A. Mixed ground test crew of 9 on board: some from Airbus proper, based there in Toulouse, some from the Abu Dhabi-based contractor working on the airline’s behalf.

3 people in the cockpit for the test: 2 from Airbus, one from the contractor.

Running the test, in the right seat of the cockpit, in charge of the all controls: Airbus technician, 15 yr employee, 9 yrs experience testing these engines. When he was alerted that the aircraft was moving, his only actions were to kill the parking brake while simultaneously stomping on the main brakes.

In the left seat, observing the test: contractor employee, alerted the test tech that the aircraft was moving. Has no specified role in the test other than to observe.

In the “service” seat (like the navigator’s seat, only the A340 ain’t got no navigator, I don’t believe): Airbus-employed test pilot, 9 yrs experience as a professional pilot, 7 as a test pilot, not type rated (i.e., not an A340 pilot), perhaps a manager qualified to supervise such tests. Once again, no specific role other than to observe, but in the end it was him who pulled the throttles back.

B. There were two main causes: 1) no chocks were used to hold the aircraft’s wheels in place during the test. 2) All four engines were brought to full power to test one leaky engine. Procedures required the use of chocks and running up two engines – the one leaking and one on the other wing (to prevent torquing and yawing of the fuselage). These two procedures had been frequently ignored by all Airbus technicians at the test center for some time.

Short answer: the test was done improperly, not in accordance with written procedures and standards. The fault of the Airbus technician.

Contributing causes: 1) the full power of four engines is almost exactly equal to the braking power of the A340s parking brake and the frictional coefficient of the test area’s tarmac, hence the aircraft only moved when shaking of the aircraft and the burning off of fuel lessened the overall braking coefficient. 2) The technician tried to use the brakes alone to stop the aircraft rather than retarding the throttles as well.

C. Fun fact: the numbers 3 and 4 engines could not be shut down after impact because the throttle control connection to them had been severed. No. 4 was finally killed over two-and-a-half hours later when enough water and fire-fighting foam had been pumped into it to snuff it out. The No. 3 engine died at 1:25 am the next morning – 9 hrs later – when it ran out of gas: it was too jammed into the wall to get any water/foam into it. Now THAT’S hi-larious. And not a bad advertisement for Rolls-Royce engines, it seems to me.

Yeah, the “news” account above is one of those made up slander e-mails, urban legend-style. No evidence of any cover-up, the photos were widely-disseminated right away (as you can see by the date of this blog report), once the accident investigating was done, no reason why the plane wouldn’t be cleaned up right away. Doesn’t look too good for an airport to have a crashed aircraft anywhere on its tarmac.

Lesson: racists are racists – go ahead and call them that – and don’t believe what you read on the internet, particularly the clearly racist stuff. Oh, and those of you who believed this stuff and called yourselves professional pilots, you’re not. I am

here is the link:

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