The profile of the "knobs" on the ends of the droop and flap levers were always different.
Post accident they installed a speed dependant solenoid to stop premature droop retraction but if we hadn't had the ridiculous noise abatement proceedure then it would have been practically impossible to retract early.
What the film didn't show correctly in this aspect was two points...one minor and that was we started stop watches on start of roll and secondly the flaps were selected in before the huge power reduction..which left us waffling along at a relatively low speed - and without any safe guard on the droop lever.
This, along with SOP, wouldn't have been a problem BUT there were lots including a management pilot who did their own thing - Evans was cross examined by a barrister about FDR statistics of 1 in 8 noise proceedures that did not follow SOP....thats either a lot of cowboys or a lot of blokes who thought they were wrong as Cunningham stated.
What they also convienitly missed was everybody turning around and writing down every Atc clearance leaving no one to mind the shop...another flat earth society SOP.
Last edited by blind pew; 29th Dec 2013 at 06:15.