How to trash a new airbus

[Toad]

I hadn't seen this one around; a friend sent it to me via e-mail.



The story I got was:

It hardly seems possible that this could have happened without
being prominently covered by the major television and news media
         

These are pictures of the wreck of a brand new A340-600 in
November 2007, that had never flown. (never saw (1) hour in the air)

Nine employees of the Arab airline were in the aircraft, but 'no
employees' from Airbus were present.

The Arabs taxied out to the run-up area.

Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with virtually
an empty aircraft. (They obvious didn't read the run-up manuals.)

No chocks were set, (not that it would have mattered at that
power setting) .... Brakes will not hold it back at full power anyway.

As it turns out the takeoff warning horn was blaring away in the
cockpit because they had all FOUR engines at full power.

The aircraft computers thought they were trying to takeoff but
it had not been configured properly (flaps/slats, etc, etc).

Then one of these brain surgeons decided to pull the 'Ground
Sense' circuit breaker to quiet the alarms.

This fools the aircraft into thinking it is in the air.

'A big,big mistake'!


As soon as they did that, the computers automaticlly 'released'
all the brakes. ('this is a Safety feature so that pilots don't land
with the brakes on'.)

There was No time to stop and no one smart enough to reduce the
max power setting.....

Apparently no one was seriously hurt.

Best comment I've read so far:

"They were probably just trying to prove our conveyor belt theory wrong.. That'll show 'em! "

[-tronski-]

Actually 2 of the 9 were Airbus employees - and were in the cockpit at the time, the other 7 were ADAT (Etihad contractors).
The aircraft was still under going testing at Toulouse before being scheduled for delivery to Etihad the following week.

 Tronsky

[Toad]

I figured there had to be more to the story but it sure didn't get much airplay, did it? Not hard to see why. Ground/taxi accidents are unexplainable.

[Strip]

Its a small wonder we dont have more instances like this....

Kinda like take my drag car and launching it towards a wall....

Strip

[-tronski-]

The Aircraft wasn't at full power, but had all 4 at a high setting. The intial report was the aircraft somehow "jumped" its chocks - but a subsequent investigation was the aircraft was not chocked at all. The aircraft had its park brake on, but started rolling after the engine run had been going for 3mins - after which the engineers aboard tried using the a/c brakes to stop its momentum. They didn't set the engines to idle till about 2 seconds before it hit the blast fence!?!
EADS still owned the A340 (who's insurance payed out $150 million for the loss), which still bore its testing registry, and there were no Etihad airline employees on board - Ahbu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies provide engineering for Etihad.

 Tronsky

[Toad]

Do you have a link to an accident report on it?

[USRanger]

Same old story.  Arabs on airliners = crashed plane.  Probably were yelling "allah Ahkbar!" the whole friggin time.

[Golfer]

FROM : AIRBUS FLIGHT SAFETY DEPARTMENT TOULOUSE
SUBJECT: A340-600 - MSN 856 - ACCIDENT IN PRODUCTION OUR REF.: F-WWCJ AIT 2 DATED 20th OF NOVEMBER 2007 PREVIOUS REF: F-WWCJ AIT 1 DATED 16th OF NOVEMBER 2007

THIS AIT IS AN UPDATE OF PREVIOUS AIT N°1 CONCERNING THE A340-600 PRODUCTION AIRCRAFT MSN 856 INVOLVED IN AN ACCIDENT IN AIRBUS PRODUCTION FACILITIES IN TOULOUSE ON THE 15TH NOVEMBER 2007 AT 17:00 LOCAL TIME.

THE FOLLOWING IS THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS ACCORDING TO THE RECORDERS, WHICH HAS BEEN APPROVED FOR RELEASE BY THE FRENCH INVESTIGATION AUTHORITIES (BEA).

FOR ABOUT 3 MINUTES BEFORE THE END OF THE EVENT, ALL FOUR ENGINES EPR WAS BETWEEN 1.24 AND 1.26 WITH PARKING BRAKE ON AND WITHOUT GROUND CHOCKS.

THE ALTERNATE BRAKE PRESSURE WAS NORMAL. (WITH PARKING BRAKE ON, BRAKE PRESSURE IS SUPPLIED BY ALTERNATE).

13 SECONDS BEFORE THE IMPACT THE AIRCRAFT STARTED TO MOVE. WITHIN 1 OR 2 SECONDS THE CREW APPLIED BRAKE PEDAL INPUTS AND SELECTED PARKING BRAKE OFF. THESE ACTIONS LED THE NORMAL BRAKE PRESSURE TO INCREASE TO ITS NORMAL VALUE.

2 SECONDS PRIOR BEFORE THE IMPACT, ALL 4 ENGINE THRUST LEVERS WERE SELECTED TO IDLE.
THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED THE CONTAINMENT WALL AT A GROUND SPEED OF 30 KTS.

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF ANY AIRCRAFT SYSTEM OR ENGINE MALFUNCTION.

AIRBUS REMINDS ALL OPERATORS TO STRICTLY ADHERE TO AMM PROCEDURES WHEN PERFORMING ENGINE GROUND RUNS. ENGINE GROUND RUNS AT HIGH POWER ARE NORMALLY CONDUCTED ON A SINGLE ENGINE WITH THE ENGINE IN THE SAME POSITION ON THE OPPOSITE WING OPERATED AT A LIMITED THRUST SETTING TO AVOID DAMAGE TO THE AIFRAME WHEEL CHOCKS ARE TO BE INSTALLED THROUGHOUT THE TEST.

YANNICK MALINGE
VICE PRESIDENT FLIGHT SAFETY
AIRBUS

[Dowding]

Looks like they have a casualty on the floor in one of the pictures. Hope they were ok.

Then again they were Arabs, so of course we all hope he/she is in lots of pain.

[Golfer]

Then again they were Arabs, so of course we all hope he/she is in lots of pain.

Well I for one have no idea why there are problems with the world.

[68Hawk]

Looks like they were trying to jump the ramp!

[zoozoo]

dayum

[redman555]

lol wow

-BigBOBCH

[cav58d]

Etihad Airlines has an enormous population of ex pats...Just because its an Arab Airline doesn't mean there weren't American's, Britains, Canadian's etc... on board.

[xNOVAx]

n00bs