Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330 crashes in Tripoli, Libya

[andorra-airport]

and the word is out that it is a pilot's error, probably because he tried too late a restart ( because of bad view ) and tipped his wing .

Source ?

[TCAS_climb]

Interesting facts on Airbus systems, here... High energy impact on uneven terrain explains the scattering of debris (compared to Turkish 737 which hit with the tail first with a 22°nose-up attitude when it had almost recovered from the stall at 400-500 feet).

Reminds of the "accident that never occurred' in Lille in the early days of the A320, although it's exactly the same chain of event. Air Inter is coming in for landing, there's a G.A. aircraft on the runway. At the controls as PIC in the small plane is a Dutch astronaut, but I can't remember his name for now. The tower tells Air Inter to go around, they acknowledge, do what they think is needed to go around, but the aircraft doesn't respond. It slams onto the runway and the G.A. plane, impacting one of the wings and tearing it apart. The astronaut is okay but his aircraft is for the scrapyard.

"Surprinzingly", no investigation is launched and the accident remains silent.

[andorra-airport]

At the controls as PIC in the small plane is a Dutch astronaut, but I can't remember his name for now.

The small plane was a Mooney PH-WJO, piloted by Wubbo J. Ockels, first Dutch astronaut on Space Shuttle Challenger.

[andorra-airport]

and the word is out that it is a pilot's error, probably because he tried too late a restart ( because of bad view ) and tipped his wing .

Source ?

Yes, you are right.

Here is what CNN says:

Low visibility caused by mist and sand created poor flying conditions for the pilot of an Afriqiyah Airways flight that crashed just before landing in Tripoli, Libyan sources with knowledge of the investigation said Saturday.

(..)

The sources said that as the pilot approached Tripoli International Airport, he took the plane off auto-pilot hoping to manually land the aircraft. He realized he was in trouble and tried to pull the plane up and turn the auto-pilot back on to give it another try, the sources said.

But the effort was too late and the plane slammed violently into the ground, explaining the condition of the wreckage and damage to the plane's tail at the crash site, the sources said.

[TCAS_climb]

Mmmh, if confirmed this looks like it's going to be another uncomfortable investigation for Airbus engineers.

The TAROM A310 near-accident in Paris also comes to mind (the plane almost fell out of the sky while the captain was trying to put the A/P back on to recover the situation).

Any Airbus driver here to clarify something ? Can you perform a completely 'manual' go-around ? I'm particularly curious about the throttles and how they 'work' in this case. I'm trying to figure out why it (would possibly have) made sense to the crew to concentrate on the A/P-A/T first instead of hand flying the damn thing away from the fast-approaching ground.

[Desert Rat]

Throttle on the A330 are not driven by the A/T as it used to be on the 310, there's a Climb detent,a flex/max continuous and a TOGA one.

In Cruise throttles are on the Climb detent and don't move at all untill the A/C Touchdown, then the pilot select Idle.

The GA is always a manual action, Pilot has to put the throttles on the TOGA detent, the FD will appear automatically on the PFD, the Rotation has to be performed in order to have a positive rate of climb, Go around has to be repeated (three time??) in the cockpit, flaps have to be retarcted one notch,etc...

when TOGA thrust is not required,(intermediate approach altitude), the Throttles are set to TOGA detent to engage the Go-Around phase, and are put back in their original position, this is just to engage the FMS in the GA mode.

[Desert Rat]

Any 330 pilot here who can confirm that the A320 OEB about deselecting app before the minimums on an NPA, in order to be able to fly an automatic go around, is also applicable to the A330?

It could be applicable to an older 330, but I'm almost sure that for an A/C delivered in sep 2009,this OEB is not active anymore, due to new FM std.

[TCAS_climb]

Thanks ! Just to make sure I understood, the go-around drill is...
- Throttles on TOGA detent
- pull up the nose
- raise the flaps one notch
...then the engine will spool up, provided all three conditions are met ? If you miss one item the engines will remain at the final approach setting they had before the go-around decision ?

This works in any type of approach ? What's the time needed by the engines to spool up to TOGA thrust ?

[Desert Rat]

No the engine will spool up as soon as you move the throttle lever to TOGA(Take Off / Go Around)

The time to accelerate is one or two seconds, because the engine in final approach is not at idle power but roughly around 40-50%N1,

To accelerate the engine from idle to TO thrust it takes around 7 or 8 seconds ( for a take off )

[earthman]

Why don't they just put a big red button labelled 'Go Around' in the cockpit?

[FlightMate]

The biggest threat, when trying to do a G/A with an airbus, is not advancing the thrust lever to TOGA detent, one not willing to use the maximum thrust which is often excessive.

This will cause the F/D not to order a go-around (not a problem is flying manually), and when trying to re-engage the AP, it will cause the aircraft to dive to catch the glide slope.

Air France had a similar incident some months ago, a very very close call (I think the aircraft went around the second time at around 30 or 40 feet AGL)

[andorra-airport]

Crash reconstruction video (in Dutch):

[Tomskii]

That's just unbelievable. How could the copilot issue a go around without the captain noticing or acknowledging it.

Communication, at least according to this reconstruction was nihil.

[Sabena320]

The fully released accident report is very interesting to read. Sad that all these people had to die because of the many mistakes the crew made: http://caa.ly/en/

[Passenger]

On request of the relatives of the victims, a memorial has been founded. They've chosen for the cimitery of Nieuwegein, a town near Utrecht, because its central location in The Netherlands & good understanding with the local authorities.

Each golden plate has the name of one victim, and under the globe is a urn with DNA from victims.


photo Nieuwegein TV - http://Nieuwegeintv.nl

Report local TV:



Source - more info:
https://nieuwegeintv.nl/monument-nageda ... s-tripoli/