Stefan wrote:

Pooh Bear wrote:
...
Hence they thought they were flying at 100ft when it was actually 30 ft.
...
They were indeed unaware
of the trees due to the poor briefing material.
...

Being a hard core "look out the window and fly by horizon and feel"
pilot, I have some difficulties to understand this. I'm aware that you
can't fly an airliner by merely looking out the window, but still....


I hear what you're saying here. It was claimed by the flight crew that since they were used to
flying in and out of large airports, the visual references of a small airfield gave them a false
impression.


Besides, the briefing material itself wasn't poor. The VAC clearly shows
the forest:

http://www.sia.aviation-civile.gouv....D%202.LFGB.pdf

I hear that they received only a faxed ( hence black and white ) copy of the relevant map.


The "problem" was that the pilot expected to do his show-off over the
runway 20, which has no trees at the far end. When he recognized that
the public was lined up along the glider strip 16, he changed his plans
accordingly and overlooked that this runway was significantly shorter
(i.e. 765 instead of 1120 ft) and there was forest at both ends of the
strip.

That too. There is literally one factor after another that contributed to this accident.


Which, as I said, I don't understand.

Sorry, which bit don't you understand ? Overlooking the shorter runway length ?


Graham