For your Edification
 

Friday, 16 May 2008 The brand spanking new Airbus 340-600, one of the largest passenger airplane ever built, sat in its hangar in Toulouse , France without a single hour of airtime. Enter the Arab flight crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) to conduct pre-delivery tests on the ground, such as engine runups, prior to delivery to Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi .

The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600 to the run-up area. Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with a virtually empty aircraft. Not having read the run-up manuals, they had no clue just how light an empty A340-600 really is. The takeoff warning horn was blaring away in the cockpit because they had all 4 engines at full power. The aircraft computers thought they were trying to takeoff but the jet had not been configured properly (flaps/slats, etc.) Then one of the ADAT crew decided to pull the circuit breaker on the Ground Proximity Sensor to silence the alarm. This fools the aircraft into thinking the jet is in the air.. The computers automatically released all the brakes and set the aircraft rocketing forward. The ADAT crew had no idea that this is a safety feature so that pilots can't land with the brakes on. Not one member of the seven-man Arab crew was smart enough to throttle back the engines from their max power setting, so the $200 million brand-new aircraft crashed into a blast barrier, totaling it. The extent of injuries to the crew is unknown, for there has been a news blackout in the major media in France and elsewhere… Coverage of the story was deemed insulting to Muslim Arabs.

Finally, the photos are starting to leak out. Airbus $200 million aircraft meets retaining wall and the wall wins....





http://www.truthorfiction.com/images/airbus1.jpg

http://img.iht.com/images/2007/11/16/16airbus550.jpg

I have close up photos of the cockpit area and I am not sure about the may date but it is still something to behold.

I remember post MX runs on UPS DC 8-73 at DAL and if we waited until the end of the runs to do engine power checks the AC would tend to slide a little down the ramp.

I wonder how much those guys from ADAT got paid to destroy a 200 million dollar jet. Most of us can't seem to get paid a respectable salary to actually keep much smaller aircraft safe!

That's old news. This accident happened in November 2007........The official report got released yesterday by the french NTSB though

Ewww. Somebody's looking for a new job.

Interesting accident for sure. Not sure why the emphasis on the ethnicity of the people onboard in the above original post. Flight and maintenance crews all around the world have done unfortunate things. Also not sure of the veracity of the above claim that the incident was covered up because it was "insulting to Muslim Arabs" or whatever it says up there.

Another account here. No mention of pulled circuit breakers.Violation of test procedures led to Toulouse A340-600 crash

Nothing edifying
 

paidtowait,

I don't know where you got that writeup, but you may want to re-consider your source of information, as it seems like the journalist is just another ignoramus who has made a fool of himself by taking a cheap shot at Arabs.

The Flight International report was taken from the actual incident investigation.

The "Arab crew" comprised representatives from Airbus and Etihad (most of whom are not Arab btw).

Don't take my word for it though, I'm only a private pilot, have a go at the incident report.