Audio of incident already available at LiveATC

maybe a malfunction on the Body main landing gear steering system ...

Speculation:

Either No1 Thrust lever was "Stowed" instead of the speedbrake, leading to GA thrust on No. 1 Engine - only a couple of seconds at that thrust would be needed, or whilst stowing the speedbrake No.1 Thrust lever was caught on the long sleeve shirt/cufflinks of the pilot stowing the speedbrakes.

Some airlines have procedures whereby no "cleaning up the aircraft" is allowed until the aircraft is clear of the RWY, in contact with GND control and at taxi speed. The origin of these procedures was a similar incident.

Don't know if that policy applies in AF or not.

Hmmm, definitely worth looking into. American had a recent incident of an engine failing to spool up in flight. It is thought that the FO inadvertantly blocked the left throttle with his sleeve while guarding the speedbrake.

The feds are pushing that procedure even more in the last year or two with the recent attention on runway incursions. I can remember years ago as an FE watching the FO with his head buried in the cockpit getting the flaps, trim, speedbrake and transponder while the captain had his head buried watching the FO making sure he didn't raise the gear or something.

Those few seconds when you transition to nosewheel steering and turn off the runway are a little awkward in a widebody, you want to keep rolling to make sure your tail is clear of the runway but you try not to commit to a particular taxiway until you are sure that's what the controllers want you to do.

Interesting D.Lamination,

Assuming the pilot's desire to keep the aircraft on the runway it is weird that there are starboard main-gear tire marks.

I guess they wanted to stop the plane asap by applying all brakes, and worried less about the nose going right.

My reflex would have been to keep the plane on the runway, ... but i wasn't there.
.

Flaps are up so they did part of the after landing check on the runway...unless they did a flaps up landing. :eek:

Or perhaps the flaps were retracted in the shut down checks? :rolleyes:

Interesting. My airline requires the handling pilot to stow the speedbrake after landing before the non-handling pilot starts the after landing checks. As P2 it's quite a stretch to stow the speedbrake whilst operating the tiller, and would be quite easy to advance #1 throttle. Perhaps I can look forward to a change in SOPs?

My airline - CA does speedbrakes, FO does flaps. No reaching across throttles, etc, etc, by either pilot.

Air France wrote off a 747-200 some years ago in Rio de Janeiro when the aircraft did a ground loop.

Accident Air France Flight B747 F-GCBC - Airfleets


Perhaps the French government should should ban Air France from its own airspace, considering the hull losses and accidents their ariline has had over recent years?

re SOPs
 

Air France SOP s are no" cleaning up " of airplane until clear of the runway and at normal taxi speed

Probable cause: SLF in control...

"People on board 273 (273 Passengers et 0 crew members)"

Could this be a repeat of the Tahiti incident?

AirDisaster.Com: Accident Photo: Air France F-GITA

Note #1 engine in forward thrust and the others in reverse.

Dave

AF744 of runway at YUL
 

In over 8000 hrs on the same type I have never seen a hint of the #1 thrust lever being mistaken for the spoiler handle (speed brake). That doesn't mean it hasn't happened, just never seen it myself. What I do know is that a very good friend of mine landed in SEA on the same type and as they were approaching taxi speed they encountered an uncommanded full deflection of the body gear steering. He jumped on the binders but could not stop the aircraft from exiting the side of the runway. Fortunatley there was a hi-speed turnoff right there and he stopped on hard surface. That was at least 5 years ago and still haven't heard the reason. Boeing joined our company maintenance in the investigation. Witnesses (pax) reported sudden braking....sounds familiar.

Rio, Tahiti et maintenant YUL. est-il une problem seulement avec air france?

At the risk of being sent off to JB, oui, I blame the French!:eek:

But on a serious note, maybe the AF SOP??

Air France has had many crashes in the past few years. More so than its competitors or similar size airlines. Something is wrong but being French will be covered up.:ooh:

It is odd that some carriers seem to have hull losses every two or three years, regular as clockwork, while others go decades without losing a plane. American probably had the longest safe streak ever in number of operations from the DC-10 engine separation at ORD in 1979 to the Cali 757 crash in 1995.

FedEx on the other hand has had several widebody hull losses in the past fifteen years. The cause is not low pay and poor maintenance, they are probably the highest paid pilots in the world right now and the company is consistently profitable. Fortunately, they fly freight and there have been no fatalities on the mainline (the feeder casualty rate is horrific from what I read).

Airbubba;
Air Canada has gone over 25 years without a fatal accident...

Anyhoo, it sure takes some steam out of AF's sails for their lawsuit against everyone they could think of re the YYZ overrun...