In a previous life, I was involved in invetigating one of these accidents. I, for one, cannot understand why any pilot would behave as the TAM pilot did. I would have been perfectly willing to chalk this up to "pilot error." However a second instance makes it harder to convince me that it's simple pilot error. The third, fourth, and fifth instance are even more troubling.
Part of the problem, I see, in the operating manual. I read the explanatory material in the TAM manual and it took me at least three readings to get what they meant.-- and I'm a native English speaker (well, American, anyway). The text appeared to have been written in French, machine translated into German, and then translated into English by a native Japanese speaker. When you consider that three of the four known instances were flown by non-native-english speakers, it makes more sense. (I don't mean to dump on Airbus's manuals; this is a major concern, though. I told Airbus that they really needed to improve the final versions of their manuals. (I told Boeing also.)
In the case of dispatch with an inoperative T/R, the problem is compounded by changes from "pull both into reverse" to "only pull the operative one into reverse." It really doesn't make any real difference which you do. In the America West accident, the pilot remembered after pulling both into reverse that the procedure had changed and tried to get the thrust lever of the inop T/R back to idle and ended up with significant forward thrust leading to a runway departure.
The computer software mod proposed by Airbus would go a long way, but it's been too long coming.
Personally, I think the system should be fixed. Don't allow either engine into reverse until both T/Ls are at or near idle. There is no reason I can think of that would justify one engine in reverse and one at a significant forward thrust. Lacking that fix, the "Retard" call should continue until both are at or near idle and the volume should increase first to "RETARD"" then to "PULL THEM BOTH BACK, DUMMY"
We've already killed a could of hundred and written off three airframes. We've had a couple of lucky breaks as well (One was reported on this very thread."
Let's fix the problem and stop blaming the crew.
Goldfish