Aye!
I must admit that I feel the same as 747Focal. There are eight good men dead, eight families grieving but where is the accountability?
It seems that the rumours are over and we are left with the reality. The aircraft took off with the wrong thrust setting. (TSBC from the flight recorder, 747Focal from an MK source). Why was 1.3EPR set instead of 1.6EPR? I would suggest that basic procedures were not adhered to because that is the basic culture of the airline, as alluded to by ‘dicconnected’. This would have been compounded by the fact that the crew would have been fatigued. As ‘Zim Crew’ pointed out this was a ‘heavy crew’, I understand that they originated in Europe flew to Bradley Int. then to Halifax were to continue to Zaragoza and terminate in Luxemburg – with possible delays along the way. How was a flight like this ever rostered? I know of no rostering practice that would allow multi sector, multi time zone change like this. The final check would have been the seat of the pants experience that tells you that things do not feel right with the acceleration rate – a feeling that would have been suppressed by profound fatigue.
Where to from here? The head of this airline and its Operations Manager are responsible for its safe operation. They have failed miserably. They need to be bought to account.
The bottom line is that this is a tin pot airline with an appalling safety record that should be shut down for the sake of the remaining crew and the people who live in the vicinity of the airports that they operate to.