An accident occurred at Airbus Saint-Martin site in Toulouse yesterday 15th November at 5 pm local time, when engine-run-ups were being carried out on an A340-600, MSN 856 (to be A6-EHG), which was due to be delivered to Etihad in the coming days.
The A340-600 jumped its chocks during an engine test and the nose went up and through a blast fence. The airplane has been substantial damaged.
There were nine persons on board out of them five people sustained injuries. There are no fatalities.
Airbus reports that of the five injured people, three remain in hospital. Two were released between yesterday night and this morning. Of the three persons remaining in hospital, one is an employee of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT), a service provider for Etihad Airways, and two are Airbus employees. Airbus and ADAT are providing all necessary support to the persons involved and their families.
An investigation has started yesterday night and Airbus is providing full support to the official investigation authorities in France.
Pictures
Credit: TF1
Source: PPrune
It is really sad to see that such an advanced aircraft has had a major accident in a static test.Adequate safety measures should be taken to avoid such crashes and plane should be securely bolted to the ground in future static static engine tests.Thank goodness no one perished.
Rahul,Dubai
I doubt no one perished in the accident, it was a total negligence or i would say lack of experience, how can you power all four engines for test ???
Expert I am not but there is alot wrong with this picture,isn’t the blast fence suppose to be behind the plane and not in front of it? this is pure neglegence on part of safety. 2ndly if I am to test a plane on all 4 engines running I would tie it down to something.
Morons! Read the Operator’s Manual first! You don’t power all four engines up to max power in an empty Airbus. There’s insufficient weight on the tires and the brakes won’t hold.
First rule of aviation, if you do something and it has unintended consequences, undo it! Pulling back on the throttle would’ve solved their problem.
As for chaining it down… What do you propose to chain it to? What size chain and anchor do you think you would need to survive the forces generated by those four engines at max power? Don’t rely on Bandaid approaches as a replacement for adequate knowledge of your aircraft.
What a bunch of morons. They should all be shamed publicly and never let near airplanes again.
hey dude
according to me
we people are not allowd to run the powerplants at the max. RPM as the heat generated by the combustion can even damage the turbines as the turbine blades are not cooled.
When all else fails…
Read The F*#%ing Manual!
I worked for MCDONNELL-DOUGLAS FLT TEST and we ran an MD-11 engine up with the brakes set,no chocks one night and the AC slid fwd about 4ft and rolled the asphalt up in front of it. We put in anchors, Thrust of the MD- 11=90,000lb so the chains and anchors had to hold 20% more. Besides an Aircraft sitting stationary does not produce the thrust it does after it moves. It is basically getting a static bite of the air but once it moves, lookout! Oh, they could possibly have more than one blast fence at that airport, never been there. We ran to MAX TO Pwr on a lot of occasions, used a cage over 1 and 2 intakes. They did not overheat in Yuma AZ at temps around 100. I’d suggest more training but they may have come up with that now.
PS If you use chocks they will become FOD. Ever see the guy pull the chocks on an aircraft carrier and get sucked into the intake. All the sparks and fire are from his cranial helmet and
headphones. He survived BTW.
“IF THE WORLD WERE PERFECT, IT WOULD’NT BE.” YOGI BERRA
As I understand it, it was a Muslim crew, they had not read the manual, they turned off an alarm that was sounding because the computer thought they were trying to take off but the flaps were not set, instead of reading the manual, they pulled a breaker to kill the alarm, then that happened it triggered the computer to think the plane was already in the air and it released the breaks, not being terribly smart it never crossed anyones mind to throttle back and figure out what was happening. Just something I read online, could be untrue
Written by To The Point News
Friday, 16 May 2008
The brand spanking new Airbus 340-600, the largest passenger airplane ever
built, sat in its hangar in Toulouse, France without a single hour of
airtime. Enter the Arab flight crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies
(ADAT) on November 15, 2007 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. 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.
The computers automatically released all the brakes and set 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.
Not one member of the seven-man Arab crew was smart enough to throttle
back the engines from their max power20setting, so the $200 million
brand-new aircraft crashed into a blast barrier, totalling it.
The extent of injuries to the crew is unknown, for there has been a news
blackout in the major media in France and elsewhere. Coverage of the
story was deemed insulting to Arabs. Finally, the photos are starting to
leak out.
“…they had not read the manual…”
What, the Airbus employees hadn’t read the manual for the A340-600?
Stupid Catholics!
The Airbus employees had read the manual but the Arab crew testing it had not!!!.
I think you will find that the Arab crew were Muslims and not Catholics.!
Muslims are pretty good at destroying aircraft
Looks like this thread is getting pretty racist to me……
How do you say: OOPS, in Arabic?
Surely the question is what morons let these people in the plane without first reading the manual? I think you will find that their religious beliefs have very little bearing on their stupidity!
What has this accident got to do with being a Muslim? I don’t understand why people write such crap in the first place. And no, I am not Muslim.
Secondly, no person who had read the manual could have prevented this accident in my opinion. I don’t think the manual says “Don’t power up all 4 engines in an empty aircraft”. It’s just simple, common sense. The aircraft won’t hold.
- Ashwin
(http://finalapproach-ashwin.blogspot.com)
Well, I’m no expert (not even a pilot), but regarding the comment above, isn’t it “just simple common sense” to have all of the flaps down before take off? (I’ll bet the manual tells the pilot to do that).
The impression from this report is that that a totally inexperienced (flight) crew was allowed onboard, without adequate, or indeed any supervision to perform pre-acceptance tests ? Seems unlikely to me.
Further, considering that the A400 is meant to be part of the Airbus ‘Family’ (therefore minimum pilot re-training (therefore costs), is required) - if a pilot is familiar with say, the Airbus A330-300, then (s)he would be reasonably up to speed on the functionality and characteristics (in theory, at least) of an aircraft such as the A400.
So I reckon there’s more to this than what’s been reported. Imagine - the French involved in a cover-up !!!
I’m STUNNED !!!
This seems to be one of the typical web scams.
First of all - all crews testing the planes at delivery have an extensive training in the simulator. And also the manual is largely presented to the crew _by oral presentations_ so no matter what - the crew on board s aware of the safety etc features of the plane.
Secondly… Etihad happens to be in the possession of several Airbus-family planes - the pilots at the delivery will most likely have flown the types of aircraft previously and would have had the adequate training needed for that.
It really seems stupid and incosiderate to spread this kind of childish messages in here.
Jerry
If a circuit breaker was removed just to silence an alarm and no one gave a second thought to this, then this alone is a sign of incredible stupidity, (and race, religion or national origin have NOTHING to do with it). Over the years there have been major air disasters caused by REMOVING A CIRCUIT BREAKER to silence an alarm. The first one that comes to mind was the DC-10 flight out of Paris with over 300 on board (no survivors). There a circuit breaker indicating a cargo door was not properly closed was removed to silence it’s alarm. Guess what, the door blew at altitude and more than 300 people discovered whether God existed or not.
THE TALE OF THE ARAB FLIGHT CREW
Written by To The Point News Friday, 16 May 2008
The brand spanking new Airbus 340-600, the largest passenger airplane ever
built, 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. The computers automatically released all the
brakes and set 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.
Not one member of the seven-man Arab crew was smart enough to throttle back
the engines from their max power setting, so the $200 million brand-new
aircraft crashed into a blast barrier, totaling it. The extent of injuries
to the crew is unknown, for there has been a news blackout in the major
media in France and elsewhere. Coverage of the story was deemed insulting
to Moslem Arabs. Finally, the photos are starting to leak out. Airbus $200
million aircraft meets retaining wall and the wall wins….
i work in toulouse and saw the aircraft this wk, it being stripped of any salvage as we spk. I feel there is def cover up.Even airbus employees who were here when it happened say thy know nothing!
I found two pics of the stripping down of the A340
Photo by DigitalAirliners.com
Photo by a380spotter
This is just proof of the adage “Make something idiot proof and a better idiot will come along”.
I’m searching for the actual technical report of the A 340 ground test accidentbut but I can’t find it. If someone could help me with thad, thad would be grate.