Anyone remember a B727 where the crew pulled the slat CBs and cracked a notch of flap to improve cruise performance. All OK until the flight engineer came back, noticed the breakers were out and reset them. Something about the aircraft rolling inverted and diving supersonically ?
I have no recollection of the event, however I remember one B727 crew that experienced uncommanded and asymmetric slat extension in cruise. Aeroplane promptly rolled on its back, went supersonic in dive and was severly bent during recovery. Crew was officialy blamed for tampering with slats' CBs in order to get improved cruise performance. The problem with the story is that (according to Stanley Stewart) there was a test flight that was to verify if there was really performance improvement with flaps slightly down during cruise. There was no improvement however, but empty 727 couldn't climb to its normal cruise level.
If we are both talking about Gibson's dive, we're talking about the same thing.
Now don't use this story as an excuse to tamper with your CBs during flight. The purpose of the circuit breaker is to protect the electric circuit from overload and consequent overtemperature which can lead to fire. They were not designed to be used as switches, however there's no evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that occasional reseting of Airbus computers via their CBs has negative impact on CB's longevity or proper function. CB pull-pushing that is not covered by the written (and properly approved) procedures is best left to test pilots only. On any aeroplane, not just Airbus. The pilots of Valujet's DC9-32 that ploughed the runway at Nashville on Jan 07 96 were very creative with their CBs. And very lucky too.