[David Morton]

You could not make this up...........

These are pictures of the wreck of a brand new A340-600 in November 2007. The plane had never flown one paying flight. Brand spanking new right out of the hanger, with only flight test time in the log. Enter the Arab flight crew. Thank the French and the crew for this 'comedy of errors'. Nine employees of the airline were in the aircraft, but not one employee from French Airbus was present. The pilots taxied out to the run-up area. Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with virtually an empty aircraft. This was their first mistake as they obviously didn't read the run-up manuals. They had no clue just how light an empty Airbus really is. No chocks were set, not that it would have mattered at that power setting anyway - the brakes will not hold it back at full power. As it turns out, the takeoff warning horn was blaring away in the cockpit because they had all 4 engines at full power. The aircraft computers thought the crew were trying to takeoff but it had not been configured properly (flaps etc, etc). Then one of the pilots decided to pull the 'Ground Sense' circuit breaker to silence the alarms. This fools the aircraft into thinking it is in the air. That was their last mistake. As soon as they did that, the computers automatically released all of the brakes and sent the aircraft rocketing forward. The poor beggars had no idea that this is a safety feature so that pilots can't land with the brakes on. There was no time to stop now, and no one smart enough to throttle back the engines from their maximum power setting anyway. So the end result was as you see it below. If I can post these pictures some time today .....