FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TRIVIA: Over 10% of the world's Master CFI - Aerobatic instructors work at Aviation Performance Solutions (APS), the world's leading provider of Upset Prevention and Recovery Training. APS has more Master CFI–Aerobatic instructors than any other flight training provider.

Mesa, Arizona - 16 December 2011: Aviation Performance Solutions, LLC is very pleased to announce that Brian "Rotor" Willett has earned his Master CFI – Aerobatic accreditation.  A full time instructor with Aviation Performance Solutions, Rotor has over 30 years of aviation.  A former USAF Command Pilot and Flight Examiner (SEFE), Rotor is an ATP SEL & MEL, Comm Inst Rotorcraft-Helicopter, Comm SES, CFI/CFII Airplane and CFI/CFII Helicopter certified pilot with six type ratings. A DESERT STORM combat veteran with over 8,000 hours of global flight experience and 1,500 hours of inflight instruction in both civilian business jet and military operations, Rotor brings a wealth of experience to all of APS' programs.

To put this achievement in its proper perspective, there are approximately 96,000 CFIs in the United States.  Fewer than 700 of those aviation educators have achieved this professional distinction thus far.  The last 16 national Flight Instructors of the Year were Master CFIs (see: http://www.GeneralAviationAwards.org/)  while Rotor is one of only 25 Arizona teachers of flight to earn this prestigious "Master" title and one of only 26 nationwide to earn aerobatic accreditation.

In the words of former FAA Administrator Marion Blakey, "The Master Instructor accreditation singles out the best that the right seat has to offer."

The Master Instructor designation is a national accreditation recognized by the FAA.  Candidates must demonstrate an ongoing commitment to excellence, professional growth, and service to the aviation community, and must pass a rigorous evaluation by a peer Board of Review.  The process parallels the continuing education regimen used by other professionals to enhance their knowledge base while increasing their professionalism.  Designees are recognized as outstanding aviation educators for not only their excellence in teaching, but for their engagement in the continuous process of learning -- both their own, and their students'.  The designation must be renewed biennially and significantly surpasses the FAA requirements for renewal of the candidate's flight instructor certificate.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Faye Hamilton, Marketing Coordinator
Aviation Performance Solutions
Mobile: 480-797-0752
Office: 480-279-1881 ext. 12
www.apstraining.com

Pilot Project: Download this AeroSafety World article in PDF

At AeroSafety World: Link to Original Online ASW Version

Evolving guidelines aim to correct deficiencies in methods of training for airplane upset prevention and recovery.

By Paul “BJ” Ransbury and Janeen Kochan

Although debate continues about how best to incorporate upset prevention and recovery training (UPRT) at the commercial pilot licensing and type rating levels for airline transport pilots (ASW, 6/11, p. 24), a robust high-level framework already exists. This framework enables a consistent delivery of instruction, general sequencing of training phases and practical verification of effectiveness by integrating resources such as Web-based curricula, specialized UPRT instructors, aerobatic-capable airplanes and Level D simulators.

The framework also addresses seven deficiencies that we outline in this article to help mitigate the persistent, complex and lethal problem of loss of control in-flight (LOC-I). Loss of control can be a precursor to, or the result of, an airplane upset.

The airline industry’s Airplane Upset Recovery Training Aid, Revision 2 defines airplane upset as “an airplane in flight unintentionally exceeding the parameters normally experienced in line operations or training: pitch attitude greater than 25 degrees nose up; pitch attitude greater than 10 degrees nose down; bank angle greater than 45 degrees; [or,] within the above parameters, but flying at airspeeds inappropriate for the conditions.”

The geometric pitch and bank components of the definition can be plotted as a blue region representing the normal flight environment (Figure 1). Disregarding airspeed in the definition for the moment, the vast majority of commercial pilots tend to spend more than 99 percent of their flying careers within these tight blue-region confines, which represent less than 5 percent of the all-attitude flight envelope. In rare instances during commercial pilot licensing training, and perhaps during unusual attitude training in the simulator, pilots delve into Figure 1’s yellow region, up to 30 degrees of pitch and 60 degrees of bank, which represents the widely accepted maximum pitch and bank limitations of commercial licensing training. This yellow region represents barely more than 11 percent of the all-attitude flight envelope.

Deficiency No. 1, Unfounded Confidence. One faulty assumption by pilots is that their day-in, day-out expertise in the blue region will give them the skills, discipline and awareness necessary to prevent or recover from an airplane upset event. An upset event that is rapidly hurtling out of the blue region, through the yellow region and into the last region we call the all-attitude red zone can present unexpected, unfamiliar and sometimes violent situations that can rapidly degrade a pilot’s ability to prevent the escalating LOC-I condition or to effectively recover.

What does the reference to inappropriate airspeeds in the upset definition mean exactly? Similar to plotting data that represent the pitch-bank environment, we can graphically represent on the coefficient of lift curve a plot where pilots are only regularly exposed to certain portions of the speed envelope (Figure 2). With effects of aerodynamic loading aside, the typical 1-g experience of pilots (that is, one times standard gravitational acceleration) is shown by the green region of the curve proceeding from the bottom of the chart up to the L/D max angle-of-attack (AOA), the lowest point on the total drag curve.

This region of speed stability is where pilots spend almost their entire flying career. Pilots are only rarely exposed to the yellow region of the curve that proceeds up from L/D max AOA to the stall warning AOA. In speed terms, in a 1-g flight condition, the stall warning AOA is usually 5 kt to 10 kt faster than the published 1-g stall speed. The yellow region is generally only experienced intentionally by commercial pilots when practicing stall prevention training by initiating recovery at the first indication of the stall.

Up to this point in the speed/AOA discussion, pilots have a measured capability to operate in these areas. Unfortunately, most pilots’ ability to deal with events further on the curve is noticeably deficient. Nearly 50 percent of fatal LOC-I accidents are due to the aerodynamic stall. That means that pilots, for a variety of reasons, do not always effectively remain below the stall warning AOA/airspeed.

Historically, in stall prevention training at the commercial level, pilots have been repeatedly taught to minimize altitude loss, and this has been a criterion of performance evaluation (ASW, 11/10, p. 40). This precept is valid until pilots are faced with an actual stall, when they have maneuvered the airplane beyond the yellow region, through the orange region and into the airspeed/AOA red zone of the coefficient of lift curve.

Once at the stall, a pilot often reverts to what was taught in training: To recover with a minimum loss of altitude. This is the exact opposite of what should be emphasized: To reduce the AOA first and foremost. The aerodynamic stall is an airplane upset by definition, and these pilot errors perpetuate stalls, which can lead to serious airplane upsets.

Deficiency No. 2: Improper Stall Recovery. The obsolete paradigm of minimizing altitude loss has generated situations in which pilots continued to pull back on the control column, further increasing AOA in the stall and immersing themselves in the red zone. Several major challenges are presented here to these pilots. These challenges may never have been experienced, and pilots have not been consistently trained on how to exit from this deadly region. Other than rare exposures to the peak of the lift curve during initial flight training, this red zone is not often visited.

The risk of a fatal accident increases in proportion to duration and depth of exposure to the red zones. Myriad warning cues — the auditory, visual, tactile control feedback, motion cueing and other combinations of sensory feedback — also flood the pilot’s senses, causing extremes of psychological states such as stress and panic and of physiological states such as spatial disorientation. Adding insult to injury, piloting skills suitable for the blue and green regions of Figures 1 and 2 rapidly decrease in their effectiveness during the escalating upset event. Counter-intuitive, corrective control inputs are often required to reliably recover the airplane to the “normal flight” regions of the commercial licensing flight envelope. Without proper UPRT, it is doubtful the pilot will recover.

If these red zones are not being addressed adequately by traditional training, where do we start as an aviation industry to significantly mitigate LOC-I? Mitigation begins with ensuring that industry-approved UPRT programs establish a sound foundation from which situational awareness, insight, knowledge, and eventually, skills can be reliably developed in the all-attitude, all-envelope environment.

Industry-approved, Web-based training tools can assist as powerful academic resources. At the outset, however, it must be emphasized that LOC-I mitigation is not an academics-only challenge. Academic preparation offers limited mitigation as a standalone intervention. Yet, academics combined with practical, hands-on experience under a quality-assured program can have significant and lasting UPRT skill-development benefits.

A pilot’s unfamiliarity with the all-attitude, all-envelope environment can be overcome efficiently by imparting a significant portion of the awareness skills early in initial UPRT sessions. These initial sessions are best accomplished in an aerobatic-capable airplane with expert UPRT instructors, preferably before beginning airline flying.

UPRT instructors must cautiously build from the familiar to the unfamiliar to effectively bridge knowledge and experience gaps. Extensive experience shows that early focus on awareness of AOA, load, lift vector, coordination and energy management, combined with real-time feedback on the negative consequences of their mismanagement of those elements, helps trainees to gain trust and confidence in the training platform, the instructor pilot, and the building-block design of the course of UPRT training.

Teaching the fundamental concepts and core skills in a progressive, non-threatening manner enhances the trainee’s situational awareness at a rate that allows knowledge, skills and abilities to be internalized — enhancing long-term retention. When effectively delivered, this initial UPRT indoctrination comprehensively prepares the pilot for type-specific UPRT differences training ideally provided by the airline in the simulator.

The focus of UPRT must be placed squarely and firmly on upset prevention through enhanced pilot awareness. Two general types of this training can be clearly defined. One type stresses time-favorable actions through effective aeronautical decision making (ADM), and the other type stresses time-critical actions to counter an escalating upset before it develops beyond certain thresholds. UPRT must address both of these prevention concepts. Time-favorable ADM upset prevention, typically on the order of several minutes or even hours, involves environmental analysis, upset risk awareness, resource management and breaking the error chain through sound judgment.

Deficiency No. 3: Pilot Over-reaction. As the time frame for stall/upset response compresses, typically onto the scale of seconds or fractions of a second, the pilot’s challenges become quite different from time-favorable ADM. When startled by a rapid-onset upset event, implementing the correct, time-sensitive control inputs to counter the escalating condition is often the most difficult aspect of prevention in UPRT. For the psychological and physiological reasons noted, pilots faced with rapid-onset airplane upset events tend to over-react to situations without dedicated training. Pilots in real upsets have been observed making the situation worse, sometimes unrecoverable, or causing airplane structural failure in rare instances. Over-reaction must be addressed, and this is another critical LOC-I mitigation from UPRT.

Once an airplane’s flight condition unintentionally exceeds a certain level of severity, the pilot must recognize the necessity of intervention. As the situation transitions from the prevention phase to the recovery phase defined by the above airplane upset parameters — or the prevention phase seemingly has been skipped entirely — the pilot must take immediate corrective action.

Deficiency No. 4: Primary/Exclusive Recovery Focus. Many training providers treat the upset recovery phase as the primary, or exclusive, focus of their version of UPRT. To be clear, a comprehensively addressed recovery phase has tremendous value in enhancing the trainee’s ability to contain real-world startle factor; to properly use the primary controls of all-attitude, all-envelope flight; and to enhance situational awareness of the event. Nevertheless, the core element of UPRT must be upset prevention with the understanding that this can be significantly augmented by integrating thorough and comprehensive recovery training.

The building-block sequence necessary in imparting UPRT recovery-phase skills comprises the development of primary control strategies, alternate control strategies, secondary flight control integration, airplane type/class–specific considerations and UPRT-specific crew resource management (CRM).

Deficiency No. 5, Absence of Startle Factor. Some UPRT programs fail to adequately address the startle factor. Imparting UPRT skill sets to trainees without startle training does not reliably enable them to recover during the mentally and physically demanding challenge of an actual airplane upset. However, training providers must be extra cautious in how unannounced events are integrated into UPRT. Inappropriately subjecting trainees to dramatic in-flight or simulated events — those beyond their skill level to resolve correctly — can have long-term negative consequences in UPRT skill development.

Deficiency No. 6, Simulator Limitations. Presently, the required magnitude, quality and relevance of startle factor training for UPRT cannot be fully accomplished exclusively through ground-based simulation. Appropriate UPRT training in all-attitude, aerobatic-capable airplanes readily immerses the trainee in dynamic surprise/startle experiences that are recognized in scientific research as unique and necessary.

Deficiency No. 7, Problematic CRM. Ensuring that CRM optimizes a flight crew’s upset response has been particularly challenging to the global community of UPRT specialists — for example, the concerns if only one flight crewmember has completed UPRT.

The presence of an untrained crewmember in this same crew arguably could have dire consequences in an upset event due to flight control interference. In LOC-I scenarios, the flight crew must immediately communicate and confirm the situation; manage the automation and transfer control (if necessary) to the pilot with the most situational awareness; work together through standardized interactions to mutually enhance awareness of the dynamic flight condition; and apply correct, timely control manipulation.

Paul “BJ” Ransbury, president and chief flight instructor (CFI) of APS Emergency Maneuver Training, and three-time recipient of the master CFI–aerobatic designation from the aviation education industry’s Master Instructor Program, is a founder and vice president–global integration of the Upset Prevention and Recovery Training Association <uprta.org>, a former Airbus A320 airline pilot and a former F/A-18 fighter pilot and tactics instructor. He also is co-leader of the upset analysis and development team of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s International Committee for Aviation Training in Extended Envelopes (ICATEE). Janeen Kochan, Ph.D., is a human factors scientist, designated pilot examiner and instructor pilot at Aviation Research, Training and Services; a former airline captain; and an author of research reports on pilot training for the mitigation of startle/surprise effects. She is also a member of ICATEE. Their original paper is available at <apstraining.com/uprt-deficits>.

Deborah A.P. Hersman, Chairman
National Transportation Safety Board

The video below shows the recorded opening remarks to the Royal Aeronautical Society's Flight Simulation Group meeting on 9 November 2011 in London, UK. The NTSB chairman encourages the enhancement of flight simulator technology and the prioritization of mitigating the loss of control in-flight threat in aviation safety developments.

This video is presented using the inter-browser compatible HTML5 format. Unless you've changed your browser setting manually, the most recent version of IE 9.0+, Firefox 3.5+, Safari 3.0+, Chrome 3.0+, Opera 10.5+, iPhone 1.0+ and Android 2.0+ will play the video. Note - APS videos are in high resolution so loading times will vary based on your connection speed.

Dr. Sunjoo Advani, Chairman of the Royal Aeronautical Society's ICATEE (International Committee for Aviation Training in Extended Envelopes), provides a very interesting and informative presentation addressing industry challenges, solutions and expected progressions in loss of control in-flight mitigation through enhanced Airplane Upset Prevention and Recovery Training for the aviation industry.
 

 

This video is presented using the inter-browser compatible HTML5 format. Unless you've changed your browser setting manually, the most recent version of IE 9.0+, Firefox 3.5+, Safari 3.0+, Chrome 3.0+, Opera 10.5+, iPhone 1.0+ and Android 2.0+ will play the video. Note - APS videos are in high resolution so loading times will vary based on your connection speed.

Arizona's Aviation Performance Solutions (APS) Announces Clarke McNeace as the Recipient of its Prestigious APS Distinguished Service Award of Aviation Excellence - The Award Honors Years of Selfless Dedicated Personal and Professional Service to Improve the Safety of Global Air Travel

View PRWEB Version of: Arizona Flight School Announces Recipient of the Distinguished Service Award of Aviation Excellence

Mesa, AZ (PRWEB) - October 28, 2011 - Aviation Performance Solutions LLC (APS), announced J. Clarke McNeace today as the recipient of the APS Distinguished Service Award of Aviation Excellence. As the VP of Flight Operations and Standards, Clarke has excelled in the technical growth and development of APS’s industry-leading upset prevention and recovery training solutions.

"Clarke’s daily enthusiasm, focus of unparalleled expertise and his one-on-one approach to pilots of all experience and skill levels place him at the top of the international aviation industry’s instructor pilot cadre of experts," Says Paul BJ Ransbury, president of Aviation Performance Solutions LLC. Ransbury, "His years and thousands of hours of effort committed to the development, implementation and refinement of upset recovery, stall/spin and all-attitude recovery will shape future pilot training to vastly improve the safety of private and global commercial air travel." Clarke McNeace leads APS in day-to-day flight operations and is responsible for course development, pilot standardization and industry compliance.

Professional Background – Clarke ‘Otter’ McNeace: After 8-years of full-time duty in the US Navy as an F/A-18 Hornet fighter pilot, with 36 combat missions in Desert Storm, he spent 10-years and over 9,000 hours flying the 737, more than 5-years as a 737 captain. In the fall of 2004, Clarke left the airline industry to join APS as a line pilot and flight instructor where he rapidly grew into the company’s top pilot leadership position a VP of Flight Operations and Standards. In early 2007, Mr. McNeace became an APS corporate owner and operating partner. In October 2007, ‘Otter’ (going by his Navy-assigned callsign) became the nation’s first officially designated aerobatic certified flight instructor (CFI-Aerobatic) and is currently a two-time Master CFI-Aerobatic. Clarke was instrumental in the dramatic growth, development and redesign of the spectrum of business services offered by APS to support clients from around the world. Clarke has earned this prestigious recognition for selfless dedicated personal and professional service in the development of industry-leading loss of control in-flight mitigation strategies to save lives in commercial aviation worldwide.

ABOUT APS EMERGENCY MANEUVER TRAINING: APS Emergency Maneuver Training, based at the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in Mesa, Arizona USA, has successfully trained over 4,500 professional pilots in fully comprehensive upset recovery skill development. For more than a decade, APS has been committed to giving professional pilots of all skill levels the highest quality upset recovery training available. APS offers comprehensive LOC-I solutions via industry-leading computer-based, on-aircraft, and full-flight simulator upset recovery and prevention training programs. In addition to all flight training being in full compliance with the internationally-recognized Airplane Upset Recovery Training Aid, APS is the only Part 141 Flight School currently certified in the delivery of all of upset recovery, stall / spin and instrument recovery training courses worldwide.

For media inquiries, photos and flight information, visit: www.apstraining.com or contact the APS Director of Marketing, Faye Hamilton, toll free at 480-279-1881 USA or via email at faye (dot) hamilton (at) apstraining.com.

I head up a Fortune 25 corporate flight department. We are fortunate to have highly experienced, professional flight crews in the cockpits of our aircraft. Most of us would probably rate ourselves as "above-average" pilots and able to handle just about anything thrown our way.

However what I realized after taking the upset recovery training at APS is despite all of our years of flying, recurrent training and such, we really have been woefully unprepared to handle a true upset recovery. I started the program as a true beginner in upset recovery and left, perhaps not a master, but certainly a far more capable and better educated pilot.

I look forward to continuing to hone my skills at subsequent APS training events. Thanks for doing such a great job and I look forward to many more years of training with you.

Addressing Upset Prevention Training in Aviation

The airline industry’s Airplane Upset Recovery Training Aid, Revision 2 defines airplane upset as “an airplane in flight unintentionally exceeding the parameters normally experienced in line operations or training: pitch attitude greater than 25 degrees nose up; pitch attitude greater than 10 degrees nose down; bank angle greater than 45 degrees; or, [pitch and bank] within the above parameters, but flying at airspeeds inappropriate for the conditions.” As a flight training industry, how ready are we to teach this area of upset prevention skill enhancement in aviation?

The following video is an expert of a presentation given by APS president, Paul BJ Ransbury, in Bangkok, Thailand in September 2011 at the Halldale APATS 2011 Event.

 

This APS training video is presented using the inter-browser compatible HTML5 format. Unless you've changed your browser setting manually, the most recent version of IE 9.0+, Firefox 3.5+, Safari 3.0+, Chrome 3.0+, Opera 10.5+, iPhone 1.0+ and Android 2.0+ will play the video. The APS videos are in high resolution so streaming times will vary based on your connection speed.

APS is in the process of updating its entire training site to HTML5. Until complete, some of the later modules will still require the Adobe Flash Player to view the videos.

All information, content, video, audio and all other included resources are the sole property of Aviation Performance Solutions, LLC. Distribution, copying and/or sharing training videos or membership access information of any kind is strictly prohibited without the expressed written consent of Aviation Performance Solutions, LLC. Aviation Performance Solutions LLC will aggressively pursue legal action to protect its intellectual properties.

By Andy Pasztor
Visit Original Article at: WSJ - Air France Crash Report Likely to Alter Pilot Training

French accident investigators on Friday are expected to release a report confirming their initial findings and offering new details of how pilot errors, combined with a fluke of cockpit automation, led to the 2009 crash of an Air France jet into the Atlantic Ocean, air-safety experts said.

The latest revelations, according to safety experts and others familiar with them, are likely to add to pressure to revamp training practices to help both new and experienced pilots cope with high-altitude stalls, upsets and faulty airspeed sensors. Such changes are bound to include more emphasis on manual flying techniques.

Safety experts said the new report backs initial conclusions that airspeed sensors malfunctioned, and that pilots stalled the twin-engine Airbus A330 shortly after making the plane climb unusually steeply. The pilots then disregarded extensive stall warnings and—for more than three minutes—failed to realize the cause of their dangerous predicament.

The cockpit crew was distracted by fluctuating airspeed indications and—contrary to standard practice—kept pulling back on the controls and raising the nose of the plane while reducing engine thrust, as the roughly 200-ton airliner plummeted toward the water.

All 228 people aboard the June 2009 night flight to Paris from Rio de Janeiro died, and the accident has prompted a broad reappraisal of pilot training and the potential dangers of undue reliance on automation.

Increasingly, aviation experts believe the tragedy of Air France Flight 447, with all of its engines and basic flight-control systems operating normally, could have been avoided if the pilots had received more training, particularly in manual flying and recognizing stalls at high altitudes.

"It's not just an Air France issue, but rather an industrywide problem" according to Bill Voss, head of the Flight Safety Foundation of Alexandria, Va., a global independent safety advocate. If the crew of Flight 447 had followed basic airmanship and kept the plane flying level until airspeed indications returned to normal, "it would have been a log entry, instead of a crash," Mr. Voss said Thursday in an interview.

Based on the anticipated findings by investigators, "we really have to overhaul the way pilots are trained" because now "they typically aren't taught how to react to a stall at high altitude," Mr. Voss said.

Air France declined to comment.

Previously, a French judge ordered the carrier to pay €126,000 ($177,000) in compensation to the families of each victim, according to a lawyer for the victims' families. The sums, which will be paid out by Air France, and its insurer, AXA SA, amount to a provisional payment against possibly higher compensation to passengers on the flight, said lawyer Marc Fribourg.

A spokesman for one of the airline's unions defended the actions of the pilots, and largely blamed the crash on erroneous airspeed indications. "Airbus said their aircraft could never stall, so clearly pilots were not trained for this situation," according to Geoffroy Greneau de Lamarliere, a representative of the ALTER Air France pilots' union. Since the accident, he said Air France pilots have received roughly two hours of training focused on dealing with a stall without the use of speed indicators.

An Airbus spokesman wouldn't comment on details of the new report, but said the company is "hopeful it will provide additional information."

Before the crash, relatively few commercial pilots practiced high-altitude stall-recovery techniques in simulators. Even fewer spent much time familiarizing themselves with the handling characteristics of big jets when autopilots suddenly disconnect during cruise, as occurred with the Air France flight.

Now, Airbus, the Air France unit of Air France-KLM group, other big airlines around the world and various study groups are specifically pushing to introduce and expand such training.

"There's definitely a need for additional training in the high-altitude environment" because "pilots have so little experience hand flying in that regime," according to Bryan Burks, a U.S. airline pilot participating in a training initiative sponsored by Britain's Royal Aeronautical Society.

Aircraft respond much differently to engine-thrust changes and other commands at high altitudes—where the air is thin and planes almost always cruise on autopilot—than they do below 10,000 feet.

The latest interim report from the French Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses is expected to underscore some of those differences, and also seek to at least partly explain the seeming confusion among the pilots, and the extreme inputs to their flight controls.

Disregarding a fundamental rule of airmanship that calls for lowering the nose of a plane to gain speed in the event of an aerodynamic stall, the 32-year-old co-pilot at the controls of Flight 447 continued to pull up the nose of the plane, despite extended stall warnings.

During the final minutes, the cockpit-voice recording doesn't indicate any dissension among the pilots, nor a discussion of possibly lowering the plane's nose to halt the rapid loss of altitude, according to people familiar with the details.

In addition to the airspeed fluctuations, the cockpit crew may have became further confused during later stages of the descent when the slow speed and loss of lift caused the plane's automated stall-warning system to behave in unexpected ways, according to safety experts and others familiar with the latest findings.

The jet's flight-control computers disregarded airspeed measurements and turned off automated stall-warnings at certain points, because the plane had decelerated so dramatically. The result, these experts said, was that during part of their struggle to regain control of the plane, the pilots didn't get the stall warnings that would have been common as a consequence of raising the jet's nose.

When the computers and airspeed indicators temporarily recovered, however, pushing down the nose of the jet sometimes prompted stall warnings. That was the opposite of how the warning system usually behaved, according to the air safety experts. The confused crew continued to pull the nose up and remained in a deep aerodynamic stall, finally falling at a rate of more than 10,000 feet per minute, until hitting the water, the experts said.

Investigators believe the distracted crew didn't pay attention to, or didn't trust, airspeed readings from the standby airspeed indicator, further complicating their situation.

Previously, investigators said they would release the third interim report about the high-profile crash on Friday, presenting "the exact circumstances of the accident with an initial analysis and some new findings."

Beyond training issues, investigators also have delved into how the crew worked together. One big question remains unresolved: Why did the most junior pilot stay at the controls for nearly the entire time? Two more-senior pilots apparently failed to aggressively trouble-shoot problems or provide clear-cut commands, experts said after release of the previous update in May.

The captain of the flight, who was on a routine rest break in the cabin when the trouble started, rushed back to the cockpit. But that didn't happen until the pilot who wasn't flying–but was supposed to be closely monitoring the junior co-pilot– tried "several times to call the captain back," investigators previously said. The roughly one minute it took the captain to return after the first call, safety experts said, could have added to the crew's distraction during critical early phases of the accident sequence

Regarding automation, the plane's design and the specifics of the upset meant that the crew no longer had the benefit of certain stall-protection systems Airbus pilots routinely are trained to rely on during normal operations.

The crash illustrates "another aspect of automation confusion," according to Greg Feith, a Colorado-based industry safety consultant and former crash investigator for the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board." The A330's automated systems were "based on the concept that pilots would never get themselves into the position" in which they ended up on Flight 447, Mr. Feith said. So the sequence of events "defies all the logic built into the automation."

The maneuvers initially used by the crew probably would have been acceptable at a lower altitude, according to Mr. Voss of the Flight Safety Foundation. But pilots need to be taught that "it was the wrong reaction, and turned into a deadly procedure at high altitude."

—Max Colchester and David Pearson contributed to this article.

Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com