Originally Posted by
411A
Oh yeah, that and the bicycle expert in the RHS.
Still, he was only doing what he was apparently taught by the AA training department, and said training was completely inappropriate for a heavy jet transport airplane.
American Airlines' training program was reviewed numerous times by the manufacturer prior to the accident.
I've had a gawk at 587's raw FDR traces. The rudder channels looked like a seismograph from a Krakatoa type event, I kid you not. In addition to the unreal swings of the needles, the box only recorded rudder data at 1 hertz, that's 1 data point per second. Despite that low data collection rate, the readout was such a mess that they had to use statistical analysis from similar aircraft to "recreate" a plausible data stream. In other words, the NTSB cooked the data to fit their suspected cause.
What I am not saying is that there is something inherently wrong with a CFRP vertical fin, nor with the A300, but this particular aircraft and a few others of similar age and operational history showed abnormalities in the rudder on more than one occasion.