TAM 3054 Accident
I apologize for jumping in, but I reviewed several of these thrust reverser accidents. To date, there have been three almost identical accidents:
Mar 98, PAL 137 @ RPVB
Oct 04 TNA 536 @ RCSS
jUL 07 tam 3054 @ SBSP
Personally, I find it incredible that one pilot would not pull both thrust levers back to idle during the flare. Airbus has a unique design where the T/L's do not move during an autothrottle approach -- however the pilot is reminded by an automatic voice commend ("Retard," which leads to many jokes.) But I can't understand why anyone would only pul one back. However, one can call it "pilot error" if one does it. The second instance calls this term into question. When we have three, I don't think we can continue to call it "pilot error."
One of the problems is the explanation given. I reviewed the TAM FCOM discussion following the Sao Paulo accident. The description several lines and I found it hard to read. I had to read it two or three times to see what they were saying. It appeared to be written in French, machine translated to German and then translated into English to be read by a non-native English speaker. (see the pattern in the accidents.)
Part of the problem is that it doesn;t really matter if the pilot pulls both into reverse on only the operating reverser. The FADECs will keep an inop T/R from being engaged. Unfortunately, the procedure keeps changing. One month the drill will be only pull the operating T/R back (into reverse) and the next month it will be pull them both back.
There was a related accident in Phoenix in Aug 02. The pilot pulled both into reverse, then remembered that the procedure was to only pull the operative T/R back. He pushed it back up -- unfortunately into enough forward thrust to cause a runway departure.
There are a number of fixes proposed -- the one that was chosen was to to put an annunciation on the ECAM and continue the "Retard" call until both were pulled to idle.. I don't know if this was mandated.
Personally, I would rather see the issue made moot by making it impossible to get one in reverse and on in significant forward thrust.
Sorry for the soapbox.
Cheers