Comments by "Glamdolly" (@glamdolly30) on "TITANIC of the Skies! - The Untold Story of Air France 447" video.
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The senior person on the team - in this case, the Captain Marc Dubois - is ALWAYS ultimately responsible!
Marc Dubois failed in a Captain's most critical role, to provide leadership in a crisis. Had he stepped up immediately and decisively when he found his co-pilots taking the plane to disaster, 226 lives might have been saved.
Married 58-year-old Dubois was tired, having been partying all weekend in Rio De Janeiro with his mistress, an air hostess and budding opera singer. Ominously, he was heard to say: "One hour's sleep is not enough'. The cockpit flight recorder revealed he was distracted during pre-flight checks, reading a magazine and listening to opera. All indications are he didn't bring his A-game, or much focus, to managing that fateful flight. This was likely due in part to sleep deprivation, but he may have been mentally consumed with a new love affair (his mistress was also killed on the flight).
Captain Dubois made a surprising choice, in putting the least experienced of his two co-pilots in charge - 32 year old Pierre Bonin - while he headed off for a sleep break. Dubois knew a significant electrical storm was coming, arguably he should have remained on the flight deck until they were safely through it, or left his more experienced co-pilot David Robert, 37, at the controls. Robert had 6,500 flying hours, against Bonin's modest 2,900.
That mistake was bad, but Dubois' failings when he was called back minutes later to find the cockpit in total chaos, would seal the fate of everyone on board. As the Captain, Dubois should have taken charge of the crisis the moment he returned to the flight deck. There was no time to lose!
That meant kicking the most junior pilot Bonin, out of his seat immediately, and taking the controls from him. That move alone would likely have saved the day, as it would have removed Bonin's unseen, white-knuckle, death-grip as he pulled back on the side-stick, a major factor in the crash.
Sitting in Bonin's seat, it would not have taken Captain Dubois long to work out what went so badly wrong, and correct it. But by the time Bonin surrendered control to Robert, and his major role in the disaster was exposed, the plane was just one minute from impact and unrecoverable.
Equally catastrophic, was communication between the three pilots. On answering their emergency call to come back, the Captain did not identify the cause of the plane's extreme stall from Bonin and Robert. He could only hope to do that by direct, calm and effective interaction with his two co-pilots. After all, they were present throughout the plane's sudden, mysterious journey from calm to crisis - and their actions had almost certainly caused it!
But the cockpit voice recorder revealed that no such conversation between the Captain and co-pilots had taken place. At no point did Captain Dubois ask Bonin and Robert to explain the sequence of events to him, and their own, most recent actions, in the mere 9 minutes since he'd exited the flight deck.
Here's the transcript from the dramatic moment the Captain returns and is reunited with his two co-pilots on the flight deck, all Hell let loose as the plane drops towards the Atlantic at a dizzying rate of 10,000 feet per minute:
Capt Dubois: "What the Hell are you doing!"
Bonin: "We've lost control of the plane!"
Robert: "We've totally lost control of the plane! We don't understand at all... We've tried everything!"
These ridiculously passive, negative and unhelpful statements by the two pilots are apparently accepted at face value by Captain Dubois, when he should have challenged them and done some probing. He needed to get the men out of panic mode, which is negative, and get them explaining logically and calmly how they arrived at this point - positive action. Logic dictates it was far more likely to be the fault of the human beings operating the plane, than the plane itself, which they are stupidly blaming! As the subsequent inquiry conformed, the plane remained 100% flyable throughout.
The best leaders are problem solvers, focused, calm and methodical in a crisis, prioritising solutions over recriminations.
If Dubois had only stayed cool, asked the right questions, listened to the answers and used his many years of experience, this could have ended differently. But under that level of pressure, against the clock, his best chance of turning it around was to simply get in the driving seat and take the controls - exactly as a Captain should!
Instead Dubois' backside remained passively in the jump seat throughout the unfolding tragedy. It's interesting that Pierre Bonin was at the controls for most of the terrifying descent, with David Robert taking over from him just one minute from impact at 2.14am. I have to wonder about the dynamics at play between these three men's personalities.
The senior one who should have been in charge, Captain Dubois, was effectively absent throughout (even after he returned to the cockpit and was physically present), and the most inexperienced and junior pilot was literally in the driving seat until one minute before oblivion! How did that happen?
'Mentour Pilot's brilliant videos frequently focus on the role personalities play, in air disasters like this one. I ask myself why the youngest and most inexperienced pilot did not relinquish the controls, even as the situation escalated. Nor did his superiors assert themselves with him and demand he surrender to their authority. Was Pierre Bonin a confident, perhaps even dominant personality, the kind even senior staff struggled to confront or say "No" to?
The difference between a safe, uneventful flight and an air disaster, can literally come down to the random flip of a coin, the timing of a pilot's rest period, or even his choice of deputy during an electrical storm. Terrifying!
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@koryano321 I never said Bonin was faultless, I made clear throughout my post he caused the disastrous, extended stall!
My point stands, effective leadership would have averted disaster. But on top of Bonin's error we had a weak Captain, so unassertive and ineffectual, on returning to the chaotic cockpit his backside never left the jump seat! He literally should have got into the driving seat and taken charge immediately, if he had he could have saved the plane and every life. But unaccountably, did not. This crash shocked many because of the speed with which the plane went from happily cruising on autopilot at 35,000 ft, to hitting the Atlantic Ocean - just 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
You touched on a very important point I didn't reference in my earlier post - pilot training. That was clearly revealed to be inadequate by the Air France cockpit voice recorder which told the story. And undoubtedly the cockpit design which hid pilots' actions from each other so 'the left hand didn't know what the right was doing' was a big factor, as two pilots failed to see Bonin pulling back on the side stick.
As with pretty much every disaster, more than one factor combined to create tragedy. But I feel it's unfair and inaccurate to place most of the blame on Bonin and let Captain Dubois off the hook!
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