In article
,
Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Apr 28, 7:41*pm, "Steven P. McNicoll"
wrote:
Private wrote:

RTFM

http://www.rense.com/general85/Airbus340.pdf

Funny, but not quite true.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/airplane/etihad.asp

Actually it's pretty close to the truth. The SOP for the engine tests
as far as I can determine, called for the tail to be tied down which
it wasn't. I'm not absolutely certain about this, but I believe the
brakes including the parking brake won't restrain this aircraft at
full thrust anyway; hence the tail tie down requirement.
Just as a comparison, I can't hold a T38 after a line check with
brakes at full max thrust, and even a P51 will jump the chocks at 40
inches :-)
At the very least, these guys were an accident waiting to happen and
the wait ran out.

It's not all that close to the truth. The overall story is more or less
true. The details are somewhat off. The anti-Arab sentiment is
completely wrong.

This made the rounds on my flying club mailing list a month back and
here is the response I wrote to summarize my research:

Interesting accident! I got hungry for more information and found the
report from the French equivalent of the NTSB. (Located here, in French:
http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2007/f-cj...f-cj071115.pdf)

That report paints a slightly different picture in the details, although
the major points (bad test procedures, bad responses, totaled expensive
airplane) are right. Notably:

- Two out of the three people in the cockpit were Airbus employees. (The
third was present on behalf of Etihad to receive the new plane.)

- The aircraft's parking brake was used for the test. The plane started
to slowly roll forward after sitting still for three minutes at full
power. Apparently the parking brake was almost perfectly matched with
full engine thrust.

- No mention of circuit breakers or brake disablement that I saw, but
frequent mention is made of the fact that the test was performed without
chocks, despite an explicit requirement for them in the relevant manuals.

- The Airbus technician at the controls fixated on the brakes and did
not think to pull the throttles back. He did however attempt to turn
away from the wall. Unfortunately for this aircraft, the steering system
and braking system are connected and steering inhibits braking in the
center wheels.

- The other Airbus technician finally pulled power, but far too late.

- A total of nine people were on board, four of whom were seriously
injured in the accident.

Lessons to be learned that I saw:

- Don't get fixated.

- When the manual says to do things a certain way, it's usually a good
idea to do things that way.

- The ability to make unimaginably expensive boneheaded mistakes
transcends all cultural boundaries.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon