“Interesting story and pics but I can’t make too much of a thing about this being a flight crew from an Arab airline. Especially on a new airplane they apparently hadn’t been fully trained for.”
That’s what is weird. If you are a professional sent to do pre-flight tests, one would imagine some sort of engineering type. Planes not only have POH’s there are checklists for everything. Plus, you never get in a plane you aren’t fully trained for - that’s one of the reasons simulators were developed. It’s a very odd story.
You did mention something really curious. If the crew was not Moslem, or partially Moslem, why the blackout? That is interesting. Maybe simply because they were picking it up for an Arab airline? Hmmm.
>>> If the crew was not Moslem, or partially Moslem, why the blackout? That is interesting. Maybe simply because they were picking it up for an Arab airline?
Well the point was regarding the preparation of the flight crew. Trying to express it a little better I was wondering if it wasn’t the responsibility of Airbus to ensure the Etihad Airways crew were checked out on the model before letting them loose on their own with an airplane that at this point was still the property of Airbus.
Perhaps this was done and it really was a flight crew screwup. But the story hints to me the real screwup was corporate by failure to demonstrate on simulators or ride-alongs what they needed to know about this particular model. Sparing Airbus from discussing such an embarrassing lapse might be the greater cause for suppressing details of such an incident.