Replies

> I'll join the conspiracy train ....

I won't, but I will point out a connundrum. The leading apparent cause of this accident is the separation of the vertical tail.

Either this accident wasn't the result of that, or the NTSB and FAA are failing to loudly warn operators of Airbuses of a dangerously surprising risk. If you are “concerned” about this accident investigation, you have reason to be.

The Airbus has long been famous (notorious, perhaps) for it's parental fly-by-wire control laws that (everyone thought) went so far in keeping the flight in the envelope, and protecting the airframe from overstress, that the plane would crash rather than allow the pilot to bend it trying to save it.

The 1988 A320 airshow crash may not have been an example of this, but brought the issue to the forefront.

I have since read (and prior to AA587), that some pilots take questionable advantage of this. Reportedly, they perform some takeoffs by firewalling the throttles and pulling the yoke all the way back into their laps, counting on the computers to keep them in the envelope.

As a pilot myself, I have trouble accepting that another pilot would do that, but if true, it would confirm what I’ve long suspected, which is that some pilots, prior to AA587, assumed that nothing they could do with the controls (other than flying into terrain) could bend, much less break, an Airbus.

Airbus has now admitted that this is not true, but is hardly yelling it from the top of the Effiel Tower (nor is the NTSB, nor is the FAA). If you don’t read Aviation Week cover-to-cover, you might yet not know. Indeed, it would seem that rudder caution needs to be emphasized on all large a/c types, and not just Airbus.

With what we now know, it was just a matter of time before a crew literally "kicked the tail off" an Airbus.

As to whether or not that describes what happened to AA587 ... we now return you to your regularly scheduled internet debate.