Just look at some of the people posting on here! You've got the likes of jackx123 who is spouting off and quite obviously has no conception of operating a heavy type such as the A340 but takes it upon himself to preach about rules of thumb and gross error checks.
Obviously he is trying to relate his experience flying something older and much lighter without having read the AAIB report. What can we expect next? Advice on cross controlling the A340 for crosswind landings?
Also, there is all this hand wringing and tut tutting from various posters who, again, show themselves to be inexperienced in the operation of modern heavy jets but are quite prepared to cast blame and unwanted advice to those of us who do operate these aircraft. There are even spotters who mistakenly think the crew operate the A340-600 and the
A330-300 when it is the fact that they operate the A3
40-300 and then we are preached to about "counting the number of 'donks'" to avoid the kind of error we are supposedly discussing!
Why can't you read the article and AAIB report and then discuss without all this amateurish speculation based on some ignorant Muppets getting the facts wrong. For example, where does it state that they used laptops to calculate their performance figures? Well, it doesn't because they didn't and Virgin don't.
The report states that the crew did not stick to SOP and this lead to the error not being spotted. No matter how "robust" the procedures are, not sticking to SOP can lead to this situation. Additional factors were mixed fleet flying between the bigger and heavier A340-600 and the smaller and lighter A340-300 as well as distractions and other pressures during a rushed preparation.
Can we please have the amateurs and others inexperienced in the operation of heavy jets stick to 'informed' observation rather than their presumptions and criticisms based on their anonymity and wet dreams of being a heavy jet pilot. Gross error checks are part of the normal SOP but in this case they weren't followed which allowed a gross error to get into the system. No laptops were or are used at Virgin as it is an FMC/ACARS system and if you don't know what that is then you shouldn't be commenting on here as it just shows you to be a wannabe wet dreamer!
