A brand new A340-600 aircraft was badly damaged when it ran through a blast barrier at the Airbus Saint-Martin facility at Toulouse, France. There were no fatalities, but five people were injured. The accident happened late on the afternoon of November 15, 2007.The aircraft, which was painted in Etihad Airways livery, was undergoing pre-delivery tests on the ground at the Airbus facility at the time of the accident. According to a news release issued today by Airbus, engine-run-ups were being carried out on the A340-600, MSN 856, which was due to be delivered to Etihad in just a few days.
At the time of the accident, there were nine people on board the aircraft, including two Airbus staff, and seven employees of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT). Five of those nine people were injured, but as of today only the two Airbus employees and one ADAT employee remained hospitalized. None of their injuries are reported to be life-threatening.
Etihad Airways confirms that there were no Etihad staff involved in the accident.
Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies is a maintenance service provider to Etihad Airways. ADAT was formerly known as GAMCO.
Click here to view a brief news video (French language) about the accident, from the TF1 network in France.
Best wishes to those injured for a speedy and complete recovery.
UPDATE November 19, 2007: FlightGlobal.com is reporting that the A340-600 "had completed its engine test-runs and was exiting the test area at the time of the accident." The same article also mentions confirmation from Etihad that the aircraft was a write-off.
8 comments:
Here is wishing a speedy recovery to those injured. What a fiscal waste, a lovely new aircraft!!!
It's a scarebus, not a great loss really. Make sure the damn hydraulics are all on and use bigger chock blocks next time ;-)
Ah, anonymous, such cynicism and such after-the-fact brilliance! Unfortunately, not all of us are perfect like you, as most of us make mistakes (and it probably was a human error and not mechanical failure). If we're lucky, nothing gets damaged and nobody gets hurt. Unfortunately, it doesn't always happen that way. Guess we should just call you and let you do it.
Hello TomP:
I made a New Year's Resolution never to set foot in a Scarebus again, so I can not help you next time. Otherwised, I'd have given you my email address.
I have made my share of mistakes, but still, tie the sumbitch down, make sure the brakes are gonna hold, I mean ... c'mon now.
airbus, great plane and a sad loss, I only fly on Airbus aircraft, so much nicer and safer than Boeings, this was not a failure of the plane, but someones silly mistake
Origins: The photographs displayed above do represent the aftermath an Airbus 340 engine test that ended in a ground collision, but unconfirmed, pejorative information has been added to the accompanying text
which describes the circumstances of the accident.
On 15 November 2007, a four-engine Airbus A340-600 (which is not actually "the largest passenger airplane ever built") in the process of being delivered to Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways was undergoing ground engine testing at the Airbus Technical Center in Toulouse, France. During those tests, the aircraft somehow broke loose and crashed into the test-pen wall as pictured above. According to press reports, nine people — two Airbus employees and seven employees of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT), a service provider contracted by Etihad — were aboard the airliner at the time, and four of them were injured. (It is not true, as claimed, that there was "a news blackout in the major media in France and elsewhere" because "coverage of the story was deemed insulting to Moslem Arabs.")
Although the accident did occur while ground engine tests were being conducted with the plane's parking brake applied, a report released by French investigators in December 2008 did not confirm that claim made above that the crash was caused by ADAT technicians who were unfamiliar with the aircraft and overrode a vital safety feature:
French investigators have found that an Airbus to be delivered to Etihad Airways crashed during ground engine tests because the wheels were unchocked and attempts to steer away from a wall had decreased brake pressure.
A 30-page report released by the Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses (BEA) said the four Trent 500 engines, carrying 56,000 pounds of thrust each, were being tested at high power and the wheels were left unchocked.
"Surprise led the ground-test technician to focus on the braking system, so he did not think about reducing the engines' thrust," said the report.
"It was all over in 13 seconds," said David Kaminski-Morrow, an editor at Air Transport Intelligence. "The aeroplane shouldn't haven been running with engines at higher power and the aeroplane should have had chocks on the wheels to stop [it] moving, and these things didn't happen. It was basically a schoolboy error."
"The report does not say who made the decision to put the aeroplane in the position which led to the accident in the first place. What part ADAT played and what part Airbus made is not publicly clear," Mr Kaminski-Morrow said.
"This will probably be the subject of Airbus internal inquiries. But I find it hard to believe suddenly all the rules got broken because ADAT came along. It was at the Airbus headquarters, it was an Airbus test pen, it was an Airbus engineer at the right-hand seat, which the report said is where control inputs were coming from. An ADAT engineer was in the left seat."
In the run-up to the accident, the full-power engine test with wheels unchocked was testing the limits of the parking brake. As the aircraft began to move, an ADAT engineer reported the aircraft was moving. According to the flight recorder, at that point the pedal brake was applied and the parking brake deactivated, said Mr Kaminski-Morrow. Finally, the steering wheel was turned to avoid crashing into the test-pen wall, but that had the opposite effect as it instead reduced the braking pressure.
Last updated: 9 January 2009
http://www.snopes.com/photos/airplane/etihad.asp
Always check Snopes...
http://www.snopes.com/photos/airplane/etihad.asp
Anonymous, why would you use chocks if you were exiting the test area after full power tests as the article says?
Do you know something about chocks the rest of us who aren't American and want to sell Boeing don't?
David M.
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