I sent you a PM a few days back, just to clear things up, no such thing exists. This can all be checked in FCOM 1.27.50 of any 318/319/320/321/330/340 series aircraft.

An "ALPFA/SPEED LOCK FUNCTION" exists on the 320 series, or "SLATS ALFA/ SPEED LOCK" function on the 330/340 series, however it does not make sense in the post I replied to.

I believe the other person was trying to suggest thrust lock, however they do not understand the disengagement of the same.

The person clearly does not understand the systems of their aircraft to make such comments, what they did post was bollocks.

Zeke,

You're clearly a 10,000X smarter and better driver than I and I'm humbled in you presence.......:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

T'wos far too early in the morning clearly.... was referring to an Alpha-Floor condition, yes Thrust Lock is a totally seperate issue.

Back to RadAlts and their connection with aircraft behaivour though.... from the ATSB report as per the link

and
There may be a valuable lesson here, maybe not???

Perhaps those responding might like to actually digest the report first?

www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2001/AAIR/aair200104399.aspx

I'd wonderd how often this has occured and if any other PPruners have experienced or heard of similar problems or was this simply an aberration in the big picture of the relatively few things that go wrong with all aircraft?

Thanks to those with something constructive to offer as we're in this season of good will.:)

What makes me wonder, no focus on the IBERIA/BILBAO accident yet........

Wasn't that the Training flight in cr4p wx into BIO (not unusual :) ). Dual input resulting in nosegear touchdown and noseleg shear/collapse :\

Dual inputs in the Bus are a big no no as the inputs are summed. So if one stick is held full left and one full right the result is zero. If both sticks are held half aft the result is FULL aft. The take over pushbutton (big red A/P disco also) should be used but, very close to the ground when reacting instinctively to a rapidly developing situation, it takes a lot of conscious effort to actually think about pushing and holding it as you take control.

The aircraft will shout "DUAL INPUT" at you but by the time this happens you may well have touched down / ballooned.

I'm an Airbus fan, but I have to admit that this is not the best fature of the Bus.

A4

Don't forget A-310 from Transat, aircraft's rudder simply vanished in cruise flight....calm air, no turbulence, no imput...just????

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/natio...sat050306.html

That is so true !
And on top of that, you just don't how your partner did or did not already correct, cos his action on his side stick is invisible to you, so you have to go through a complete new assessment on the situation...
Just out of the loop for these so precious seconds...

Has anybody got news from QCM? I haven't read any answer from him to the common sense questions which have been asked to him (to recall: http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...16#post3000016 ).

Finally, can we say that Norbert Jacquet is really this "funny guy"? Or isn't he just guilty of being right?

A few documents are getting translated on the Airbus defects that caused crashes, pointed out by Norbert Jacquet, and will be presented on this forum later on.

how could you like an Aircraft that calls you a "RETARD" :)

Who could you honestly believe, an airline pilot would simply rely on Automatic Protection to kick in, at 100 feet RA, and with nothing less than a full pax load … ?

For sure these guys were very low, and well below the planed 100 ft RA, but that was not their intention, and they explain how they’ve been mislead, but there’s no way they could be possibly waiting for ALPHA FLOOR to assure the show!?

Early in that very short flight, due to an A/THR malfunction, they were already in Manual THR
15 sec before trees, THR LEVERS were advanced
9 sec before trees, THR LEVERS were at TOGA position
3 sec before trees TOGA FMA was called
But only 1 sec before trees, thrust was produced …

And there are 2 main reasons for that thrust production delay:
1- A/THR malfunction did generate late signals to ENG from any THR LEVER adjustment
2- ENG1 did stall… (Could it be the reason forest was cut in such a rush… ?)

Today I hope so… , but was it really the case for 100% situations in these Very - Early - Days… ?

CONF iture,
None of what you said is true, the planned height for the flight by AF was 400ft, the hard deck for such a flight stipulated by the DGAC is higher still.
As for your timings
12.45:14 Co-pilot OK, you're at 100ft there, watch, watch
12.45:13 Radio altimeter [One hundred]
12.45:19.1 Radio altimeter [Forty]
12.45:23.6 Radio altimeter [Fifty]
12.45:26 Captain OK ,I'm OK there, disconnect autothrottle
12.45:27.5 Radio altimeter [Forty]
12.45:32 Co-pilot Watch out for those pylons ahaead, eh. See them?
12.45:33 Co-pilot Yeah, yeah, don't worry.
12.45:34.5 [Clack! Clack! Clack!] - power lever dentents
12.45:35.3 Radio altimeter [Thirty]
12.45:36.2 Radio altimeter TOGA/SRS
12.45:38.3 Radio altimeter [Thirty]
12.45:39 Captain Go around track
12.45:39.9 Captain Sh...!
Nothing was wrong with the autothrust, the pilots disconnected it.
Habsheim was not a technology problem, it was a pilot problem, too low, too slow, no energy. You put ANY jet airliner in the same situation, you will get the same result.

Again, I agree with Zeke!!
It was a pilot mistake......

Why he disconected the A/T so low, the Fcom say you shouldn't do it below 1000ft RA if not for a Goaraound and if he did that the Clack Clack would have happend earlier..
at 12.45.25 he disconected the A/Thr and onlu at 12.45.34 he advanced the thrust lever....

The A/T in the airbus is doing a good job as long as the input are right (wind etc..).
Speevy

Questions to Zeke and Speevy.

Are the recordings authentic? There is more than a doubt!

The French Minister MERMAZ, accused in the Alsacian press of having personally intervened by fraudulently manipulating the flight recorders of the Airbus in Habsheim, filed a lawsuit for defamation. Finally... Why did he capitulate?

Read here: http://jacno.com/za-an-moye.htm#rep07 ("In 1992, well before...").

I’m afraid there was another way to do it at that time
http://www1.airliners.net/open.file/0547430/M/
I don’t say it was either clever or legal... but it was commonly accepted (even by DGAC...) and practised by… Concorde … 747 … or this lovely Mercure.
Once again, even if it will never be publicly admitted, the Bus you fly today has learned A LOT from all these early crashes, accidents, incidents.
Please, would you quote such reference.
Well… all you do is sticking to the official version…
But did you realise that during 10 days, Flight Recorders have been out of any judicial control.
The Judge Sengelin had to step up and order the immediate seizure of these boxes!!!
… Strangely enough, Judge Sengelin was withdrawn from the case soon after…
Doesn’t it bother you?
Doesn’t it ring a bell to you?
On one side, you have the official version, BTW go and find it on French BEA… It seems they’re not too proud of it.
On the other side, if you’re ready to open your mind, and learn many things, there are 3 books (No luck: All of them in French) but all of them available on the web.

The official version is the only version that had access to all the evidence, everyone else has an agenda.

It is true that the recorders were "out of any judicial control", they were with the DGAC, in fact they were taken from the scene by Daniel Tenenbaum, the head of the DGAC, news footage of the day confirms that.

Conspiracy theory people use this line of argument because in France a police like investigation takes place for aircraft accidents, their whole judicial system is different to what many are used to. People who make this claim are either ignorant of the process in France, or playing on others being ignorant of the process in France.

What in fact happened in the head of the DGAC, which is equivalent to the head of the CAA in the UK, or head of the FAA in the USA had possession of the boxes. The court then ordered the DGAC to hand over the boxes to the investigation, and as far as I understand they were then basically handed back to the DGAC for the technical analysis to commence.

It is my understanding that this process is not uncommon in France, as the investigation needs to be set up first before it can start accepting evidence.

Michel Asseline (the Captain) in his own book tries to blame everyone else, he also at the same time confirms much of the report by the Ministry of Planning, Housing, Transport and Maritime Affairs said the in official report.

FCOM 3.04.70 P2
Use of A/thr on app:

Use of autothrust in approach

The pilot should use autothrust for approaches. On final approach, it usually gives more accurate speed control, although in turbulent conditions the actual airspeed may vary from the target speed, by as much as five knots. Although the changeover between auto and manual thrust is easy to make with a little practice, the pilot should, when using autothrust for the final approach, keep it engaged until he retards the thrust levers to idle for touchdown. If the pilot is going to make the landing using manual thrust, he should disconnect the A/THR by the time he has reached 1000 feet on the final approach.

If he makes a shallow flare, with A/THR engaged, it will increase thrust to maintain the approach speed until he pulls the thrust levers back to idle. Therefore he should avoid making a shallow flare, or should retard the thrust levers as soon as it is no longer necessary to carry thrust, and if necessary before he receives the "retard" reminder

Here you go Conf inture

Cheers Speevy

Speevy, thank you for the quote.

I can see it’s part of the last modification because just before that it was still:
“… it is recommended to disconnect the A/THR by …”
But anyway, the meaning is not that far, and to be honest I didn’t remember reading that, and if I did, I had forgotten !
So … one point for you !

Now, regarding Habsheim, the crew did get, as they were still on the ground, a blinking amber CLB Annunciation in the FMA, which is quite abnormal, and reveals an A/THR malfunction.
Passing 1000 ft the pilot brought back THR LEVERS from FLX MCT to CLB detent, but N1 commands didn’t follow the order (and it’s part of the same page you did quote: If A/THR fails, A/THR will disconnect) so the pilot had to leave the CLB detent position in order to control the speed, therefore, he was in MANUAL THR.
Early in the fly-by, he depressed the instinctive disc button just to make sure he was in MANUAL THR.
Please, read page 103 to 105 in the Asseline's book, it's good information for an Airbus pilot anyway.

At that point I’d like to mention 2 things:

1- The total flight was less than 5 minutes, but the commission report still did elect not to show the DFDR transcript of that early part of the flight !?

2- It’s easy for me, 18 years after, facing my screen, to say that maybe that early A/THR malfunction should have been the signal to CAPT Asseline not to go further in that flight …

For Zeke, I don’t forget your post, I’ll be back soon.

That close to the gnd would you honesty get involved with an A/Th problem and try to fix it by disconnecting it?
I would say that the best option is to Goaround especially if something doesn't look right but that's another story..
I don't believe the facts as Reported by the Capt. Asseline, and I think post-trauma defense mechanism are involved in what he says (I am not saying he's a liar just that he cannot be the only source of info.)
You sy the FDR has been manipulated, the day you have some proof, ok I will believe you.
Untill that day....
Speevy

Does N1 always reduce from MCT to CLB when accelerating in a climb ?

Didn’t Michel Asseline deliberately press the autothrust disconnect for over 15 seconds on descent whilst in flight idle turning off autothrust for the remainder of the flight ?

Why does he have to "make sure" later, the TLA was 0 (IDLE) and N1 35%.

You do know that the two pilots involved were both management training captains with AF ?

Let me answer that one first.
Always !
That's the purpose of the thing.
The airplane accelerates in the climb due to the pitch up reduction and the drag reduction.
Negative.
If you see that in the official report, please, let me know.
Otherwise, could you specify your source.
Sorry, I don't know what you mean.
Please, clarify.
Absolutely right.

Not always a N1 change from MCT to CLB, only always from TOGA to CLB. CLB can command the same N1 as MCT.

If it takes the MCT N1/EPR to accelerate and/or climb whilst in CLB, autothrust can command it. Pretty basic stuff.

On the road for a few days, will try and dig it up when I get back. From memory about page 50-54 of the official report.

I wasn't involved in the original footage and/or the Heineken version of that movie, but I have seen a TV interview on Dutch TV with the guy who made that commercial. I thought there was an article about it on Internet too, somewhere, but unfortunately I can't trace it back.

However, I remember from the interview that they used footage of a perfectly normal A320 landing at Schiphol and a model (can't remember whether it was a scale-model or CGI) of an A319. The original footage was heavily edited: the livery was changed, the A320 was morphed into an A319, and of course the fake hard landing/braking sequence and the passenger address audio were included.

In the interview, the guy who created that commercial said he had been very surprised by the reactions: he had never imagined anyone to seriously believe this landing to be real. In fact, he had even been worried at the time that the fake landing would be so obviously "over the top" that it would spoil the joke.

Well, he needn't have worried: we now know even aviation professionals can be fooled. WAGM, Zeke wasn't flaming you when he suggested you were gullible; he was just being brutally honest. ;)

I’m afraid you didn’t read the same book than me … Asseline is the first one to take part of the blame, but when you hear that: BZ … how do you want him to react ?

Oh yes, and these guys who compile the official version communicate only what they choose to.
As an example, in the preliminary report (One month after the crash) they talk at large about the CVR but no transcript of DFDR. Just on this forum, you would find a dozen of guys able to read perfectly well such transcripts.
It could have been very interesting to have a look at the Altimeter reading to confirm it was of perfect match with RA call-out … but was-it ?
One month before, an OEB stipulated a dysfunction with Altimeter reading, and strangely, pilots had never been aware of that one!?
In the same time Asseline pretends his Altimeter was showing 100 ft on the appropriate QFE … So why not showing, at this specific time, the Altimeter reading from the DFDR ?

Crash is on the 26 of June
Judge Sengelin, who is already the second Magistrate Judge on the case because the first one left for his holidays period, realizes on the 29 that the black boxes are still under none judicial control, so naturally request them … but Administration refuses.
On the 5 of July, as nothing moved, he orders the seizure of these boxes.
He finally puts an hand on them the 6, nothing less than 10 days after the crash !
And if you pretend the technical analysis commenced only at that time, explain us how Transport Minister Mermaz was able to declare one day after the crash that the A-320 technology didn’t show any dysfunction ?

True, Civil Aviation takes care of flight recorders as early as possible.
But first, legal seals need to be affixed to them.
Has it been done ?
The answer is NO.
Official document recording serial numbers must be established.
Has it been done ?
The answer is NO.
Official document certifying the transport must be established.
Has it been done ?
The answer is NO.
Then, Administration will duplicate the information from the flight recorders, and originals will be given back to the Judicial Police Officer who delivered them.
Has it been done ?
And the answer is … NO.

And regarding “conspiracy theory” please stay on track !
It looks all too convenient to put a sticker on people who dare questioning.

You have to put that in perspective, that brand new 320 technology was so new, and flying with computers bugs was the every flight story.
Now, as I said earlier:
"It’s easy for me, 18 years after, facing my screen, to say that maybe that early A/THR malfunction should have been the signal to CAPT Asseline not to go further in that flight …"
And that's the point, official version cannot be either the only source of info.
There is so much stuff available out there, and all these people in need to share, trace the same path.
Just too bad there's not that much in English.
I didn't say anything ... at least not yet ... !?
And I'm not in a situation to proove anything, but I've realized that too few people know more that the official "too low too slow too late" and for people ready to invest some valuable time, there is a lot to learn.
People with common sense will realize that all these procedures have been very much oriented, commencing by DAY ONE:
"Airplane is not at fault, so Pilot is at fault !"

During this time, the French authorities continue to fight this pilot, Norbert Jacquet. Why?

It seems that there is a real problem.

Norbert Jacquet probably knows disturbing things.

All crackpots do, I'm afraid.

... probably lost an opportunity to stay away a bit longer:
Hopefully you will have more to say ...

It was bleak winter day. Little bird was lying still in the middle of the road, half frozen. It seemed that even its minutes were numbered, when there appeared a cow, and dropped a dung right on the top of it. After a while, heat from dung permeated the little bird's body and it felt blood running again through its veins. It was so delightful to feel alive again that the little bird started singing with the greatest of joy. Alas, along came very hungry kitty, heard the little bird's song, dug it out of dung and ate it.

There are three morals to this story:

1) those who $h*t upon you are not necessarilly your enemies
2) those who pull you out of $h*t are not necessarilly your friends
3) when you're buried in $h*t, don't sing - kepp your mouth (or beak) firmly shut

Misfortunantly, this story was either never translated into French, or, if it was, capt. Asseline has never heard of it. Othervise he would have been familiar with moral3 and would never, ever sit down and write his book. Just take a look at the video of Habsheim flypast. A320 makes slow and dirty flypast, at around 50ft, over surface that's everything except suitable for landing and has trees on its end! It's like playing russian rulette with all chambers full and hoping for bullet to go dud! Of course, when things go wrong, it's freshly certified airplane's fault and not his. There are reasons for doing low and slow flypast with gear down, over runway suitable for your airplane, be it F-15, B737 or super-cub. First, low flypast is purely visual manuevre, you don't have time to check radalt and baroalt is too insensitive to be of any use. Runway also provides you with good height cues. Second, in case you get it wrong, you might get away with touch and go and climb away. Third, no obstacles on and around runway reduces chances of hitting anything solid if your height maintaining discipline is lacking. There is possibility that engines were slow to spool up, that A/THR was unservicable, even that baroalts were misreading but these are irellevant for the flight that was executed poorly and ended in disaster. I'll stop short of calling captain Asseline any derogatory term, I'll say that the fact that two trainning captains didn't recognise their manuever as potentially dangerous isn't stupid, it's tragic! Also it speaks volumes about systemic deficencies in both airline and DGAC. But then, PNF uttered the name of their safety pilot twice, as he was obviously uncomfortable with his PF's handling of flight but didn't stop him. I guess he thought that while what they were doing was dangerous, they would live through it. And they did, unlike 3 of their pax.

I'm not entirely convinced that there was conspiracy to cover up airplane defects. If there was one, then it might have more to do with covering capt Asseline's first part of prenom. As for cutting down trees to cover up evidence of engine stall - that's mightily streched. Could it be possible that locals cut them in anticipation of further AF flybys?

Along comes Norbert Jacques, B747 pilot, who knows disturbing things about Airbus, which he doesn't want to reveal as they'd be too much to swallow and afterwards accuses European court of human rights with conspiring with Airbus industrie. What d'ya call the person who is in possession of flight safety critical information, but refuses to share it? Crackpot doesn't cut it, provided that you hold his claims to be true.

XetroV, I hope you were vrong too, when you mentioned that even professionals can get fooled. I'd say that aerospace professionals participating in PPRuNE tend to fill out their additional info with at least some of their biographies. Posers, pretenders, flamers and other trolls tend to leave all fields except mandatory ones blank.

I don't say that this works all the time, but it did help me with better understanding of this thread. :E

Some interesting arguments. However:
1. Every pilot WILL eventually screw up something at some time.
2. Any aircraft that does not lift it's nose when the pilots pulls, that does not deliver thrust when the pilot slams the throttles IS a screw up.
It's as simple as that

Clandestino:

You asked, what do you call a person who refuses to share critical flight safety information?

Another answer, 'allegedly', could easily be our friends with the US FAA Aircraft Certification Branch, if that is the correct title. They 'allegedly' have access to many types of aircraft incident reports from other countries, to which US citizens have very limited access.

Some aircraft accident websites have no information listed as the primary cause of the accident/incident.

This might be a bit unrelated, but the US Department of Transportation, according to an article years ago in "Conde Naste Traveler" magazine, was under major pressure from the State Department when deciding whether a given foreign airline would be allowed to operate into a US airport.

Well, well...

"paranoia", "crackpot", "little bird and dung"...

But we haven't read any answer to the commonsense questions which have been asked:

- About false pilot licenses. Is France a banana republic? Could a banana republic build aircrafts worthy of the name? ( to recall: http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...16#post3000016 ).

- About the flight recorders of the Airbus in Habsheim ( to recall: http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...64#post3005064 ).

- Was Bernard Ziegler the right man to conceive the Airbus cockpits? (Bernard Ziegler, father of the “Airbus technology”, cut a teleferic cable with his plane in 1961 ( to recall: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...872735,00.html ).

A few documents are getting translated on the Airbus defects that caused crashes, pointed out by Norbert Jacquet, and will be presented on this forum later on. Work in progress.

Dear Gretchenfrage, for a fellow who claims to have flown Airbus, Boeing and MDD, you surely display suprisingly massive misunderstanding of 1) flying near AoAcrit 2) concept of spool up time. CFM-65s at Habsheim made it from flight idle to 84% N1 5secs after selecting TOGA and that's fast for high bypass turbofan, but as the stage was set by lack of speed and altitude (which summed give energy) it wasn't enough.

Also you forgot to include some details about yourself in your public profile.:E

Where did you find these values?

The French authorities always refused to publish the official report on Internet. We know the reason of that.

Maybe they just wanted to give you conspiracy theorists something to do! :ugh:

May be, may be...

But... If they did it for this reason, they are really idiots. Hmmm?

Is it what you want to mean?

Or was doing what it's makers intended and preventing the pilot from stalling the aircraft. Any jet aircraft at <100ft, thrust levers at idle, the airspeed low and decaying with an obstacle ahead is going to be in trouble. A conventional aircraft would almost certainly have been stalled as the pilot pulled back on the stick, as it was the aircraft mushed into the trees still flying, with the wings level and a relatively low rate of descent which is maybe why there was not a far greater loss of life.

I am glad there is some sense in this thread.
As a few of you have already started, the very first reason for this crash is reckless flying . Putting it another way :
"One pilot decided, with an airplane and joy riding passengers and a few hired on the spot qualified FAs to demonstrate a very low pass over the ield used by a local flying club. He then took that airplane, with engines at idle thrust,at an increasing AoA and a decreasing IAS to a very low height, far below what was the floor for low altitude demonstration. With that sort of very low energy situation AND the very unusual view from the cockpit, his SA, to say the least was impaired, he cocked it up end ended in the trees.
Please note that there is no mention of the airplane's brand, so far.
What is more, and now we come to the 320 : A feature that has been commonly overlooked was that the auto=thrust (and therefore the AoA protection ) had been disconnected by the pilot himself, whether consciously or not has never been established (but it requires a continuous 15 seconds of pressure of a button to achieve it).
The second evidence of that accident was the complete self-assuredness of the pilot, down to the flippancy of the ("XXX will have a H@rd-on over this...")

I briefly met Mr A in Colombo in 1989, as I was having a line-check with a retiring captain...I was busy with the flight preparation but I overheard some of his comments, which were pretty graphic, believe me. When he left the cockpit as we were about to take the passengers, the captain just made this comment that stuck in my memory :
"for someone who should have the deaths of several people on his conscience, he is bloody arrogant, that man..."

I apologise for my previous post, very provocative because I thought norbert Jacquet was hiding under some of the pseudos.
I still believe he is, as he is well-known to do that, especially on a French forum that has been completely polluted by this argument.
So, from these apologists of a conspiration, why not post EXACTLY how NJ lost his job, as it involves AF, the DGCA medical council, the police/gendarmerie,some psychiatrists ....list is by no means ended. What is missing, though is the use of polonium !

Regards to all

My thoughts exactly. What Michel Asseline has managed to do over the years is to create a smoke screen and muddle up the issue so much that most people (even those with a decent knowledge of the accident investigation) may end up suspecting some conspiracy to protect a supposedly unsafe European (not just French) design.

For those who don't want to delve into the BEA's accident report and the judicial inquiry, watching the footage is enough of a hint; M. Asseline attempts a low-level, low-speed, low-energy flyby (with PAX - including disabled - onboard!) and screws up. Whatever happened to rule 5 (no flying below 500' except in the take-off/landing phases of flight)? His reckless showmanship is something I probably wouldn't even have tried on a PA-28. His "H@rd-on" comment on the CVR is also well documented.

Of course (as on every aircraft) there may well be some design flaws in the Airbus FBW series. But looking for them in the Mulhouse-Habsheim crash is the wrong place to start. I agree with Clandestino and Lemurian's posts.

Cheers :cool:

Dear Clandestino and others.
Let me give you full credit and my admiration for your superior knowledge of the AB features. At the same time accept my apologies for preferring certain manufacturers or philosophies. I believe this forum should still be able to bear some rants, not only professorial comments.
Having said that, and in that particular contribution having NOT mentioned any specific manufacturer, I still stand by my comment:
Any aircraft that does not lift it's nose when the pilots pulls, that does not deliver thrust when the pilot slams the throttles IS a screw up.
As long as some official reports are dubious on these things, such criticism will prevail.
GF

You seem awfully sure of yourself. I don't suppose you'd be willing to try to repeat the Habsheim flight in one of your preferred aircraft (such as a B737NG), now would you? If you really repeated it, you would suffer the same (or an even worse) fate. Pulling back the stick and slamming the throttles forward in a very low energy flight regime in a turbofan powered airplane will almost certainly result in a stall, or a rapidly increasing sink rate from which you can't recover when you're at 50 ft. You're entitled to an opinion, but not to your own facts.

My data is from Aviation safety network's excerpt. Their sources are listed at the end of the article. CVR transcript is interesting too. And I stand corrected; it wasn't 84%, it was mere 83% of N1 @ first tree contact.