Airbus 310 accident in Congo fully caught on camera...

[Chris Scott]

Thanks parabatix,

The post-accident video clearly shows the flaps at a take-off or go-around setting: either 15 deg or 20 deg. Unless things have changed since my day, there are 4 flap positions: 0, 15, 20 & 40. The normal landing setting would be 40 deg, and - except in the case of a failure with an inability to divert - it would be unthinkable to land on a short, wet runway with anything less.

This lends support to the opinion of several posters that one or both crew members may have tried to initiate a go-around after touchdown - perhaps due to excessive airspeed and the realisation that an overrun would otherwise be likely. The only alternative is that the crew partially retracted the flaps after the a/c left the runway, which is highly unlikely. The standard go-around procedure is to select TOGA thrust, and retract the slats/flaps one step. (If the ground-spoilers have already deployed, they will retract automatically.)

An aborted go-around could have resulted, as I've speculated previously, from a misunderstanding between the two pilots. For example, if the PF elected to go-around just after the PNF had selected reverse idle, that would cause confusion that might take several seconds to resolve. The PF would know that it would take valuable seconds for forward thrust to be reinstated before he could select TOGA thrust for the go-around.

But, except for my first paragraph, the above is all speculation - particularly as we don't know the SOPs for throttle handling in the airline concerned. We do know, however, that full reverse was not achieved until about 10 seconds after nosewheel touchdown, at which point fewer than 2000 feet of runway were remaining. (That is not to suggest that full reverse is the dominant factor in deceleration, even at high speeds. The wheel brakes normally do most of the work. But on a slippery runway, any crew would want to use it as soon as possible.)

Parts of the video are not for the faint-hearted... The slats are extended, as expected (setting indeterminate). The spoilers seem to be retracted, but this could have been done instinctively by one of the pilots as the a/c came to rest.