gloopy

He basically intentionally stalled it at less than 100 feet thinking he would have certain protections that are disabled under 100 feet and then tried to recover while already on the backside of the curve with trees coming up. In ANY 121 jet the result would have been the same or worse. That Airbus didn't do anything "wrong" or "bad" that guy flat out didn't know and/or forgot that under 100 feet you don't have the magical protections you usually have otherwise and that he was (for some idiotic reason) trying to demonstrate. As if the people on the ground would have been impressed at that extra few knots slower flyby speed? Talk about high risk : low reward. And yet the airplane gets blamed? Please.

Although word on the street is he did end up getting malaria...

tomgoodman

Sometimes, marketing considerations lead the manufacturer to pretend that two similar airplanes are really different. UAL once told Boeing: "Your new shorter-range 707 design looks like what we need, but we'll have a hard time explaining it to the BOD, since we recently selected the DC-8 over the 707." Boeing responded: "Oops! Did we say 707? Why no, this is a whole new airplane -- it's a -- um -- a 720! Yeah, that's it. A 720. (Same type-rating, of course)."

tsquare

I'm not buying that. Nothing about that airplane looked stalled... or that there was any effort on either the pilot's or aircraft's part to do anything other than fly in a very controlled manner right to the point of impact. In a Boeing, I can guarantee you that if the throttles got cobbed before impact there would have been some pitch change, or engine sound that would have been noticeable in a similar video. Nothing about that entire sequence changed.

But I could be wrong...

80ktsClamp

My dad was an IP on the 320 not long after that incident, and he got some inside scoop on it. I was too young to really understand it, but the basics of it was that the guy flying had no clue what he was doing...

If it was what you described, no A320 would be able to do a rejected landing.

Carl Spackler

Gloopy's right tsquare. Here's the video that shows the crash from two angles, but the first one is the most telling. Turn your speakers up high before you play the video and note the following:

1. This cameraman was at least a half mile away from the engines, thus sound would have taken around 4 seconds to reach the video camera's microphone.

2. As the aircraft first enters the trees, notice the clear sound of both engines accelerating.

3. Now count back about 4 seconds to see where the engines actually began accelerating to 100%.

4. Finally, since the engines were at IDLE as the aircraft passed over the airfield, count back another 6 seconds to see where the pilot commanded full thrust.





This was a pretty clear evidentiary example of a pilot who maybe wasn't aware that the engines were at IDLE (because the thrust levers don't move on the A320), and didn't account for the spool-up time required for turbofan engines at IDLE. The pilot reported he had the stick hard at the aft stop. Without a FBW system, he would have stalled that airplane in his desire to not hit the trees. Had he stalled that airplane, all 100 plus would have died, instead of 6.

Carl

tsquare

I'm gonna bow out of this discussion, because admittedly I know nothing about airbus. I can say that I have ridden on lots of jumpseats, and I personally don't like the design. I know you bus drivers like the tray table and all that.. I still like secondary inputs. I'm old.

Out...

When Richard gets rid of the last Boeing, I'll retire.

forgot to bid

I 'm not familiar with the Airbus either, so I have a question, how does the Airbus tell you that you are over speeding?

My airplane uses a monkey penis on the control column. I don't know how it works, I just know I don't want to touch it.

gloopy

Look and listen to that video again. The pitch is very high and the engines are screaming. There is no way a plane could do that unless it was on the backside of the curve trying to power out. That's not some fly by wire trickery. That much pitch + lots of thrust would equal climb in every circumstance unless you are deep into the region of reverse command. He thought he had stall protections and he wanted to demo it. He got below 100 feet where those protections are disabled and tried to power out of it before he ran out of treeless runway and he didn't make it.

gloopy

It sheds the tail for you automatically and you get malaria.

80ktsClamp

Remember this, all you Delta senior people. It's all true! I just read about it in the learning objectives for the 320.