CRJ-200 crash-Jan 2016

A structural failure would have at least some part of the plane detach itself at some point and make it to the ground.Control or systems failure would be more indicative (my big word for today ) of the crater and small pieces of wreckage.RIP

a reply to: Blackfinger

At this point though we don't know if something, such as a trim tab or part of the elevator, came off prior to the impact site. They're going to be looking around the area for several days. It more than likely was a control failure, but something coming off is not out of the realm of possibility at this point yet.

There may even have been nothing wrong with the aircraft itself. I'm reminded here of RAF Voyager tanker ZZ333 which went into a sudden dive, reported to be so severe that passengers in the cabin experienced weightlessness. Fortunately, after losing many thousands of feet altitude, the cause was found to be the pilots DSLR camera getting wedged behind the side stick and he was able to knock it out and recover the aircraft.

Seeing the pics of the crash site and the extreme speed of the dive when it hit the ground.. What chance would the FDRs remaining in contact

a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

The FDR and CVR of the Germanwings plane made it out in a usable condition, so I would expect at least one of them to be usable; it takes a lot of force to render them unusable. Even if they are, accident investigators (such as those of the NTSB, the AAIB etc,)seem to be damn good at putting the pieces together to come out with something useful, so long as we're not talking about EgyptAir 990.

Wikipedia's list of unrecovered FDRs, most of which are just 'not found', like those of MH370.

Oh dang.....augered-in.......they died doing something they loved....RIP

The recorders are in pieces. They're saying several days to find them, with some pieces found already .

Investigators have said it will take several weeks to determine what, if any, information can be recovered from the aircraft recorders. Both have been recovered, but were in pieces as a result of the crash. The CVR was found with the memory modules detached, while the FDR was found somewhat intact.

Investigators have revealed four spurious inputs on the data recorder two seconds before the autopilot disengaged and the captain reacted with surprise. The aircraft subsequently went into a nose down attitude.

One of the inputs showed a sudden 15 degree nose up attitude, but it has been said that is not consistent with the aircrafts reaction.

www.flightglobal.com...

Investigators have found that the crew received an erroneous indication that the aircraft had pitched up, prompting them to push the nose down, resulting in a dive that they never recovered from.

The cockpit displays were designed to alert the crew to a mismatch in the attitude indication, but they were also designed to declutter the display by removing secondary information in the event of an upset. Included in that information was the mismatch warning.

www.flightglobal.com...


In addition, the crew was so startled by the event that they didn't say anything for several seconds after the initial event, then became focused on their own instruments. The left hand display showed an urgent nose down indication, while the right hand display showed an urgent pull up indication.

www.flightglobal.com...

A rapid pitch up would make them feel positive G,s so why would they ignore the seat of their pants and focus on the instrumentation?Training?

a reply to: Blackfinger

They were briefing the approach and were paying attention to other things at the time. They were taken by surprise when it happened, and reacted instinctively. Then after he started going nose down, they didn't talk to each other for several seconds.

Interesting read on the accident.

aviationweek.com...

The IRU failed, leading to false input to the instruments, and the pilots to think that they were climbing when they were still in level flight. The crew responded to the instrument readings, and pushed forward on the control column as they should have, and impacted the ground.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Ooof. They must have been pretty distracted/disoriented to not notice the descent.

a reply to: Barnalby

The problem was the initial reading of the climb. They knew they were descending, but they were in the middle of briefing their approach/arrival, and believed the faulty readings about the climb. They didn't notice that they were still wings level, and thought they were climbing.

Oh God

They augered in, crap

I sometimes wonder if something as simple as a ball hanging from a string would help the pilots in some of these cases . Gravity does not malfunction .