Maybe what is meant is the differing philosophies to FBW Boeing and Airbus have?

That is, in fact, the crux of the matter imho. A and B have different WRT the “man/machine interface.” Hard limits versus soft limits. Tactile feedback versus a stick that doesn’t move when the other one does. Visual feedback in the case of the throttles moving versus not moving when the autothrottles adjust engine power.

I figured someone would point out the Concorde numbers…..

The chart clearly says it is per million departures, thus a small fleet with one or two crashes will have a disproportionally larger crash rate (due to the low number of departures.) Please note that only 250 L1011’s were built, (vice 386 DC-10 IIRC) yet the DC-10 accident rate is much higher, in fact roughly 3 times as high. For the record, the two L1011 accidents that I clearly recall when large numbers of the airplane were in service was the thunderstorm/microbust encounter in Dallas and the one in Saudi Arabia where some guy was cooking in the cabin with some strange device and the S/O did not get the cabin depressurized upon landing.

It is not my chart, I believe it is a Boeing product, and I want to say that terrorism/hijack was excluded, but I can’t prove it now.

Also, I believe the requirement for a stickshaker was only on the Captain’s yoke at that time….the stickshaker wasn’t even installed on the FO’s yoke, and he was flying the airplane.

Didn’t AA Flight Operations policy also play are role?

At that time, I believe they were taught in an engine failure scenario to fly the airplane in a way that favored climbing over maintaining airspeed, for terrain avoidance. Thus, the FO continued to hold the pitch high, right to the limit of the stalling speed. Unfortunately, the stall speed was below that required for the wing that had the slats retracted. Had he lowered the nose and flown faster, even the wing with the slats retracted would have continued flying.

Also, the design of the airplane played a role. The slats should have been “locked out” in the deployed position and designed to stay that way even in loss of hydraulics or flight control cables. Had that been the case, they wouldn’t have retracted.

As always, many factors combine in an accident scenario. Breaking the chain in any one of them might have saved the flight.

The part I have always found bone chilling, and rarely reported, is the part about the internal investigation done by AA. It was apparently so damning that the few copies produced were shredded in an attempt to hide the failings. It’s a shame that people could be so wanting in basic ethics that they could do such a thing.

The leading evidence is that the pilot reported an electrical issue coupled with heavy or severe (depending on what source you read) turbulence. The aicraft also apparently sent an automated maintenance message describing an electrical malfunction.

What ever has happened it happened so quick, the crew had no chance of calling a mayday or any sort of call out.

Weren’t there two in-flight upsets last year due to transient ADIRU failures?

WRT to the SH…..no one has yet mentioned in this thread that the long promised engine upgrade program to increase thrust/decrease fuel consumption is now ready. GE delivers again.

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/05/12/326376/boeings-super-hornet-seeks-export-sale-to-launch-20-thrust.html

A bit premature, surely?

Just trying to deflect focus from the fact its still not making Airbus money.

And won’t be making money for many more years. Not that it matters in today’s world. Look at the billions the U.S. is throwing around to the banks and the automakers.

Apparently, in today’s virtual world all you have to do is declare a product or a program to be a success for it to be so.

GE fought an uphill battle on the F-16, and arguably had the better engine. Eventually they got a portion of the program.

The PW engines on the F-14 sucked, the GE powered D model blew them out of the water.

In the commercial world, the CF-6-80C series has about half the IFSD rate of the PW4000, and has won more orders. The CFM56, of which GE owns 50%, is the industry leading engine in it’s class, and has been for years. The crappy V2500 can’t even compete. The GEnx is coming soon, and will have industry best fuel consumption, PW doesn’t even have a competitor on the drawing boards.

Is it any wonder why PW doesn’t want to compete with GE?