Airbus 300 crash NY 2001 investigation findings

[Chortle]

Only heard a brief piece of this news item but it appears the co-pilot was too aggressive with the rudder and snapped the tail off? That cant be right can it?

[Yeager]

poor simulator training and a rudder response that was too powerful for use at higher airspeeds joined up with wake turbulance to cause a catostrophe.

[Holden McGroin]

Rather than too strong a rudder force, I believer it was too weak a tail structure, or at the very least, a poor design of the relationship between rudder force tail structure.  This was an engineering failure.  

Structural failure on take off is generally not pilot error.

[ra]

I thought the plane had just taken off, therefore was flying pretty slow?

[john9001]

i think airbuss's have lost vertical stablizers before, the tails are composit construction with metal mounting plates laminated into the base.

the plates delaminate and the vertical stablizer falls off under extreme rudder use.

[rpm]

If HT modeled AH differently you would see just how easy it is to snap a rudder at speed.

[StarOfAfrica2]

It had.  Apparently the guy didnt realize the huge stress he was putting on the tail by constantly operating the rudder like that.  

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20041026072609990001

[Fishu]

link to the investigation findings: http://www.airdisaster.com/news/1004/26/news.shtml

[Yeager]

what I gathered was that on climb out the airplane encountered wake turbulance and the co-pilot (who was at the controls) over reacted using rudder which broke the rudder empenage from the fuselage.  There were two underlying themes noted in the write up which I read.  First, the co-pilot had received insufficient or incorrect flight simulator training at the airline and second, that the aircraft rudder system allowed more force to be used than was safe at the speed the airplane was traveling at when the failure ocurred.

[CMC Airboss]

The accident occured during climbout with the A-300 accelerating through 260 knots.  

The vertical stabilizer clearly should have been designed to take the loads of whatever rudder deflection is available to the pilot at that speed.  If it was, then there was a structural weakness that caused the failure.  I simply don't buy that the co-pilot pushed to hard on the rudder pedal.

MiG

[Scootter]

Friends don't let friends fly Airbus











If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going



The rudder should not break due to the pilot pushing the rudder pedals, period.

[Golfer]

Most folks don't realize the highly sensitive nature of this airplane's rudder system.  I think 3 inches and not very much force is all that is required for full deflection of the rudder pedals.  Here's a snippit from an email I wrote to a friend this morning after hearing the released findings.

Hope all is well in the land of CT today.  Im a little disappointed because they blamed the Co-Pilot of AAL 587.  (just saw the headline, but I've been following the crash investigation).

The Airbus A-300 only requires about 3 inches of pedal movement for full deflection, and there is very little resistance.  If you get into turbulence (wake turbulence from a 747 variety) you get a bit of pucker factor.  I know that my legs tense up at the first sign of an emergency (only for a moment while my brain starts to process again) and if that happened or he was just knocked around, kicking full rudder in that airplane is no chore.  I hope Airbus gets *****-slapped with a lawsuit that puts them under because I don't think its AAL's fault in the least.  Especailly the co-pilot.  They followed a training program approved by Airbus and there were some rudder things specifically brought up during the course of the investigation that Airbus had signed off on.

Yet another reason "if it ain't Boeing, I ain't going."

Have a good'n

[Habu]

I agree 100%. In a fly by wire system if the pilot can damage the flight controls by pushing too hard on the rudder pedals  then the problem is with the plane and the fly by wire system. It is easy to limit the travel of the rudder to safe deflections at different speeds. Allowing deflections where the rudder snaps off is criminal.

So easy to blame the pilot. This is one instance where a good old American lawsuit is totally justified.

[GreenCloud]

that is ahorrible you cnat do a full rudder ..at those speeds?

wow..I have no hope..

i routinly crab all the way in the cessna..I find my self doing it too much ..I think AH gives me bad habits..I seem to fly the c152 a bit agressive soemtimes..


I mean how many tiems do you coem in complty sideways to burn off speed when landing in AH?..lololo

[FUNKED1]

If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going.