Interesting note about AA Airbus crash in NYC

[AirRabbit]

Originally Posted by bomarc

few cloudy
I think you make an important point. none of us as airline pilots would, in the course of smooth manual flight, "flick" the rudder around...or any controls really.
(recall how over controlling the 757 at KSEA was shown during a crosswind landing...see other thread(hairy xwind landing)...it didn't come apart.
the copilot in this crash probably wouldn't either, especially after the admonishment some years earlier while on the 727 (which did seem to survive the rudder movement).
all of this makes me think that there is more than meets the eye to the crash in question. that something happened in a different sequence than we are lead to believe.
I am sure that If I danced on the rudders at 200+knots I would make myself quite air sick. that should be a limiting factor in and of itself.

With all due respect, sir, once again, please review the animation video taken from the FDR. Someone was "on" the rudder pedals! And whomever it was, certainly wasn't very timid with the application.

At the initiation of the control inputs, likely as a result of the second wing-tip vortex encounter, you can see a right rudder pedal deflection to the stop and a control wheel input of about 80 degrees to the right. Of course, with full right rudder and darn near full aileron to the right, the airplane begins a roll to the right (back toward wings level). However, when the airplane reaches about 20 degrees of left bank (at time marker 09:15:52) while rolling to the right you can see a simultaneous control wheel and rudder surface movement to the left. I don't know about you, but to me, that is an "Ouch" of the first order! The rudder surface actually looks to exceed the pedal limit (but I don’t know if this is an anomaly with the indicator or not) and the control wheel gets to darn near full control wheel displacement. This means at least 160 degrees of wheel change and probably something like 8 – 10 degrees of rudder surface change – all in 1 second, to the left as the airplane is rolling to the right. Another major "Ouch!" Again, with all this opposite control surface input, the roll to the right is almost stopped (at about 10 degrees of left bank).

To add to the excitement, the full left aileron position is not maintained, nor is the full left rudder pedal position. The wheel is brought back to something like 10 degrees to the right simultaneously with application of full right rudder pedal deflection in 1 second, ("Ouch!") probably reaching constant rate saturation again. While full right rudder is maintained, the control wheel is moved back to about 10 degrees left – again, in 1 second ("Ouch!"). This particular control wheel movement may not have reached the constant rate saturation level again – but it was probably darn close. As the rudder pedal deflection is maintained (very likely getting close to a stable sideslip), the control wheel is moved back to the right to just about full wheel travel and the rudder pedal exceeds the pedal limits – again taking a total of 1 second (again, "Ouch!"). Immediately, the rudder pedal is repositioned to full left deflection, and, in fact, goes well beyond the limits (again depending on the accuracy of the display), simultaneously the control wheel is deflected full left – again, in 1 second ("Ouch!"); time marker 09:15:56-57. As the control wheel is moved back to the right (to about 45 degrees), the rudder pedal deflection goes full right and the surface position presentation disappears (time marker 09:15:58), while the pedal position continues to show full right deflection. There is little doubt that this is where the data feed was stopped – probably because of the departure of the vertical stabilizer and rudder. The control wheel goes back to about neutral and back again to a right control wheel deflection of about 45 degrees.

By the time the rudder surface position display blanks out, there were 7 control wheel reversals and 5 rudder pedal reversals, all in about 7 seconds. Please note ... these were NOT surface position readings ... these were cockpit control positions - and this airplane does not have reversible controls. If these controls were moved, someONE in the cockpit moved them.

The B-757 KSEA crosswind landing attempt had no control inputs that approached the magnitude, frequency, or reversals as on this particular AA flight! Most approaches, even in nasty crosswinds, are not conducted with a clean wing and 250 Knots; but, still, I would think that if anyone DID make such an approach, and "danced" on the rudder along with making the associated lateral control inputs as happend with AA587, I'm not too sure that pilot wouldn't have had more than his hands full as well!

Assuming the rudder pedal movement wasn't the Captain, it would seem that the "admonishment" the F/O received some years earlier, didn't "take."

Of course, there ARE conspiracy theorists under almost every rock - with "theories" about every thing. Why should this accident be any different?