An Oldie But A Goodie:

[IntheShade]

These are pictures of the wreck of a brand new A340-600 in November 2007, that had never flown. (never saw (1) hour in the air)

Thank these French and their Arab friends for this bit of "comedy of errors".

Nine employees of the Arab airline ETIHAD were in the aircraft, but "no employees" from Airbus were present. The Arab's taxied out to the run-up area.

Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with virtually an empty aircraft. (They obvious didn't read the run-up manuals.)

No chocks were set, (not that it would have mattered at that power setting) …. Brakes will not hold it back at full power anyway.

As it turns out 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 takeoff but it had not been configured properly (flaps/slats, etc, etc).

Then one of these brain surgeons decided to pull the "Ground Sense" circuit breaker to quiet the alarms.

This fools the aircraft into thinking it is in the air.

"A big,big mistake"!

As soon as they did that, the computers automaticlly "released" all the brakes. ("this is a Safety feature so that pilots don't land with the brakes on".)

There was No time to stop and no one smart enough thought to reduce the max power setting.....

So the rest is as you see it below

"Arab's" don't you just love them................

[3WE]

ITS.

He lurks.

He strikes.

He retreats to his El Camino, his biplane or his MD-11.

The odds that he'll provide more information? a photo? some links?????

Slim.

[ZeroAltitude]

ITS.

He lurks.

He strikes.

He retreats to his El Camino, his biplane or his MD-11.

The odds that he'll provide more information? a photo? some links?????

Slim.

Some photos in the pprune thread:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3705973

I'd be interested in the source of ITS' post as well.

[Shorrick Mk2]

He lifted it off matronics.com

[Verbal]

Just so we're all clear here, I would not say that incompetence is exclusive to the Arab world.

[Dmmoore]

Just so we're all clear here, I would not say that incompetence is exclusive to the Arab world.

You have that RIGHT!

Also a minor correction to ITS post.

The Aircraft had flown most its pre-delivery test flights and was due for delivery shortly after the date of the incident.

[B77W-QOTS]

http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=6122530

Aircraft flying

[IntheShade]

Just so we're all clear here, I would not say that incompetence is exclusive to the Arab world.

You're right. We have Glenn.