JUST A NEW TOY IN THE HANDS OF THOSE ILL PREPARED WHO DIDN'T READ THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL.


In case you hadn't heard




This brand spanking new Airbus 340-600,
the largest passenger airplane ever built,
sits just outside its hangar in Toulouse, France
without a single hour of airtime.





http://2.bp.blogspot..com/_97xiVJFB8jo/ ... -600_5.JPG




Enter the Arab flight crew of
Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT)
to conduct pre-delivery tests on the ground,

such as engine run-ups prior to delivery to
Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi.

The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600 to the run-up area.




http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_97xiVJFB8jo/S ... 800wi..jpg




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.




http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_97xiVJFB8jo/S ... rior04.jpg




The Takeoff Warning Horn was blaring away in the cockpit
because they had All four engines at full power.

The aircraft computers thought they were trying to take off,
but it had not been configured properly (flaps/slats, etc...)




http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_97xiVJFB8jo/S ... nes_12.jpg




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.




http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_97xiVJFB8jo/S ... 380_12.jpg




The computers automatically released all the brakes
and sent the aircraft rocketing forward.
The ADAT crew had no idea that this is a safety feature
so that pilots can't land with the brakes on.





http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_97xiVJFB8jo/S ... ihad05.jpg




Not one member of the seven-man Arab crew was smart enough to throttle back the engines
from their max power setting.
The $200 million brand-new aircraft crashed into a blast barrier, totaling it.





http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_97xiVJFB8jo/S ... ihad04.jpg




The extent of injuries to the crew is unknown due to the news blackout of the major media in France and elsewhere.




http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_97xiVJFB8jo/S ... ihad03.jpg




Coverage of the story was deemed insulting to Muslim Arabs.





http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_97xiVJFB8jo/S ... ihad02.jpg




Finally, the photos are starting to leak out.




http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_97xiVJFB8jo/S ... ihad01.jpg




Airbus $200 million aircraft meets retaining wall
and the wall wins

http://www.snopes.com/photos/airplane/etihad.asp

According to Snopes It sounds like much of the story is incorrect, aka urban myth.

it was an Airbus test pen, it was an Airbus engineer at the right-hand seat, which the report said is where control inputs were coming from. An ADAT engineer was in the left seat."

Regardless, it's a damn shame.

It is an Airbus....good riddance!

This is what really happened, and its no coincidence that one of them bears a striking resemblance to D.B Cooper.



dirtstrip

This was from ages ago.

It's amazing this is still alive. The secret to the popularity of this version of events rather than the real story has never been the drama of the story itself, but rather *certain* personal issues in desperate need of a myth.

The story is from well before 2008....

This is from before Pontius was a 'pilot'...
Even those 'Arabs who had no clue' would have heard about this one...

I've seen this bunch of photos several times in the past few years in the form of "chain e-mails" that some people like to forward to everyone. The outside photos of the crashed plane are always the same, but the photos of the interior of the plane keep changing, and the story that goes with it has changed quite a bit over the last 4 years or so. Someone destroyed an airplane, but untill I see an official FAA acident report, or the french equivillant, I'm not ready to believe any of the stories I have read online because they have changed enough that they CAN"T all be true.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/12/10/319969/violation-of-test-procedures-led-to-toulouse-a340-600.html

That's the most complete report I've found so far.