In article ,
says...


Anyone remember the details???


FROM AIRLINERS.NET :


The Air France A320 that was written off at Habsheim was being operated on a
public transport flight by Air France at the time of the crash. The aircraft
had been used in flight testing, but had been delivered to Air France several
days before the accident, and was involved in a promotional flight when it
crashed. The A320 was in service operating revenue flights at the time of the
accident, F-CFKC was in fact Air France's 3rd A320.

Most importantly, the fly-by-wire did not "lock up" - and the plane did not
"think" it was landing and prevent the application of TOGA power. The
accident was classic pilot error, no fault was found with the FBW system...

Some findings of the accident investigation:

• The captain had participated as Air France's technical pilot in
developmental test flying on the A320, during which manoeuvres were carried
out beyond the normal operational limitations. This could have lead to
overconfidence in the systems of the new aircraft.
• The flight had only been briefly prepared, without real consultation
between the departments (of Air France) concerned, or with the crew.
• Descent was started 5.5nm from the aerodrome. Throughout the descent, the
engines were throttled back to flight idle with the airspeed reducing.
• At 1000ft AGL the rate of descent was still ~600fpm.
• The captain levelled off at a height of ~30ft, engines at flight idle,
pitch attitude increasing. He did not have time to stabilise the angle of
attack at the maximum value he had selected.
• Full-power was rapidly applied when the angle of attack was 15° and the
airspeed 122kt.
• The response of the engines was normal, and in compliance with their
certification.

The cause:
• The accident resulted from a combination of the following;

• Flyover height lower than surrounding obstacles (Flown at 30ft against the
planned 100ft)

• Slow speed, reducing to reach maximum angle of attack

• Engines at flight idle

• Late application of go-around power

In summary the crew flew the aircraft onto the wrong side of the drag curve
in a critical situation overflying a very small grass strip with trees above
the height of the aircraft off the end of the runway, the aircraft was low,
slow and at a high angle of attack - there was no residual energy to get them
out of trouble. It's a basic lesson in flying, and the A320 was found to have
actually exceeded it's certified performance once TOGA power was selected.

The crew had been briefed to overfly the concrerte runway 02/20 at 100ft, but
unknown to them the airshow was alligned along grass strip runway 16/34. The
crew were unaware of this until descending through 200ft, 24 seconds before
the accident, at which time they had to chose to reposition the aircraft to
conduct an overflight they had not briefed for over runway 16/34 as the
height decayed to 30ft and the airspeed to 122kt...



If you want some information on some of the conflicting theories, you can
find it here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory