TAM A320 crash at Congonhas, Brazil

[EMIT]

ManMachineInterface

PBL,

Indeed, there is no valid reason for not retarding both thrust levers to idle during the flare. Retarding both T/L's to idle is so normal, that it not really adressed anymore after basic training. No one needs to include in their SOP's the fact that pilots have to continue breathing all day and night, either.

The fact that pilots have not pulled the "faulty" T/L back to idle, in my opnion, has everything to do with the Airbus setup of non-moving T/L's. In this setup, with AutoThrust engaged until landing, the "throttle hand" just sits on the dead thrust levers until the moment that the T/L's have to be retarded. That pullback will be half a second worth of action, judging by the clank with which I always hear the T/L's arrive at the idle stop.

Now, sidetrack, let's consider that someone has really dug into the FCOM and discovered that measly little note about increased forward thrust if a T/L is pulled into reverse range, while actually the T/R is not usable; or consider experience with a type recurrent (= SIM session) with HYD Green and Yellow out, which means no reversers available and the scenario put you on a very long runway with braking action poor and all the QRH numbers were correct in that you had exactly enough length available on that runway ..... what a surprise that you couldn't stop in time though, because you had pulled the T/L's into reverse range, causing just that slightly increased, etc, etc.

Now back into the cockpit, to the microsecond in which the brain is going to decide what that, until now, passive hand is going to do in the next half second - it only takes one brain fart to turn the day into a nasty experience ( like described, I think by Wileydog, on his first mention of the Airbus Accident Information Telex) or into an inferno if external circumstances are like in Congonhas.

Such a brainfart would not have the same result if the T/L's were of the type that is moved, either by an Aututhrust system or by hand, because in those cases the T/L's would all the time be close to idle (during that phase of flight).

Don't suspect me of AB bashing or anything, I know for instance that on Boeing there have been occasions in which pilots brainfarted the standard practice of "slightly releasing backpressure to land the nose gear" into an application of full forward stick, resulting in the aircraft almost breaking in two.

Best regards.


Edited just for a language error.