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Old 17th Sep 2008, 11:56
  #1807 (permalink)  
HarryMann
 
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Please also NB that a stick shaker on departure is an "interesting event". History might teach one to ignore the stick shaker and just fly the aircraft - see TWA Tristar @ JFK and even a recent VS747 incident. At a critical phase of flight, a stick shaker could be very distracting - and a good chance spurious. As above, you can only assume you are taking off with the correct performance and configuration.
History might also teach one to trust it, it's a system designed for a purpose... and at least one 'All Souls Lost' accident resulted from just that, ignoring it and even fighting the resulting 50lb stick push... Trident/LHR/Staines reservoir

Unless it is common knowledge specific to an aircraft type and situation that spurious s/s action can occur, aircraft mfrs and certificating authorities would take a very dim view of ignoring it. More so on 'T' tailed aircraft.

In this case, we could propose the following, admittedly hypothetical (as we don't know crew control inputs yet for sure) and assuming the most +ve outcome imaginable...

Stick-shaker noticed > Immediate reduction of stick back-pressure > Reduces AoA > Returns better roll-control > Prevents (2nd) bad roll to starboard > Aircraft stays more nearly on runway centreline > Crew have more options due less panic (compared to a/c diverging off-heading into unknown territory)

>> Possibly, whatever the outcome >> more people survive!

Because if the aircraft does prove to be correctly configured, and airspeed is correct, an immediate 'trial' reduction in AOA would not necessarily produce ground contact - and would increase margin speed over stick-shaker sensor speed, whether erroneous or not.

The first left-wing drop here was of course, a very strong indication that aircraft had been over-rotated (for speed/configuration) and needed flying 'gingerly' to retain control...
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