Fly Guy wrote:
The pilots took too long to plant the plane on the runway.

Or the plane was pushed ahead without the pilots having any time to react. It
is wrong at this point in time to blame the pilots on "planting" the plane too
far.

Soon after touchdown, they attempted to take off, but only got as far
as a brief reving of the engines. Perhaps someone pulled rank in the
cockpit and nixed the idea of taking off

Speculation at this point in time.

Note that modern airplanes have a "toga" switch which automatically switches
the plane from landing to takeoff config, and the recorders would have shown
that this switch was activated and then cancelled.

The engines revcving up/down could have been an autonomic reaction by the
computers to prevent stall. In a strong switch from head to tail wind,
airspeed would drop significantly as measured on board.

I am surprised that the TSB would have leaked this piece of information that
leads to speculation. At the time of Swissair 111, the TSB had been very
careful not to leak incomplete information, and in fact, its web site was
quickly updated with a special section. The TSB's web site still lacks
information about the AF crash.





Now they were comitted to stopping the plane. Maybe they screwed up
and didn't deploy the thrust reversers, or spoilers, maybe they turned
off the ABS by mistake. They were doing 150 (kph or mph) when they
ran out of runway. We know what happened next.


All media speculation. We know all thrust reversers were deployed. We don't
know when, but the TSB does since they now have access to the FDR data and the
rapid access recorders from cockpit (which contain more info than FDR).

Spoilers and brakes are normally deployed automatically upon the landing gear
handling weight from the plane.



Because there was (apparently) no video recording of the approach and
landing, we don't know exactly where the plane touched down,

The invenstigators will know where it touched down, from thread marks on
runway as well as from timing of events in the FDR.


Consider the following scenario: wind shift causes plane to be brought to
middle of runway. Not enough runway left for either TOGA or for proper
landing. It takes time to get such a big plane to switch from descending at
landing speed to ascending without stalling, and this time is normally taken
with wheels on runway while plane re-accelerates, and undoes spoilers, brakes
etc etc. At one point in the landing sequence, the plane must touch down
before the jet engines generate enough thrust to re-accelerate the plane for a
TOGA.


The ATC *excerpts* that have been published mention the tower discussing with
other flights going around a storm that is approaching the airport. But no
mention of ATC talking to the AF flight about the storm that is nearing the
runway the plane is aiming for in final approach. Was there truly no mention,
or were such conversation omitted from the published excerps ? We don't know.


We need to get more hard facts before any judgement can be passed.

And there is also the issue of the fire. I suspect the TSB will spend a lot of
time on this issue, but we'll have to wait until the final report.