TAM A320 crash at Congonhas, Brazil

[EMIT]

ManMachineInterface

PBL,

Indeed, there is no valid reason for not retarding both thrust levers to idle during the flare. Retarding both T/L's to idle is so normal, that it not really adressed anymore after basic training. No one needs to include in their SOP's the fact that pilots have to continue breathing all day and night, either.

The fact that pilots have not pulled the "faulty" T/L back to idle, in my opnion, has everything to do with the Airbus setup of non-moving T/L's. In this setup, with AutoThrust engaged until landing, the "throttle hand" just sits on the dead thrust levers until the moment that the T/L's have to be retarded. That pullback will be half a second worth of action, judging by the clank with which I always hear the T/L's arrive at the idle stop.

Now, sidetrack, let's consider that someone has really dug into the FCOM and discovered that measly little note about increased forward thrust if a T/L is pulled into reverse range, while actually the T/R is not usable; or consider experience with a type recurrent (= SIM session) with HYD Green and Yellow out, which means no reversers available and the scenario put you on a very long runway with braking action poor and all the QRH numbers were correct in that you had exactly enough length available on that runway ..... what a surprise that you couldn't stop in time though, because you had pulled the T/L's into reverse range, causing just that slightly increased, etc, etc.

Now back into the cockpit, to the microsecond in which the brain is going to decide what that, until now, passive hand is going to do in the next half second - it only takes one brain fart to turn the day into a nasty experience ( like described, I think by Wileydog, on his first mention of the Airbus Accident Information Telex) or into an inferno if external circumstances are like in Congonhas.

Such a brainfart would not have the same result if the T/L's were of the type that is moved, either by an Aututhrust system or by hand, because in those cases the T/L's would all the time be close to idle (during that phase of flight).

Don't suspect me of AB bashing or anything, I know for instance that on Boeing there have been occasions in which pilots brainfarted the standard practice of "slightly releasing backpressure to land the nose gear" into an application of full forward stick, resulting in the aircraft almost breaking in two.

Best regards.


Edited just for a language error.

[TyroPicard]

PBL yesterday you posted

The AC had WoW on left, then nose (one second later), then right (two seconds later than that), within the usual time of touching down (a second or two).

And today

WoW of left main gear is shown as taking one second from 18:48:23 until 18:48:24.
WoW is shown on right main gear already at :25. That at :26.3 that you thought might be the nosewheel is indeed the nosewheel.

Can you please confirm which is correct?
TP

[TyroPicard]

The reason why a pilot would only retard one thrust lever escapes me. Brainfart or not it has happened and may well happen again.

What I do find worth thinking about is why PNF did not recognise the fact, according to the CVR transcript. Assuming my understanding of the transcript is correct, he called "reverse number one only" as a reminder, then called "spoilers nothing". SOP is to call Spoilers then Reverse Green then Decel - so why no Reverse Green call?
Distraction because ground spoilers did not deploy?
Or disbelief that this could happen?
Or because his brain thought he had already called it?

Possible contributing factors:
With only 250 hours on type (IIRC) a Captain in the RHS on an occasional basis.. is he in his comfort zone?
When did he last fly a sector as PNF in RHS?
Was he distracted by the call to inhibit the G/S at 300ft.RA? And was this briefed, perhaps it is an "unofficial SOP'" on this runway?
Was he trained (and I mean trained not checked) to fly PNF RHS - RHS checks for Captains are done in the UK as PF. Perhaps PNF duties are just as critical?
If two Captains fly together should they stay in one seat for the duration of the duty? That's what Line Trainers do and they can still get caught out.

And why did PF not recognise the problem either? Many years ago I was given two golden rules.
1. If you move a switch or lever and all hell immediately breaks loose - move it back.
2. If you perform a sequence of actions and do not get the intended result - do them again correctly.
Rule 1 does not apply here, but Rule 2 might have helped.

Your thoughts welcome.
TP

[PBL]

TP

um, thanks for catching this.

Correct is

WoW of left main gear is shown as taking one second from 18:48:23 until 18:48:24.
WoW is shown on right main gear already at :25. That at :26.3 that you thought might be the nosewheel is indeed the nosewheel

Sampling appears to be only once per second.

PBL

[borghha]

I agree TP, it is strange and we are all trying to figure out why any of both pilots didn t notice what was wrong and didn t repeat the sequence of actions to get the intended result. Could it be that it was the extra stress at CGH (1. short runway 2. wet and slippery 3. one REV inop) that blurred their brain?

We know that the junior TAM pilot (ex 737) was PNF. Could it be that he was better or more recently informed/trained about A320 SOP with one REV inop than his senior checkairman? (he performed SOP at Porto Alegre on the previous leg) Could it be that the PF checkairman got confused by the call 'one REV op only' - and didn t ask further because of landing stress or ranking - and slid his hand from both to just one throttle, thereby forgetting to pull the other one to idle? And/or was he preoccupied with the extra thrust the engine with the inop rev would give him on this runway if he reversed it to max?

Moreover, I think that the translation issue is important here to understand the CVR tansscript better. I haven' t seen the original Portuguese text yet.

And another question: the 'increasing engine noise': wouldn't that immediately surprise any pilot? it came before REV thrust and, supposing it was the other engine going to CLB, that noise is in any case quite different from a REV going into max.. When you fly an ac as long as the PF did, surely you know each and every noise the thing makes, and you would immediately be alarmed by an engine spooling up at TD, wouldn't you?

So many questions, so little answers. The effort we are putting in here somehow conforts me. It is all about understanding and trying to avoid repetitions of this terrible accident...

[the_hawk]

Sdruvss, there's already a post in this thread saying that the original phrase was "não da", you are saying "Eu não consigo". Am I right that you just translated "I can’t" back into Portuguese?

[borghha]

that is what I was referring to in my previous post, hawk. The 'não consigo' seems to be a translation back into PT. Since the original translation from PT into EN was already flawed according to me, it brings nothing to translate it back into PT. Except for more confusion.

[Rockhound]

TBravo,
Re your post 1401: Please leave Tenerife 1977 and van Zanten out of this. Van Zanten thought he heard T/O clearance being given, hence advanced the throttles. His actions have nothing whatever to do with those of the pilots involved in the Congonhas accident.
Rockhound

[ELAC]

Effect of Ground Spoilers - Academic Discussion

What follows is an academic discussion of the effect of ground spoilers on landing distance. It probably won't be of interest to many, but is worth considering in light of the questions this incident has us asking. All below is only my opinion, and not published fact except as indicated.

According to A320 FCOM it takes about 40% - 50% longer to stop without ground spoilers available.

TripleBravo ...

I've been giving thought to the differences between the MEL 15% factor for ground spoilers and the QRH/FCOM 50% coefficient for a while now, trying to fully explain why the two are different and which one expresses actual performance as they obviously aren't both correct for the single case where the spoilers are not extended.

To start, my thinking is that a case where the Ground Spoilers don't extend simply due to the lack of the activation requirements being met is more analogous to a case where the aircraft has been dispatched with the system failed and deactivated on the ground as opposed to failed in flight after departure. The governing regulations (JARs/FARs/CARs) and Airbus requirements for the consideration of a system failure known prior to dispatch are as described in Airbus' Flight Operations Support document "Getting to Grips With Aircraft Performance", page 121, Dispatch Requirements:

In the event of an aircraft system failure, known prior to dispatch and affecting the landing distance, the available runway length must at least be equal to the required landing distance with failure. This distance is equal to the required landing distance without failure multiplied by the coefficient given in the MMEL, or to the performance with failure given by the Flight Manual.

My Note: Flight Manual refers to the Aircraft (sometimes referred to as Approved) Flight Manual (AFM), not the FCOM.

These are the dispatch requirements, and as we all know the performance values used to generate dispatch limiting conditions are always the very best ones possible for the conditions as allowed by the regulations. If it were possible to prove that a lower factor was possible it would be used, and so conversely the factor provided will not be lower than the actual decrement to performance that the failure will cause to occur.

In the Taipei report the MEL page relevant to ground spoilers inoperative for that aircraft was reproduced showing that for the Ground Spoiler Control System Inoperative the requirement was to multiply the RLD*1.15. Presumably, but not necessarily the factor is the same for the TAM aircraft. In my manuals for one carrier's A330 fleet I found three seperate factors applying to aircraft of different mod status for the same failure so unless we see TAM's MEL page we won't know for sure.

In practical terms, on a dry runway if the MEL factor is 1.15 this indicates that the actual effect of the spoiler system being inoperative would be to increase the actual landing distance by a maximum of 25%. By Demonstration:

If: ALDdry = 1200m
Then: RLDdry = 2000m (1.66*ALDdry)
And: RLDns = 2300m (RLD Dry*1.15)
Thus: Effect of Spoilers = (RLDns-RLDdry)/ALDdry
= (2300-2000)/1200
= 300/1200 = 25%

In the event the runway is wet the percentage contribution of the ground spoilers to the landing distance actually decreases slightly even though the absolute value increases. By example, following from the above:

ALDdry = 1200m
ALDwet = ALDdry +25% (the 15% Wet factor on RLD results in a 25% greater ALD the by the same calculation as above)
ALDwet = 1500m
RLDdry = 2000m
RLDwet = 2300m (RLDdry*1.15)
RLDwns = 2645m (RLDwet*1.15)
Effect of Spoilers = (RLDwns - RLDwet)/ALDwet
= (2645-2300)/1500
= 345/1500 = 23%

Now, one thing to consider with these numbers is that the percentages relate to ALD, actual landing distance and not the ground stopping distance from touchdown. It's self evident that for the distance covered from 50' at the runway's edge to the touchdown point the contribution of the ground spoilers is zero. All of their effect occurs in the distance between touchdown and bringing the aircraft to a full stop. Allowing for the fact that the airborne phase to touchdown point for an ALD certification test landing will be approx. 300m with a minimal flare (!), the percentage effect of the Ground Spoilers on Ground Stopping Distance, not Actual Landing Distance, moves back upwards to higher values. In the sample cases here:

Stopping Distance Dry = 1200-300 = 900m
Effect of Spoilers Dry = (2300-2000)/900
= 300/900 = 33%

Stopping Distance Wet = 1500-300 = 1200m
Effect of Spoilers Wet = (2645-2300)/1200
= 345/1200 = 29%

If you wanted to you could also make a baseline comparison by using the Effect of Spoilers Wet versus Dry Stopping Distance in which case you could say that the loss of Ground Spoilers on a wet runway will increase ground stopping distance by 38% (345/900) versus the normal stopping distance on a dry runway.

Having said all this, the numbers we are used to using are the ALD numbers from the FCOM's and the QRH, and in this wet runway case the relevant factor would be an approx. 23% increase in ALD. However, when we refer to your FCOM page 3.02.80 it shows that for "ALL SPOILERS FAULT" a coefficient of 1.50 or 50% that has to be added to the Landing Distance (Conf Full). Why the difference between the MEL factor which adds up to 23%-25% and the FCOM/QRH which says 50% when there can only be one correct factor for a specific condition?

"Getting to Grips With Aircraft Performance" is very useful in clearing up the confusion. From page 124, Inflight Failure:

In the event of an aircraft system failure occurring in flight, and affecting landing performance, the runway length to be considered for landing is the actual landing distance without failure multiplied by the landing distance coefficient associated to the failure.

These coefficients, as well as the ALDs for each runway state, are published in Airbus’ operational documentation (Flight Crew Operating Manual and Quick Reference Handbook).

My Note: The reference documents for inflight failures changes from the MMEL & AFM to the FCOM & QRH

So, the starting point for the difference is that the coefficients published in the FCOM and QRH only come into play when the failure occurs during the flight, not when it was known prior to dispatch. The documentation is silent on the reasons why the coefficients would be different, but I can think of at least three reasons that might apply:

1. The dispatch case starts from a known secured condition (i.e. affected system deactivated) as opposed a case where the system has failed in flight. In the failure case there may be other subsidiary effects depending on where the failure starts or ends that have to be considered.
   
   
2. The dispatch factor is intended to be no more limiting than it actually has to be to conform to regulations. Hence the factor represents what must be added assuming the maximum efforts of the crew and aircraft to minimize the effect. Actual pilot landing and braking techniques in the real world are likely to be less aggressive resulting in longer stopping distances than required by dispatch regulation.
   
   
3. Once airborne, the dispatch regulations requiring a factor to be applied to RLD no longer apply. Consequently, the manufacturer can provide more conservative stopping distance guidance without it having a negative effect on dispatch capability. I would expect that most pilots would want to err to the cautious side of whatever values were produced using the inflight co-efficients anyway, but allowing a little more give costs the manufacturer nothing and allows both the pilot and the designer a little more breathing space for the unknown. There’s sense in this explanation in that the A330’s with different MEL dispatch factors all had the same inflight co-efficient.

From here I'd like to move on to a speculative discussion about what the effect of the ground spoilers not extending might have been in this specific case and whether a stop within the runway length might have been possible.

ELAC

[ELAC]

Factors Affecting Stopping Distance at CGH - Speculative Discussion

Following from the academic discussion above, below is an entirely speculative attempt to calculate the effect of the various conditions that seem to have been factors in this accident. None of it amounts to anything more than guesswork, but it does provide the basis for some broad conclusions about the likely importance of the different variables. Again, all below is strictly my own opinion except where referring to particular published documents.

without spoillers and just one reverse, is it possible to stop on a short runway only applying brakes?

To give sdruvss an answer (at least as it applies to this situation) requires the use of some speculative mathematics which I have engaged in purely out of personal curiosity resulting from what is a very reasonable question.

Referring to Zeke’s post #1224 which show’s TAM’s Wet RTOLW chart for landings on 35L at CGH, given a 3 kt headwind component (the calculation basis assumes Vls for approach, not Vapp, so 5 kts has to be deducted from the headwind component), the RLD value wet for the Max. Landing Weight of 64.5 tons is interpolated as 1751m. Using this information and the calculations as in my post above we can work our way backwards to determine what the likely maximum effect of the ground spoilers would have been had the brakes been fully applied and maximum reverse was used on 1 engine only. No credit is allowed in regulatory calculations for the effect of reverse on ALD but it does exist in reality with Airbus showing 6% credit for two on a wet runway. A 3% credit for the single reverser is probably reasonable. We must also assume that the dispatch factor for ground spoilers inoperative is 1.15*RLD, the same as was the case for the A320 at Taipei. Thus at a maximum:

Max RLDwet = 1751m
Max RLDwns = Max RLDwet*Dispatch Factor = 1751*1.15 = 2014m
Effect of Spoilers Inop = Max RLDwns - Max RLD Wet = 2014-1751 = 263m
Max RLDdry = Max RLDwet/1.15
= 1751/1.15 = 1523m
Effect of Wet = Max RLDwet – Max RLDdry
= 1751-1523 = 228m
Max ALDdry = Max RLDdry/1.66
= 1523/1.66 = 917m
Max ALDwet = Max ALDdry + Effect of Wet
= 917+228 = 1145m
Effect of Reverse = Max ALDwet*.03
= 34m
Max ALDwns = Max ALDdry+Effect of Wet + Effect of Spoilers Inop – Effect of Reverse
= 917+228+263-34
Max ALDwns = 1374m

So, at the maximum landing weight of 64.5 tons the loss of the ground spoilers would probably have added a maximum of 263m (about 855') to the landing distance, making it approximately 1374m (about 4465') if all else was normal and a maximum braking technique was used.

However, in this accident we know this wasn't the case. The additional factor of the #2 engine producing 1.20 EPR means that the ALD would be significantly higher. Referring to the Taipei report once again, the effect of the additional 1.08 EPR there was to add 30% to the ground stopping distance with spoilers retracted on a wet surface. For this case it might be more like 40%-50%. Taking a median value of 45% of the ground stopping distance (which is 50% greater than the Taipei value) the ALD for the condition will increase as follows:

Ground Stopping Distance 1.2 EPR = (ALDwns - Airborne Phase)*1.45
GSD1.2EPR = (1374-300)*1.45 = 1557m
ALD1.2EPR = GSD1.2 + Airborne Phase
= 1557+300 = 1857m

The actual landing weight was about 3% below the max landing weight which would reduce the above values perhaps by 2% (37m), suggesting that the actual landing distance for this configuration would be 1820m if maximum braking was applied and the runway friction coefficient was equivalent to the wet value. There is also 60 meter displaced threshold which might have facilitated the pilot’s intention (18:48:14.9 “One dot now. Okay.”) to have an early touchdown point on the runway. All of this taken together suggests that they might, just might, have been able to stop on the runway even allowing for the effect of the thrust on the #2 engine if the runway condition was no worse than wet, the touchdown point was less than 420 meters from the start of the runway (360m from the displaced threshold) and maximum braking was applied. That's a lot of if's I grant you, and most pilots would not accomplish it given normal reactions to the evolving situation, but perhaps it was not impossible.

What this little exercise, which I admit is entirely speculative, suggests to me is three things:

1. It’s as likely having now done the math as it appeared intuitively at the start that it was the combined effect of the thrust on #2 remaining at 1.20 EPR and the 11 second delay in braking which took what might have been a low speed over-run, possibly contained within the airfield, and turned it into a high speed departure that proved unsurvivable. If either factor is not present the dynamics of the situation change dramatically. To get into the situation required at least 3 substantial deviations from normal procedure. Most of the questions related to why these deviations occurred have already been asked. Hopefully investigation will discover the answers.
   
   
2. The actual runway braking co-efficient versus reported is of relatively low relevance because of the 11 second delay in applying the brakes. The FDR data reported tells us that no effective deceleration occurred until braking began. From a calculation perspective this is the same as moving the touchdown point 800m (2600’) further down the runway. From there the high-speed over-run was inevitable. However, had maximum braking been applied without delay the braking co-efficient would have played a critical role in determining whether the aircraft would have stopped on the runway. If the, so far as I know, undefined value implied by the modifier “slippery” reduced the braking coefficient below wet values then the chances of stopping on the runway went from slightly possible to not possible. One has to ask what guidance the crew had in terms of evaluating the impact of the “slippery” condition on the safety of the intended landing?
   
   
3. The answer to sdruvss's original question “without spoillers and just one reverse, is it possible to stop on a short runway only applying brakes?” is: Yes.
   
   It looks to me like the aircraft could have stopped on this runway without the ground spoilers so long as maximum brakes were used and/or the other engine's thrust lever had been retarded to idle. The contribution of the loss of ground spoilers towards increasing the stopping distance is significant, but substantially less than that of the thrust from engine #2 or from the lack of timely application of maximum braking. Take either of these two factors away from the event and a stop on the runway was at least theoretically possible and an over-run if there was one would have been at low speed as opposed to high resulting in a much greater potential for survival.

ELAC

[Dream Land]

ELAC, great post, and interesting insight into the dispatch, versus failure philosophy-having said that, it may look good on paper, but you couldn't pay me enough to try such a landing at that airport given the same conditions.

[Tree]

Where one might go with your idea is to propose an alternative second input to be used in the case where a TL input is discarded because the TL has not moved and Thrust Lock is active on that engine. Perhaps an input for brake pedal deflection could be used in place of the TL input.
Enter my vote for that one. If you have one engine in reverse and the other in thrust lock below CLB and the T/L not in Toga/Flex and you are applying manual brakes then we should program the sytem logic to connect the dots and give full stopping ability by activating ground spoilers.

No. Imagine a go-around with one TL faulty (this time the reversed one), touching the ground and maintaining runway heading by rudder input, mistakenly depressing the pedals. You would fall out of the sky.

TripleBravo;
How about making one of the dots "both brake pedals depressed beyond the 50% travel point?"

[ELAC]

ELAC, great post, and interesting insight into the dispatch, versus failure philosophy-having said that, it may look good on paper, but you couldn't pay me enough to try such a landing at that airport given the same conditions.

Dream Land,

Faced with the same set of conditions I can assure you that my pucker factor would have been well up there as well. I think the critical difference is training and experience.

I would hope and expect that an operator using CGH as its hub would have a very thorough training plan addressing apropriate procedures and techniques needed to operate there safely. Added to that training would be the built up experience of the pilots who see the airfield regularly and develop a keen understanding of what the best ways of conducting the approach and landing are.

Lacking that training and experience you and I would quite rightly approach the task with more skepticism and with greater margins necessary. One of the big unresolveds of this accident is how it happened to a Captain with such a high level of experience operating into CGH. He likely had made literally thousands of landings there.

ELAC

[mumbo jumbo]

Stating the obvious

Originally Posted by ELAC

What this little exercise, which I admit is entirely speculative, suggests to me is three things:

ELAC, whilst many do appreciate your academic dissection of events, all that analysis is pretty pointless. Any Airbus, or Boeing pilot for that matter, will have reached the exact same conclusions without all that effort simply because we know that not retarding a thrust lever and not applying brakes for so long on a short, wet runway combined with the fact that there were no ground spoilers will ineviably lead to an overrun.

The rest of the debate is, at best, little more than a few individuals trying to impress the rest of us with their theoretical knowledge of A320 systems logic. All the meanderings by people with usernames that make them sound like they are Airbus or Boeing experienced pilots but are more likely just enthusiastic observers or enthusiasts, actually detract from the quality of the debate on this thread.

Distractions over theoretical possibilities about whether they could have gone around from the predicament they were in are a waste of time. They were in 'landing mode' and I will leave it to the official investigators to come up with conclusions as to why two experienced airline pilots failed to retard a thrust lever to idle as they touched down on a short, wet runway.

The confusion over the MEL description on thrust lever handling should play a part purely from the point of view that emphasis was placed on the airborne scenario of unlocked thrust reverser. However, even I, a poorly educated Boeing pilot could understand the bit about using BOTH thrust levers when trying to stop the aircraft with one thrust reverser locked out. I even understood the bit that says they should BOTH be used when selecting reverse thrust and you can expect a little alert reminding you that one thrust reverser will not be doing what is being commanded. Something most landing briefings would cover anyway.

Long academic summaries do not explain the most important part of this investigation which is the human factors element of not retarding the number 2 thrust lever. Everything else that contributed to the accident... the lack of ground spoiler deployment, the lack of autobrake activation and the failure to apply manual braking for 11 seconds are all secondary.

[agusaleale]

There is something that bothers me...
The pilots landed safely in Porto Alegre, with the same problems.
So they sure knew what to do...

I think that the investigation didn´t reveal everything yet, or may be some things unvealed.

I remember that many years ago, a B737 tried to take off at Buenos Aires, without setting the flaps, causing a big mess, due to a combination of psycological/maintenance/air hostess mumbo jumbo factors.

[ELAC]

Mumbo Jumbo,

Well, sorry to have wasted your time. Please accept my apologies.

All the same, there have been widely varying opinions about the effect of no spoiler extension on landing distance and those differing opinions have been supported by the available technical documentation. For me, trying to find a rational answer to that question was worthwhile and for some others, you'll not I posted a warning at the start, the discussion might be of interest.

Any Airbus, or Boeing pilot for that matter, will have reached the exact same conclusions without all that effort simply because we know that not retarding a thrust lever and not applying brakes for so long on a short, wet runway combined with the fact that there were no ground spoilers will ineviably lead to an overrun.

Not so sure about reaching the exact same conclusions, but yes, indeed any idiot, let alone an Airbus or Boeing pilot, could tell one that.

The initial question that I was attempting to answer was Sdruvss's question: "without spoillers and just one reverse, is it possible to stop on a short runway only applying brakes?" It's an important one, especially if you consider the various techniques being advocated in past posts should it occur. The answer is also not exactly obvious, in this case I didn't know, and I'll wager that you couldn't answer for your aircraft at the drop of a hat either. Having had to go that far, the last little bit relating to what the overall stopping distance might be didn't seem much of a stretch, and the result is very interesting when compared to the actual runway dimensions.

Long academic summaries do not explain the most important part of this investigation which is the human factors element

I would agree with you, in fact I did some maybe 400 odd posts ago. What human factors issues there are related to why the Captain did not retard the thrust lever (if that proves to be so) is one of the two most critical questions to be answered in my opinion.

...the failure to apply manual braking for 11 seconds are all secondary.

I have to disagree with you strongly there. Every pilot makes mistakes, we all know that. How we manage and mitigate our mistakes is as critical as avoiding the mistake in the first place. In this case it seems a very big mistake was made. But it was still a mistake the effect of which, even without recognition of the error, could have been reduced to a very substantial degree if the corrective actions relating to Loss of Braking were applied. The purpose of all the pointless analysis was to seek a reasoned answer to the question: If they didn't correct their mistake but made every logical effort to mitigate it, would the outcome have been the same? Again a question for which the answer is not exactly obvious given this airfield's dimensions.

In any event, those procedures and mitigating actions don't seem to have taken place as would have been expected even though there's clear evidence that the first symptom, lack of normal spoiler deployment, was recognized within only a couple of seconds. So, why the corrective actions didn't take place is every bit as much a central question as why the initiating error occurred, assuming it did in the manner widely assumed to be the case.

All the same, I will keep your wise council in mind when debating what is worth the bandwidth and what isn't.

Regards,

ELAC

PS:

All the meanderings by people with usernames that make them sound like they are Airbus or Boeing experienced pilots but are more likely just enthusiastic observers or enthusiasts, actually detract from the quality of the debate on this thread

Not sure where you are going with that one, but I will say that some usernames are very instructive regarding the quality of comment to be expected. Looking forward to more of your finely honed contributions.

[ELAC]

1. If spoilers were not up (automatic procedures didn't occur), what should be done? It was done?
2. The brakes worked when applied? It seems that not, justified by the speed it exits runway, right?
(Sorry, by my ignorance).

Sdruvss,

1. Depends a bit on the situation, but increasing braking as necessary to stop on the runway would be my first action. As this accident suggests, making sure that both thrust levers are at idle would be a very good second step. In this case there is not evidence yet that either action occurred until 11 seconds after touchdown.
   
2. Not known for sure yet, but it seems that recorded deceleration occurred at the same time as the brake pedals are shown to have been depressed. So the reasonable inference is that they worked when applied. Only a detailed study will determine if the worked as expected.

ELAC

PS - They are not unreasonable questions for someone not familiar with how aircraft work.

[marciovp]

Airbus

Yannick Malinge, representative of Airbus said at the House of Representative Investigative Committee (CPI) today that from the data he has from the blackboxes "there was nothing wrong with the airplane, its breaking system or computers". He did not talk and neither he was asked about the modification that Airbus developped for the warning signs when the TL were not in the right position. TAM did not install it.

Yes, the same plane with the same pilots had landed on that same day in Porto Alegre before returning to Congonhas.

TAM is now announcing that it will contract with Goodrich to do the maintenance of the reverse thrust in its planes. They will come and locate in Brazil at TAM´s maintenance center.

Interesting that the Air Force Chief said that the A-319 of the Brazilian President would never take off with a reversor locked out because the President is important. TAM replies that the Manual for A-320 states that this can be done for 10 days.

Yes, the transcription of the voice recording was done first at NTSB and I suppose that Brazilian Officers from Cenipa translated it into English with the team. So the written transcript came to Brazil in English and had to be translated back into Portuguese. Complicated, no?...

Here the first transcription from the NTSB:
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/c...0_saopaulo.pdf

[ELAC]

ELAC

1. Spoilers: If automatic procedures don’t deploy spoilers, the first action is not to open it manually? It's not possible?
2. Brakes: Don’t you think the plane was too fast when exits runway, even depressing brakes 11 seconds after from where they should?

Sdruvss,

1. The short answer: No, the ground spoiler deployment is an automated function. A longer technical answer can be found in this post: http://URL="http://www.pprune.org/fo...46#post3456346
   
   
2. I don't know. There are too many variables that we don't know about or can't properly assess for anyone here to draw a conclusion about whether the brakes worked as they should. The same would go for conclusions about the pilots or the other aircraft systems/designs.

ELAC

[atakacs]

@ELAC

The short answer: No, the ground spoiler deployment is an automated function. A longer technical answer can be found in this post: http://URL="http://www.pprune.org/fo...46#post3456346

I have re-read your excellent post but still fail to get an answer to a question I posted a few hundred messages ago: what would have happened (regarding the spoilers and auto braking) if the crew had retarded the 2nd T/L after touchdown. Would that be sufficient to disambiguate the logic or do you have only "one shot" for the automation to do it's magic ?