I find it difficult to comprehend how anyone can defute 'human error' when this demanding profile was flown:
- By a crew who had received no training for this type of flight.
- Outside the test point for the specific test
- In a distracting ATC environment
- Subject to time and commercial pressures
And who then continued the test beyond the point at which it should have been discontinued (due to a failed test point) and the aircraft rejected for service.
All this "Well heck, the good-ole DC-3 didn't behave like that" comment is utterly irrelevant. When a specific schedule is written, it
absolutely must be adhered to - just read how ego destroyed a perfectly serviceable aircraft in the account of 'Big head' Yeager's accident in the NF-104.....
Chuck reminded me of the racecar drivers of long ago versus today’s drivers. The old ones just felt it and drove it. The great current drivers help to establish the design, understand the technology and why the car handles like it does and grow with changes. Some of the best are engineering graduates.
Today's flight test pilots should learn from history, but not be totally constrained by it. But they must be very familiar with the aircraft, have sufficient training and skill for the required task and not be afraid to reject commercial influence.
The aeroplane with the most complicated flight control system I've flown was the Folland Gnat; it would happily kill you if you didn't understand the system, stay within the associated limitations and have an instinctive knowledge of system failure drills. Even a pilot as clumsy and hamfisted as I was managed to cope with that! Fortunately, most large aircraft have far greater systems redundancy, but my Gnat training taught me that any flight test pilot MUST be familiar with the aircraft and the flight test procedure and must stick rigidly to the test requirements.
It is already abundantly clear that this crew didn't.
The reasons why have yet to be ascertained though.