As a self confessed Airbus sceptic, the defenders of the genre may feel free to flame me, but . . . . last years Qantas incident made me squirm, now, after one has finally & inevitably gone in ,the pilot body and indeed the public in general, discover that we have (at least ) 2 more USA regulated incidents to be considered PLUS two more involving F-registered but not AF airframes PLUS 6 was it ? more occurences in the last year or so involving AF airframes .
So, without in any way wishing to over-emphasise due to my previously admitted bias, I must ask, for something which has in all likelihood finally come home to roost, what did Airbus previously have in mind to address the issue apart from crossing it's fingers and emphasising to crew that when the sh1t hits the fan you had better be damned good at finding and reading the right checklist/troubleshooting as your world turns inside out around you.
Very helpful or what ?
And short of a complete rethink in the control (Ha Ha
) philosophy what are they going to do now that they shouldn't already have done in response to the previous very clear warnings offered by the previous upsets.
I am very anti the USA "sue them at every opportunity " mentality, but how will it look in a court of law if & when the total lack of accurate data being displayed & acted on by the FCC's ,that is being suggested as a very likely factor here ,is confirmed to be the case.
Is this really a reasonable scenario to give a normal line crew on a dark and dirty night in the middle of the ocean?
It strikes me that Lindbergh had more useful and accurate data available than these poor guys had at their disposal.