Airbus: No Major Malfunctions in Air France Crash

Why do people post articles here that require a paid account to read?

I have no idea, its really really annoying

Sorry, I am always logged into WSJ and didn't know it was one of those "pay to read" articles.

Well, pay to read or not, the first part of it gives you enough that they are going to try and blame it on pilot error, damn Monday morning quarterbacks. I guess that the pilots decided to take a swan dive from 35000 and commit double suicide right out of the blue. Airbus is already starting to cover their butts before any real meat can be gleaned from the recorders. Pilots will be real good scapegoats since they aren't here to defend themselves

Sniff, sniff, sniff........Is that a coverup I smell?????

Maybe not a design malfunction but a design flaw? Say the airspeed computers? Airbus and Thales are in bed on this one.

Yeah they are. in the othe FA article posted, the investigators really got down on a French newspaper for putting out the story that it was pilot error, saying it was way too early to tell. I guess WSJ picked it up off the wire secondhand after the story broke. These last 2 comments here are right on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What was noted in an earlier story was that it looked like the plane fell so fast that the 02 masks didn't have time to drop. Now they were around 35000 ft. If this is true that had to have been one heckuva ride. I think back to Delta 191 at DFW, and that microburst. If this is true about the AF flight, sad to say it might take Airbus and Thales off the hook.

The O2 masks would only drop above 14K feet if there was a decompression of the cabin (pressure vessel). Has that been established or confirmed?

Coverup... haha you are right on that.
The pilots are dead as a rock, they cant`t defend themselves.
Airbus put a S. load of money to go after the FDRs....
After the AF crash another A330 went down in africa, it was a 1 year old airplane on final approach.
Are all airline pilots idiots? (according to airbus)
I fly A320 for a living... I do not understand how the authorities certify airplanes like these based on some flight test data and mainly on statistics and probabilities.
That`s how airbus can compete with Boeing, by shortcutting building experience based on crap.

The main thing that Airbus and Thales are worried about is that if they find a mfg. problem in there somewhere, I think I remember reading somewhere in all of this that under French Law there is criminal prosecution in there, and even if it comes back on Thales as most suspect it will, at the very least, Airbus will be out a ton of $ on the cost of replacement. Noting riddfly's comments here, I haven't seen a crash report
lately that doesn't throw the pilot's under the bus. That's what always gets my dander up about the Monday morning Quarterbacks.

We're going to have to wait for all the evidence to be analyzed - recorders, airframe, engines. The cause could something nobody has considered yet. Be patient.

David, I couldn't agree with you more. Atually I think everybody is being patient. Airbus, through it's media pimps, is the one that fired the opening shot across the bow and threw the pilots under the bus.

This is jumping the gun, Airbus should be scared like hell knowing that the legal system in France treats these things like whole sale murderers, just read the procedings about the Concorde accident at CDG years ago. Besides the lawsuits from the relatives of the passengers are piling up claiming zillions already. For Indy2001 and Toby whenever you hit a wall like this copy the headline and paste it Google and bingo! 9 out of 10 times the same article will be available for free, otherwise we would end up subscribing to all the newspapers around the world (I won't charge you anything for this advise, LOL).

IT'S ALWAYS THE PILOT, B. S.

Too early to tell but I hope that the other agencies do not let Airbus and Thales off the hook too easily. The easy way out always is to blame the PILOTS! but in this case it will not be very convincing.The final report will probably take another two years!!!!

Re riddfly comments, "I fly A320 for a living... I do not understand how the authorities certify airplanes like these based on some flight test data and mainly on statistics and probabilities".
Do you have a better way of certifying new aircraft? If so lets hear it............

riddfly I don't believe one Iota that you are a 320 pilot, not even a truck driver -with due respect to truck drivers though-. The FAA would have never allowed a single Airbus aircraft to fly in the US based on "statisticas and probabilities". What the hell are you talking about, you are insulting the FAA that always requires rigorous and successful testing prior to certification. No pilot worth his license would fly a non-certificated aircraft unless he is an Experimental Test Pilot out of Edwards, Patuxent and other famous airfields where you would not be allowed in even just to sweep the runways.

You guys are on the right track. As far as I know the NTSB will nit be involved since the plane was built in Europe. There rae criminal suits filed in France against Airbus abd Air France and the will do anything they can to pass on the blame. If nothing was wrong why did the on-board monitoring send all the messages about airspeed problems etc and withdraw computer support. The crew probably lost control of the airplane, not because they were incompetent but rather because theybwere handed a mess of multiple warnings, disconnection of the autopilot etc and they were probably overwhelmed. Don't trust the French on this! To demonstrate how little regard Airbus has for pilots they promote the planes as "pilot proof". What an insult!

When in doubt.... blame it on the pilots is the airbus motto probably something with their fly by wire systems that caused the crash