Originally Posted by
ATC Watcher
It was public : there was an article in the Liberation newspaper in France in 2020 mentioning those flights , it said one apparently even went to Guyane to recreate the tropical conditions . The "interesting one " is supposed to have occured near Mt De Marsan in France in the Airbus test area . and was seen on radar by Civil ATC and mentioned on an ATC forum. . Then a serie of posts /rumors on a French Aviation forum ( Radiocockpit, now closed) mentionned this flight, one arguing they were close to evacuate ( this test A340 has an in-fligh evacuatuion door ) Rumors or exagerrations perhaps, but it would have been easy for Airbus to stop them , as some of their staff were on the AF447 thread on this peraticular forum at the time , all defending Airbus , but they did not on this occasion . More I do not know. .
It would be interesting to find out if Airbus removed protections for stalls on those flights and then intentionally entered one. If so, I wonder if there are any people or structures in their test area. Might be wiser to do any intentional stalls, or at least prolonged ones over water.