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Old 28th Apr 2016, 06:33
  #1381 (permalink)  
FullWings
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Tring, UK
Posts: 1,847
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Rule 0: don’t crash.

It will be very enlightening if the full report produces some answers as to why an experienced crew managed to dive what appears to be a serviceable aircraft into the ground in conditions that were not that unusual. I expect we will get a lot of the “how” but be prepared for the possibility of very little “why”, apart from the obvious, e.g. loss of SA and 12 seconds of high-rate ND trim, which effectively sealed their fate.

There could be some clues in what modes the AFDS was in and whether it was being followed or not. There’s also the issue that what you need to do in a microburst (WEM) is very different to encountering positive wind gradient but all training goes into the first scenario.

Humans very occasionally behave irrationally for no apparent reason, probably due to the statistical nature of our neural networks. You can do the same task for years but one day you do it differently for no reason that you can ascertain; tiredness probably doesn't help, either. One also has to ask the question: “would the autopilot and autothrottle have done it better after a long flight and multiple missed approaches?"
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