What does a pilot say when the plane is about to crash?
Posted by NoArtist_127@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 29 comments
Are they taught to communicate the issue with the passengers or does he keep quiet so the passengers remain peaceful until their death?
Thanks in advance
kaupulehu@reddit
"CLEAR.....!!!"
SpatulaWholesale@reddit
I've read a lot of CVR transcripts, and they tend to say "oh shit"
stickied@reddit
The Air France one over the pacific is interesting. Head pilot wakes up out of the bunk as the aircraft is in a complete stall, with conflicting instruments, doing 10,000 vertical fpm.
Iirc, the last words were "this can't be happening" and "we're going to crash" and "pull up"
Definitely no calling back to the passengers telling them they're all about to die.
SpatulaWholesale@reddit
Guy in the right seat: "I'm just gonna pull full aft stick while in Alternate Law, holding the stall from 39,000ft all the way down to the sea. That's good right?"
Captain: "Bonin, you're such a dumbass."
(rough translation)
Charlie3PO@reddit
A topic almost never brought up is that the version of alternate law they were in made it much easier to stall and once stalled, far more difficult to recognise and recover from.
It was in a G command law with gains locked for high speed flight and no speed stability. This gave it both sluggish handling at low speed and also zero longitudinal speed stability, even into the stall, where the FBW would add more and more nose up elevator the slower it got.
During the descent of AF447, even at times when both sidesticks were relaxed to neutral, the elevators remained deflected full nose up, held there by the FBW.
The FO, Bonnin, the one everyone thinks held the stick fully back the whole time, actually moved the stick forward of neutral on multiple occasions. At one point he held the stick forward of neutral continuously for nearly 10 seconds, during which time the FBW kept the elevators deflected half nose up, despite the forward stick input.
SpatulaWholesale@reddit
As I recall he held the stick forward until the airspeed became valid and the stall warning came back... Then he pulled back again.
He was fully overwhelmed, and nullified the left seat's attempts to pitch down.
Charlie3PO@reddit
Yep the invalid IAS cancelling the stall warning didn't help (that's been fixed by Airbus now).
Both of them were fully overwhelmed. The left seat pilot only tried to pitch down for a few seconds before he to pulled the stick all the way back and held it there for some time.
Obviously the situation should never have progressed to a stall, but once in the stall, the situation was so much more complex than a lot of people realise.
The FBW completely masked the typical low speed handling cues as well. In a plane in a stall, if you're holding the stick fully back, then relax to neutral, the nose should fall. In this case though, the elevators didn't even move when they moved the stick anywhere from full nose up to neutral.
Moving the stick through 100% of its travel in one direction and getting no pitch change must've been highly confusing. Plus the roll control difficulties on top of that. Plus the loud aerodynamic noise. Plus the buffeting. Plus the intermittent stall warning. All in pitch black at 2am.
FalconDriver85@reddit
IIRC another issue was that between certain ranges of AoA the stall warning ceased, so it was even more confusing, as the AoA actually decreased and the stall warning started coming in.
cothhum@reddit
Atlantic?
stickied@reddit
Oops, that's what I meant
mckenzie_keith@reddit
No the head pilot grasped what was happening when the jr pilot said he was trying to climb. He said something like "climb? No, go down!" But by the time that happened there was not enough altitude to recover.
spacecadet2399@reddit
Honestly, in most cases talking to the passengers is the last thing we're going to be worrying about if an accident is imminent. We're going to be too busy trying to save the plane.
The "brace for impact" command is typically for specific situations like ditching or a prepared emergency landing where we've done everything else we can do and where knowing the specific moment of impact is coming might actually affect survivability for the passengers and crew. But if we're in the middle of an acute emergency that's not going to end well, we're not going to be taking time to pick up the interphone and communicate anything. Aviate, navigate, communicate in that order is a real thing. It's not just something non-pilots say to sound cool.
Kann0n2@reddit
"Allah ackbar!"
aviation-ModTeam@reddit
Your post has been removed for breaking the r/aviation rules.
It is expected that all members follow reddiquette, as is current here: https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette
If you believe this was a mistake, please message the moderators through modmail. Thank you for participating in the r/aviation community.
ImissTBBT@reddit
Aviate, Navigate, Communicate.
This is the priority when flying.
Fly the plane first and foremost. Once you're stable, find out where you are, then tell people.
So in a crash situation, the pilots are usually far too focused on trying to work the problem and not die than to pick up the PA microphone and talk to passengers.
ContributionEasy6513@reddit
If there is time to issue a brace command. Not dieing is kind of the priority. You go out fighting and fly the plane until you are no longer able, never give up.
Planes often don't crash without obvious distressing signs.
I can give one personal example of GA plane crash I was a passenger in.
We had an engine failure shortly after take-off, everyone onboard knew we were going to crash.
Everyone was terrified, but silent.
SpatulaWholesale@reddit
In most crashes you hear about, and even little general aviation ones, the actual loss of control and subsequent crash happen very quickly.
Things either go from either perfectly normal to catastrophic in an instant, or develop slowly and then snap.
Think of the first case like hitting a patch of ice on the road. Your instinct might take over, and either you'll correct it or end up sideways... But it's just that fast it's instinct. You're not looking over at your passenger and saying, "Ooo, we just hit ice, this is going to be interesting."
Think of the second case like a slow puncture. You're driving along and the ride starts to feel wrong. Maybe you hear something. Maybe you feel something. But now you're thinking. If you have a buddy in the car next to you you'll talk about it. Hmmm.. is that a puncture? Maybe we should pull over right here, or wait for the next garage...? That's what pilots do, up front they'll talk about it, figure out what's wrong, and plan the best course of action. Anomalies is what they train for all the time. No need to alarm passengers. If something then snaps to catastrophic, then it's instinctive fight-for-your-life at the controls, and no time to speak.
It's very very rare.
LevelThreeSixZero@reddit
It varies from airline to airline and situation to situation but they’re broadly split into three categories. Time Available - long notice, time available - short notice, no time - no notice emergencies. This procedure is used if we feel there is a risk that an emergency evacuation may be necessary once the aircraft has come to a stop.
In time available emergencies we brief the crew on the situation and they prepare the cabin accordingly. With long notice this involves them remaining in the cabin and preparing it for evacuation, re briefing pertinent information such as location of exits, the brace position, and evacuation commands and procedures. They will ask passengers to remove jewellery etc and will brief able bodied volunteers on how to open doors and handle the slides and what to do if the crew member at the door becomes incapacitated. They will take their own seats at an appropriate time, probably communicated in some way by the pilots and shout commands from there.
In short notice they take their seats immediately and give a shortened version of all the above instructions from their seats. In no notice emergencies it is simply a shouted command to brace from the cabin crew, who will most likely already be in their seats.
One of the pilots should make a PA along the lines of “BRACE BRACE”, which will kick off the cabin crew shouting their commands in unison.
As always in aviation, specific procedures will vary from airline to airline. But for a good example of how the crew handle no time no notice emergencies, watch the film Sully.
Apprehensive_Cost937@reddit
Not much, as we're too busy flying whatever is left of the aircraft all the way to the crash site, assuming the aircraft is still somewhat controllable. Comforting passengers is way down on the list of priorities, well below their safety, or that of the crew and people on the ground.
Carlito_2112@reddit
As always, aviate, navigate, communicate.
mckenzie_keith@reddit
"This is the captain. Brace for impact."
SpatulaWholesale@reddit
That really was a uniquely fortunate event, and the pilots did a great job. If you haven't seen it, the movie Sully covers the event itself very well. For the sake of drama, though, they include the investigation with the NTSB as an antagonist, which really isn't the case. It paints the NTSB in a bad light, with them trying to pin the accident on the pilots. Just understand it's solely to give a dramatic thread to the movie, and not how the investigation really happened.
Cumulus-Crafts@reddit
I've not seen it, but I have seen the president of the NTSB talking about it, and he was NOT happy with how they were portrayed in that film
mckenzie_keith@reddit
It is still a good movie. I knew that going in.
T33-L@reddit
I feel like this question is becuase you’re scared of flying and for some reason it’ll make you feel better if you knew?
Anyway, they’re taught to shout ‘WE ARE ALL GON’ DIE!’ In certain circumstances.
But really, no. There’s so many variables. That doesn’t mean there’s so many ways in which you’re about to crash so you should be scared. It means that in the very very very unlikely event that you’re on a crash course, there’s lots of variables.
Maybe the politics are very busy trying every last little thing to make it right, or minimise the problem and they don’t have time to communicate with passengers. Maybe they hope it won’t be that bad of a crash that it would be survivable.
First off, pilots stick to aviate, navigate, communicate. And even then, the communication priority is with control, then staff, then passengers as an absolute last priority.
Secondly, passengers are by default idiots, so you need to be careful what you say to them. I’m sure you’ve seen videos from a passenger of a very minor inconvenience and yet they still scream their heads off in wild panic. Inducing panic is not a good idea.
Third, chances are you’d feel and see if something was going horrendously wrong. But you’d also likely get a ‘brace brace brace’ instruction of some sort too in good time if it came to it. So you’d have some awareness.
Ultimately, passengers absolutely will not be ‘peaceful until their death’ regardless of what the pilots do.
Actually, on that last bit, if the cabin depressurised, and all the passengers were unconscious from lack of oxygen, that would work…
th3orist@reddit
I would prefer to be unconscious tbh..
Happy-Table-9515@reddit
No one, that I’m aware of, is trained to say anything at that time. You’re much too busy trying to prevent the incident. It’s accidents where you have time, such as Sully’s line up on the Hudson, on various other accidents (mostly landing). That’s when the brace command would be transmitted, time permitting.
Rubber_Knee@reddit
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargg!!!!
Wow that was close. We were about to crash if I hadn't opened my eyes.
Don't tell the passengers
Independent-Reveal86@reddit
“Fuck” or “Oh shit”.
Seriously, the pilots either don’t know they’re about to crash or they’re too busy trying not to crash to be thinking about saying something to the passengers.