These words are
cut and pasted from the official French BEA transcript from the CVR and so I might make the rash assumption that they are therefore beyond question. I have left the French original intact so that I cannot be accused of xenophobic interpretation.
14 h 13 min 13 s, OMN “alors jauge total carburant moi j'ai quatre-vingt-seize quatre avec quatre-vingt-seize trois pour quatre-vingt-quinze à bord”.
Engineer – Total fuel I have 96.4 with 96.3 for 95 on board
14 h 14 min 04 s, OPL "ZFWZFCG", OMN “alors j'ai quatre-vingt-onze neuf et cinquante-deux deux".
Pilot – ZFW and ZF CofG Engineer – I have 91.9 and 52.2 (%)
14 h 22 min 22 s, Commandant de bord "bon on va faire cent quatre-vingt-cinq cent c'est à dire qu'on va être aux limites …structurales", ….
Captain – We’re going to do 185,500 that’s to the structural limit
14 h 39 min 04 s, Commandant de bord "alors c'est un décollage à la masse maxi décollage ……
Captain – OK that’s a take-off at maximum take-off weight
14 h 40 min 19 s, Commandant de bord "on a consommé combien ?”, OMN "là on a huit cents kilos".
Captain – How much have we used? Engineer – you had 800kg
14 h 42 min 31 s, Commandant de bord "top".
Captain – Go
Add the Zero Fuel Weight given to the Ramp Fuel and you get 96.4 + 91.9 to get
188.3 tonnes
2’12” before take-off the Captain asks how much fuel they’ve used and is told 800kgs, that means the weight that they were working on was
187.5 tonnes
They knew they were overweight even for a still wind take-off (185075 struct.) and they were significantly overweight for a tail wind take-off.
If you are outside the limits for a safe departure
you do not go – period. Do we say ‘Oh, but this is CDG they’ll never let us use 08L’ – not if you’re flying with me you don’t.
You are paid to observe all the limits all the time. As you line up you must ask yourself, ‘Is this the right runway? Are my assumptions still correct? Is the runway clear? What am I going to do in the failure case? What’s the situation for a reject?’
If your not asking yourself these things then you do not belong on the flightdeck. This Captain did not, folk hero or no. This accident report does not highlight the opportunities for prevention that were ignored.
BEA - ‘consacré à la
prévention des accidents d'aéronautique civile’ – Really?
[ 18 January 2002: Message edited by: Capt H Peacock ]</p>