Originally Posted by
mm43
Protect the integrity of Airbus Industries and make Air France and its employees the "sacrificial lamb" is my read on this Irčne Perrin article.
Why would you say that? Airbus acknowledged the pitot issue and released a service bulletin to the airlines months before the accident and simultaneously issued "workaround" instructions to pilots at the same time, while the issue was being fixed. What more could they reasonably have done?
I really don't get this "BEA protecting/covering up for Airbus/AF" meme that seems to have seeped in around the edges. The fact is (as I've said before) that not only has the BEA become a very different organisation than it was in the late '80s, but also that Airbus has been very quick to put its hand up to mistakes and fix them. Neither major manufacturer acquitted themselves particuarly well in the '80s and '90s - it took definitive proof that the 737 rudder hardovers had a technical cause before Boeing stopped pushing the angle that UA535 and USAir427 could have been pilot error, and it took the loss of Nick Warner to make Airbus look long and hard at their interface design. Both companies have since behaved considerably better in that regard.
We could be on the verge of a serious self-examination on the part of the airline industry as regards training, particularly with regard to making sure that pilots be properly-versed in the aspects of the aircraft they are expected to fly - which I gather from many posts on here people think is something long overdue, and yet it would appear that some people still think that finding the design of the aircraft (over and above the pitot issue) at fault in the face of the evidence would be a better outcome?
@CJ - yes, I'm pretty sure that sectoin of the book refers to deep stall in T-tail designs, but the thrust of the description is still very useful.