Yesterday morning, an old friend sent me a text: “Did you hear the news?”
I always get a pit in my stomach when I hear that. “No,” I emailed back. “What happened?”
What happened, of course, was Germanwings 9525. At the time all that was known was that an Airbus 321 carrying 150 people had crashed into the Alps. Soon enough details began to emerge, but how strange they were: a 24-year-old aircraft, en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, had climbed to its crusing altitude of 38,000 feet and then, within a matter of minutes, begun to descend at 3000 to 4000 feet per minute, apparently fairly steadily and while remaining on course, until it crashed eight minutes later into the French Alps. The flight crew issued no distress call.
I’d never heard of anything like it, but as the conversation developed online, some parallels emerged. Foremost was the case of LH1829, which took off from Bilbao last November and began an uncommanded descent of some 4000 feet per minute after the flight management system became confused by frozen angle-of-attack sensors.
In that case the pilots communicated with technicians on the ground and figured out how to solve the problem before a great deal of altitude was lost, but perhaps yesterday’s pilots had tried to tackle the issue by themselves and gotten too absorbed by the challenge to realize how much altitude they were losing, a la Eastern Air Line Flight 401?
Some speculated that a sudden decompression might have caused the tragedy. There have certainly been incidents in which aging, inadequately repaired aircraft have suffered catastrophic failure of their pressure hulls, leading to destruction of the plane, but those don’t generally look like this–the plane either breaks up at altitude or the pilots are able to don oxygen masks and keep flying the plane and communicating, if only for a while.
Another possibility–one hesitates to raise it in today’s climate of fear–is that a hijacker attempted to take control of the cockpit. I don’t think we can rule this out, either.
At this point, frankly, none of these scenarios make a great deal of sense, and I think the overall sentiment among people who spend a lot of time looking at this sort of thing is bafflement. “I’m at a loss,” one veteran 777 pilot emailed me yesterday. I think that about sums it up. Hopefully, the recovered cockpit voice recorder will provide some clarity.
UPDATE 3/26/2015: At a press conference in Marseille today prosecutor Brice Robin revealed that, according to audio recordings recovered from the Cockpit Voice Recorder, co-pilot Andreas Lubitz locked the captain out of the cockpit and initiated the descent that led to the plane’s crash into the Alps. “He took this action, for reasons we still don’t know why,” Robin said. “We can only deduce he destroyed the plane. He voluntarily allowed the plane to lose altitude. I think the victims only realised at the last moment because on the recording you only hear the screams on the last moments.”
Given the latest information, the default scenario going forward will be that Lubitz commandeered the plane in order to commit suicide. However, I think it’s important to resist the tempation to consider the case closed. Indeed, the investigation has only just begun, and hopefully a good deal of information remains to be pieced together (though hope seems to be fading that the Flight Data Recorder will be usable). Though the weight of evidence may seem overwhelming, I still find it strange that a suicidal pilot would prolong his own agony by descending at a relatively modest 3000-4000 fpm instead of just pointing the nose straight down, as the pilots did in the other apparent suicide crashes such as EgyptAir 990 and SilkAir 185.
The case most similar to Germanwings 9525 is probably that of LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470, which crashed in 2013 while en route from Mozambique to Angola. The plane had climbed to its cruise altitude of 38,000 feet when it began to descend at a rate of about 6000 feet per minute. Six minutes later, it impacted the ground, killing all aboard. Data from the black boxes revealed that the captain locked the co-pilot out of the cockpit and changed the autopilot settings to initiate a descent.
I haven’t seen any reporting explaining what might have motivated the captain to do this.
Meanwhile, the Guardian is reporting that Lubitz had 630 hours flying time (which is very low) and had been with the company since 2013. “Lubitz was also described by neighbours as being friendly and pursuing his dreams ‘with vigour’. One told the local newspaper, the Rhein Zeitung that he had kept fit through running, ‘How often we saw him jogging past our house.’”
I sincerely hope this doesn’t develope into another mystery. While many countries lost passengers, Germany is especially in shock because there was the illusion that something like this just wouldn’t happen to a plane of their airlines. German Wings is a sub-company of esteemed Lufthansa and the security checks are meticulous.
From what we know know it’s indeed a baffling case. The weather was fine and there was no Mayday alarm. Apparently aircontrollers tried to contact the crew because they were aware that the plane was losing altitude not compatible with the flightplan. From what we heard in German media so far the crew did not react, which – if true – is also strange.
Tonight, when the first data from one of the retrieved black boxes arrive, we hopefully will know more.
Remembered when I said¹ that the “MH370 cellphone connection story” at CNN could have just been sloppy reporting? Yesterday, amidst the Germanwings coverage the same CNN has reported live on air that – quote – “1 of the 2 flight data recorders have been found” and that the “angle of attack is the angle between the aircraft’s visual horizon and horizontal level flight”.
And that’s coming from a major news outlet, that has been covering aircraft accidents for decades.
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¹ http://jeffwise.net/2015/03/07/new-york-how-crazy-am-i-to-think-i-actually-know-where-that-malaysia-airlines-plane-is/comment-page-6#comment-85901
Why isn’t there a MAYDAY BUTTON in the cockpit?
A single quick push of a button would not interfere with the “aviate-navigate-communicate” principle and would be inrcedibly helpful to trigger the optimal reaction on the ground (in case of survivors every minute counts!) and would have been an important information in the many unsolved crashes (including MH370) or even solved crashes where some doubt lingers.
Hi Jeff:
The FR24 is the best source of ADS-B data. FlightAware and PlaneFinder data sets are low resolution and do not follow the flight as long (down to 6,800 ft.).
The FR24 data set shows the following:
1. Descent started from 38K ft at 09:30:58
2. Last record was at 6.8K ft at 09:40:36
3. ROD (Rate of Descent) varied from 1700 to 5500 ft/min
4. Many oscillations in ROD, consistent with PIOs (Pilot Induced Oscillations)
5. No material change in direction up to impact.
In addition, we know (from French IG member Pierre-Michel) the point of impact (POI) was ~4.3 NM from the last ADS-B point. At an average speed of 378 kts (last ADS-B speed reported), it would take ~41 seconds to reach the POI from the last ADS-B point. The POI altitude (from GE) was approximately 6,500 ft. This means that the pilot descended over a 10 minute period at an average rate of 3300 ft/min to 6800 feet, leveled off at about the point of the last ADS-B report and flew up the valley at ~6500 ft, directly into the side of a high mountain at the end of the valley. Meanwhile, there was no communication with ATC despite multiple calls from ATC after 09:31, and no squawk 7700. Regarding #4 above, the oscillations in ROD (ranging from 1700 to 5500 ft/min) could be the result of a faulty FBW control system, but given the other data available, it is much more likely the result of PIOs. PIOs are common for inexperienced pilots, but not well trained pilots. Putting all this together, the preliminary information points to a terrorist event, not mechanical failure or pilot suicide. Hope I am wrong, but that is what the data points to at this stage.
Data and charts here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e2yj8f9x7yjwmsa/4U9525_2015-03-24.xlsx?dl=0
@Peter Norton,
there’s always sloppy reporting, even from experienced news outlets. Especially in a rapidly developing story. But the mh370 co-pilot cellphone story is a different animal IMO. CNN didn’t only cover that story, they said a day later that it was endorsed by a high ranked but anonymous US official. That can’t be explained away with sloppy reporting. Either CNN made the official but anonymous endorsement up or this story was planted by someone for some reason.
@ALSM, unfortunately I have to agree with your assessment, although I also hope we’re wrong.
At an expert panel session on German tv last night Nicky Lauda, the former Formula1 racer and owner of Lauda Airlines befrore it went bankrupt expressed – with reserves of course – the same opinion.
@ALSM @littlefoot
Chilling, but compelling. The worst thing is that at this point none of the facts rule out a deliberate crime. Let’s all hope that something, anything, is developed that removes terrorism from the field of viable options.
Like Spock said, “We have no evidence, only a theory which happens to fit the facts.” And he turned out to be correct…
This graphic shows that the plane was navigating by waypoint until the ADS-B data feed was lost at 9:40:36. It crashed after passing waypoint BODRU on airway UN853.
https://twitter.com/RadiantPhysics/status/580727872446398464
Thanks, Victor & ALSM!
It could have been hearsay. That’s the archetype of sloppy reporting (since it’s violating 2 basic rules: verify your facts; try to get at least 2 indpendent sources for each fact)
Yesterday, Richard Quest said on CNN that there have been several(!) occasions where the “FMC thought the plane was in a stall, started descending and pilots were unable to recover from that situation”. (That was almost his exact words. I can provide the exact quote once the transcript is released).
I very much doubt Richard’s claim and I know Richard doesn’t always get his facts right, so in this particular case, is he right in saying that there have already been several(!) crashes resulting from a FMC-induced descent where pilots could not take back command ??
@ Airlandseaman: Please refrain from claims of terrorism when there is not yet solid evence to support such claims. There is already enough irrational panic and fearmongering going on with regards to terrorism and we don’t need to foster that. As a matter of fact, terrorism is one of the rarest causes for airline accidents, which are in themselves aready an incredibly rare incident, and yet flying becomes already almost impractical due to the irrational panic and overly protective measures introduced. Passengers on trains or subways are not screened, yet they could cause as many casualties as on airlines with a terrorist attack. That alone shows how irrational those fears and security measures are. We sould not contribute to them.
@Greg Long,
I think ALSM is hardly the type to indulge in fear mongering. While I hope he is wrong, he just looked at the so far available facts. And they don’t look good.
While I agree with you that spreading irrational panic is irresponsible, it also doesn’t help to look away and pretend nothing’s wrong.
But again, hopefully we will know more soon and be in a better position to assess this newest disaster.
I am not saying he is the type. I am only saying that “terrorism” should be handled more carefully than all other causes and I explained the reasons why. With so many unknowns, we should not say that “information points to a terrorist event”.
How many actual terrorist events in passenger airliners have there been in the last decade? And how many millions of times have we spoken about them, each time raising people’s fears unnecessarily. I think, we should not do that. Unless there is clear, solid, unmistakable evidence, which at this point is by far not the case.
@Greg: quite agreed; sad thing, when this stops?
Keeping you up to date…
Another report surfaced this morning here:
(http://leehamnews.com/2015/03/24/breaking-germanwings-4u9525-lost-over-french-alps/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter)
This report puts the crash site slightly closer to the last ADS-B position. This point is 3.5 NM (33 seconds) rather than 4.3 NM (41 seconds) from the last ADS-B position, and about 1,000 feet lower. I do not know which position is correct, but the basic analysis is the same regardless of which mountain side was the true site. However, if this new location is correct, it indicates the pilot did not “level off’, but continued to descend at about 2600 ft/min. That makes the terrorist scenario slightly less compelling, but the PIOs are still consistent with an unskilled pilot in control, or a FBW control system problem.
FTR…I am sincerely hoping this is another bad AB software problem, not a terrorist scenario.
@Greg Long, I think we’re talking about two different things: It’s one thing to look at the so far available hard facts in this case and assess if a criminal act is likely or unlikely. ALSM did just that, nothing more. And maybe he’s wrong.
It’s quite a different thing to spread panic and feel air traffic is unsafe. Because you’re right: It’s not unsafe – even if this turns out to be some criminal act. I would actually feel more unsafe if this turns out to be a computer glitch which the crew was unable to handle. Then I would have in the back of my mind that this could happen in any other plane of the same type as well.
If the German authorities are suspecting any kind of foul play, they’r sure not letting it on. All the major news outlets are talking about rapidly developing situation of some kind of catastrophic mechanical failure which didn’t let the crew any chance to react. The experts go down the same route. Apparently they have recovered some audio data, but they talk now about weeks of analysis to come.
The ADS-B data suggests that there were oscillations in the vertical speed for the climbs to FL300 and to FL380 in addition to the oscillations seen during the descent. The amplitudes of the oscillations were about 2,000 fpm pk-pk. This suggests that the oscillations in vertical speed seen during the descent were not caused by an unauthorized pilot.
It may be there was an instrumentation and/or flight control anomaly that was a contributor to the crash.
https://twitter.com/RadiantPhysics/status/580808724043927552
@Victor, are you saying, there might be indications that a problem manifested itself already during the climbing phase of the plane?
@littlefoot: That is what it appears. Either the plane really did experience oscillations in vertical speed (and therefore pitch) during the climb, or the reported values of vertical speed are faulty. I don’t see any other option.
@Victor, thanks. That’s what I thought. The graph sure seems to indicate a very bumpy ride of the plane. Either it was real or the reported data are faulty. In both cases the plane had a problem before it started sinking.
Since I have no experience: are such graph oscillations normal?
@littlefoot: I have not seen it on other ADS-B data, but my experience base is small. Others can better answer. It does not look normal to me at all.
Victor,
You may take a look if there is any major harmonic in the w-component. If yes, this would be a strong signature of mechanical failure.
@Oleksandr: The frequency content is different in the climb and the descent. I was planning to take FFTs of the data but the sampling time is uneven which will take me more time.
Victor,
Then the easiest way would be to interpolate it first with regular intervals, and then apply FFT.
Victor:
I tried to do an FFT in Excel without success. Need to “resample” the data.
I am absolutely no expert on aviation but I follow these blogs because they are very intriguing & the commenters knowledgeable, so please, forgive my simplicity but is there a problem with the AB aircraft systems; this seems to be a reoccurring observation where pilots have to wrestle control of their AB aircraft back creating unpleasant scenarios & events. I would hope these things are seriously looked at and corrected. You all are very good at figuring this data out BTW.
The German aviation expert Andreas Spaeth, who seems to be constantly on air since yesterday, pointed out something which struck me as odd, too. He said he had no explanation for the fact that the plane was losing altitude, but it remained exactly on course nevertheless. Experienced pilots would – if they’re still able to act – deviate from this course because they would know perfectly well that the plane will crash into a mountain if they don’t do so.
Which would lead me to the conclusion that either the crew couldn’t react rationally anymore for some reason or those who piloted the plane were not experienced.
http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/interview-andreas-spaeth-101.html
ALSM – how ironic. I’m sure your views are as meticulously compiled as ever but this will turn out to be a plane crash I’ll bet while you see something sinister. I see MH370 as so sinister that the numbers may need to go in the bin.
http://t.co/KJ1U0RFVWR
Pilot locked out of cabin.
Anyone else notice this grim pattern emerging of a series of terrible crashes, possibly involving suicidal pilots, where things get crazy just after 40 mins into the flight, when aircraft reaches cruise altitude?
Silkair, Egypt Air, MH370, now this? I’m sure other incidents can be added to the list.
Reaching cruise is normally first opportunity pilots allowed to leave cabin as I understand it.
@Globusmax,
I’m shocked – and not shocked. Shocked, because here in Germany they don’t acknowledge that something very strange is shaping up here. And not shocked, because if you listened carefully you could conclude a few significant things from what officials and experts said – like that apparently the voices on the recorder continued into the flight. Which kinda excludes the idea of an unconscious crew. But if that idea is contradicted by the evidence of the voice recorder the question of Andreas Spaeth – why was the course not corrected when the plane continued to lose height and was in acute danger to crash into a mountainside? – becomes even more pressing.
Yep, pilot locked out so we got another suicidal mass murderer on our hands.
Ok, Jeff what are your thoughts with the latest news that one of the pilots was locked out of the cockpit??!
From the NY Times article, “… At 10:40 and 47 seconds, the plane reported its last radar position, at an altitude of 6,175 feet.” This information would be from SSR. It is 10 seconds later and 625 feet lower than the last ADS-B report and is consistent with -3700 fpm ROC continuing.
“Is it possible #Germanwings Capt believed person knocking was UNAUTHORIZED?”
https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/580905602743869440
This development with the pilot getting locked out smashing on the door trying to get back in is strange….suicide by the co-pilot? Or can the cockpit itself lose pressure and maybe the other pilot was asleep?
@Oleksandr and @airlandseaman: Yes, I understand that I need to interpolate the data to extract a data set with constant sampling time. That will take me a little time to do in Excel.
Maybe the co-pilot fell asleep? Perhaps one too many Sangrias in Barcelona the night before?
(To be clear, I’m not being flip; I genuinely wonder if a passed out pilot is a possibility. Surely not every single pilot is a model of professionalism; it’s possible that one could show up for work despite being in a less than ideal state of alertness. Right?)
Strange timing. This, on March 23rd:
“”The problem is not to know if there will be a new attack. It is to know when and where,” said French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, as he unveiled new surveillance laws last week.
There are also fears that competition between different terrorist organizations may lead to even more violence in France.
“Al-Qaeda needs to restore its prestige and will try to compete with IS with complex and major actions,” the official noted.
He added that security services are concerned that an Al-Qaeda wing known as Khorasan is planning an attack on a major airline.” http://rt.com/news/243349-france-terror-threat-unprecedented/
Thank you for your thorough research and clear writing.
Thank you…
Unconfirmed, but pilot may have been Anning Wong from Malaysia. His Co Pilot name unknown.
@Everyone
While releasing much information about pax….has anyone got info on the pilots?
And sadly enough..IMO, ALSM has made the right call on this one….now it’s time to find, which one?
@Chris,
no, there has been no infos about the pilots released so far, which seems a little strange. But apparently that was held back deliberately because the airline wanted to have more clues first about what actually happened, before everyone started speculating and throwing the names around. But if the NYT article turns out to be true the question arises of course if they already had an inkling about what might’ve happened here and wanted some more confirmation.
The refusal of 59 German Wings pilots and cabin crew members to fly according to their schedule – which is unprecedented in any airline after a crash – would also have to be looked upon in a different light.
Hopefully they will come up very soon with more details of the audio data. What the NYT article told is so specific that it schouldn’t be difficult to verify or falsify this story.
This journo, based in France, says the source of the leak about the pilot is BEA – which is civil, not “military” (as per the NYT):
https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/581028101871640576
So NYT may be covering for the BEA — which would explain them running that bombshell story with only one source. Or, there may be two different sources.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/german-wings-crash-may-have-been-deliberate-suicidal-choice-by-pilot-claims-experts-10134737.html
This “Independent” article quotes a French expert – and they dare to call the elephant in the room by it’s name.
In Germany the rumor has hit the net, but there is still a lot of rigmarole about the remaining pilot in the cockpit might’ve been sick or unconscious and thus unable to open the door. Which -if the story about the lock-out proves to be true – is highly unlikely, since there is an emergency code in order to open the door in such occasions. And wy should the pilot lock the door in the first place if there was really an emergency which made him sick or unconscious?