One thing I will say about this thread.
I assume that most of you airbus drivers are commenting based on your A320 experience, but let me tell you something, the A310 fms is Lousy when compared to the A320 FMS (though it does have a useful place/distance ability that the a320 inexplicably doesn't have...) The bottom right corner of the FMS does not display fuel at destination in the 310 like it does in the 320. That number will update (incorrectly, but it will get closer to correct the closer you get and the longer you burn too much fuel) but it is not visible ANYWHERE on the usable FMS pages. You have to go to a subpage from the prog page. The 320 is much improved and the crew would have seen the number shrinking eventually to a negative number and could have called it a day earlier.
The accident is unforgivable. However, there is more than the pilots that need to be looked at here. Was this a case of "Pilot pushing"? What were the orders given to the flight crew? (yes I know they should have disregarded them), but the company should bare MUCH responsibility, dispatch has all the fuel figures and excellent computers and should most certainly have known that the plan was unworkable. If they didn't then what is the point of having dispatch? Is it not to have a second set of eyes looking over the flight crews shoulder? Well if that second set of eyes was pushing them, then it would be better not to have them at all!
Furthermore, the configuration of the aircraft may not have matched the charts. Is there a one leg extended fuel burn chart (My A310 manuals don't have one) ? Could they have been ACARSed a new fpr (flight plan review, with fuel burns) that reflected 3 gear extended and had the crew exceeding that by a wide margin? Of course one would assume that would have been for a shorter destination.
Presumably they couldn't land right away because of the heavy weight condition so they might as well have gone somewhere else. They went too far, no question about it, but far more than the crew needs to be in the dock over this. The ENTIRE system failed. This wasn't a case of the pilot saying "Screw it, I'm bringing her home." over the instructions of the company. In fact, so far it looks like only ONE voice of many (the copilot) was saying "Don't go there".
Few Cloudy,
That's a dangerous question in a base check, because you may wind up with the gear in a condition not listed. (Sequence valve fails and the gear doors are open for example, MUCH higher fuel flow than simply gear down)
Cheers,
Wino