Yemenia A310 down

[WhisperJet]

Serial Law. :-(

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast ... index.html

Thoughts go to the victims and their relatives.

Nick.

[Garry Russell]

Very sad :-(

My thought to all concernered

7O-ADJ is the aircraft concerned

Garry

[Garry Russell]

Reports say they have found one child alive....so there is maybe some hope

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8125664.stm

Garry

[FlyTexas]

Yes, let's hope they find more survivors. Airbus has definitely had a rough month. :-(

Brian

[Garry Russell]

Yes but they are too distinct types

The media are harping on about the second Airbus crash this month as if Airbus was a type not a manufacturer

They don't say another 'Boeing' when a 747 and a 737 have an incident in a short time.

Garry

[bigred1970]

and I don't think the a310 has all the "fly by computer, not pilot" electronics that give the a 320, 330, and 340 a bad rep.... :think:

[Garry Russell]

Yep.the A.300 and A.310 predate that.

Garry

[Chris Trott]

Not 100% true Garry. The A310 and the A300B4-600R/F do have active flight controls (i.e. there is a computer that "assists" the pilot in flying the airplane although not in a full FBW sense). There are limiters on those controls, so it's not totally immune to those problems.

In addition, Airbus's reputation got started with the A300. It was their poor decision to have disconnected throttle levers during AutoThrottle operations and a Go-Around lever that was identical to the thrust levers that led to several accidents. It was also their decision to not properly design the rudder control system with a proper feedback system that led to the destruction of the American Airlines A300 over Jamaica Bay.

We don't know the circumstances around this loss, but it is fair to say that the A300/310 series of aircraft have just as many problems as their later FBW bretheren.

[Garry Russell]

All I said Chris was the systems on the earlier type predate the later models system that are much talked about at times,...... which it does.

I didn't say they were totally manual.

Garry

[Chris Trott]

Sorry, misread your post and the one before it. I thought they were talking about predating the computers all together, not just the full FBW.