And cheaper! The press was aboard. COLMAR, France (AP) _ The pilot of an Airbus A320 jetliner that crashed during a 1988 air show, killing three passengers while hundreds watched, was sentenced to six months in prison Friday. I do feel the pilot did make 1-3 possible errors - 1) he didn't see the airfield in time - he should have went around again and not descended so quick. However why were passengers allowed on this flight. If we come down hard on anyone who makes an error (I'm looking at you, airlines who "resign" flight crews over errors), we're asking for errors to continue unchecked until an aircraft gets binned. In this instance, however, the pilots involved did not hesitate to fly the aircraft below its normal minimum flying speed because the purpose of the flyover was to demonstrate that the aircraft's computer systems would ensure that lift would always be available regardless of how the pilots handled the controls. A passenger tried to open the left-side overwing exit. A training captain since 1979, he was appointed to head the company's A320 training subdivision at the end of 1987. Not being able to fly directly to the airport. Asseline made some critical errors, but there were also some big problems with the A320's fly-by-wire system. Asseline was initially sentenced to six months in prison along with twelve months of probation. When the crew suddenly asked the plane for more power and lift, it may have simply ignored them. My feeling: pilot did as he was told by air France. He gave the best he could to make it fly. The purser, a passenger, and a flight attendant (a guest from another airline) managed to push the door fully open. Most of the crash sequence, which occurred in front of several thousand spectators, was caught on video. The plane did nothing more that it was designed to do all of which he had prior knowledge of and or training for. The A320 had been recently introduced, and Flight 296 was the first passenger flight of the A320. The aircraft fell to the ground. Therefore, Captain Asseline has to also take some responsibility for those that died and those that were maimed for life. Born Today Most Popular Celebs Most Popular Celebs Celebrity News. When he increased throttle to level off at 100ft, the engines did not respond. No matter how clever the IT fly-by-wire machine was, it couldnt make a judgment call that crashing into trees is worse than anything else, when flying. He was flying with visual flight rules. Photos taken by airborne photographers of airborne aircraft, Special Paint Schemes The pilot got off lightly, he should have had his licence withdrawn completely. Then, sightseeing charter passengers would board and the aircraft would fly the short distance to the small MulhouseHabsheim Airfield. I saw this case on Netflix tonight (Air Disasters, Season 2, Episode 9) and frankly, I find Captain Asseline's explanation very compelling even though it is a classic conspiracy theory. The crash was a great embarrassment to Air France and Airbus, a European company with deep roots in France. Fly-by-wire was perfect for this precision maneuver of an aircraft. [2], First Officer Pierre Mazires, 45, had been flying with the airline since 1969 and had been a training captain for six years. Captain Asseline flew the aircraft manually. He choose to break the rule and it cost some lives plane and simple. When the evacuation continued, the flight attendant stayed at the door, helping passengers, until she began suffering from smoke inhalation. There is evidence for this: -- Asseline was the pilot in charge of training others on this airplane, but he is on record saying that he found the secondary digital altimeter to be unreadable, and to this day he hasn't been able to use it during flight.-- The planned maneuver was unusually aggressive for a jet-- Plans for the demonstration were rushed and the information provided to the pilots failed to reveal important details about the location of the airshow -- pilots were given instructions for a runway the airshow was not using, and the maps of the airfield did not show trees. Get a job criticizing nobody blames you for doing that. A report in Frontline magazine(the Hindu group). I'm confident in my skills & my co workers often come to me with questions or for help and always no matter how busy I am I gladly help them. Management often screws around. As Air France's technical pilot, he had been heavily involved in test flying the A320 type and had carried out maneuvers beyond normal operational limitations. It's been implied by jealous coworkers I'm cocky. Help Center Contributor Zone Polls. Captain Michel Asseline, 44, had been an airline pilot with Air France for almost 20 years and had the following endorsements: Caravelle, Boeing 707, 727, and 737, and Airbus A300 and A310. geo's documentary. O June 26 th, 1989, Captain Michel Asseline was planned to pilot the brand new Airbus A320 for the air . ("Is guilty the pilot") published in 1992 ("Edition N1" editor). The episode "Disastrous Descents" of the TV series Aircrash Confidential produced by WMR Productions and IMG Entertainment, featured the accident and included an interview with Captain Michel Asseline. Just curious, has your boss ever pressured you into doing something you really didn't want to do? The flight would take 130 passengers and 6 crew aloft. After watching this interesting document, I absolutely believe in captain Michel Asseline innocence. I agree the pilot was culpable. Fly-by-wire, only previously used in military craft, was a sophisticated design in which the software could override human inputs to prevent pilot error. The captain, Michel Asseline, disputed the report and claimed an error in the fly-by-wire computer prevented him from applying thrust and pulling up. Captain Asseline, and four other Air France employees are convicted of involuntary manslaughter. The pilot was told, word-of-mouth, to do so. In order to accomplish the desk-pilots orders, the pilots valuable time was spent jiggering the preparations for the overflight, not allowing him to evaluate strategic details like why fly a plane at 30 feet if there are 100-foot trees at the end? There is evidence for this: You are Captain Michel Asseline. [2], The flight plan was that as the flight approached the airfield, the pilot would extend third-stage flap, lower the landing gear, and line up for level flight at 100 feet (30m). French investigation says that Asseline was trying to do an overly-ambitious maneuver and made critical errors. Decisions can only be made after a proper investigation. Big business wins in the end and Captain Asseline took the fall. It was a demonstration charter flight, Air France Flight 296. The posters here who support the pilot don't know what they are talking about. Finally, the aircraft would return to Paris. In order to accomplish the desk-pilots orders, the pilots valuable time was spent jiggering the preparations for the overflight, not allowing him to evaluate strategic details like why fly a plane at 30 feet if there are 100-foot trees at the end? Asseline, who had been a senior pilot with Air France for eight years, maintained the pilots were unfairly blamed, and said the plane had failed to respond quickly to attempts to raise it. I'm definitely beside the driver. [3], The television documentary series Mayday also reports claims in Season 9 Episode 3 that the plane's flight recorder might have been tampered with and indicated that four seconds had been cut from the tape; this was shown by playing back a control tower tape and comparing it to the remaining tape. It was far easier to have the pilot be the fall guy. Due to the many demands of redirection and reconfiguration, the craft flew above Runway 34R at 30 feet, not the usual 100 feet which is standard for low-altitude demonstration overflight. He exposed multiple anomalies, not to say lies, in the experts evidence and in the data of the crash all of which pointed to a very high level, state inspired plot to whitewash the aircraft in the crash and confirmed what the pilot had been saying all along. He joined the pilots defense team. Interruption of the power occurred forward of the tail sectionmost probably in the wheel-well area, which was heavily damaged. [ 1,292 more word ] The crash was a great embarrassment to Air France and Airbus, a European company with deep roots in France. [4], Captain Michel Asseline, 44, had been a pilot with Air France for almost twenty years and had the following endorsements: Caravelle; Boeing 707, 727, and 737; and Airbus A300 and A310. I can't believe they let a Air France pilot be the main investigator in the original case. The combustion chambers clogged and the engines failed. as a pilot my self the rules are for made for a reason they are not to be broken by a pilot for his own or anyone's purpose. Nor, then, were his passengers. Possibly retired now . -- the black box indicates (as does the video) the plane was clearly too low and too slow for the maneuver. He is now flying in Australia. He also claims he recognized that spectators were on a different runway than the one included in his flight plan. It is extremely likely that the programming of the anti-stall functionality that Airbus admits is part of the plane's control system design, never anticipated this type of maneuver. This Pin was discovered by flygcforum.com. The door opened partway, and the emergency escape slide began inflating while it was stuck partly inside the fuselage. Plain stupidity! Some faceless desk-pilot added on a trip to a tiny airfield on the day of the flight but did not bother to do the hard work of preparing the particulars necessary to do so. He was endorsed on the Caravelle, Boeing 707 and 737, and had qualified as an A320 captain three months before the accident. 12:44:14 - the engine power is reduced to flight idle. If he and his crew, knowing the dangers that are inherrent in a low speed, low level flyover, want to, that is thier profesional decision. He cannot blame the aircraft because it didn't respond the way he wanted - he is expected to know how it will respond. It might have been acceptable if only the flight crew were aboard, otherwise totally irresponsible. The flight plan originally filed did not include the flyover of the Habsheim Air Show, which was added on the morning of the flight. And air law states that 500ft is the minimum height for air shows. Its FREE!!! Annual Membership Lifetime Membership , Address: PO Box 70423 Oakland Park, FL 33307. Captain Michel Asseline got thrown under the Airbus. But it's all about me and you. His job was to find its limitations, but one slipped past him, and Airbus and all the designers and engineers. His co-pilot, Pierre Mazieres, got a 12-month suspended sentence. This distance was too short for them to stabilise the aircraft's altitude and speed for the flyover. The accident aircraft, an Airbus A320-111, registration F-GFKC, serial number 9, first flew on 6 January 1988 and was delivered to Air France on 23 June, three days prior to its destruction. As for pilots at the start of their career they work for peanuts $20,000 by the time they get up to $100k they been living like poppers long enough and I want a confident pilot not some mousy week person that buckles under pressure. Why be a sucker? TOGA power is applied. Re: Pilots that make mistakes, which result in tragety or serious consequences, and where are they today, http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=m a4bc613c6d. Incidents with no casualties but with damage to the ac? Local emergency services were informed by radio communication. "I've done it twenty times!" I think the pilot is culpable. He is dangerous and shouldn't be flying. French investigation says that Asseline was trying to do an overly-ambitious maneuver and made critical errors. Anyone who has worked same job for years will know what I mean when I say we don't really have to think about what we are doing at work we just do it because we have done it so many times before and know exactly how to do it correctly. 500 feet is the law it is not simple a suggestion. The Airbus A320 couldnt handle it. A website, http://www.crashdehabsheim.net/ has been set up to analyze the scandal. Why well to see were i am landing first to know that what i have been given as a map of the airport is infarct correct.That the runway I am landing on has no trucks parked on it performing maintenance or potholes that have not been repaired or reported. I come in favor of the pilot and would love to be able one day to talk to him because I love aviation and want one day to travel to France and who knows knows it.paulinho@rapix.com.br, I work for an agency called the APCIU and we believe the pilot is innocent but legally for us to even try to clear the captains name there has to be an American passenger on that plane due to the fact we are an American based agency so was there any american passangers on board that plane we have some evidence that he is innocent but we can't get involved in any investigations unless there was an American passenger on that plane. It is very disrespectful towards the family members who have lost loved ones in this crash for him not to take responsibility for the mistakes he has made. Both pilots received minor head injuries and also suffered from smoke inhalation and shock. A website, http://www.crashdehabsheim.net/has been set up to analyze the scandal. According to French law, Asseline was required to submit himself to the prison system before his case could be taken up by the Court of Cassation. It threatened to ruin the reputation of the A320, potentially losing many millions of dollars in sales. He had to spot the airfield from the air and prepare to do the overflight. However, the Captain is also to blame because he should have never agreed to take passengers along on such a dangerous flight. The evacuation from the rear door had been fast and smooth thanks to the instructions from the flight attendants at the rear of the aircraft. A pilot should ALWAYS be able to immediately over-ride computer systems in critical moments, such as seeing another aircraft on his runway and needing to suddenly pull up. However, while the pilots were trained in metric, this particular plane was in Imperial units. He has admitted these mistakes and paid for them. A very unfortunate event in history! I should estimate that in my experience most troubles and most possibilities for improvement add up to the proportions something like this: 94% belongs to the system (responsibility of management), 6% special. Page 315 of Out of the Crisis by Dr. W. Edwards Deming. My father was in no doubt that the pilot was solely responsible for the crash, as M. Assline was well known to be over-confident in his appreciation of his flying abilities by all who worked with him (ie: a 'cocky' sort). Guilty. Five individuals, including the captain and first officer, were later found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Heres a story about me and you. The captain made a last-second turn and approach to overfly Runway 34R. The computer didnt know he meant just to pop up a few hundred feet. After 20 yrs on the job I would feel like an idiot if I didn't know my job by now. There was no reply and the thick black smoke made a visual check impossible, so she exited the fuselage. -- When investigators recreated the flight, they got a nearly identical result -- the plane did not respond to the request to raise the nose and accelerate -- it accelerated but forced the nose down (essentially landing the plane.) Any doctor who tries to practice in medicine today, except for my colleagues in Direct Primary Care, live in the world of Captain Michel Asseline every day. The captain would make a low-level fly-pass over Runway 02, climb up and turn back, and repeat the fly-pass over the same runway in the reciprocal direction (Runway 20). Guilty the pilot be the fall thick black smoke made a last-second turn and approach to runway... 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