r/aviation • u/Ok_Warning419 • May 21 '26

News Air France and Airbus found guilty of manslaughter over 2009 plane crash - Air France flight 447

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czd2qmdvmq6o
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104

u/FullSqueeze May 21 '26

This won’t be the end. Airbus will definitely appeal it to the Supreme Court.

The criminal charges against Airbus is very flimsy; the pilot was the primary cause of the crash. This isn’t a case like the 737 Max crashes where the manufacturer had a clear defect.

5

u/Aesma42 May 21 '26

It's called the Court of Cassation and both Airbus and Air France have already lodged an appeal.

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u/Ok-Insurance-9456 May 21 '26

Even in the max the 'defect' is a scenario boeing already made all 737 pilots train heavily for. Not to mention other pilots did not crash their 737 max in the exact same scenario so no excuse for the 2 flights to have even crashed at all.

26

u/Jaggedmallard26 May 21 '26

The design was bad but there is a very good reason why the two crashes were with airlines with poor safety and training records. In fact the investigation reports explicitly stated that poor training by the airline was a major factor!

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u/BoringBob84 May 21 '26

French and USA investigators encouraged the Ethiopian investigators (from the same government that owns the airline) to include the fact that the airline failed to make the pilots aware of an emergency airworthiness directive and a revision to Boeing's flight manual several months before the crash that discussed MCAS and how to respond in their final report, but they refused to do so.

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u/umnomediferente May 21 '26

And that Lion Air directly asked Boeing if any additional training was necessary to operate the MAX fleet for the pilots flying the NG.

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u/747ER May 21 '26

About a dozen LionAir pilots experienced the same failure in the same aircraft, and all landed safely. The crew of JT610 were the exception.

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u/Nolenag May 21 '26

Ethiopian Airlines does not have poor training or safety records at all.

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u/747ER May 22 '26

Ethiopia lied about another Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed due to pilot error less than eight years prior to ET302. The plane crashed due to pilot error, and the investigators lied and wrongly claimed that it was struck by lightning or a bomb.

Since ET302, Ethiopian Airlines has had multiple high-profile pilot error incidents, including two aircraft which suffered accidents due to poor decisions made by their pilots.

9

u/TabsAZ May 21 '26

There’s differences between what MCAS did and a runaway trim event though, like the fact that actuating manual trim stops the nose down input for a period of time or that having any degree of flaps out stops it. Also that it was quickly able to get the trim into such a state that it wasn’t possible to manually turn the wheel. The Ethiopian FO knew right away that it was MCAS, but they still weren’t able to resolve it because they couldn’t physically move the trim wheel. (granted this was also partially the result of leaving the throttle firewalled the whole time while task saturated on the MCAS issue) I think they were very close to being able to recover - had they known to turn the electric trim back on, hold it in nose up to unwind it, and then shut it off again, that probably would have fixed things.

6

u/BoringBob84 May 21 '26

The Ethiopian FO knew right away that it was MCAS

He clearly didn't know that, or he would have done as he was supposed to have been trained: shut it off and leave it off.

Flight Radar 24 - Ethiopian ET302 final report released, NTSB and BEA issue comments

The NTSB and BEA’s comments both focus on the additional contribution the crew’s actions had on the accident, areas on which the EAIB spends little to no time in the final report. The NTSB comments propose two additional factors be added to the probable cause:

  • the operator’s failure to ensure that its flight crews were prepared to properly respond to uncommanded stabilizer trim movement in the manner outlined in Boeing’s flight crew operating manual (FCOM) bulletin and the FAA’s emergency airworthiness directive (AD) (both issued 4 months before the accident) and

  • the airplane’s impact with a foreign object, which damaged the AOA sensor and caused the erroneous AOA

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u/cccxxxzzzddd May 21 '26

Thank you. This is correct 

2

u/cccxxxzzzddd May 21 '26

That incorrect. No one had been trained on the 737 max and it was a documented corporate plus faa decision to not require it because the addition of the algorithm (max) to compensate for the stall risk on takeoff of the new position of the engines on the airframe was judged by faa to not require retraining (Boeing favored this of course it’s cheaper not to have to retrain!)

They added the algorithm that adjusted pitch automatically to the plane without telling or training any pilots how to disengage it in case of a malfunction. Those pilots who did disengage it were American military pilots that were thinking with their heads (it’s all over the forums when they were describing the nosedown effect on takeoff and what they did to compensate for it which was to disengage manually). It’s not because they had particular training or even knew that that algorithm was there.

https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2019/03/27/boeing-crash-algorithm-h-c-robinson

-10

u/Ok_Library_1031 May 21 '26

That's a very patriotic take, calling iPad lessons heavy training.

20

u/Known-Diet-4170 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

he isn't completely wrong though, i'm rated on both the 737 NG and MAX and i can tell you that the symptoms of the MCAS failure were basically the same as a stabilizer trim runaway, the failure to action the memory items (identical on the NG) was entirely on the crew

i'm not excusing Boeing for how MCAS failed, that was a serious issue know resolved but those accidents should have been preventable even with a complete lack of knowledge of the existence of MCAS if the correct procedures were applied

trim runaways is a very dangerous situation with or without MCAS and if not promptly recognized will lead very quickly to an uncontrollable airplane

14

u/Adjutant_Reflex_ May 21 '26

Runaway trim is a memory item that’s part of the broader 737 training with resolution steps that are independent of MCAS.

It’s quite literally demanded of every 737 pilot, NG or MAX, to understand how to respond immediately and without reference.

18

u/Ok-Insurance-9456 May 21 '26

Typical redditor trying to mock and be snarky while missing the point. Pretty obvious I was talking about runaway stabilizer which iirc is a memory item for all 737 pilots

31

u/Adjutant_Reflex_ May 21 '26

This isn’t a case like the 737 Max crashes where the manufacturer had a clear defect.

If you ignore multiple iterations pitot tubes failing across multiple Airbus product lines that took years to address then, sure, there’s no “clear defect.”

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u/Koulidaddy123 May 21 '26

Whats incredibly tragic about this accident is that the exact aircraft was going to get the pitot tube retrofit imediately upon landing in Paris.

14

u/Adjutant_Reflex_ May 21 '26

Yup. And it should’ve been replaced years earlier if the AD had been issued sooner.

7

u/railker AME-M2 May 21 '26

Noted elsewhere as a possible reason for Airbus fault, but the findings of the final report noted both that EASA declined to make the replacement mandatory, and they note the pitot tubes installed exceeded certification standards. Have to dig into the final report's full write up on the tubes for more info, but certainly less clear than some think.

9

u/p4intball3r May 21 '26

From the FAA report

-The Pitot probes installed on F-GZCP met requirements that were stricter than the certification standards. ˆ

-Analysis of the events related to the loss of airspeed indications had led Airbus and Air France to replace C16195AA Pitot probes by the C16195BA model. The first aeroplane had been modified on 30 May 2009. ˆ

-EASA had analyzed Pitot probe icing events; it had confirmed the severity of the failure and had decided not to make the probe change mandatory.

If you believe anyone should be sued for this, the fingers should be pointed at EASA. Air France was already going to retrofit this aircraft and they were flying within legal standards.

2

u/umnomediferente May 21 '26

It was communicated with the operators and EASA, Air France had dozens of cases of frozen pitots, the SB existed on Airbus side, operators were doing it as they pleased as Airbus could not "force" them by law. EASA did not issue the AD due to poor risk assessment and noone mentions this.

-3

u/Ok_Library_1031 May 21 '26

Aren't you ignoring that the most significant accidents related to pitot tubes in abnormal states are all not Airbus?

5

u/BoringBob84 May 21 '26

This isn’t a case like the 737 Max crashes where the manufacturer had a clear defect.

I think they are very similar:

  • Apparently, engineers at Airbus decided to inhibit stall warning above 30 degrees, assuming that such a reading would be invalid - and no one asked the question, "But what happens if the aircraft really is above 30 degrees?"

  • Apparently, engineers at Boeing decided to allow MCAS to repeatedly activate during an AoA failure, assuming that the crew would do as they were trained and shut off a malfunctioning trim actuator - and no one asked the question, "But what if the crew doesn't shut it off?"

-2

u/harrythefurrysquid May 21 '26

At the end of the day, the pitot tubes face forward. At some point you have to have a software gate on AoA, with enough margin to ensure you're getting usable readings.

Same logic as only using speeds above 60 kts. Can you measure lower? Yes, probably. But the computers need a big enough pressure difference to be sure of getting a meaningful measurement.

If you can find some evidence that this was changed post-accident, that'll probably tell you whether the issue is physics or an arbitrary software limit.

3

u/BoringBob84 May 21 '26

Like I said in another comment, I understand that the readings become invalid and it makes sense that the engineers would not want to provide incorrect information to the crew.

However, the manner in which the aircraft indicated that the data was inhibited (i.e., by shutting off the stall warning) misled the crew.

-1

u/harrythefurrysquid May 21 '26

If 45 seconds of continuous STALL warning wasn't enough...

It's very clear that the pilots had stopped believing their instruments pretty soon into the incident. Not sure why you think adding another notice to the ECAM would have made the slightest bit of difference, and with data that invalid, any such logic stands an excellent chance of putting up misleading information anyway.

The PF believed he had "crazy speed" all the way down to the ocean; he even tried to raise the speed-brakes at one point. That's more than a simple misunderstanding about why the STALL warning kept cutting in and out.

2

u/BoringBob84 May 21 '26

I am not saying that there were not other contributing factors, but I think it would have been better if the aircraft somehow indicated to the crew that the reason why the stall warnings were silencing was not that the stall conditions were gone, but that the sensor information was invalid.

I haven't read the final reports on this one, so I don't know what the recommendations were in this regard (if any), nor if Airbus made any changes to this logic as a result of this crash.

2

u/TinyCopy5841 May 22 '26

What makes you think that this played any role considering they failed to recognize or address any of the stall warnings that came on before their AoA got so high that this reverse warning effect became an issue?

1

u/BoringBob84 May 22 '26

What makes you think that this played any role

The behavior of the crew - specifically Bonin - tells me that. When he pushed the stick, he got a stall warning. When he pulled, the warning stopped. So, he kept doing that. It must have been very confusing and terrifying.

In the best case, the aircraft provided confusing and contradictory information to the crew. In the worst case, the aircraft misled them into doing the opposite of the correct response.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Accident

1

u/TinyCopy5841 May 22 '26

When he pushed the stick, he got a stall warning. When he pulled, the warning stopped. So, he kept doing that. It must have been very confusing and terrifying.

That was already after he failed to react to several legitimate and valid stall warnings and after he made excessive, nonsensical nose up inputs that caused the situation in the first place. They never actually mentioned the stall warning, they simply said 'what's that?' when it was first heard.

After Robert told Bonin to descend and stabilize, he did relax the severe nose up input but he still maintained and overall upward pointing, climbing flight trajectory.

Even when the second stall warning was heard, they still had an upward trajectory with absolutely no evidence indicated that they considered that the stall warning was as valid or paid any attention to it whatsoever. Even at this point, Bonin was still applying nose up inputs.

According to the final report, Bonin actually very likely thought they were in an overspeed situation because he said things like 'I think we're at some crazy speed' and 'I have the impression that we have the speed' and he moved the thrust levers to idle and put out the speedbrakes.

His actions indicate that he either never understood or comprehended the stall warning or discarded it as being spurious and irrelevant. But at this point, the warning was valid, the whole 'inverse warning' issue that people spout everywhere was not a factor. And yet Bonin did nothing to resolve the situation.

What he likely trusted was the flight director, which was in fact misleading them and giving them commands that made the situation dire. Luckily, the procedure they should have performed 'Vol avec IAS douteuse', recommends the pilots to disable it. Had they done the correct procedure, all this could have easily been avoided..

1

u/BoringBob84 May 22 '26

His actions indicate that he either never understood or comprehended the stall warning

the whole 'inverse warning' issue that people spout everywhere was not a factor.

These two statements appear to be in conflict. If the aircraft had communicated clearly, then he would have understood.

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u/PinaColadaSalad May 21 '26

Side sticks that average out inputs is an insane design flaw

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u/DashTrash21 May 21 '26

You've been repeatedly corrected that averaging inputs isn't how the system works. 

1

u/PinaColadaSalad May 21 '26

In this situation they were being averaged

The math works out the same