Originally Posted by ELAC
What this little exercise, which I admit is entirely speculative, suggests to me is three things:
ELAC, whilst many do appreciate your academic dissection of events, all that analysis is pretty pointless. Any Airbus, or Boeing pilot for that matter, will have reached the exact same conclusions without all that effort simply because we know that not retarding a thrust lever and not applying brakes for so long on a short, wet runway combined with the fact that there were no ground spoilers will ineviably lead to an overrun.
The rest of the debate is, at best, little more than a few individuals trying to impress the rest of us with their theoretical knowledge of A320 systems logic. All the meanderings by people with usernames that make them sound like they are Airbus or Boeing experienced pilots but are more likely just enthusiastic observers or enthusiasts, actually detract from the quality of the debate on this thread.
Distractions over theoretical possibilities about whether they could have gone around from the predicament they were in are a waste of time. They were in 'landing mode' and I will leave it to the official investigators to come up with conclusions as to why two experienced airline pilots failed to retard a thrust lever to idle as they touched down on a short, wet runway.
The confusion over the MEL description on thrust lever handling should play a part purely from the point of view that emphasis was placed on the airborne scenario of unlocked thrust reverser. However, even I, a poorly educated Boeing pilot could understand the bit about using BOTH thrust levers when trying to stop the aircraft with one thrust reverser locked out. I even understood the bit that says they should BOTH be used when selecting reverse thrust and you can expect a little alert reminding you that one thrust reverser will not be doing what is being commanded. Something most landing briefings would cover anyway.
Long academic summaries do not explain the most important part of this investigation which is the human factors element of not retarding the number 2 thrust lever. Everything else that contributed to the accident... the lack of ground spoiler deployment, the lack of autobrake activation and the failure to apply manual braking for 11 seconds are all secondary.