Sorry if this has been discussed but I wonder why the A330s were not grounded after the AF447 crash.
Indeed, even before this crash, many airlines reported problems with airspeed indications which could have lead to crashes.
More recently, an EY A332 landed without any airspeed indication.

Is the A330 not grounded because there are so many A330s in service?

I am sure that if 800 787s were in service, the 787s wouldn't have been grounded.

I'm not expert, but I think you answered your own question. The EY successful landing showed that an errant airspeed indicator was not - in and of itself - fatal.

But I'll leave that to someone else who has a clue to explain further. I just don't think there was any historical reason to believe that the A330 was inherently unsafe, and absent further information (or using what little information that they had), there was no compelling reason to assume that A330's were going to start falling from the sky.

-Dave

BTW, a friend is in Israel right now and flew LY out of New York several days ago. Sounds like she had a great flight.

-Dave

It took months to locate the black boxes, so an immediate grouding wasn't a possibility. The cause of the crash was more pilot error and misjudgement than equipment failure in my opinion. I believe an AD was issued to replace the pitots, Airbus were asked to update their checklists etc but grouding wasn't ever considered.

Quoting LY777 (Thread starter): Sorry if this has been discussed but I wonder why the A330s were not grounded after the AF447 crash. Indeed, even before this crash, many airlines reported problems with airspeed indications which could have lead to crashes.

It took quite a while until the aircraft with the flight data and cockpit voice recorders were found. Until that it was not known what happened. And after they found the recorders it was obvious that the airspeed indications were not the primary reason for the crash.

No comparison - firstly, it is possible for any aircraft to have unreliable airspeed; secondly, it should not be overly dangerous (look up the phrase "pitch and power"). Just a bad day at the office.

The question should be, especially as 447 came in the wake of 4590 and 358, monumental f*** ups all, why weren't Air France grounded? No carrier on the EU blacklist has killed a tenth as many passengers since 2000 (and let's ignore their six 707 crashes, five of which had no survivors - so this isn't a recent phenomenon either).

Quoting LY777 (Thread starter): Sorry if this has been discussed but I wonder why the A330s were not grounded after the AF447 crash. Indeed, even before this crash, many airlines reported problems with airspeed indications which could have lead to crashes.

1) As noted by others, for a very long time nobody had any idea what the true cause of the accident was. Unlike the 787, where at least they know the symptom they want to solve (if not how to solve it), if you grounded the A330's after AF447 you'd have no idea what to do with them.
2) The A330 had a much much longer record, so statistical estimates of various failure modes are much better established.
3) Even if the failure mode had been correctly identified right away, unreliable airspeed is a trained procedure for all pilots. There was nothing wrong with that airplane that grounding would have solved...if you wanted to go down that path, it would have been to ground the A330 *flight crews* until they were retrained on unreliable airspeed procedures, but that would have punished tens of thousands for the transgressions of a very few.

Tom.

Quoting upperdeck (Reply 3): I believe an AD was issued to replace the pitots,

If my memory is correct, the AD to replace the tubes was issued before the AF crash, one particular brand was found to be faulty by being prone to icing conditions, other brands were not as susceptible.

The safety issue that faulty airspeed data poses to the flight computers is well known, the key is how does one deal with the issue, so in effect, when the computer goes "belly up" and says I no longer have valid speeds and gives control over to the human, if he does his job correctly the a/c will continue to fly and land safely, if the human does not do what he is supposed to do the a/c goes down.
So is that a safety issue or a human issue?

Correct. In fact, Air France was already replacing pitot tubes on some aircraft prior to the crash.

Quoting upperdeck (Reply 3):

I read the ECAM reports from AF447, They lost Air data indication and really had only Inertial reference indication so
their window was a VERY small one to get out of it safely. they didn't have airspeed But they did have ground speed and Attitude. so they were NOT blind I would have had them switch the #1 ADIRU tp ATTITUDE, and the #3 Adiru to Ground speed. They had a 10-20 knot safety margin but they used that up. I'd have fire walled the throttles and turned west immediately With the captain at the controls they Might have had a darn good chance but the "30 day" Ab inito "wonder" they had at the controls Had NO IDEA what he was doing and stalled the airplane.
Why they elected to cross into the nose of a force 5 thunderstorm that had tops of 51,000 ft is more my question. American was 8 miles behind them and 20 miles left of them and Iberia went around the Back side of the storm.
The AF A330 is as well equipped as any of the other airplanes and they Had Doppler radar.
Why didn't they turn away like American or go around like Iberia?? They weren't lacking in fuel and they could have diverted any Number of places if they could get short of Fuel. I don't think this was the airplane's fault so much as somebody at Air France Had their Head "up and Locked" . I know our Dispatchers follow flights all over the place and send alerts for weather all the time and Reroutes around weather. I wonder what Air France's operations was doing??

I don't think you can compare AF447 accident to the 787 problems. The investigation showed that although the problem started with the malfunctioning pitot tubes pilot error was partly to blame for what ultimately happened to AF447. An AD was issued and now days pilots of A330's are more aware and know exactly what to do if this situation happens again. Pitot tube failures can still happen but with an experience flight crew the plane can still be flown and landed safely.

However the 787 situation is completely different having a fire start in flight in a compartment that has no fire suppression system could compromise part of airframe and regardless of the experience of the flight crew that fire could result in an aircraft being brought down. The FAA had no choice in this matter they had ti issue the grounding until they can figure out what is causing these problems because public safety is at risk.

Quoting upperdeck (Reply 3): It took months to locate the black boxes, so an immediate grouding wasn't a possibility. The cause of the crash was more pilot error and misjudgement than equipment failure in my opinion. I believe an AD was issued to replace the pitots, Airbus were asked to update their checklists etc but grouding wasn't ever considered.

This could only be known later, even if it is your opinion. But loss of airspeed indication was known even without the black boxes, and considering the history of loss of airspeed in the past, the A330 was simply held to a lower standard. Even now, Airbus can't PROVE the A330 is safe even after a fatal crash, and the loss of airspeed is still happening. (And had happened on the 767 IIRC, though without fly-by-wire, the response of the aircraft is completely different).

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the A330 is unsafe, but being unsafe and being proved safe are not the same thing. It's similar to the us legal system. Being proven innocent is harder than being proved not guilty within a reasonable doubt.

And if we are to use the new standard the FAA all of a sudden is setting, they should ground the A330 after the LY incident because an argument can be made, no matter how flimsy, that the AD didn't solve the problem, and we can throw a few coulds and mights around to make it sound catastrophic.

Oh, and please don't tell me that it's because we didn't know what happened that the A330 couldn't be grounded. That's the same excuse being use TO ground the 787. We don't know what caused a known failure point to fail in a known way, so that's enough to ground it.

We also still allow the MD11 to fly despite multiple instances of the aircraft breaking itself apart in a hard landing. We almost had another one the other day. Maybe a couple pilots dying in a fiery crash isn't as important to the regulators as a 1/2 empty 787 worth of passengers having to jump out of slides because the pilots smelled something funny...

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 5): The question should be, especially as 447 came in the wake of 4590 and 358, monumental f*** ups all, why weren't Air France grounded?

How was 4590 an AF monumental f*** up? You could blame AF4590 on CO, CDG, the designers of Concorde, the certifying agencies, or any combination or those, but not on AF.

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 5): No carrier on the EU blacklist has killed a tenth as many passengers since 2000

Maybe, but an American carrier has...

Quoting ikramerica (Reply 12): Oh, and please don't tell me that it's because we didn't know what happened that the A330 couldn't be grounded.

Actually, thanks to the automated messages the aircraft sent, it was clear from the beginning that there was a loss of airspeed, and hence that the pitot tubes were involved. On June 4, 2009 (3 days after the accident) Airbus reminded operators of 330/3340s about the "unreliable speed indication" procedures, and in July Airbus advised all operators to replace the Thales pitot tubes with Godrich's. Finally an AD mandating the replacement was published in late August 2009.

The problem with the 787 is that the cause of the fires is not known.

AF447 and the 787 have nothing in common with each other. By the time of AF447, the A330 had experienced many years in service, with technologies that had proven themselves to be reliable and safe.

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 5): No comparison - firstly, it is possible for any aircraft to have unreliable airspeed; secondly, it should not be overly dangerous (look up the phrase "pitch and power"). Just a bad day at the office.

From the BBC documentary I saw on this the crew knew that they were entering the storm and anticipated turbulence and slowed the plane down to reduce the stresses on it which IIRC is standard practice. What happened next was the pitot tubes freezing over and with the plane flying slower than normal for cruise it was very close to the stall speed and stalled and the pilots not believe their instruments they didn't take action to correct the stall.

Quoting strfyr51 (Reply 9): The AF A330 is as well equipped as any of the other airplanes and they Had Doppler radar. Why didn't they turn away like American or go around like Iberia??

IIRC they was a smaller storm that masked the presence of a larger one behind it relative to the flight path and the Doppler could only see the first one and showed the second with not enough time for the plane to change course.

Quoting ikramerica (Reply 11): that the AD didn't solve the problem, and we can throw a few coulds and mights around to make it sound catastrophic.

If you are referring to the AD of Airbus order the pitot tubes changed the specific frame that was AF447 hadn't been changed yet but AF was in the process of changing their fleet. The liability lies with AF or the aviation regulating bodies who could have said "No A330 flies with these pitot tubes."

Quoting UALWN (Reply 14): The problem with the 787 is that the cause of the fires is not known.

Exactly and the FAA did this now because there aren't several hundred of them in the air. They probably should have done this with the 737 and the issues with the servo-valve which caused 2 crashes and nearly a 3rd, but it would have been a nightmare to ground the most popular jet in the world.

Quoting UALWN (Reply 13): How was 4590 an AF monumental f*** up?

They were at least 3t overweight, but that became the equivalent of 10t when they decided to perform a downwind takeoff (rather than taxi to the other end of the field), the FE shut down an engine without telling the captain, and AF hadn't done mods recommended by Airbus which BA had done, which might have avoided the gear troubles altogether. Oh and the tank burst was almost certainly caused by the aircraft being overfuelled. Typical reckless Air France operation - take any one of these elements out of the picture and AF 4590 would have made it to New York and 113 people would still be alive and Conc would have died a natural death due to high fuel prices a few years later, her record intact. But with all this against her, all it took was one piece of FOD and the outcome was certain disaster. That's Air France for you.

Quoting UALWN (Reply 13): How was 4590 an AF monumental f*** up? You could blame AF4590 on CO, CDG, the designers of Concorde, the certifying agencies, or any combination or those, but not on AF.

Actually, that's not true at all. The loss of that aircraft was in large part due to severe negligence on the part of Air France maintenance.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/may/13/davidrose.focus

Quoting jayunited (Reply 10): However the 787 situation is completely different having a fire start in flight in a compartment that has no fire suppression system could compromise part of airframe and regardless of the experience of the flight crew that fire could result in an aircraft being brought down.

Not to conflate the threads but unless something is really wrong with the design, a battery fire can't bring the aircraft down. That was a design condition from the FAA from many years back.

Tom.

Perhaps if there had been a second or even third unexplained crash in a short period. The Comet and Electra had multiple unexplained crashes within short periods. Would grounding the 330 have accomplished anything?

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 17): Oh and the tank burst was almost certainly caused by the aircraft being overfuelled. Typical reckless Air France operation - take any one of these elements out of the picture and AF 4590 would have made it to New York and 113 people would still be alive

I think the tire damage would have happened because that metal strip was there (provided they used the same runway) but that would be a diversion/return to CDG and an incident that could be dealt with.

IIRC the tank burst was moving fuel to balance the plane and not because it was over-fuelled.

In all there were many issues with that crash and with all crashes, its never one thing.

Quoting tdscanuck (Reply 19): Not to conflate the threads but unless something is really wrong with the design, a battery fire can't bring the aircraft down. That was a design condition from the FAA from many years back.

If that fire can't be suppressed of course it can bring a plane down and it doesn't take much. Hopefully after Swissair 111 the 787 isn't using that insulation but a fire spreading is a huge possibility.

Quoting denverdanny (Reply 20): Perhaps if there had been a second or even third unexplained crash in a short period. The Comet and Electra had multiple unexplained crashes within short periods. Would grounding the 330 have accomplished anything?

  

We could have done the same to the 777 after BA 038 and (although it was done for a short time) done the same with the A380 after QF 32. Thankfully those accidents were solved pretty quickly and there seems to be a plausible cause for AF447.

Quoting StarAC17 (Reply 21): If that fire can't be suppressed of course it can bring a plane down and it doesn't take much. Hopefully after Swissair 111 the 787 isn't using that insulation but a fire spreading is a huge possibility.

There's nothing for fire to spread to. One of the big outcomes of Swissair 111 was that there basically isn't any flammable material left in airliner construction except what has to be there (fuel, battery chemicals, oxygen generators, etc.).

Tom.

I see a pattern forming here.....first the TU-204 thread, now an A330 thread.....are we going to have a 'why wasn't this or that grounded' for every aircraft type that's suffered a major accident? Time to get some perspective.

Quoting ikramerica (Reply 11): And if we are to use the new standard the FAA all of a sudden is setting, they should ground the A330 after the LY incident because an argument can be made, no matter how flimsy, that the AD didn't solve the problem, and we can throw a few coulds and mights around to make it sound catastrophic.

No, because planes of all makes lose airspeed indication from time to time because of frozen or blocked pitot tubes. It's an entirely controllable and fully recoverable situation (unless the crew exhibits a willful disregard for SOP and a disturbing lack of basic flying skills).

But let's flip your question around - why wasn't the 777 grounded after the BA crash at Heathrow?

The FAA hasn't set any new standards as far as I can see.   

Quoting ikramerica (Reply 11): they should ground the A330 after the LY incident

you meant EY  

Quoting VC10DC10 (Reply 18): Actually, that's not true at all. The loss of that aircraft was in large part due to severe negligence on the part of Air France maintenance.

I have come across a lot of bad aviation journalism, but this takes the cake. I have never, ever, in my life read such a crock of s#t... There isn't a shred of sense, a hint of veracity or a drop of logic in what's written on there.

I know the UK press is never kind to anything gallic, especially the Guardian, but this article is an outright insult.

I am the first to believe that AF hasn't the best track record when it comes to safety, training and general attitude towards procedures, but the Concorde crash had clearly no root in that particular attitude.

Quoting ikramerica (Reply 12): That's the same excuse being use TO ground the 787.

I have a feeling this all stems from an emotional bias, but there is a difference the 787 events and that of the A330, MD11 and most other types that suffered accidents. Remember that just a few days before the ANA battery event, a JAL Dreamliner's battery caught fire in BOS. Then a few days later, United reported a wiring problem in the same area in one of its aircrafts. By the time of the NH incident, a safety probe was had already been announced by the manufacturer. The context was very different from one of an airliner having flown safely for millions of hours over decades and suddenly being involved in an accident.

As with everything that relates to safety, it's all about statistics. Number of events / total flight hours...

Quoting LY777 (Thread starter): Is the A330 not grounded because there are so many A330s in service? I am sure that if 800 787s were in service, the 787s wouldn't have been grounded.

I disagree. If there was a valid reason to ground the aircraft the number in service would not be a factor. When the DC-10 was grounded for 37 days in June/July 1979 after the AA191 crash at ORD there were 281 DC-10s in service. And that grounding turned out to be unwarranted as the cause of the crash was determined to be faulty AA maintenance procedures.

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 5): The question should be, especially as 447 came in the wake of 4590 and 358, monumental f*** ups all, why weren't Air France grounded? No carrier on the EU blacklist has killed a tenth as many passengers since 2000 (and let's ignore their six 707 crashes, five of which had no survivors - so this isn't a recent phenomenon either).

Pan Am had 5 fatal 707 crashes in 9 months in 1972/73.

The A-330 could have been grounded, along with its A-340 sister as they had the same airspeed computer system and deice system. But there really wasn't any reason to do that. The problem had already been identified and replacement had already begun.

The time is service for an airplane type grounding has nothing to due with how long it has been in service. The DC-10 was in service for over 8 years, and had some pretty horrific crashes before the AA-191 accident that grounded it. There were some 400 DC-10s in service (worldwide) when it was grounded. The Connie and DC-7 were also in service for a number of years before they were grounded for various safety reasons.

Quoting KC135TopBoom (Reply 28): There were some 400 DC-10s in service (worldwide) when it was grounded.

Not that many. As mentioned in Reply 27, 281 DC-10s were delivered through June 1979.

A loss of speed also occurred with that Condor crash (757) and it took a while to understand what had happened.

I think a better example would be the 737 classic. For years they could not figure out why the UA in CO crashed, and then another incident occurred that the crew was able to prevent. The 737 kept on flying.

Besides, there were a couple of A330 incidents, not two within two weeks or four electircals within a year...

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 17): They were at least 3t overweight, but that became the equivalent of 10t when they decided to perform a downwind takeoff (rather than taxi to the other end of the field), the FE shut down an engine without telling the captain, and AF hadn't done mods recommended by Airbus which BA had done, which might have avoided the gear troubles altogether.

Let's see:
a) None of this was a reason for the accident: there was a piece of metal on the runway, it punctured a tire, debris impacted the fuel tank, which was ruptured, a fire ensued.

b) The recommendations were just that, and AF had no obligation to comply. Hence the possible blame of EASA.

c) After the accident, the CAA grounded the Concorde for month. Why, if it was all due to AF's "recklessness'?

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 17): Oh and the tank burst was almost certainly caused by the aircraft being overfuelled.

Another British myth. The aircraft was not over-fueled.

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 17): Typical reckless Air France operation

Typical meaningless blanket statement.

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 17): ake any one of these elements out of the picture and AF 4590 would have made it to New York

No way.

Quoting VC10DC10 (Reply 18): The loss of that aircraft was in large part due to severe negligence on the part of Air France maintenance.

That's what a British newspaper said based on their "investigation." It's not what the BEA said based on their investigation.

Quoting LY777 (Thread starter): Is the A330 not grounded because there are so many A330s in service? I am sure that if 800 787s were in service, the 787s wouldn't have been grounded.

These were completely different incident trains.

AF447 - we never knew the real reason for over two years - but the initial indications were that the plane had an Airspeed Disagree message.

BEA, and the NTSB - did a quick review of the A330, A340, B777 aircraft with similar systems for lost airspeed / Unreliable Air Speed (UAS). US airlines flew more A330s than French airlines at the time.

What they found was surprising.

There were about three dozen incidents of UAS documented, including two previous incidents with Air Caraibes which helped lead to the pitot probe replacement program.

The crews were easily able to deal with a UAS incidents. A few involved having to fly the aircraft several hours on manual because the Autopilot could not be reset due to conflicting airspeed indications.

The training for UAS was proper, the checklists accurate. If procedures were followed there was no reason the UAS event would have brought down AF447.

So until the investigation proceeded - there was no identifiable issue to cause a grounding.

The B787 issue is different because (1) it is a new aircraft without the extensive operational history of the A330 at that time; and (2) there is an identifiable issue which could likely cause the loss of an aircraft in flight.

It is likely, and possible that the B787 will return ot the air without any major changes being instituted.

Quoting KarelXWB (Reply 8): In fact, Air France was already replacing pitot tubes on some aircraft prior to the crash.

The BEA report identifies at least one incident with the Goodrich good probes icing over and failing at cruise level - and the crew handled the event easily.

ALL pitot probes will fail / ice over at some point. The key is to work to minimize failures, and to train crews to deal with UAS situations.

Quoting strfyr51 (Reply 9): They lost Air data indication and really had only Inertial reference indication so their window was a VERY small one to get out of it safely.

Yet at least three dozen other crews had no real problem dealing with similar situations, including at night and in stormy weather. Fly pitch and power. Follow the checklist. The AF447 crew did not.

Quoting strfyr51 (Reply 9): The AF A330 is as well equipped as any of the other airplanes and they Had Doppler radar. Why didn't they turn away like American or go around like Iberia??

They did alter their course to miss the worst of the storm. The data now available shows the UAS incident occurred not in rough stormy weather conditions.

Quoting strfyr51 (Reply 9): I wonder what Air France's operations was doing??

Does your airline fly across the ITCZ?

Unfortunately it is common for aircraft in such regions to be out of contact with Oceanic centers and satellite tracking for long periods of time.

Air France maintenance brought concerns about the ACARS messages to the Operations Center lead within a couple hours of the messages when they (maintenance) was unable to query the aircraft computers.

When Air France Ops was unable to contact the aircraft via ACARS, and another AF flight which should be somewhat close to AF447 was unable to contact the aircraft by VHF - Air France Ops went to their national SAR authorities with a request to help find the aircraft. This was within three hours of the plane's last contact.

The BEA report list a lot of reasons that the plane was not declared missing or SAR launched earlier. The first actual official report of a possible missing aircraft came ours later then a supervisor in Madrid took it on his own shoulders to issue the alert message even though the aircraft was obviously outside his area of responsibility.

There have been extensive improvements in both the airline ops monitoring, and the SAR / Alert system. There is still a LOT of room for improvement.

The A330s were not grounded because there was no indication of specific fleetwide problem. There were concerns about the pitot tubes before the AF crash and their replacement was accelerated after the crash. However, there was little direct information known for years afterward and only limited conclusions could be drawn. After recovery of the black boxes it was suspected that icing of the pitot tubes was a factor but by then all operating A330s already had pitot tubes with stronger heating elements.

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 17): They were at least 3t overweight, but that became the equivalent of 10t when they decided to perform a downwind takeoff (rather than taxi to the other end of the field), the FE shut down an engine without telling the captain, and AF hadn't done mods recommended by Airbus which BA had done, which might have avoided the gear troubles altogether. Oh and the tank burst was almost certainly caused by the aircraft being overfuelled. Typical reckless Air France operation - take any one of these elements out of the picture and AF 4590 would have made it to New York and 113 people would still be alive and Conc would have died a natural death due to high fuel prices a few years later, her record intact. But with all this against her, all it took was one piece of FOD and the outcome was certain disaster. That's Air France for you.

I have read the comments of others but I tend to agree with you on both your Air France safety history point (it's dire) and the Concorde accident. Its so long since I read the report and watched various documentaries, but I recall, I think, that there were a total of seven different factors that culminated in the crash. If any one of them had been eliminated (I don't think the passengers would have reached New York) but the plane may have made back to a runway. The overweight situation, the tail wind, the confusion on board (seems to always feature in Air France hull loss/fatal accidents), the shutting down of good engines(s) although most crews would have fallen for that trap as indications made it appear that there was an engine fire when the source of the flames was from elsewhere, wheel spacers not fitted after recent maintenance which gave the plane a tendency to pull to one side on the runway, the debris on the runway, the gear line modification, etc.

In all these years with A.net, I've seen hateful posts but this # 17 is probably the worst. To the extent that I wonder why the poster claims belonging to the population of aviation fans.

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 17): They were at least 3t overweight, but that became the equivalent of 10t when they decided to perform a downwind takeoff (rather than taxi to the other end of the field),

1/ They were 1.1 T overweight if one considers the average 84 kg / pax, or 657 kg if we allowed the 88 /70 / 30 kg standard in the industry worldwide or just 300 kgs for a charter average.... even then, to know an aircraft weight down to the kilo is pure fallacy.
2/ The winds at takeoff were between 02/03kt for the threshold 26 and 300/03 kt for the runway 08.
Moreover, between 14.00Z and 15.00 Z the wind varied between 300° and 170° with maximums at 9 kt., which meant a headwind of 0 to 8 kt for the takeoff... Sometimes, watching a windsock is more accurate than tower values...
3/ The crew had nothing to do with the active runway ( the airport authority does ). What they requested, though, was a full length takeoff, normal procedure on Concorde with its high V speeds ( Vr copmputed at 198 kt )

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 17): the FE shut down an engine without telling the captain

That's a load of bull : It was an advice given by the FE to the Captain, who immediately ordered the fire drill . It's only then that the #2 was shuit down.

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 17): AF hadn't done mods recommended by Airbus which BA had done, which might have avoided the gear troubles altogether.

Airbus ? ...and what mod that could have avoided the accident ?

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 17): Oh and the tank burst was almost certainly caused by the aircraft being overfuelled.

Explain how you can overfuel an aircraft . and how much fuel you'd have loaded for a CDG-JFK... I' m curious...

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 17): Typical reckless Air France

... or is it "typical hatred of anytyhing french" ? I wonder...

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 17): one piece of FOD and the outcome was certain disaster

As it took nearly a year to ascertain the phenomena ( unknown, therefore unaccounted for in certification) through testing and testing? I am really surprised that someone like you could write that certainty. .
A bit nof humility doesn't hurt, you know.

Quoting VC10DC10 (Reply 18): The loss of that aircraft was in large part due to severe negligence on the part of Air France maintenance.

Problem is the guardian, like all brit newspapers sell on sensational, the sad thing is some twitty BA pilots seem to be arrogantly thinking thatt they are better than their colleagues... and I thought that the brits invented ethics in our modern world...
My only info come from the BEA report and the judicial inquiry. I challenge you to find these items in these reports.
For your, and mr hutchinson's information, the report, made in common by the BEA and the AAIB have determined that because of the fire and the damage it caused to the structure / flight controls, the aircraft would have been unflyable and would have crashed even if all engines were delivering normal thrust

A little case of armchair captaining ?

Quoting LY777 (Thread starter): Sorry if this has been discussed but I wonder why the A330s were not grounded after the AF447 crash. Indeed, even before this crash, many airlines reported problems with airspeed indications which could have lead to crashes.

I think the short answer is: there was no need, because crews have procedures and training to deal with loss of airspeed indication. The crew in AF 447 did some things that are inexplicable to me, e.g., Flying 101 teaches that when the plane stalls, you point the nose down. By comparison, if the 787 battery catches fire, that's something the crew can't cause and have no control over.

Look, I'm an ex-Boeing employee, but I try not to be needlessly partisan. I could argue with the grounding, but I also understand the FAA's reasoning. Best thing to do at this point is fix it and get those planes back in the air, and argue about the official-ese later.

Quoting Pihero (Reply 36):

I agree with you... here we are back again in Autumn 2011. I guess it's easier to place blame on a whole population "Air France/French Nationals" than to simply contribute something of value to the topic at hand. Embarrassing and sad, all the same.

Bon Voyage,

Air Afreak

We can ask the same question about the BA B777 G-YMMM crash.
Why didn't the FAA ground all B777's after the BA B777 suffered an uncommanded roll-back on both engines?

The reason for grounding an aircraft are not always the source of the problem but a result of risk assessment.

By the time G-YMMM went down, the B777 had accumulated millions of hours flying passengers safely. So this was a very rare occurrence and had the G-YMMM not met the particular set of circumstances that led to its crash, the engineering problem may never have seen the light.
It would not be justified to ground a worldwide fleet of hundreds of aircraft based on the very rare occurrence of the event in question and without knowing the source of the problem.

Likewise, the A330 had accumulated millions of hours safely before the AF447 accident.
It would not be justified to ground all A330's given how rare the problem was and before ruling out pilot error.

I can give you an even better example.
Airbus have seen software code errors on their aircraft in many occasions. Pilots would see the aircraft start uncommanded large control surface inputs in certain configurations, and engineers experienced uncommanded flap retraction when carrying out tests during regular maintenance checks. Sometimes this has brought EASA to the verge of a worldwide fleet grounding of thousands of aircraft, but given the unlikelihood of said configurations to ever lead to a major accident or were only related to certain serial numbers or required a simple fix, they were resolved through AD's.


But the B787 has had 2 occurrences in 10.000 hours of service involving highly dangerous events on one single system installed independently on 2 different systems. Inconveniently, these also are the heart of the essential/emergency power systems.
Only 50 aircraft to ground, of which about 35 were already grounded in Japan anyway, so the decision was easy to make.

If a third occurrence had led to deaths, the FAA would have lost all credibility as the leading aviation safety organism of the world.
That's a status that the FAA could not afford to loose.
This is not a fair/unfair deal, it's just that it's a decision that the FAA wouldn't have to justify to the operators or the manufacturer, it's obvious that it had to be taken. If another incident had followed, leading to a hull-loss or

Instead of focusing on the "controversy", we should applaud the FAA for leaving politics aside and taking safety seriously. If you want to put commercial interests in front of safety, you might as well want to tear up all the FAR's in place. If the rules didn't apply to Boeing, why should they apply to everybody else?

[Edited 2013-01-30 17:10:57]

Quoting awthompson (Reply 35): I have read the comments of others but I tend to agree with you on both your Air France safety history point (it's dire) and the Concorde accident. Its so long since I read the report and watched various documentaries, but I recall, I think, that there were a total of seven different factors that culminated in the crash. If any one of them had been eliminated (I don't think the passengers would have reached New York) but the plane may have made back to a runway. The overweight situation, the tail wind, the confusion on board (seems to always feature in Air France hull loss/fatal accidents), the shutting down of good engines(s) although most crews would have fallen for that trap as indications made it appear that there was an engine fire when the source of the flames was from elsewhere, wheel spacers not fitted after recent maintenance which gave the plane a tendency to pull to one side on the runway, the debris on the runway, the gear line modification, etc.

I, probably among a lot of people would love to see you and your friend provide some reference to that kind of bull.
If not, I suggest you paid more attention to what aviation is in reality,; and not the usual drivel found on some books / sites / TV programs that are only for the thrill seekers and the ghouls.
I pride myself as being fair-minded and honest on aviation related subjects. I have no agenda and I call "cat" a cat and "bull" a bull. And even though I tend to defend my fellow aviators, when I see a boob, that's how I call it... I haven't intervened in the CivAv forum on the 787 grounding because of the impossibility to have an access on the 787 electrical circuit...so I don't understand it... I wish a lot of posters showed the same restraint.
As you don't have the faintest idea about our line of profression, you cannot grasp what this crew went through, doing their professional best to save a situation they barely understood, but kept on fighting to the end. The crash, from the moment the escaping fuel was ignited, was toitally, utterly and tragically unavoidable, through loss of flight controls.

Quoting AirAfreak (Reply 38): here we are back again in Autumn 2011

Hi !... Seems that way, doesn't it ?

Quoting cornutt (Reply 37): Look, I'm an ex-Boeing employee, but I try not to be needlessly partisan. I could argue with the grounding, but I also understand the FAA's reasoning

Very respectable attitude, if I may...

Quoting Pihero (Reply 40): Very respectable attitude, if I may...

Thank you, and congratulations on your A.net 8th anniversary!     

I look at it this way: eventually, everyone in this business is going to have their time in the box. It does no good to mock your competitors when they're in the box, because it could be you next week.

Quoting cedarjet (Reply 17): That's Air France for you.

Yep. It's all the French's fault. Actually that's not entirely true, it's also the Germans, the Spanish, and the Italians. If these countries did not exist, then our beautiful British Concord(e)s would still be flying the flag. Oh wait...

/sarcasm

If there were 900 787s flying, the type would have so many flight hours under its belt that a unique battery mishap may not have grounded it. But when the type is new and there are 150 batteries bricked after less than 18 months flying...

Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 27): When the DC-10 was grounded for 37 days in June/July 1979 after the AA191 crash at ORD there were 281 DC-10s in service. And that grounding turned out to be unwarranted as the cause of the crash was determined to be faulty AA maintenance procedures.

Although the immediate cause of the crash was AA maintenance procedures, that's not what the AD was about. The AD was about how the slats behave in certain failure situations, such as engine separation, that were brought to light as a result of the crashes.

Quoting rfields5421 (Reply 33): The B787 issue is different because (1) it is a new aircraft without the extensive operational history of the A330 at that time; and (2) there is an identifiable issue which could likely cause the loss of an aircraft in flight.

It won't "likely cause the loss of an aircraft." As yet, nobody has been able to identify any causal chain that leads from battery fire to aircraft loss. The FAA/NTSB have hinted they believe it could happen (without specifying what it is) and, in fact, the FAA special conditions allow it to happen as long as the probability is low enough, but it's certainly not "likely."

Quoting Wisdom (Reply 39): We can ask the same question about the BA B777 G-YMMM crash. Why didn't the FAA ground all B777's after the BA B777 suffered an uncommanded roll-back on both engines?

As others noted, the probability was provably low because of the large inflight experience. In addition, they instituted a crew procedure fairly shortly after the event to lower the probability of encountering those specific circumstances again, so even those engines without the modified heat exchangers were deemed suitably low risk.

Quoting a380900 (Reply 43): But when the type is new and there are 150 batteries bricked after less than 18 months flying...

I would strongly suggest people review the bottom half of the CivAv Thread 6 on this topic before conflating the normal battery replacements (100+) with the battery fires (2).

Tom.

Quoting LY777 (Thread starter): I am sure that if 800 787s were in service, the 787s wouldn't have been grounded.

On what basis do you believe that?

This thread is just sad. To see so many posters post their opinions completely without a command of the facts of the other incidents/accidents mentioned, and often seemingly making stories up on the fly...this is just a sad thread.

Quoting PGNCS (Reply 45): On what basis do you believe that?

I think he's saying that if there were a bunch of 787s in service, they would have millions of flight hours in, and that would provide more confidence for whatever probability calculations are being done. As it is, with only 100,000 or so flight hours logged, its hard to establish a confidence interval.

The A330 has been a very, very safe aircraft to operate. The two commercial flights that have crashed in the many years airlines are flying the A330 (AF-447 & 8U-771) were predominantly caused by human error when the aircraft itself was totally controllable in flight. Poor pilot judgements and not following the correct procedures caused AF-447 to go down.

Officially the investigation on 8U-771 is still ongoing, but a brand new A330 crashing just miles from the airport in perfect weather conditions, but deviated from the flight path by pilot commands, leaves not much room for technical error. Also no error was reported by the flight crew.

So with close to a 1,000 A330's in highly reliable operations, and a couple of hundred A340-sisters, there was absolutely no need to ground the aircraft. Add to that the fact that the black box recovery was very difficult and time-consuming, there was no direct reason to ground the aircraft.

Quoting Pihero (Reply 36): In all these years with A.net, I've seen hateful posts but this # 17 is probably the worst. To the extent that I wonder why the poster claims belonging to the population of aviation fans.

Sadly enough you are 100% correct with your remarks.

Quoting Pihero (Reply 40): I, probably among a lot of people would love to see you and your friend provide some reference to that kind of bull. If not, I suggest you paid more attention to what aviation is in reality,; and not the usual drivel found on some books / sites / TV programs that are only for the thrill seekers and the ghouls.

Adn again sadly enough, you are spot on with your remarks.

Quoting LY777 (Thread starter): I am sure that if 800 787s were in service, the 787s wouldn't have been grounded.

800 787s is more than 10 years production. Hardly thinkable a grave failure is being detected that late. 800 flying planes mean its a success. But who knows what surprises the new materials might hold in the long term.

Quoting Pihero (Reply 36): 1/ They were 1.1 T overweight if one considers the average 84 kg / pax, or 657 kg if we allowed the 88 /70 / 30 kg standard in the industry worldwide or just 300 kgs for a charter average.... even then, to know an aircraft weight down to the kilo is pure fallacy.

From the final report:

"The maximum structural weight on takeoff being 185,070 kg, it appears that the aircraft was slightly overloaded on takeoff, regardless of the hypotheses used to make the calculations."

also

"At 14 h 42 min 17 s, the Concorde was cleared to line up and take off. The controller announced a wind of 090°/8 kt. This announcement did not result in any comment on the part of the crew, even though, with those wind conditions, the takeoff weight should be reduced to 180,300 kg because of the “tyre” speed limit. In reality, the wind was practically zero, as is shown by the Météo France readings and analysis of the track. However, even if the crew had previously noticed this absence of wind, for example by observing the indication given by the windsock near the threshold of runway 26L around a thousand metres away, it is difficult to understand the absence of any comment on their part."

[Edited 2013-01-31 02:58:57]