Originally Posted by DozyWannabe
you wouldn't know that because of all the rubbish talked over the years.
I was living in Alsace and could follow the first trial !
Really nobody during the trial thougt or said A320 could not stall, with one exception : the copilot MAZIERES. He said to the Court "Je croyais que l'avion ne pouvait pas décrocher" ("I thougt that the plane could not stall").
Nobody said something at that moment, other that Pierre BAUD saying it is a problem of "energy" (nothing about AoA...). MAZIERES seemed to still be convicted of what he said, and his face seemed to say he could imagine no shematic of another way to fly A320. That is what I have seen and listened.
From ASSELINE I never listened during the trial that the aircraft would have stalled, nor that the aircraft would have been stalling. His book "Le pilote est-il coupable ?" reflects the same things he said during the Trial.
About ASSELINE, I first want to say about his legal team, the Laywer died quickly after the Trial. Me Michel AGRON was an helicopter pilot, and seemed not to be an impulsive or an unprudent man. He wanted to understand how that aircraft was flying.
I was really estonished to hear that A320 pilots knew so little about that aircraft : ASSELINE who was the first A320 pilot from Air France, explained that he had to teach the other pilots, as he was the A320 Sector Chief. He needed a simulator, and THOMSON (today... THALES !!!) decided with him and AIR FRANCE to provide it.
So they asked to Airbus the description of the flight laws. Airbus refused but said they could provide a closed box whith a computer. THOMSON and ASSELINE accepted (no other deal possible). And ASSELINE trained himself on that blind computer !
He tried to do the anavoidable "tours de piste basse altitude". And finally he discovered he was able to do them at 100 Ft, not with the height sensor, but only with the altimeter.
To do that he needed to cut the protection alphafloor, what he did at HABSHEIM. Pierre BAUD who was present at that moment said (smiling) to the Court he was right, he needed. And nobody said anything, assuming ASSELINE was able to fly without stalling without that protection and without A/THR. The Court asked nothing about that. The trial report or notes would show it.
That is what I have seen and listened that day.
ASSELINE said also - during the Trial , I say it again - that after that, he explained to AIR FRANCE he was able to fly with the (baro)-altimeter at 100 Ft. And AIR FRANCE who had NO MEAN to evaluate if it was feasible or not and trusted Captains, accepted to allow him what ASSELINE said to be able. (Well readed regulations surely did not allow to do that, but remember it was the time where CONCORDE was doing a go-around over the most known French meeting of the FERTE-ALLAIS at 50 Ft, and other AIR FRANCE planes over the town (parc de VINCENNES) whithout any crash zone other than houses, and all national meetings like PARIS LE BOURGET airshow, or military meetings were used to show aircrafts flying very low over the people, with pilots from many countries... ".Que celui qui n'a jamais péché lui jette la première pierre"/(Let he who is without sin throw the first stone). Despite that regulation problem, I am not sure the Court took these "details" in consideration.
You say ASSELINE was arrogant : after the accident at that public Trial, I have to say I have seen a man who still searched how that aircraft was working with his blind sealed computer box.
Some mistake has been made between Air France and the Habsheim airport, but I am not sure that the Court evaluated that : People were placed along the grass runway, and not along the concrete runway and ASSELINE has been surprised to change the approach. Here, Dozy, you are right, ASSELINE would have to go-around and come back for a second approach toward the grass runway. Both runways were too short to land.
Not sure the Court took that in consideration... that has not been discussed as far I know, I have seen, I heard. I discovered also that the grass runway (who was used daily by the airclubs and flight schools) was not legal too, trees too high at the extremities... for the lightest aircrafts... That has not been discussed at the Trial, despite the President of the airclub, chief of the airfield was possible culprit.
Would ASSELINE have done a second approach, he would have been too low over the trees to respect the 100 FT ASSELINE was able to fly on the THOMSON "simulator" with its blind sealed box and he could not know it...
Something was really strange, many newspapers and rumours said since years that the aircraft COMPUTERS would have been the cause of the lack of ASSELINE to be able to go-around and specially the limitation of 2.5g start the climb quickly (not engine problems) : loss of height decreases if load increases. But the Court has never questioned about a computer or automation failure : the reason is that NOBODY from the experts and the Court was able to do that analysis at that moment ! The trial has been conducted as a very conventional aircraft crash. Only BAUD and BENOIST gave a video about system, but initiation level 000, max that people there were able to understand... Victims had a witness who had to ask some about computer certification, but another DGAC certifyer was there as a Prosecutor expert, who had done thousands certifications (he said in private) for aircrafts without such computers. So the automation of A320 has not been examined by the Court.
To forget nothing important from that trial, mention must be done to NORBERT JACQUET : himself who doubted of the Airbus safety in AIR FRANCE, has not been able to critisize the systems, and did not try to do it. He was focused on DFDR possible change, and he himself tried a trial he failed. Despite that, at the ASSELINE trial, a last test has been done about his theory : The end of the magnetic tape would have been folded in case his theory of DFDR change would finaly by proved. And I can remember this strange... (and funny !) scene where two mens were left and right before the Court, 6-7 meters from one another along the opposite walls, enrolling the entire tape to the last meters, in a hitchcok suspense : there was no folders. (I could never understand from where these folders would have came). But that was not the reason that put NORBERT JACQUET out of our world ! Since the very first day of the accident, he refered to a phone message he had lost to a good friend of him (witness of NORBERT JACQUET 's marriage) working very close of the Ministre des Transports, to remember him his accident prevision, in AIR FRANCE, on AIRBUS, he did BEFORE THE CRASH. And IMMEDIATELY SOMEONE IN AIR FRANCE, tried to discredite him... This part of the HABSHEIM story is particulary SAD !
I do not know what happened to you Dozy, I feel something we do not know was very sad for you two, and I respect that, you surely have good reasons.
Iself, as pilot AND computer guy, my position is since more than 40 years that
scientists and experts have a great responsibility they are not allowed to go under.
Pilots, Passengers, Public and members of automation and computing team, are allowed to can trust in safety, and only scientific transparency allows that.
