PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - AF 321 close to stall
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Old 12th Sep 2012, 19:18
  #15 (permalink)  
fireflybob
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
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Fireflybob, the incident which you refer to exposed unexplained and undetected disengagement of the A/T system on the 737. I've had it happen to myself (thankfully detected it - maybe I got lucky - however I had the use of the FMA banged into me from an early stage). Had maintenance carry out a BITE test and a series of observations and nothing resulted. The 737's A/T disengagement annunciating system, as you likely know, is cack and relies heavily on the crew to be monitoring the FMA at all times. I'm not sure about the Bus, however Alpha floor seems to have saved the day. With the BOH incident the aircraft approached the stall, the crew applied TOGA thrust and the resulting pitch power couple stalled the aircraft. I believe this and the unfortunate THY incident at EHAM led to Boeing amending the approach to stall recovery manouvre (unsurprisingly as the one in force at the time made no sense).
Callsign Kilo, I wasn't pointing any fingers and the intention was not to get involved in a systems debate but saying that AF isn't the only operator that has had such incidents. Not saying AF is perfect either!
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