I don't want to derail the thread and I can't believe we're rehashing Habsheim
again...
Willoz269:
You're right in most respects, but
the aeroplane was in land mode...
No, no, no, no,
no.
There's not really any such thing as "landing mode", that was a press invention*. The important factor was that by going below 100ft RA on the low flypast, the captain effectively disabled all the aircraft's protections, as well as permanently disabling autothrottle manually (by pressing
and holding two buttons) at the beginning of his run. Couple this with the standard high-bypass slow response from idle (a setting the engines should never have been at anyway) and you have the cause of the accident.
Regardless of culture, AF seems to have had some spectacularly bad luck of late. I for one hope it improves soon.
* - There is a
flare mode, but it's not really related to approach phase.