Originally Posted by
80ktsClamp
In FLCH for descent the AT mode goes to HOLD upon reaching idle. That's a big gotcha for every plane with AT that I've flown... know if you're in fixed thrust or variable thrust.
NW had an airbus crew do the similar with the airbus equivalent of FLCH years back. They were below 100 feet when they entered the stall regime (slow and below path) so alpha floor protection didn't kick in (remember the tolouse lawnmower?), subsqeuently they smacked the airplane pretty dang hard into the ground.
Upon further reading and verification from 777 types, "autothrottle wakeup," which is nearly identical to "alpha floor" on the airbus, is disabled below 100 RA just like on the airbus.
I'd be willing to bet this is another incident like the airbus lawnmower and NW incident previously described.