interesting read on AF 447 by Wise:
..... Ive experience similar moments many times before: the sudden, unanticipated jolt, followed at irregular intervals by more lurches of varying magnitude. I invariably remind myself that turbulence alone has never caused a modern airliner to crash, but it does little to soothe my nerves........ Fears are, after all, irrational, and there is something primally disturbing about being tossed around without any clues as to why, or when the next bump will take place.
The main drama began ....the pilot flying the plane pulled back on the controls, sending into a steep climb. The passengers would have had no explanation for the sudden lurch, nor would it have been easy for them to know in the minutes that followed if they were climbing or descending.
...... the most difficult things about piloting a plane in darkness or clouds is the bodys inability to accurately determine its orientation or whether its going up or down;....... Once an aircraft is
in a steady descent or ascent, it feels just the same as flying level,
just as an ascending elevator feels the same as one at rest......
......even the co-pilots themselves, with their panels full of instruments and indicators, seemed uncertain as to what exactly was happening, several times discussing whether they were actually going up or down. Until the moment AF447 hit the water, none of the passengers could have known what was in store.
..........., though the plane several times achieved an angle of attack exceeding 40 degrees, this does not mean that the passengers would have experienced themselves as tilting steeply backward, like roller-coaster riders climbing the first hill. ...... the reason that the value was so high during AF447s final minutes was that the aircraft was practically dropping like a brick. Its orientation, however, was only about ten degrees up. It probably didnt seem that remarkable, or even noticeable given what else was going on at the same time.
What the passengers would certainly have felt............. and been alarmed by, were intense buffeting and turbulence. Remember, the flight was passing through the top of a major thunderstorm. Making matters worse was the fact that when an aircraft wing is on the edge of an aerodynamic stall, it naturally experiences a kind of buffeting, or trembling......add to this the fact that a plane is very difficult to control at stall speeds, so the pilot flying the plane was making big side-to-side movements of the flight controls, causing large-scale lurches to the left and right........
.... the integrity of the Airbus that it withstood the forces it was subjected to; ...... it cant have been an easy ride for the passengers. I know from experience that in heavy turbulence a moment comes when a particularly violent lurch seems to release the anxiety of the cabin en masse; a gasp seems to erupt from everywhere at once, and a contagion of fear takes over. ......people begin to cry, to pray, to quietly sob. All at once, everyone has entered a new emotional domain.......
........psychologically, though, it must have been a terrifying ordeal though for none quite as much as for the pilots, who alone knew what was about to happen to them.
http://jeffwise.net/2011/12/09/what-passengers-experienced-during-af447s-final-moments/
