There is some serious thread creep going on here, so I apologise in advance to the moderators for joining in but there are some factual inaccuracies which should be corrected. If the Mods wish to move this reply to the thread on the EZY event please feel free, but at least here it is in the context of the previous posts.
It is probably well known that I have an interest in this subject, my posting history will verify that, but bear in mind that mine is just one view of the event.
The AAIB special bulletin on this event contained several factual inaccuracies. Furthermore it was not circulated to the interested parties in advance of publication due to what can best be described as “political circumstances”. This is a pity as the errors could have been removed. I understand that they will be revisited before publication of the final report. Note the footnote on page 1 of the special report which states that “This information is published to inform the aviation industry and the public of the general circumstances of accidents and must necessarily be regarded as tentative and subject to alteration or correction if additional evidence becomes available.”
The inaccuracies were in the second paragraph of the Engineering Investigation as follows:
“Following the flight, the commander verbally requested that this be addressed during the subsequent maintenance input,” – No he did not. He discussed the test results in the debrief with the maintenance personnel, but it is not the commanders place to request any work to be done, only to report the test results and highlight anything unusual, which he did.
“but elected not to enter it in the tech log, as the level of stabiliser trim required during the test had been within limits.” – Correct, and this is standard practice because if it is within limits it is not a defect. That is what limits are there for.
“The absence of a formal post‑flight debrief” – There was a post flight debrief with all interested parties, what constitutes formal or informal is subjective. We know that the debrief was effective because the engineering tech rep demonstrated his understanding by writing down the correct details in his daily log.
“and formal written record” – Not true. The original test flight schedule with the test results was left with the engineers.
“resulted in the balance tabs, attached to the elevators of the aircraft, being adjusted in the opposite sense to that identified as necessary by the flight test.” – The balance tabs were adjusted in the opposite sense but the reason was a breakdown in communications between the various stages of engineering downstream of the debrief. We should expect more of this in the final report.
Pilot999,
Re your description of the commanders recovery manoeuvre being “unconventional, unbriefed , and incorrect”. It was unconventional as regular UA’s go, but it was the manoeuvre taught him by a very high ranking TP for this particular situation, remember that the controls must be released before the hydraulics could be restored. It was also briefed to the F/O before the flight, albeit with a lot of other briefing info as you would expect. As for incorrect, perhaps yes, but it was exactly what he was trained to do and if other actions had been conducted it would have worked like a charm. Again, expect more in the final report.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, don’t jump to conclusions whilst you only have part of the information. We must trust the AAIB to do their job and publish the definitive facts – then it will be fair game to voice an opinion on the many aspects of this event.
S&L