Air Asia

[carly]

Well since they have the black box, whats to be made of this?  sounds contradictory to me.  And what is stalling again as I believe it is very different to a car. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-30902237 

[andyb99]

again carly dont trust the news...they have no idea what they are talking about (case in point the 'aviation expert' they had on when it disappeared.......i think it must have suffered something catastophic was what he said....No Sh1t sherlock)

in non pilot terms....if its the same as the air france accident (speculation suggests it might be but its just that right now) then the terrible conditions lead to a false reading in air speed....the aircraft gives warning...the pilot pulls back and the plane climbs at too steep an angle...meaning the wing surface is no longer creating lift to hold the plane up...this causes a stall (no lift from the wing)

any experts please forgive my crude explanation.

[carly]

Cheers for that. The news is one thing I never trust but I am intrigued. I guess this will result in more safety changes.

[Captain Keith]

Your explanation is fine.

I'd change the wording slightly to 'the pilot adjusts the nose attitude (up) to control the incorrect (increasing) speed indication.'

Pulling back sounds a bit excessive as the attitude will change by less than 1 or 2 degrees normally at high altitude. 

In  fact the plane doesn't have to have the nose up high to stall. The wing will stall when the difference in the way it's pointing is greater than about 15 degrees to the way it's going. Think Concord approaching. The nose is above the level and yet it's going down.

Keith

Keith

[Captain Keith]

The black box will take  few weeks to decode. But there will be some basic information available ... as we are discovering.

Keith