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Old 14th May 2009, 17:21
  #47 (permalink)  
Starbear
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: uk
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Doesn't it worry you

Xeque
Are you not completely in control during the critical 2-3 minutes that follow?
A more rational answer to your query is yes. Yes, it is worrying for the simple reason that this appears to be another one of these things that was either completely unforseen at design stage or more probably, the likliehood of such an occurrence was deemed to be so remote as to not require any additional protection against.

If you look carefully at what happened here, there were two simultaneous and erroneous indications of thrust reverser deployment. I will leave it to the designers and mathematicians to give the odds on that happening. But happen it did (based on these "reports" so far) but according to an earlier explanation it also required the a/c to be "on ground" though air/ground sensors, so further reducing the chances of this event. So it looks like all things conspired in the worst possible sense against this crew but they have managed wonderfully to rescue a dire unforseen event.

It is a fact of aviation life that all professionals strive to do everything within their power to do things correctly and properly for every flight but that there will always be something new to catch one out. It has always amazed me how some very old aircraft types still have bulletins, both technical and operational, being issued donkeys years after all glitches should have been ironed out.(I am not talking about wear and tear here)

I could go on an tell the tale of a B737-200 where all flight and ground spoilers (was 8 or 10?) deployed inflight when the speedbrake was selected. Only flight spoilers (4 off) should have deployed and it was "impossible" by design for the ground spoilers to so do. Yet they did and at relatively low height. That was over 30 years ago but I will never forget that Captain's face during the debrief. But I won't bore you with that story now.
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