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Airbus crash/training flight

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Airbus crash/training flight

Old 27th Dec 2008, 07:38
  #281 (permalink)  
 
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What organization has the rite/power etc to do this?
French gouvernement/préfecture)?
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 07:46
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Is it normal for a govt to do this? Are there other examples of this happening?
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 07:48
  #283 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by T57/WSJ
But an ongoing criminal probe of the crash
- to save my trawling the previous 292 posts, does anyone have any inkling what this is about?
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 08:01
  #284 (permalink)  
 
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BOAC, sorry, no.
My post & associated quote/link was intended more as a caution to treat certain media reports with a bit of suspicion, especially when the source isn't named.
Reference the reported "criminal probe", no names were quoted either.
Which does not, of course, mean that such a probe isn't happening.
This would be normal in my country; an injury or fatal accident is treated as a crime scene by the police, in case proceedings are deemed appropriate later, for the purpose of evidence gathering. I suspect there exists a similar state of affairs in France.
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 08:05
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manual back up
Didn't someone from NWA try this with disastrous results?
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 08:14
  #286 (permalink)  
 
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What could possibly be the excuse in a criminal investigation to delay attempts to extract valuable data from the recorders by more than a month, if it is correct that the recorders will not be sent to Honeywell until the first week of January?

Any delay would also hamper the criminal investigation, wouldn't it?
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 10:48
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Credibility, you say? Wall St. Journal is now owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Other criminal probes of airplane crashes? The FBI made a mess of the TWA800 investigation (or coverup). Only "internet conspiracy theorists" believed a missile could have been involved, yet the FBI remained in control long after they had stated it was not foul play. Those pesky internet weirdos, and many, if not most TWA employees, and many close to the investigation never accepted the evidence and conclusions of the official investigation.

GB
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 10:48
  #288 (permalink)  
 
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BOAC, Tarq57, et al

I would expect "criminal probe" is simply a mistranslantion of "enquète judiciaire", i.e., a judicial enquiry, which is normal practice in France in the case of fatal accidents (same as in NZ, according to Tarq57).

But why they're still "sitting" on the recorders is something I don't understand either.

CJ
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 11:35
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Considering how many A320 family aircraft ( & by association as far as I am concerned with these FBW wonders, 330/340/380) are in service ,the tardiness of response has to be viewed as either lax or fishy.

You would have imagined Airbus would be fairly keen ( under normal circumstances ) to see some progress on this.
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 12:24
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Perhaps ChristiaanJ [or someone] can explain the French criminal investigation system to us. Is it true that there is a specialty of investigative judges who perform duties similar to the District Attorney / Grand Jury in the USA and some other countries? Do these investigative judges make the decision as to whether to press changes? If so, there's a good chance for the non-French press to get the wrong impression.
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 12:30
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Whatever the legal system (and the French one is not the fastest ) they should not be allowed to interfere with or impede the progress of a "safety investigation". Otherwise the tail really is wagging the dog.
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 13:59
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What could possibly be the excuse in a criminal investigation to delay attempts to extract valuable data from the recorders by more than a month, if it is correct that the recorders will not be sent to Honeywell until the first week of January?
Absolutely none, you're quite correct. Safety is of immediate concern, whether proving there's no issue or uncovering same if there is one, while legal issues can take years to resolve (think Habsheim, Mont St.-Odile, Lockerbie etc). The two are incompatible but it serves French-government (ie Airbus-stakeholder) interests to use the latter as an excuse for keeping the lid on in the former.

On a related French-aerospace legal issue, think also how long it's taking for the legal cases against former and current Airbus employees accused of corruption in the 2005/6 A380 shares fiasco. And stepping outside aerospace for a second but staying in France, there's a long-running legal case against former-president Chirac which is going nowhere fast while corruption charges against former-prime minister de Villepin are not rushign through the courts either.

But French legal matters only proceed at the pace the current French government dictates -- the two are inseparable. This fact is of considerable relevance here re the A320 loss.

And it will get worse from a transparency point of view from 2009 as the French 'reorganise' EADS and Airbus, bringing the latter more under French law...
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 14:39
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Corruption is not unique to France; we've got plenty here in the U.S. But at least the aviation industry is quite open.
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 15:39
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ENDERBY BROWNE

Just because you live in France, doesn't authorize you to speak like that.

Mister E B is probably the kind of anti Airbus junk that knows nothing but pretends he detains the truth.
The same that pretended recorders have been tampered with in the case of Habsheim to lure justice, the same that accused AIRBUS of not releasing info on the Ethyad A 340 destroyed in Toulouse, etc.

If the recorders have not been sent to honeywell (there is no official confirmation of this) there must be a good reason, because AIRBUS, and French justice are both eager to know why this aicraft crashed.
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 15:43
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AIRBUS, and French justice are both eager to know why this aicraft crashed.
As well as the public.....
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 15:44
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".....AIRBUS, and French justice are both eager to know why this aicraft crashed."

Yes, but are they eager for everyone else to know?
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 15:50
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Sorry, not well informed about the French judicial system, even if I live there now.

But yes, there is a "juge d'instruction", who is charged with the judicial part of the inquiry, and who will decide whether there is a "case to answer" and whether anybody should be "mis en examen" on specific charges, such as involuntary homicide, gross negligence, or whathever.

seacue,
I think a "juge d'instruction" is indeed not dissimilar to a "district attorney", and it's indeed his decision on whether any charges are to be pressed, and whether there is a case to be put before a court.

CJ
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 16:21
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The newest NZ Herald article now seems to admit that investigators in France are "going through protocols" to comply with French law before the recorders can be sent over to Honeywell:

Air NZ plane crash worries airlines - National - NZ Herald News
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 16:31
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ChristiaanJ is correct. Its not a case of it being corrupt - quite the reverse - its the way its set up to prevent it being corrupt. Its the simple fact that in French transport accidents the 'gouvenment' order a 'lock-down' of information, communications, and procedures under a legal system that grinds its way thoroughly through to a conclusion over as long as a decade. Everything becomes 'sub judicae'. You can't talk to witnesses, release privileged information relevant to probable cause etc. into the public domain. If the system in the US was set up this way (thankfully its not) I can't imagine you would get any more information or greater transparency either. If you ask a French person why they do it like this (as I have) they say its to get at the truth without vested interests influencing the result. The judiciary, they maintain, is above this and not subject to influence.

The system ensnares anyone and everyone who could possibly have had anything to do with it, combs through the evidence piece by piece, releasing people as it becomes clear they had no role in the accident or have no case to answer, as Christiaan says. You saw this in the Spanair case: the Spanish system is similar. It applies to any transport accident in France: I had a friend who was caught up in the Erika oil spill case (the Erika was chartered by the French oil company Total and sank due to structural failure off the Galician (Spanish) coast causing massive pollution in 1999). The last "suspect under examination" was released from investigation with the publication of the report on January 16th this year.

Now you can argue the benefits or lack of, but my view is the system all about apportioning blame and secondarily about preventing a recurrance. My friend was lucky - he was 'released' by the juge d'instruction after about five years. During this time he had to go before madame juge about every six months or so and be asked questions over interrogation sessions lasting sometimes all day. It destroyed his career, threatened his family life, and came close to breaking him as a person. In fact, during the incident, as an experienced mariner and ships engineer, all he had tried to do was offer advice. Which then of course was used against him.

The joke of this all was that the finding, after the ten years: the ship sank from structural failure. Total was found not guilty but was fined and found reckless over a voluntary procedure that they had put in place some years earlier to do additional vetting of a vessel they chartered. Huh? Yes, thats right. They hadn't broken the law, just hadnt, according to the juge, followed their own voluntary procedures over and above the law. So they were guilty.

I think its that last bit that made me finally realise that the French system was probably not the best way as in that case at least, it discouraged companies taking additional responsibility.

Pinkman

Last edited by Pinkman; 27th Dec 2008 at 16:43.
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Old 27th Dec 2008, 16:44
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"... going through protocols ..."

One might even think, that with the previous accusations of "tampering" (both Habsheim and St.-Odile, for a start), the authorities want to make darn sure, that there is an unbroken "trail of evidence" showing that the recorders that will in the end get to Honeywell are the same recorders, with the same contents, that came out of the Mediteranean originally.....

Unfortunately, a "judicial enquiry" is not done with the same urgency as a "crash investigation".

Some things never change...

CJ
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