Thursday, 14. August 2008
Failing to plan; part 2The brand spanking new Airbus A340-600 sat in its hangar in Toulouse, France without a single hour of airtime.
Enter the Arab flight crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) to conduct pre-delivery tests on the ground, such as engine runups, prior to delivery to Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi. The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600 to the run-up area. Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with a virtually empty aircraft. Not having read the run-up manuals, they had no clue just how light an empty A340-600 really is.
The takeoff warning horn was blaring away in the cockpit because they had all 4 engines at full power. The aircraft computers thought they were trying to takeoff but it had not been configured properly (flaps/slats etc). Then one of the ADAT crew decided to pull the circuit breaker on the Ground Proximity Sensor to silence the alarm.
This fools the aircraft into thinking it is in the air....
More > (with pictures) ...
Category: Coffee and Cats
Technorati: A340 Airbus
Comments :
1. Karl-Henry Martinsson14/08/2008 20:35:47
Homepage: http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/texasswede/
According to some comments on different blogs, the pilots were French, or mixed French/British. One source claim the captain was Indian. Someone also pointed out that most arabic airlines use pilots from western countries to a great extent. It still does not seem to be clear who were all on board.
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