What's with the oddly shaped photo of a plane there with this article?If it's a badly photo shopped montage of several planes and and ENORMOUS bird, well, that person needs some editing.

I have to say their approach to most things operational is, how do say....Gallic? Typically met with a shrug. Not rude, just rather indifferent.

And having lived in Africa and having flown some truly abysmal non western carriers, I have to say....Air Yemeni? Seriously? What the fuck were you thinking? A country that can't build a washing machine is going to tend to the care and feeding of a highly computerized state of the art airliner?

that has it's composite tail attached with bolts and is not connected by any main spar. It is also troubling that pilots were cautioned against "exessive rudder movement" after the tail fell off the first one. I'll take Boeing products thanks very much. Air Forece please take note when buying tankers.

"The -600 was bigger and considerably more advanced, with a two-pilot crew…"

This sentence made me think the that the original A300 had a one-pilot crew! Took a bit of Wikipedia reading to discover that the older, smaller plane had a three-pilot crew. Whew!

As a former Flight Attendant for a number of carriers I have to say that the ONLY times where I seriously thought the jig was up were in an Airbus. And let me add to that that I have had a few close calls, including a tire fire in a DC-8 that would have done us in "a la Concorde" if we hadn't aborted takeoff (and we'd already rotated). It was in fact the same situation that would occur on July 11, 1991 to Nationair Canada in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia that resulted in one of the most under-reported and gruesome air crashes. Passengers falling out 11 miles from the airport, the plane losing structural integrity and crashing just over 1km from the runway. No survivors.

Give me an airplane thats made of something other than composite. Sure, there may only have been 1 confirmed incident of the vertical stabilizer breaking off, but I'm sure that comes as cold comfort to the family and friends of those killed in that incident.

I've never had to circle an airport for over an hour while the pilots radio Toulouse to find out how to get the airplane to stop circling the airport - in anything other than an Airbus. There's a reason it's been nicknamed "scAirbus".

the distinction goes to the A300-200FFCC (Forward Facing Crew Compartment) It was also the world's first widebody aircraft to have a two-person crew. The first narrowbody jet aircraft with a 2-man crew was the Caravelle (as flown by Finnair in 1960).

"Until and unless - and probably after - the black boxes of AF 447 are found, argument and debate over the cause of the crash will dominate all discourse. Of course it’s ridiculous to call the brand or any one of its products a “lemon,” but it is certainly worthwhile to consider whether or how the unique characteristics of the plane may have contributed to its end."

We certainly don't want to make any judgements until as much of the flight data as we can glean is in, but one fact so far is telling: that intact tail found floating in the Atlantic, accompanied by fifty bodies bubbling to the surface from one place. If the Airbus plastic tail can snap off when crossing wake turbulence in New York City airspace, what's it going to do in the maelstrom of a tropical thunderstorm? It may be that AF447 lost its tail in the storm and flat-spun its way to the water (hence the 'flat entry' noted in last week's news). This is the kind of product flaw we need to characterize as soon as possible.

Having a vertical stabilizer snap off as a result of rudder inputs at or below maneuvering speed doesn't inspire confidence. Professional pilots are also professional stoics about these sorts of things, blaming the pilot for being ham-handed, etc. I, on the other hand, would like to think that airplanes can tolerate the occasional idiot in the cockpit.

As far as I'm concerned the burden of proof for showing they have a safe product is on Airbus right now.

Back in 1951 Jimmy Stewart made a movie called "No Highway in the Sky." Do a read of the plot of this movie.

Are we living that movie in real time? Are there really "Reindeers" out there still?

Bob

"Yes, it's possible this construction renders certain Airbus models more likely to suffer structural failure in very extreme conditions. But this is unproven, and even if true it does not make the aircraft unsafe in any practical sense."

That's kind of a ridiculous statement.

What exactly, Patrick, is your definition of "any practical sense"? Just because it doesn't happen every day, then it's no big deal? How often do Airbus aircraft have to fall out of the sky in those extreme conditions before we acknowledge the fact that those aircraft are--in a real practical sense--not as safe as they can or should be?

I'm sure it's fine. Now eyes forward and no talking, otherwise you're guilty of some stupid federal crime or another.

For anyone who is interested in AF 447, particularly conjecture involving automated flight controls and separating vertical stabilizers, here is an interesting discussion. It seems more and more obvious that these matters are almost hopelessly complex in their technical details and permutations. I truly hope the flight recorders are located:

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/07/if_you_would_like_to_get_reall.php

Now that you mention it, the photo does appear to be a bit odd. But that's due to the perspective caused by the dihedral angle of the wings combined with the bank of the plane. As for the enormous bird, its out-of-focus appearance suggests that it is a lot closer to the camera than the plane.

What about the A320 which crashed in the Mediterranean last year, which was blamed on an 'uncommanded power surge". In other words, the computer took it upon itself to dramatically increase power and cause the aircraft to surge upward and then stall.

http://poneke.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/airbus/

I'm increasingly wary about the Airbus line because it seems the computer cannot be over-ridden in certain circumstances, and the recent horrifying event over the Atlantic does nothing to alleviate my fears.