JL Grasso wrote:

On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 02:40:53 +0000, Pooh Bear
wrote:

JL Grasso wrote:

On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 22:08:49 +0000, Pooh Bear
wrote:



JL Grasso wrote:

On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 02:45:53 +0000, Pooh Bear
wrote:

JL Grasso wrote:

On Fri, 27 Feb 2004 10:43:07 -0800, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:

The A-320 which crashed into the trees in France was performing a
fly-by demonstration, by a line pilot, not an Airbus test or demo
pilot. The profile was to fly by at 500 feet.

The pilot was making a scheduled revenue flight with passengers and came up
with the low slow fly by all on his own.

Actually, it was a charter flight. And not to split hairs, but the
low/slow fly-by was discussed by airline officials and both captains in a
prior briefing that day. The accident was officially caused by descent
below obstacle height combined with a delayed application of TOGA power to
exit the fly-by.

The F.O. was also declared mentally ill for demurring from the above
'explanation'.

Cite?

Crikey ! I thought it was common knowledge ?

Are you sure that you're not thinking of Norbert Jaquet? I thought that
Mazieres (the FO) flew for AF for some time after the accident. I could be
wrong, however.

If it was common knowledge, a cite should be a simple matter. Unless you
mean 'common knowledge' in the Tarverian sense.

I stand corrected, I got the 2 confused. It's been a long time since it happened. The
F.O. stayed 'shtumb' ( is that how you spell it ) and kept out of the way of the flak.

Is that what he told you?

Do you not think it strange that someone who criticised the official findings and
supported the captain being declared mentally insane is a very odd way to go about an
accident investigation ?

Air France was in charge of the investigation, eh?

Don't be silly. AF may have had it's reputation to protect but that was damaged already.
There were larger potential losers here.

Some 'body' had the flight recorders for 10 days directly after the crash who wasn't
entitled to be in custody of them according to French law. During that time they were
tinkered with. They shouldn't have been.


Besides, if you ran around saying "Captain Smith had the right-of-way",
I'd think you were mentally unstable too. And there is a significant
difference between unstable and insane.

So, you think that speaking out in defence of his colleauge was sufficient reason to
withdraw his flying license ?

Something about the whole investigation truly stinks. Also, the French aren't exactly
saints when it comes to bending the rules when it suits their purposes.

I don't argue that the crew got the a/c into a very odd flight regime. In part, it was poor
briefing that they received.

There were also known and documented defects with various A320 systems at that time -
including throttle response and height indication. Capt Assiline asserts that the a/c
showed 100 ft altitude when it was actually flying much lower.

In short, they were flying an a/c of questionable airworthiness. That *couldn't* be allowed
to come out in the investigation, so it was *fixed*.

Graham