All this talk of airworthiness, what can it achieve?
Take the software aspect – current thinking about complex software is that it is nigh on impossible to be sure of completely de-bugging it – what chance would those checking out that FADEC software at the time have had of making it anymore safer beyond what it was even when the anomalies that they had raised had been sorted? The questions regarding what significant improvements had been made to that software between this crash date and the accumulation of thousands of hours of subsequent HC2 flying still beg specific answers.
The control jam theory seems weak in the light of Boeing's removing its recommendation for regular inspection of the bonding in the “broom cupboard”, as if any such jamming could have been in so many axes as to prevent appropriate evasive manouevres and indeed with an inherrently unstable a/c continuing apparently straight and level on an apparently intended course – the lighthouse keeper's testimony that there was no perceived change in engine note right up to impact suggests no struggle for control and the final evasive manouevre made perfect sense in the event of being surprised by the closure with the ground. The matched power settings reinforce the 'keeper's observation.
How about considering a scenario that fits all that is known about this flight?
The photo below looks down at the LZ I have described in previous posts:
035 (mag – the course of their final leg) runs approximately 11 O'clock to 5 O'clock
A pass directly over this LZ (enough to demonstrate the capability of the CPLS system, for example) or a wave-off even if the intention had been to actually land, conditions permitting, would have been safe on this heading and at their approach altitude as, with no need to climb into the orographic cloud and no need for an increase in power, they merely had to veer off to the left, swinging around the back of the lighthouse, dropping down the slope as they would have (with their power settings) to the clear sea.
The track they actually made (035 but displaced to the right) took them full on to higher ground that did not slope off to the left and the gradient of which increased abruptly (they hit a mini cliff).
I cannot envisage such an experienced and able crew risking getting it wrong – they had to have been trusting some local aid to have been lining them up with that LZ – the only candidate I can think of is a PRC112 – any other ideas?
Last edited by walter kennedy; 2nd Nov 2009 at 19:50.
Reason: addition picture