Originally Posted by
CONF iture
You have to put that in perspective, that brand new 320 technology was so new, and flying with computers bugs was the every flight story.
Actually the number of 'bugs' was practically non-existent by the time flight testing started - as a result of the multiple redundancy that Airbus had decided on from the get-go. The controversy that came later (after the Indian and Air Inter accidents - as well as the A330 crash which killed Nick Warner, which you've already brought up) was purely based on a less than ideal part of the human-computer interface. It was decided that dual function dials (with push-pull selecting between angle of descent and descent rate) was not a good interface design, allowing pilots to become confused as to what they had programmed. As a result the whole interface was overhauled retroactively. My Software Engineering professor was very clear on that, as he was hired as an advisor on software and interface design to Airbus during that time. Airbus was not the only manufacturer to suffer interface issues, as the Cali B757 accident proved many years after the aircraft went into service.
The French have a reputation for working to avoid blame being attached to a French institution or aircraft. But it is not the French alone who do this. Remember how hard Boeing worked to try to prove that the B737 rudder ECU and actuator design had no impact on the Colorado Springs and Pittsburgh incidents, and how hard they worked to divert responsibility to the pilots involved. Remember how hard the Dutch investigators worked to absolve Captain Jacob van Zanten of blame during the Tenerife investigation. This is unhelpful, but normal, not evidence of conspiracy.
Yes, there is a sense of satisfaction when the cause is discovered, and yes there is no doubt a sense of a job well done when bad practices have been brought to light. But in this case Captain Michel Asseline pushed the envelope when it was imprudent to do so, and tragedy resulted. To claim otherwise is a waste of time when there are many more current realities in aviation that require scrutiny.