> All these crews are lucky, if you want to call it that. > They're lucky because there's a lot of crashworthiness > and even ditchworthiness built into the airframe, and > because the crews train like crazy, far in excess of > the already-strict FAA requirements.
Yes, the entire flight crew was well-trained, and we all ought to listen to them carefully at the beginning of each flight. With that said, I'd be careful about claiming "ditchworthiness". Sure, there was the reported ditch switch present in the Airbus aircraft, but according to the reports I read this morning, the underside of the fuselage was "shredded". Whether that's an exaggeration or not, chances are the ditch switch (if it had been activated, which it reportedly was not) would have had no effect whatsoever given the much bigger holes that apparently opened up. An aircraft is not at all well-suited for ditching and given the appendages that can easily impart all sorts of moments (leading to tumbling and ensuing disintegration), the use of the word "miraculous" to describe a successful ditching is not inappropriate in the least. The flight crew obviously is very skilled, but I've also read reports that water ditching is not something pilots train for in the simulator. There probably ought to be more research and study done on water landings. Note that the 787 should not have the problem with shredding of fuselage skin. It's made of the same materials that boat hulls are (roughly speaking) ;-) Regardless, Airbus has got to be happy that their plane did so well in this accident, given the circumstances. JB ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
