Anyone see this before?

Qgar

New Member
A non-aviation friend sent this to me. Has anyone heard about this before now?
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Thisbrand spanking new Airbus 340-600, the largest passenger airplane ever built, sits just outside its hangar in Toulouse , France without a single hour of airtime.

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Enter the Arab flight crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) to conduct pre-delivery tests on the ground, such as engine run-ups prior to delivery to Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi ...
The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600 to the run-up area.

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Then they took all Four engines to takeoff power with a virtually empty aircraft. Not having Read the run-up manuals, they had no clue just how light an empty A340-600 Really is.

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The takeoff warning horn was blaring away in the cockpit because they had All 4 engines at full power.

The aircraft computers thought they were trying to take off, but it had not been configured properly (flaps/slats, etc.).

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Then one of the ADAT crew decided to pull the circuit breaker on the Ground Proximity Sensor to silence the alarm. This fools the aircraft into thinking it is in the air.

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The computers automaticallyreleased all the Brakes and set the aircraft rocketing forward..


The ADAT crew had no idea that this is a safety feature so that pilots can't land with the brakes on.

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Not one member of the seven-man crew was smart
enough to throttle back the engines from their max power setting, so the $200 million brand-new Aircraft crashed into a blast barrier, totaling it.


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The extent of injuries to the crew is unknown due to the news blackout in the major media in France and elsewhere.

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Coverage of the story was deemed insulting to Muslim Arabs.


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Finally, the photos are starting to leak out.

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French Airbus:
$200 million dollars

Untrained Arab Flight crew:
$300,000 annual Salary

Unread Operating Manual:
$300

Aircraft hits retaining wall
and the wall wins:

Priceless!

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Yes it happened. No it wasn't covered up. There are a ton of pictures of it over at a.net.
 
Here too :)

http://forums.jetcareers.com/pictures-road/76175-how-not-do-engine-runup.html


Sometimes those test flights make me worry...

I just did one the other day, and although there was an actual maintenance checklist to follow to do an inflight test of the AIR DRIVEN GENERATOR:

ALTITUDE below 8000ft

EMERG DEPRES - ON

APU - START

Airspeed below 220kts.

ADG DEPLOY HANDLE - PULL

APU GEN - OFF/RESET

GEN 2 - OFF / RESET

AUTOPILOT - OFF

Navigate using conventional navigation or radar vectors. FMS and DME will not be available.

GEN 1 - OFF / RESET

HYD 2B, HYD 1B, HYD 3A, and HYD 3B - OFF


Needless to say we were very hesitant to turn that last gen switch to the OFF/RESET position as well as all the hydraulics..
 
Yeah, I know I'm guilty of digging up a dead thread here, but I just wanted to post an answer.

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

In short, besides the obvious anti-Arab sentiment, the original email makes a whole mess of factual errors for the sake of producing a sensational story - the most glaring of which being that it was an Airbus tech at the controls. Whatever your beef with Airbus, Arabs, or retaining walls, it's always nice to have the real story.
 
That Snopes article seemed to put a lot of emphasis on not having the wheels chocked. I know that in small GA planes it is possible to apply power and jump the chocks, so I had always figured that an airliner would do the same. Is this not so?
 
Probably not at higher N1/EPR settings. Brakes have a whole lot of stopping power, but I doubt they could stop a fully spooled up set of engines.
 
A non-aviation friend sent this to me. Has anyone heard about this before now?

Yes, and it's just as misleading now as it was when it started the right-wing email rounds 2 years ago.

I'd recommend checking out any mass emails you get on snopes before believing them.
 
Yes, and it's just as misleading now as it was when it started the right-wing email rounds 2 years ago.

I'd recommend checking out any mass emails you get on snopes before believing them.

I still believe EVERYTHING I read on the interwebs:rotfl:
 
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