Originally Posted by
dubbleyew eight
those are not the facts.
the aircraft was flown in turbulence on descent at Vmo (maximum operating speed) the turbulence penetration speed is some 50 knots slower than Vmo.
the pilots did not realise that the aircraft was being structurally damaged by the descents.
aircraft continued in service until a bird strike caused a mechanic to have a look at what the damage was.
the inspection showed structural damage that had escaped the manufacturers inspection procedures, (built as they were on slower speed assumptions and lesser structural loads.)
there is obviously more to it than this potted history.
two of the manufacturer's test pilots flew that repaired aircraft back to Toulouse. presumably this will allow the designers to investigate what will be needed in the design to prevent a recurrence.
your mileage may vary.
have a safe flight.
W8
Based on the report, it would appear that your accusation about flying at high speed in turbulence on the descent was wrong. To quote "In summary, the recorded data shows that: leading up to the occurrence, there was no indication of turbulence". It was also not at Vmo. A good example of the erroneous information that can be found after an accident/incident.
That being said, it appears from the report that the captain applied a significant amount of pull force into the control column. I suspect that once the disconnect happened the application of force of both pilots was no longer meeting the resistance from each other allowing their input to have a sudden increased effect in terms of elevator deflection at a relatively high speed with the resulting structural effect.
It would be interesting to see what was actually written in the logbook(and verbalized to maintenance, if anything) to get an idea of what the maintenance person would be triggered to specifically look for. If it was just about the pitch disconnect which was quite possible that this was the area of concentration. There must have been several walkarounds done by pilots during the following flights that did not detect the visual structural damage although the distortion damage was probably much less noticeable from close up than from a distance while the cracking and wrinkling would not be visible from walkaround distance. An example of how giving an overall look at an aircraft from a distance as it is approached could catch a defect.
I looked up the pitch disconnect procedure from my old ATR notes from several years ago and see nothing about any advisory about possible damage from this sort of scenario. Over 3g was applied to the aircraft. I wonder if this could happen while attempting to disconnect from a jam. If so, something to consider when attempting to do this and how it will affect the people in the back although in a jammed flight control situation, aircraft control is obviously the priority.