Years ago, before the A-300 received its airworthiness approval one flew into the trees, on autopilot, at the end of a runway in France. Completely over flew the runway and the auto pilot would not relinquish controls to the pilots. That crash was also fatal. This sounds like AP software failure too.
Now THAT is scary.
While both UPS and FedEx have increasingly purchased new aircraft, they also have a history of sometimes buying aircraft near the end of their life cycle. Some of the first aircraft that FedEx bought (727-100’s from LAN Chile and DC-10-10’s from the original Continental) were pretty exciting rides.
I wonder how old the A300 was. IIRC, UPS did not buy any A300s when they were in production.
That accident was an A-320- a totally different aircraft. The A-300 is not fly-by-wire like all subsequent Airbus aircraft.
It was an A320, not an A300.
The real problem was that the engines got too slow, the pilots were late in pushing the throttles up, and the engines couldn't be quickly accelerated to takeoff/climb power (think of trying to go uphill in a car with a manual transmission in third gear at 20 mph).
The flight controls generally behaved, by my reading of the story, in a fairly reasonable manner.
That was the A320 , not the A300.
The A320 is Fly-By-Wire not the A300, the FBW software glitch caused the crash in France.
CC
Yes indeed.Do you know the difference between a McCullough chainsaw and an A-300?
“Years ago, before the A-300 received its airworthiness approval one flew into the trees, on autopilot, at the end of a runway in France.”
BS. That planecash in france was a A320. A completely different ac type. The A300 is a rock solid reliable workhorse when well maintained and treated according to it’s flight envelope. The acceident in AL was most likely just a CFIT.
A A300 can withstand even a MANPAD attack.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUstvXSytRc