Originally Posted by
scotneil
To By George: please don't offer sympathy for the "poor devils" - I'm all for forgiveness of mistakes (and learning lessons from them) but this is simply incredible - very basic error. I don't understand why the problem wasn't spotted on the ground, at least during T/O roll. Consequences could be disastrous - remember Birgenair in 1996.
Is it possible that the pitot covers actually were removed before pushback, and then the flight developed a serious hydraulic issue after takeoff, and the pitot covers refitted later. I know it sounds incredible, but to me as an A330 pilot, it seems even more incredible that they were able to take off with the pitotcovers on.