I think he may be assuming that the CB was tripped by a technician to use it as a "not in ground mode test" (i.e. to check for the strobes to come on properly) and then he forgot to set it back. If there would've been a "test" or "bypass" switch to make the lights turn on while on the ground, he would've used that instead.
And there would be our first hole on the cheese ... leading to the temperature probe "overheating" ... leading to going back to parking ... leading to forgetting to re-deploy flaps on second TO ... leading to the GRD mode CB being still off so the alarm didn't sound ...
It's more likely the CB tripped for other reasons, as the plane had already landed from another flight (from Barcelona, I think it was). At midday, it had not been their first flight of the day.
Hopefully the investigation will find out when (and "why") the ground mode (theoretically) was in the "off" mode. Anything from a true malfunction with the WOW sensor, to other problems with the front landing gear, to actual electrical malfunction, to simply just forgetting to reset a circuit breaker after voluntarily (or inadvertendly) tripping it (either by the crew or technicians) etc etc are all "equally" possible at this point.
Of course, it is not unreasonable to think that there was no actual malfunctions and someone tripped it and forgot to re-set it again, and the crew neither checked it nor checked the TO alarms prior to trying to take off with improper wing configuration. *IF* they also missed setting the flaps/slats (rather than any sort of malfunction), well, that would certainly be a very bad combination, as no last minute warning would've possibly allowed them to correct the situation on time.
Last edited by justme69; 6th Sep 2008 at 14:15.