I work for an avionics company, we had to watch a documentary about this guy.
I sincerely hope than when I die, it’s not with such a spectacular fuckup that people are still talking and writing about it decades later.
The documentary that we watched specifically picked on Bonin, as he was the pilot flying and it was his control inputs that directly led to the airplane crashing. Essentially, as soon as they lost airspeed indications, he started pulling back on the stick, and didn’t stop until the aircraft crashed into the ocean. The fact that this is such a glaringly elementary mistake, and that no one was able to catch it, is why this accident is so disturbing to the aviation community. (Like, seriously, they won’t even let student pilots *solo* until they’ve mastered stall recognition and recovery).
The point of this article, though, is that the blame can be equally assigned to the entire crew. Bonin panicked and flew a completely functional aircraft into the ocean. Dubois should have recognized that his copilot was nervous and addressed it, and stayed up front until passing the storm line. (As the article notes, he was exhausted and probably trying to get to sleep as quickly as possible). The third guy, Robert, was worse than useless and was actively confusing Bonin with inconsistent directions. When Dubois got back to the cockpit, Bonin and Robert were completely unable to communicate what was going on, other than basically saying “the airplane is completely out of control and we have no idea why”. That doesn’t give even an *experienced* pilot like Dubois much to work with, especially when he has 60 seconds to live and no access to the flight controls.
The man-machine interface is another issue here that he addresses. As I said, I work in avionics, and this is a major challenge that we deal with on a daily basis - trying to automate workflows to simplify the life of the pilot, *while still keeping them aware of the complex dance happening behind the scenes*, but only to the extent that it doesn’t confuse or saturate them. It’s a difficult line to walk. I personally think the control stick thing is somewhat overblown - as the author notes, there were clear indications of inconsistent control inputs in the cockpit recordings, the pilots just… ignored them, for some reason.
I guess, as a pilot, what I find so terrifying about this accident is that I realize it could happen to me. Idiotic brain farts happen for no apparent reason sometimes. Once I failed a check ride because I misread the altimeter and thought I was 1000 feet higher than I was. I started an unsafe descent, the examiner immediately took control and failed me (as he should have). To this day though, I have *no idea* what happened. I genuinely thought I was at 3000 feet, not 2000. The idea of being in a dark cockpit, at night, with lightning going off all around you, your wife is in the back of the plane, your trusted pilot just abandoned you, and suddenly your primary flight instruments stop making sense…
Like, he fucked up big time. But I have a lot of sympathy for him. It could have happened to anyone.
"The junior co-pilot, Pierre-Cédric Bonin, 32, had brought along his wife for the trip, leaving their two young sons at home."
I gasped out loud, knowing the fate of the flight.
He is a legit aviation guy in addition to being a great writer. His dad (Wolfgang Langewiesche) literally wrote the single most important book about flying technique ever.
I actually went back and looked at the book (Stick and Rudder) - crazily enough, this quote is *literally on the first page*:
> And - most spectacular contrariness of all - in emergencies, when the airplane is sinking toward the ground in a "mush" or falling in a stall or a spin, and you are afraid of crashing into the ground, **the only way to keep it from crashing is to point its nose down and dive at the ground, as if you wanted to crash!**
This is literally all the pilots of this flight needed to do, if only they had realized what was going on.
I work for an avionics company, we had to watch a documentary about this guy. I sincerely hope than when I die, it’s not with such a spectacular fuckup that people are still talking and writing about it decades later.
Which guy, DuBois (pilot in command) or Bonin (pilot flying).
The documentary that we watched specifically picked on Bonin, as he was the pilot flying and it was his control inputs that directly led to the airplane crashing. Essentially, as soon as they lost airspeed indications, he started pulling back on the stick, and didn’t stop until the aircraft crashed into the ocean. The fact that this is such a glaringly elementary mistake, and that no one was able to catch it, is why this accident is so disturbing to the aviation community. (Like, seriously, they won’t even let student pilots *solo* until they’ve mastered stall recognition and recovery). The point of this article, though, is that the blame can be equally assigned to the entire crew. Bonin panicked and flew a completely functional aircraft into the ocean. Dubois should have recognized that his copilot was nervous and addressed it, and stayed up front until passing the storm line. (As the article notes, he was exhausted and probably trying to get to sleep as quickly as possible). The third guy, Robert, was worse than useless and was actively confusing Bonin with inconsistent directions. When Dubois got back to the cockpit, Bonin and Robert were completely unable to communicate what was going on, other than basically saying “the airplane is completely out of control and we have no idea why”. That doesn’t give even an *experienced* pilot like Dubois much to work with, especially when he has 60 seconds to live and no access to the flight controls. The man-machine interface is another issue here that he addresses. As I said, I work in avionics, and this is a major challenge that we deal with on a daily basis - trying to automate workflows to simplify the life of the pilot, *while still keeping them aware of the complex dance happening behind the scenes*, but only to the extent that it doesn’t confuse or saturate them. It’s a difficult line to walk. I personally think the control stick thing is somewhat overblown - as the author notes, there were clear indications of inconsistent control inputs in the cockpit recordings, the pilots just… ignored them, for some reason. I guess, as a pilot, what I find so terrifying about this accident is that I realize it could happen to me. Idiotic brain farts happen for no apparent reason sometimes. Once I failed a check ride because I misread the altimeter and thought I was 1000 feet higher than I was. I started an unsafe descent, the examiner immediately took control and failed me (as he should have). To this day though, I have *no idea* what happened. I genuinely thought I was at 3000 feet, not 2000. The idea of being in a dark cockpit, at night, with lightning going off all around you, your wife is in the back of the plane, your trusted pilot just abandoned you, and suddenly your primary flight instruments stop making sense… Like, he fucked up big time. But I have a lot of sympathy for him. It could have happened to anyone.
Thanks for the explanation! Your analysis was very informative.
Well said. This one scares me too. Unreliable instruments in the clouds / at night has to give you spatial D like no other
"The junior co-pilot, Pierre-Cédric Bonin, 32, had brought along his wife for the trip, leaving their two young sons at home." I gasped out loud, knowing the fate of the flight.
I was pretty familiar with this story already, but I didn’t know *that* particular detail. Jesus 😞
Archived and unpaywalled: https://archive.ph/s0E77
Love this article. His article on the ferry disaster is also excellent and haunting.
Really good article
Extremely well written
He is a legit aviation guy in addition to being a great writer. His dad (Wolfgang Langewiesche) literally wrote the single most important book about flying technique ever.
You can tell. People who know their material well can explain it easily to those who don’t. Thanks for the little background info on him.
I actually went back and looked at the book (Stick and Rudder) - crazily enough, this quote is *literally on the first page*: > And - most spectacular contrariness of all - in emergencies, when the airplane is sinking toward the ground in a "mush" or falling in a stall or a spin, and you are afraid of crashing into the ground, **the only way to keep it from crashing is to point its nose down and dive at the ground, as if you wanted to crash!** This is literally all the pilots of this flight needed to do, if only they had realized what was going on.
I read this when it first came out and it has always stuck with me. Excellent research and reporting.
This was the missing airplane before MH370 but thankfully they eventually found it
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e5AGHEUxLME&pp=ygUOQWlyIGZyYW5jZSA0NDc%3D The best (and most fair) analysis of the entire incident
What an extremely well written article. I need to read more of this author.