p51guy, Ct. Yankee:
At this point the evidence is exhausted - there is not and never will be definitive proof one way or the other. "Designed differently from some other manufacturers" is not the same thing as a "design fault". In some cases certain aspects of an airliner's design could be considered non-optimal and require special handling, but that's something that is true of pretty much any airliner you care to name.
I don't think anyone with any degree of self-awareness or compassion would go so far as to out-and-out hold First Officer Molin solely to blame for the accident. Regardless of the controversial issues, contributing factors include inadequate training and insufficient understanding throughout the airline of the important differences between the types they flew and techniques relevant to each. Regardless of whether the rudder design or a mistake was the initiating event, the fact remains that he was spectacularly unlucky in the sequence of events he was given to handle, and there but for the grace of any deity you care to name go many of us.
[EDIT : p51guy - the FDR trace, correllated with the CVR and all other data available at the time, proved beyond any measure of doubt that the vertical stab failed at a level of stress well in excess of its ultimate design load - in layman's terms it outperformed the boffins' expectations - and the failure happened *after* the initial severe upset, not before. Also, Airbus Industrie have no clout whatsoever with the NTSB (and neither for that matter do Boeing or any other manufacturer - see the history of the 737 rudder issue) - it is an independent agency. Airbus couldn't apportion blame even if they wanted to.]
Last edited by DozyWannabe; 14th Aug 2010 at 02:36.