

The sound at 0:43 is similar to a configuration warning sound. Could you confirm this?

Yes that alarm at 0:43 accompanies the Master Warning (not be confused with Master Caution which is 4 beeps). Master Warnings would have also displayed in red whereas Cautions would be in yellow.

What is the difference, sounds like a master warning seems more immediate danger. I am not a pilot, so sorry for the ignorant question.

Posted on the FB group "Flying Blue Platinum"

"I was on flight AF011 incoming from New York yesterday. Bad experience during the landing phase, approx 2 minutes before touchdown. Pilots have been amazing, taking over the automatic landing systems. What is amazing is with all the stress of the situation, the captain before the second landing made an announcement with A very reassuring tone of voice, informing us that he had to stop the first landing due to an plane on the runway (which was not true, but trying to minimize the experience). Bravo to the pilots of this flight. But really not a nice experience, frequent traveler, first time experience!"

https://www.facebook.com/groups/564545074448942

So here's how I think this is going to play out.

(1) They're coming in fully-coupled on automation with all 3 autopilots engaged; if they do nothing, the thing will autoland and roll out. Of course, most crews take over manually for the landing. With the low cloud deck, however, not gonna be easy to see the runway, so maybe they're doing a full-on autoland. Either way, they're rocking down the glideslope in full automation in weather.

(2) An anomaly occurs causing a small deviation off course. Some kind of momentary localizer interruption, perhaps. In this circumstance, any such deviation requires a go-around. So they initiate one. Pop the TOGA switch and hang on.

(3) Pilot error. Perhaps someone doesn't realize the autopilot is still on and they wrestle with the flight controls, which they really have to fight to override. Perhaps there's a somatogravic illusion. Perhaps not. But something causes someone to feel like they need to actively-manipulate the flight controls while the aircraft is still in automation. We hear what sounds like an autopilot disconnect late in the sequence, after the heavy-breathing from the freaked-out, transmitting pilot, which would be consistent with this. And someone yelling STOP STOP, as if to say "stop what you're doing". And/or, perhaps, as Juan Browne notes, they screwed up the sequence of things you need to do on a go-around in autoflight; he mentions lifting the gear out of sequence or not properly-configuring flaps, triggering the master warning that we hear. I would note that you have a sense that everybody relaxes after that sequence, which suggests that they realize that they f-ed up, even if they don't say it. And they told the pax there was a plane on the runway, which was total BS. If they didn't at least have a sense of what went wrong, they'd be more likely to be concerned that they're going to be fighting it again, not acting relaxed and relieved..

Anyway, I'll stake that on the table. Could be wrong but it seems like a sensible theory. What's a bit surprising about this, of course, is that this exact scenario should be something they train on regularly; it would be a surprising mistake. But then again, given the excellent safety records of carriers like AF, it stands to reason that what went wrong will be something surprising.

Latest from an inside source:

- Wrong approach selected in the FMC (common)
- Autopilot left engaged for far too long in the approach (habitual)
- Trying to overcome the autopilot without disconnecting it (common)
- Hasty and embarrassed go-around causes gear to be retracted before flaps (a quarter of all go-arounds) which triggers the config warning audible on the RT
- Rapid return to the airport because the pilot knows there’s nothing wrong with the aeroplane. If he genuinely thought there was a defect there would have been a lengthy hold.

In other words, another day at the office for Air Chance

Yep... 'Issue with the flight controls' generally means 'we royally messed it up but don't want to admit it'.
It looks like this approach was a dog's breakfast.
Oh well. That's what go arounds are for, and that's the reason crews should always be prepared to do one.

In fairness, it's not easy to admit to mistakes, especially in the heat of the moment when the crew ends up so far behind the airplane that they still don't quite understand what happened, but owning up is part of the job and, more importantly, of the safety culture.

RE French pilots speaking French to ATC, Tower, Ground etc: It's dangerous.

It caused a crash in the early 2000s when during the night at a French airport, a crew that only spoke English,in a cargo plane were cleared to cross a runway a passenger aircraft was cleared to take off on. As the departing plane was with a French airline, that clearance was read to them in French. The English only crew had no chance to understand they were being cleared to cross the same runway at the same time. The result was the departing plane's wing slicing into the crossing plane's cockpit, killing one of the pilots.

The habit of speaking the local language must stop. It's bound to end up in tears again. It's just a matter of when.


As for this AF011 incident; my friend is telling me the crew mismanaged the systems on board. Wouldn't go into more detail.

DCA350 wrote:

Wow, sounds scary.. I'm not a pilot, but I thought automation systems disengage immediately in the event of a fault. Sounds like this plane momentarily took on a mind of its own.

There may not be a fault at all - could be as simple as a maintenance truck sitting in front of the localizer transmitter. If so, as far as the AP was concerned, it was tracking the signal correctly. Tired crews flying eastbound need to fully brief approaches and go-arounds as a matter of course, maybe that didn't happen here.

Scoreboard wrote:

This is for an incident in 2011 and a report issued in 2014 - sounds like somebody is trying to resurrect a story to make Air France look bad.
The report, in my reading, shows that the crew were monitoring the situation.

The incident occurred on 5 April 2022…you may want to delete your post…or at least correct it.

The Time and Figaro are not the official investigation, and all that is based on a dubious link behind taking all of 2 minutes to get from scheduled crew rest to the cockpit, after the trouble had already started.

seat55a wrote:

Maybe a bit more talkative than most english language comms?

This is a classic report though perhaps not quite standard phraseology:

"l'avion a fait à peu près n'importe quoi"
=
"the plane did whatever"

Then the controller catches himself babbling and cuts off with "enfin bref" = "Anyhoo..."

Aviate, navigate, communicate: the pilot was fighting the plane on final, proper phraseology is the last thing that matters at that time.
The pilot did communicate; I think it's fair to say he did his best given the situation.

cedarjet wrote:

Latest from an inside source:

- Wrong approach selected in the FMC (common)
- Autopilot left engaged for far too long in the approach (habitual)
- Trying to overcome the autopilot without disconnecting it (common)
- Hasty and embarrassed go-around causes gear to be retracted before flaps (a quarter of all go-arounds) which triggers the config warning audible on the RT
- Rapid return to the airport because the pilot knows there’s nothing wrong with the aeroplane. If he genuinely thought there was a defect there would have been a lengthy hold.

In other words, another day at the office for Air Chance

Unreliable source, you don’t get a “config warning” for gear being retracted before flap.

With it being broken at 300 ft, tempo of broken at 200 ft with a 1 degree temp split, that is weather for an autoland, the statement that the “ Autopilot left engaged for far too long” has no credibility with me.

I would not be surprised if this will be a case of a ground vehicle or aircraft interfering with the ILS transmission.

zeke wrote:

cedarjet wrote:

Latest from an inside source:

- Wrong approach selected in the FMC (common)
- Autopilot left engaged for far too long in the approach (habitual)
- Trying to overcome the autopilot without disconnecting it (common)
- Hasty and embarrassed go-around causes gear to be retracted before flaps (a quarter of all go-arounds) which triggers the config warning audible on the RT
- Rapid return to the airport because the pilot knows there’s nothing wrong with the aeroplane. If he genuinely thought there was a defect there would have been a lengthy hold.

In other words, another day at the office for Air Chance

Unreliable source, you don’t get a “config warning” for gear being retracted before flap.

With it being broken at 300 ft, tempo of broken at 200 ft with a 1 degree temp split, that is weather for an autoland, the statement that the “ Autopilot left engaged for far too long” has no credibility with me.

I would not be surprised if this will be a case of a ground vehicle or aircraft interfering with the ILS transmission.

You are incorrect. What noise do you get when you have flaps 25 or 30 with the gear retracted in a 777? The exact sound you heard in the recording.

Tell me one reason why a 777 cannot fly with landing flap and gear up ?

GPWS will give a warning around 750 ft for gear not being down, “too low gear”

zeke wrote:

Tell me one reason why a 777 cannot fly with landing flap and gear up ?

GPWS will give a warning around 750 ft for gear not being down, “too low gear”

The warning is not there to tell you that you are immediately about to fall out of the sky, but to remind you not to forget to retract the flaps (or extend gear) as there are few times you need to be flying in such a configuration.

Would the Gear Override switch have silenced the Master Warning?

wjcandee wrote:

So here's how I think this is going to play out.

(1) They're coming in fully-coupled on automation with all 3 autopilots engaged; if they do nothing, the thing will autoland and roll out. Of course, most crews take over manually for the landing. With the low cloud deck, however, not gonna be easy to see the runway, so maybe they're doing a full-on autoland. Either way, they're rocking down the glideslope in full automation in weather.

(2) An anomaly occurs causing a small deviation off course. Some kind of momentary localizer interruption, perhaps. In this circumstance, any such deviation requires a go-around. So they initiate one. Pop the TOGA switch and hang on.

(3) Pilot error. Perhaps someone doesn't realize the autopilot is still on and they wrestle with the flight controls, which they really have to fight to override. Perhaps there's a somatogravic illusion. Perhaps not. But something causes someone to feel like they need to actively-manipulate the flight controls while the aircraft is still in automation. We hear what sounds like an autopilot disconnect late in the sequence, after the heavy-breathing from the freaked-out, transmitting pilot, which would be consistent with this. And someone yelling STOP STOP, as if to say "stop what you're doing". And/or, perhaps, as Juan Browne notes, they screwed up the sequence of things you need to do on a go-around in autoflight; he mentions lifting the gear out of sequence or not properly-configuring flaps, triggering the master warning that we hear. I would note that you have a sense that everybody relaxes after that sequence, which suggests that they realize that they f-ed up, even if they don't say it. And they told the pax there was a plane on the runway, which was total BS. If they didn't at least have a sense of what went wrong, they'd be more likely to be concerned that they're going to be fighting it again, not acting relaxed and relieved..

Anyway, I'll stake that on the table. Could be wrong but it seems like a sensible theory. What's a bit surprising about this, of course, is that this exact scenario should be something they train on regularly; it would be a surprising mistake. But then again, given the excellent safety records of carriers like AF, it stands to reason that what went wrong will be something surprising.

I think so too. And they may have confused the PTT switch with the autopilot disconnect. Hence some transmissions without communication.

Polot wrote:

The warning is not there to tell you that you are immediately about to fall out of the sky, but to remind you not to forget to retract the flaps (or extend gear) as there are few times you need to be flying in such a configuration.

So tell me what is the EICAS message produced fir this warning ? Just looked up the FCOM and didn’t see this nonsense.

It does not pass the smell test to generate a mater warning for that, master warning are for significant things like overspeed, stall, fire. Not for flying around in a perfectly acceptable configuration.

How do you know it’s not flap overspeed ?

zeke wrote:

Tell me one reason why a 777 cannot fly with landing flap and gear up ?

GPWS will give a warning around 750 ft for gear not being down, “too low gear”

I didn’t say it would not fly. What I said is you will get the same aural warning you get for configuration with gear retracted and flaps in the 25 or 30 position. If the gear was retracted prior to selecting F20 the aural alert sounds. I don’t believe these pilots descended below 750 RA during this approach.

DL_Mech wrote:

Would the Gear Override switch have silenced the Master Warning?

No, configuration warnings are not able to be silenced due to the critical nature of their alerts.

zeke wrote:

Polot wrote:

The warning is not there to tell you that you are immediately about to fall out of the sky, but to remind you not to forget to retract the flaps (or extend gear) as there are few times you need to be flying in such a configuration.

So tell me what is the EICAS message produced fir this warning ? Just looked up the FCOM and didn’t see this nonsense.

It does not pass the smell test to generate a mater warning for that, master warning are for significant things like overspeed, stall, fire. Not for flying around in a perfectly acceptable configuration.

How do you know it’s not flap overspeed ?

The Boeing is designed that when the flaps are in a normal landing selection ie F25 or F30 and the gear is not down you get the configuration warning light and siren. Doesn’t matter whether you are descending on approach or going around. It is triggered with flaps and gear positions

About the French language use controversy, some French airlines (Corsair International for example) mandate English only use on the frequency, whereve the aircraft is located (French airspace or not)