TAM A320 crash at Congonhas, Brazil

[Rob21]

one day at the airport

The other day I was at the airport and bumped into some friends, airline pilots. We went for a coffee and an interesting "discussion" came up. At the "table" we could see two Boeing pilots, on their mid 50's, three Airbus pilots (one on his late 40's, the other two on their early 30's) and me (a mere helicopter pilot and a light twin airplane sunday driver). No academics there (sorry PBL).
The moving/non moving TLs issue came up, but didn't last long. The old timers said they don't mind if they move or not, as long as they do what they are supposed to - control thrust. One Airbus pilot (the older one) said he missed flying Boeings and the other two A pilots said they enjoy flying Airbuses very much, and they said non moving TLs makes more sense for them. One even said he would prefer big switches instead of TLs. Makes sense, he is from the computer games generation...
Of course, about this TAM accident, the TL was the most discussed thing. It was not a surprise to me when all three Arbus pilots mentioned problems with TLs, not only here in Brazil but also around the world. These problems were one of TLs not working at all. Two cases during taxi, one TL went dead (really dead, not "normal" dead...), one case reducing from TO power to CLB. I asked for more detail, they said they will e-mail me. When I get those, will post.
The Boeing pilots said that weard things happen with Bs too.

One interesting thing happened on that "round table" discussion, none of the pilots there were into discussing systems, A x B, etc... They all talked about maintenance, and Murphy's law was cited. All participants of that "coffee break" didn't rule out HF as probable cause, but since they know equipment fail all the time also (A or B), they are eager to see what investigators come up with. But not to put a blame, but to learn from it.

And the meeting ended with that old joke about future of aviation, when copilots will be replaced by a German shepherd dog...

Regards,
Rob