"...The extent of injuries to the crew is unknown, for there has been a news blackout in the major media in France and elsewhere. Coverage of the story was deemed insulting to Moslem Arabs..."

Rhetorical question: Who is more pathetic, the Arab flight crew or the French MSM moguls who blacked out the story so as to not offend Muslims?

I am trying to think of a senerio where Canadians would be put in a situation to fail at a task like that..........

From the look of the cockpit, it seems unlikely that any of the crew survived. Didn't they realize they were supposed to take before crashing into something? "No virgins for you!"

Maybe it is better that Arabs stay away from planes as their track record lately is a tad spotty.

Maybe some 'ships of the desert' (camels) might be more their style.

At least when planes went down in my family, we were being shot at.

It isn't insulting to Moslem Arabs, just em-bare-assing.

An $80 million dollar aircraft and the crew don't get a demo ride? I wonder who has the insurance contract on this fiasco?

Cheers

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht
Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group "True North"

80 million?

pfft. a few days oil revenue.

I believe the A380 is the largest passenger airliner, not the Airbus 340-600 as stated in the article.

"Not one member of the seven-man Arab crew was smart enough to throttle back the engines..."

Smart has nothing to do with it. They were poorly trained.

The news blackout was indeed dumb however.

this brings new meaning to "terminally stupid"...i'm laughing my ass off...when it comes to arab flight crews, never fly higher than your willing to fall.

It feels like I've stumbled across a KKK meeting.

What are we basing the legitimacy of this "news blackout" on? Apart from the author who came up with this gem: "Not one member of the seven-man Arab crew was smart enough to throttle back the engines from their max power setting".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7098547.stm
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,517772,00.html
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22768585-12377,00.html
http://www.enjoyfrance.com/content/view/1128/36/
http://www.news.com.au/travel/story/0,26058,22768585-27977,00.html
http://asifiqbal.com/2007/11/22/etihad-airbus-crash-in-france-images/

Theres 5 links, all with pictures, one with a multitude of them, all released within a week of November 15th, 2007 (the date of the crash). First page of the google search "airbus crash france".

If anyone cares, "In all 10 people were injured and four people were taken to hospital, three of whom were in serious conditions, they said."

Some news blackout.

Sounds like the proper respect for the activity at hand wasn't being observed. A little bit of fear is a good thing sometimes, it prevents fatal mistakes. I don't for a second think this has a lot to do with the ethnicity of the flight crew to be honest. Stupid knows no ethnic boundary.

On the other hand, covering this incident up is an entirely strange thing to do, and it speaks to the fear in the French media.

nothing to see here

move along...............

Hold Fire! Canadian Airlines did the identical thing to a Canadian Forces CC-150 Polaris (read Airbus 310) at Vancouver many years ago. Airline Technicians failed to follow check lists and pulled circuit breakers resulting in the aircraft jumping the chocks and plowing into a maintenance shed. The aircraft was seriously damaged and had to be flown to Germany with the gear locked down for some major repairs. That added to our carbon footprint.

jeff k.

"I am trying to think of a senerio where Canadians would be put in a situation to fail at a task like that.........."

see sabre 0's post above and also read-up on this incident: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

- something just as bad as today's incident 100% due to CDN poor training.

The religion of pieces (of aircraft)

and then there were thee Iranians whom had Tomcats (F-14) and were not all that good in them. Guess all those virgins to be fog the brain!!

that's latin for jihad!?

says it right there on the plane

"It feels like I've stumbled across a KKK meeting."

I think you're on the wrong side of the political aisle. The KKK was an institution of the Democrats.

"It feels like I've stumbled across a KKK meeting."

I think you're on the wrong side of the political aisle. The KKK was an institution of the Democrats.

I was referring to the racist tone of the (laughably inaccurate) article, and the accompanying thread, not the political affiliation of anyone involved.

I think you knew that though. :)

Kate:

While the KKK was populated by democrats they were dixiecrats - the most conservative part of the US during their time. Had Lincoln been a democrat they would have been republican.

The current KKK is primarily GOP supporting - if David Duke is anything to go by. Most of the Dixiecrats moved over to the GOP by way of George Wallace and Richard Nixon.

I think it's a reasonable to say that KKK members would be more agreeable with the opinions expressed on this site by both you and us posters than they would on left-wing democrat-supporting sites like Huffpo and KOS.

That said, the dogmatic, unsubstantiated vitriolic style of Huffpo, KOS et al is right up the old KKK's alley. The far-left is the KKK - of our era.

This is not about idiots who can't fly.Nor the crash itself. This happens all over the world no doubt. Its all about the ban folks. The ban! More Dhiminization continues fermenting in Eurabia.

Its all about the ban folks. The ban! More Dhiminization continues fermenting in Eurabia.

There was no ban. OK? Try to keep up now.

There was no ban. OK? Try to keep up now.

Posted by: Samuel

Its not a matter of me keeping up, its that you never started.

The extent of injuries to the crew is unknown, for there has been a news blackout in the major media in France and elsewhere.

http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/3207/85/

Most of the Dixiecrats moved over to the GOP by way of George Wallace and Richard Nixon.

What? Wallace was a life-long Democrat and Nixon was never one. Wallace was open in his racism (until he repented) and Nixon kept any racist views he may have had private. The only reason the Klan types switched parties is because the Democrats were taken over by even bigger screw-balls and started promoting radicalist positions.

We're all for multiculturalism, but, strangely, when it comes to the flight of an aircraft, we all suddenly revert to a narrow, euro-centric, lock-step belief in the laws of physics as discovered and developed by the West.

Thank you, Samuel, from providing some critical legwork to counter the rabid, self-indulgent commentary flowing from yet another of Kate's uninformed, misleading, and prejudicial posts.

For those who think that the media blackout applied only to the French MSM:

- 3w.lefigaro.fr/actualites/2007/11/15/01001-20071115ARTFIG00273-un-airbus-percute-un-parapet-a-toulouse.php
- 3w.lemonde.fr/web/recherche_breve/1,13-0,37-1013392,0.html

For those who think that the failure to report the extent of injury to the test-crew constitutes a media blackout, the fact is, nobody knew at the time. By the 17th, Etihad Airlines itself released a news release reporting no serious injury.

Yeah, the story is --ist; not "racist", precisely, but it definitely lumps Arabs together. That being said, I'd give long odds that Hans is correct for the wrong reasons -- that the crew were offered a check ride and instruction, and waved it off: "We are experts, we'll take it from here." This is not by any means an attitude restricted to Arabs.

In fact, it points up a similar attitude which results in one of the most striking, though least evident to the nonexpert, features of Airbus aircraft, which is that the flight crew on an Airbus is mostly decorative. As on most modern aircraft, the "controls" are merely computer inputs; Airbus's philosophy is that its engineers and programmers know better than mere pilots, so the computer will ignore or override control inputs whenever the program's decisions disagree with the pilot's. It is that philosophy, combined with the inability of any human agency to think of everything beforehand, that caused the crash -- the procedure the crew used was foolish and wasteful, but wouldn't have caused a disaster in an aircraft with its brake pedals connected directly to the brakes, or likely a Boeing, which is designed from the reverse philosophy, i.e., that the pilot probably knows more than the programmer.

Specifically: the computer released the brakes because it had no ground-proximity signal, but did not check to see if the ground-proximity detector was working before doing so. If I were the Emir, I would refuse to pay for the plane on the ground that that constitutes negligence on the part of Airbus Industrie.

Regards,
Ric

An Airbus A340-x00 is fly-by-wire... meaning, everything is computer. Plus, the power-to-weight ratio is ridiculous. Here's a sanitized version of what a Chinese A340 did at Anchorage (The versions I heard are much more fun):

China Airlines Flight 011 was parked at the Anchorage International Airport's north terminal, gate N4. At 02:21, the first officer contacted Anchorage Air Traffic Control Tower (ATCT) clearance delivery and stated: "Dynasty 011 heavy, clearance, flight level 320 to Taipei, information Juliet, Bay N4." The clearance delivery controller stated: "Dynasty 011 Heavy, cleared to the Taipei Airport via Anchorage Three Departure, then as filed. Climb and maintain flight level 200, departure frequency will be 118.6, squawk 4032." At 02:24, the first officer contacted ground control, advising the controller that they were ready for their push-back from gate N4. The ground controller responded by stating: "Dynasty 011 heavy, Anchorage ground, good morning sir, push back is approved, plan runway 32 for departure.", which was acknowledged. After reporting ready for taxi at 02:32 the local controller stated: "Dynasty 011 heavy, taxi runway 32 at Kilo, taxi via Mike, Romeo, Kilo." The incident airplane then began to taxi away from the N4 gate, turning south on taxiway Romeo. The airplane proceeded southbound on taxiway Romeo, and made a right turn from Romeo onto taxiway Kilo. At 02:40:06, as the airplane was southbound on taxiway Romeo, preparing to turn right onto taxiway Kilo the controller stated: "Dynasty 011 heavy, wind 360 at seven, runway 32 at Kilo, cleared for takeoff." The first officer responded by stating: "Cleared for takeoff, 32, Kilo, Dynasty 011 heavy." After turning right onto Kilo, the airplane stopped. The airplane was expected by the ATCT local controller to continue west on Kilo into the extended portion of runway 32, and then turn right (north) onto the approach end of runway 32. Instead, at 02:42:10, the airplane began accelerating west on taxiway Kilo. The available taxiway distance from Romeo to the end of Kilo is about 6,800 feet. After departure, main landing gear tire impressions were found in a snow berm at the end of taxiway Kilo. The airplane proceeded to Taipei and landed without incident.

So yeah -- an A340 departed from a taxiway. Now, don't tell Transport Canada this, but I've departed ultralights and even an ocasional Beaver or Otter from a taxiway, but not a heavy.

Ric's right, the news blackout if it really existed was probably meant to protect embattled Airbus NOT the crew. (eg the A380 not selling as well as hoped, the A400M not on schedule)

I visited all links provided by Samuel, and one thing keeps coming back`; "unknown cause"

First link; "...The cause of the crash remains unclear."

Second link ; "...the plane lurched into the barrier and wall "for reasons still unknown."

Third link; "...For an unknown reason the aircraft began to roll and it climbed up the embankment in front of it,"

Fourth link; "...and the cause of the crash remains undetermined at present."

Fifth link; "...For an unknown reason the aircraft began to roll and it climbed up the embankment in front of it,"

...

Either this is a partial "news black out" as they are trying to hide the fact some idiot took out an alarm fuse and caused the accident, or the guy at to the point news has too much imagination.

...

And about the 340-360 not being the largest plane, it is true but it is the longest in the world,

"...The A340-600 model is the longest passenger aircraft in the world, seating up to 472 passengers. Seventy-four are currently in operation -- mainly in the fleets of Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic and Emirates."

...

The sixth link has only one line of text but 7 photos.

...

I have way too much time on my hands!!!

It is difficult to see what purpose is served by repeatedly pointing out that the crew was Arab. I don't recall a single reference to the colour of the skin of either of the crews involved in the accident at Tenerife, and why would there be? What could be less relevant?

Now, if the French did indeed suppress the details in order to avoid giving offence to Muslims, that's the real story here.

So. Samuel. Buddy. Reality check time, m'kay?
We don't even know a casualty count yet.

Checking reality, If a FRENCH aircrew crashed a brand new Boeing 747-400 through gross, stunning incompetence (they pulled the alarm breaker?!!!) at an American airport, would still pictures of the accident be dribbling out in ones and twos on the internet a week later?

Or, would we have been treated to wall-to-wall four network coverage with live helicopter cams and breathless infobabes repeating the same information breathlessly every 40 seconds?

So when an Arab crew screws up by the friggin' numbers with such spectacular results, and we don't hear nuttin', one might suspect an "arrangement" was made, possibly a golden handshake or two with the big MSM weenies in France. Media circuses are put on for money, I can't see those guys passing one up without some quid-pro-quo somewhere.

Now, as to the reasons for the arrangement I find it likely that the Arab airline in question might have made some golden requests for silence, as well as Airbus. Having one of your brand new planes busted up on TV looks bad, eh?

What impresses me here is the power -somebody- has to shut these media guys up. This is a huge, spectacular, made for TV incident. Dead bodies, crushed metal, holy smokes Batman! And the French media says NOTHING. Now that's power.

So Sammy, baby. The next time you think the media is pure and unbiased, just think of every reporter in Paris NOT covering a whole crashed airliner, and what it would take to do that on purpose.

Uuuuh - dad? I had a little mishap with the car. Put a few scratches on it. Ya, I know its a Rolls - sorry. I'm grounded for HOW long?!?!

Friend of USA: "Either this is a partial "news black out" as they are trying to hide the fact some idiot took out an alarm fuse and caused the accident, or the guy at to the point news has too much imagination."

I'm leaning towards that second option, since the TTPN story doesn't actually contain any sources.

Keep in mind that the news reports began flowing the morning after the incident. It seems very likely that, at the time, it was really the case that nobody knew with reasonable certainty what had happened. By way of comparison, the cause of the Air France crash at Toronto's Pearson Airport a few years ago likewise remained unknown for several weeks until an investigation was conducted.

FYI: French authorities launched a similar investigation the following day, which is standard protocol with aviation incidents of this sort. If you really have time on your hands, you may want to track down that final report.

Darwin works his magic again, cleansing the gene pool ;-)

My point, above, is that embarrassment for Arabs is not necessarily the only explanation. Airbus Industrie has a dog in that fight, too.

Some of you may recall the Airbus that crashed at an air show some years ago. The cause of that incident has been declared to be "pilot error", which is correct as far as it goes -- the pilot got the airplane "behind the curve", into a flight regime where it didn't have the oomph to recover. What they do not tell you, except 'way down in the small-print footnotes, is that the computer on that airplane overrode the pilot. It reconfigured the aerodynamics of the plane in such a way as to reduce lift and power at a critical moment. There is no guarantee that the pilot could have recovered if that hadn't happened, but the computer's actions turned a very fraught situation into one in which recovery wasn't possible even in principle.

There have been a number of Airbus crashes where that sort of thing contributed (at minimum) to the problem. Pilots know it, and are trained to keep Airbuses well within the Book's recommendations, in the knowledge that if they do not the airplane will actively try to kill them. Understandably, Airbus doesn't care to publicize that, and has the full weight of the French Government behind them to help suppress it.

Disallowing brakes while airborne is a purely economic decision. If the brakes are on before touchdown, the sudden jolt is virtually certain to cause expen$ive damage to the landing gear and its attachment structures, and the policy is designed to avoid that -- which makes the bean-counters happy as Hell. Unfortunately that is also predicated on the airplane always operating out of well-maintained airports with long runways. If an A340 ever has to land at a short field in an emergency, that decision is going to kill people.

Regards,
Ric

The Phantom: "Reality check time, m'kay? We don't even know a casualty count yet."

Yes, we do. Ten injured, three seriously, five hospitalized, no deaths. You do realize this crash happened back in Nov 2007, don't you?

"...would still pictures of the accident be dribbling out in ones and twos on the internet a week later?"

Actually, still pictures and video footage began 'dribbling out' the same evening the incident occurred. Just because you didn't hear about it doesn't mean it was deliberately kept from you.

"I find it likely that the Arab airline in question might have made some golden requests for silence, as well as Airbus."

Actually, Etihad released multiple press releases--press releases!--in the days following the incident. Airbus held a press conference immediately after the crash. Odd way of requesting a media blackout, don't you think?

"The next time you think the media is pure and unbiased, just think of every reporter in Paris NOT covering a whole crashed airliner, and what it would take to do that on purpose."

Actually, the story was well-covered by the French national media, including both the right-of-centre Le Figaro and the left-of-centre Le Monde. In addition, it was covered by the Toulouse regional press, such as the La Depeche du Midi, and the international media, including video from AP. It was even mentioned in the Ottawa Citizen and the Calgary Herald. Indeed, the French state government issued a press release immediately following the incident.

You are truly a moron.

Yep I think the the real story is the French Media!

This is hardly the only incident that should have been well documented and reported that saw little action. The French government has been involved in some curious interference over the last few years.
- A ban on citizens not certified as press taking pictures of incidents ... criminalizing what is common in north America.
- A defacto ban on the use of the term Islamofascist or even mentioning that Arabs or Muslims are involved in incidents
- Allowing the state run TV network to fabricate stories
- Allowing the State run TV Network to sue a person who factually reported and documented the fabrication

That being one part of this story .. the other being Dr. Wheeler's assumptions.
Regardless of the flight crews background what they did .. their actions speak for the record.

Consequences!

Oh ... BTW when that French airliner crashed at Pearson ... the French DID try to quash the reporting. First by claiming that their was NO proof their pilots were at fault (they were) then by insisting that French investigators lead the investigation and manage the reporting rather than the Canadian authorities. They DID suppress information about the investigation and the subsequent report was delayed for a long time.
Providing an opportunity to deflect public attention from the failure of the French airline and it's crew.

I remember seeing footage of an airbus (not sure which one) in France trying to take off and the fly-by-wire system thought the plane should be landing and was fighting the pilot who couldn't over-ride the system. The plane crashed in a forest and you heard the pilot on the tapes cursing all the way down...

After that incident, the pilot was given an over-ride.

Consequently Gord, David Duke ran as both Dem and GOP at various times including an '88 run for Democratic presidential nomination. Duke is a non-partisan racist scumbag.

Given how Obama is polling in the White Democratic voting demographic in the US south, the non-partisan nature of racism is alive and well (not that lack of support for Obama necessarily means racism - there are endless reasons not to support a communist who hangs around terrorists and black racists.)

Speaking of aeroplanes and the like, does anyone know of anything of major significance that the Arab world has invented in the last 100 years that has improved the lives of others?

This thought always crosses my mind when I see them using technology invented by the West.

I have to agree that stupidity cuts across all ethnic lines. From the "Gimli glider" to the the Russian pilot handing the controls of an airliner over to his (seven?) year old son, people do some mighty stupid things. I watched a TV show which discussed some of the Airbus incidents including the A 310 flown smoothly into the ground. Computer geeks thinking they're smarter than, and therefore second guessing pilots is never a good idea. That being said, when all else fails, read the directions!
Closer to home, while looking at new cars, I test drove one which had no emergency brake. I asked the salesman what I should do if the brakes failed. He had no answer but assured me that the car was so well engineered that the brakes would certainly not fail. I explained to him what I did for a living and pointed out that I worked on the assumption that anything could and would fail at some point. He got the chief technician and after some head scratching and discussion we tested the car in the parking lot and used the parking brake switch to make an emergency stop. It was the first time anyone had even raised the issue!

QE said: "Actually, the story was well-covered by the French national media..."

Sure it was QE. But when? Day of, or week after, or what? Details given, or whitewash? Pictures? Video?

Do you speak French, QE, to know these things? I'm thinking probably not.

What I'm thinking is that the Arab crew, if they -did- do what's described in the article, would have been just fine flying a -manual- aircraft. As in, one where the pilot decides when the brakes are on or off, not a computer.

Meaning they were obviously trained to fly standard aircraft, and just as obviously NOT trained on the fly-by-wire Airbus. Testing an aircraft you aren't trained on is friggin' horrifying incompetence, I don't care what anybody says. Incompetence is not limited to Arabs, so spare me the racist business.

You say the airline and Airbus held press conferences right after the accident? No duh.

What was SAID in the press conference? Did they tell you the dumb ass pilot didn't know the brakes would shut off if he killed the alarm? Did they tell you the COMPUTER decides when the brakes are on, not the pilot? I don't have to speak French to guess that they sure as hell did not.

What I do know for sure is that TV and print coverage of this incident has been very quiet compared to similar ones elsewhere in the world. I'm interested in airplanes and this is the first I've heard of it.

I attribute that level of media quiet to probable action by the French authorities who have a large interest in seeing Airbus do well. Somebody told the press to shut up, and they did. Wouldn't be the first time with Airbus either, as noted by other posters above.

So bite me, you ill mannered communist.

BTW, QE. They would have known the reason for the crash as soon as they ran the black box data. Given the condition of the aircraft in the pictures, they would have been able to access the box and get the download as soon as the firemen put their hoses away. Two hours, maximum.

Meaning, moron, if the evening news didn't say "Untrained pilot crashes plane!" but instead said "Cause is under investigation" somebody decided to with hold the information and the press didn't bother to make a fuss.

"Speaking of aeroplanes and the like, does anyone know of anything of major significance that the Arab world has invented in the last 100 years that has improved the lives of others?

This thought always crosses my mind when I see them using technology invented by the West."

I think that would be the hookah.

And to the preachy commenters here such as QE and Samuel ... You girls talk as though you know how to develop cold fusion and solve all our problems. In reality, you did a few Google searches and claim brilliance.

What you really have is vile contempt for SDA and it's regulars. You are here enjoying the HATE experience by trying to belittle others with whom you disagree. That is the mark of a far left hater. You both qualify. You are both out of place here.

And QE ... the Phantom is a very clever person and very entertaining as well. He has great humor. That is something that is severely lacking on your side of the barricade. He definitely not a moron and you should be ashamed for your name-calling. But then, that is the first refuge of the Leftist mind with no good argument.

The next step is to get power and kill all those you disagree with. Isn't that how is has gone in most of the countries with the far left agenda?

Dr. D:

Agreed, stupidity is a human trait for which there is no foolproof antidote.

I'm not sure if the Charter of Rights guarantors the right to be stupid when others lives are at stake.

But at least when you kick a camel you know the creature is going to respond; by perhaps spitting at you!.

This is unlike some etched in stone computer program, which doesn't respond to human override.

GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out

Cheers

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht
Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group "True North"

Samuel obviously keeps an eye eye on this site and when there is something to critisize sweeps in.

Thats the lefts biggest skill.

John V, thank you for your kind words. I appreciate it.

And now, I really must stop playing computer and go build some stairs. Burning daylight!

A pilot friend of mine was lamenting about the level of screening he gets before he boards his plane for flight. LOL they take his nail clippers but he's got a farking axe in the cockpit.

Gord Tulk

Most left wing people I meet are really closest racists /discrimination types. They profess a outward looking view but are generally unable to cope with daily conflicts caused by cultural differences. I think the main issue is the utter “righteousness” of left wingers that makes it impossible to accept other person views as correct. Having a wife from a culture and background that is quite different has been an eye-opener in this sense. Political Correctness is purely camouflage, people who are politically incorrect are generally sincere and open about their views and easier to deal with.

The comments attached to the blog, were generally silly, but some where very close to the truth. Some poster made an ass of themselves by failing to realize the majority of Iranians are not Arabs. Even during the glory days of the Caliphate most of the Arab achievements were done by foreigners, either Greek or Persian. The major contribution of the Arabs was their poetry, which does not translate well.
The hard core reality is that present day Arab culture does not encourage critical or individual thinking, there are people trying to change this, but until you break the strangle hold of conservative Islam and Tribalism, it will be an uphill battle.

Personally, I think this story from beginning to end is hilarious. It is so typically a 'male' thing. So blatantly stupid. (I watch FHV so am prejudiced.)
Is there a man in any country of the world whose wife has not told him: Read the manual first.
To paraphrase Professor Higgins: Why can't a man be more like a woman?
Bet there are millions of Arab women laughing themselves silly (beneath protection, of course).
(I'm sorry for those injured, natch. Wouldn't want Sammy to think I'm one of the unfeeling crowd on here.)

The mistake was on the part of the aircraft designers, not the pilots, Arabs or not. Google poka-yoke. One of the seminal cases in the field was the battle of britain pilots returning from heroics and raising their landing gear just before touching down, wrecking a plane that was desperately needed. How could someone so qualified do something so stupid? Pilot error was written on all the reports. Turns out the lever for raising the gear was right beside the lever for the flaps, and looked exactly the same. When they changed that the problem went away.
I think Airbus is, and should be, more embarrased about this than the Dar el Islam. How hard is it to write a few lines of code that checks that the plane is actually in the air?

Thanks Hans. One of my colleagues posited that, in some situations, there may in fact be a treatment for stupidity. It's called "pain".
The real problems arise when the ones behaving stupidly, the programmers, aren't the ones suffering the consequences of their folly.

Colin,

"Iranians are not Arabs" is like saying that Italians are not Greeks or Germans are no French. The difference is mostly language and that's about it.

They all talk like ducks and walk like ducks, some of them quack in a different tone. They are all ducks! A Muslim is a Muslim. Their religion overrides any cultural or genetic differences.

Perhaps that is why Muslims are so often referred to as a race rather than a religious cult.

Dr. D:

Yep, I bet there is a lot of laughter among the Arab women after they see this report.

Women can't drive in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the arab world, but look at what this genius Arab flight crew achieved with the help of ADVANCED computers!

Well this should bring some women's equality in the transportation Kingdom!!

I think the men will be less inclined to scold their wives for some blessed 'fender bender' in the parking lot! :)

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht
Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group "True North"

Paulie, what you're talking about is the reason cops are still issued revolvers in a lot of places instead of the more "modern" double-action pistols. Revolvers have no safety lever. No slide, no feeding action, no jams, no nothing. Grab handle pull trigger. No bang, keep pulling trigger. Cops aren't hobby shooters at the range, they NEED the thing to go bang. Simple is good.

Ever try to take a picture with your fancy-schmancy automatic focus, automatic exposure, automatic flash camera and it won't click for you? Just sits there and thrashes settings for a while before its good and ready to take the damn picture, by which time the moment has passed?

Imagine that happening to a bazillion ton aircraft full of people. The moment which is passing is takeoff.

That's why Airbus pilots have to be qualified out the wazoo, more than half their job is knowing what the computer is going to do to you under what conditions. Putting an unqualified pilot in one of those things is insanity. Not just the pilot is a moron in this incident, his management is too.

An aircraft designer who thinks he can -predict- everything that could possibly go wrong, that guy shouldn't be designing passenger aircraft. Unfortunately he is. For Airbus.

I fly Boeing when possible. They ain't perfect, but they ain't an Airbus.

"Two hours, maximum."

Hahahahaha. Moron.

"Finally, the photos are starting to leak out."

Finally? Do you mean your source for this story - Jack Wheeler's site, finally heard about this story?

Gee. I dunno about you Kate, but I try to get my info from as knowledgeable a source as possible - like say, these guys who had the same pic and were talking about it last November.

But hey, thanks anyways. It's an interesting story and obviously a very expensive lesson for some.

By the way, did you see in the endless news coverage about the recent Boeing 747 crash in Brussels? No? I guess there must be a Belgian media conspiracy too!

Ummm. Either there's something wrong with the assertion that "the photos are starting to leak out" or I am a much more privileged person than I thought.

I saw these photos back in December. They were forwarded to me by an engineer friend (who has nothing to do with then aviation industry).

I still have the two photos depicted on this site as well as several more that came attached in the same email. It was a chain email with a subject line that said something like "Ooops."

It certainly wasn't making the rounds being presented as something secret that had been "leaked."

Someone let me know if I'm really in possession of something newsworthy. But, I tend to doubt it. This whole "leak" thing seems to me to be added into the story for dramatic effect.

Really, the story is old and the photos have been blitzing around for a while.

John V
It is exactly that attitude that will result in failure to deal with the Islamic world. Persians look down on Arabs intensely, just as the Turks do, in fact the Turks have a saying: “Better to kick a Arab than a dog” Likely as a result of ruling them for so long.
Islam is in a middle of a nasty civil war which has 2 distinct sides and several shades of grey, on each side is a sets of radicals that hate the other sides radical even more than the West. Iran wants to have nukes not so much for Israel but to enforce it’s will and power onto the Sunni Arab world. I suspect despite the rhetoric the Iranians would rather shake hands with the Israelis than a Saudi Prince.
If the West wants to win against the nutbars, then we need to understand the fracture lines and pressure points of the Islamic and Muslim world. There is something like 1.3 billion Muslims, we don’t want to be at war with all of them and don’t need to be. To give an example that I am familiar with, Malaysia is a Muslim country with a certain amount of radicalism, but it is fairly new only since the 60’s, the Malay Muslims are generally a laid back people and require constant stoking and attention to maintain any radicalism, cut off the radicals and the rest of the populations goes back to their relaxed ways.
The US Army has learned this lesson far quicker than the administration running it, that’s why they are succeeding on the ground, they learn who is who and why what takes place. This gives them locally produced solutions that dampens opposition and allows connections. Counter insurgency requires a mix of soft and hard, knowing when to use either or both is were the skill is.

bryceman - see my post above. I Googled this thing last night on the airliners.net site -- and it popped up instantly.

Methinks Kate needs to work on her fact-checking a wee bit. While I respect the work Kate does here, linking to an old story re-written by some gomer who adds their own 'conspiracy' twist isn't anything I'd be wanting to affix my name to, IMO, of course.

Linking to stupid, racist nonsense like this does more to undermine the credibility of this blog than a thousand lefties typing on a thousand keyboards could do in a thousand years.

I enjoy SDA and apprecaite the time that Kate devotes to this blog, but rubbish like this feeds the perception that conservative bloggers are a bunch of paranoid nutters.

There are enough real stories about the problems with radical Islam - why resort to this crap?

- why resort to this crap?

The story was funny. Get a sense of humour.

We laugh at the darwin award winners, too.

"rubbish like this feeds the perception that conservative bloggers are a bunch of paranoid nutters."

It's not just a perception. 'The Phantom,' one of SDA's more prolific and loyal commenters, still actually believes a media conspiracy is afoot.

"why resort to this crap?"

Maybe because Kate really, really dislikes Muslims?

Warwick - What exactly is funny about the following?

"Coverage of the story was deemed insulting to Moslem Arabs. Finally, the photos are starting to leak out."

Its not the story, its the xenophobic spin.

Define Xenophobic.

Leftards find no issue in insulting, banning, scrapping, denigrating and bashing Christians every chance they get. In California, Christian religious symbols and teaching are banned in government owned places but schools have "lets be a Muslim for a day" classes where they have to learn about the Koran and wear Muslim garb and no one in the retard left seems to have a problem with it (as they wouldn't - they're the one who instituted the damn things.)

Isn't it bigoted to treat one group differently than another? If you start with the treatment of Christians by the lunatic left I'd say we treat Muslims a lot better. After all, we haven't banned them.

And since when is religion off-limits for ridicule?

And, before you go all nutter about me being some Christian fundamentalist, I'm a libertarian atheist who hasn't been in a church since I was a small child (excepting weddings and funerals.) It's not that I'm a big fan of the Pats (Robertson, Buchanan, etc.) but that I find the idea that the leftards defend the indefensible while holding a completely hypocritical double standard when it comes to their own heritage and background. You have to be a special kind of self-loathing to want to replace western, Judaeo-Christian society (whether secular or not) and replace it with a sharia-driven Muslim caliphate - which is what a lot of leftards are headed towards. Just look at Rowan Williams and the Prince of Wales.

As for the media withholding information in regards to the actions of Muslims, the media are on record as doing so. There is no secret agenda, their agenda is very public. This story is not a case of it but it exists in fact. This story, regardless, is damn funny. Just like the darwin awards.

I think what often gets lost in stories like this is that the crew of a Etihad Airlines aircraft isn't necessarily Arabic nor Muslim. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that the crew was made up of mostly European or North American pilots. There was a time when the CF was losing F-18 pilots to Cathay Pacific at an alarming rate. International airline business has globalized like many industries in the world. I've flown on Arabic aircraft where the crew were all Dutch.
What I find disappointing is the reaction to this story which had been extensively covered when it first occured. To simply make it news-worthy again to embelish the story to slag Muslims or Arabs should be beneath the standard of this site. Honestly, I think we should take the lead from CBC and CTV and show waaaaay more coverage of Maxime Bernier's cleveage! over.

Having just eaten, I have absolutely no desire to look at Maxime Bernier's cleavage. Now his ex girl friend on the other hand . . .

Linking to stupid, racist nonsense like this does more to undermine the credibility of this blog...

Somehow I doubt Kate cares what you find credible.

Maxime Bernier has an ex-girlfriend? Funny, both CBC's and CTV's coverage led me to believe he was see about town with a pair of breasts. I've put my vote in for the next GG.

Apart from all the racist blather, I find it interesting how the Europeans have come to build and aircraft is based around the concept of a system that overrides a falable individual while American aircraft are designed for the individual to override the falable system. Kind of like the socialist Europe vs the free market America.

It's the biggest airplane currently, right? They want the biggest bang out of it and are practicing for it's future use...

...whoops...

It's not just a perception. 'The Phantom,' one of SDA's more prolific and loyal commenters, still actually believes a media conspiracy is afoot.

Heh.

"the rabid, self-indulgent commentary flowing from yet another of Kate's uninformed, misleading, and prejudicial posts."

bingo.

kate is the biggest TROLL on the Canadian portion of the internet by far. she's got about half of her 15 minutes of fame remaining.

Imagine that, she trolls her own bought and paid for site. And forces you to come and read. Leftists are so silly.

"she trolls her own bought and paid for site. And forces you to come and read. Leftists are so silly."

so true eh? a troll is a troll is a troll.

notice also the right wing simplistic mentality at work here. any snipes at right wing trolling puts one in the 'leftist moonbat silly etc etc' category.

I only have to read the post enough to spot the trolling. dont use circular logic here righty.

QE said: "It's not just a perception. 'The Phantom,' one of SDA's more prolific and loyal commenters, still actually believes a media conspiracy is afoot."

Yeah, because a media conspiracy could NEVER happen, right? Two words, QE: Monica Lewinsky. Oh, or two more: gun control. Or global warming, or OMG RECESSION!, or...

Hey, I could be wrong. Maybe they did cover it in loving detail. Kate linked to one web site, maybe that guy's an idiot. I don't have the time or inclination to wade through a bunch of French web sites to find out.

But you know, I remember a few years ago a little GulfStream business jet ran off the runway into a building someplace in the USA. CNN ran wall to wall with helicopter coverage ALL DAY LONG. We watched the firemen arrive, we watched them poke that fire suppression spike into the plane, we watched them pull it out, we watched every damn thing for hours. All the networks did, you couldn't avoid seeing it for days.

That's what the media loves to do, the OJ slow-chase of the day. They do it every time there's anything even faintly interesting to see. Like a big frickin' Airbus piled into a wall.

I don't recall seeing any of that in November. Or since. Maybe I missed it, maybe I didn't. Time will tell.

I'll say one thing though, QE and Samuel both, your "contributions" to the conversation have been considerably less than enlightening. The usual thing with the likes of you, plenty of mockery and damn-all else.

Go upstairs and tell your mother to slap you.

Ol Hoss writes "Somehow I doubt Kate cares what you find credible."

Funny, I can't see anywhere in either of my posts that I refer to my personal opinion of the blog. Nor did I realize that Kate had designed this site as a mere echo chamber.

I'll give her more credit than you apparently do and assume that at least one of the reasons why she blogs is that she hopes to inform and influence a broader readership than those who would find themselves in lockstep with her every thought. Kate's growing profile makes her credibility important. Its unfortunate that you can't see why.

Conservative thought and discussion has been marginalized in this country for a long time. On a whole host issues (the Charter, government's role in society, immigration, etc.) the Left has virtually owned the public discourse for the past four decades. High profile, conservative bloggers such as Kate are providing a venue for alternative view-points to finally seep back into the mainstream. Posting articles that are so clearly malicious gives the MSM media (and really the general public) the chance to dismiss Kate, and by extension the conservative blogosphere, are racist wing-nuts.

Do we like the status quo in Canada, or do we want to influence public policy & discourse to better reflect conservative view-points? The later will only come by reaching the ears of average Canadians who, by and large, would recoil at articles such as the above.

Warwick:

"Define Xenophobic"

Fear or hatred of the different.

"Leftards find no issue in insulting, banning, scrapping, denigrating and bashing Christians every chance they get."

So the solution is to bash Muslims? Don't use the vile behaviour of the Left to justify poor behaviour by the right.

"no one in the retard left seems to have a problem with it"

That's a ridiculous generalization. There are many people on the left (Hitchens being the most obvious example) who are repulsed by the types of examples you cited. I can certainly agree, though, that there is a horrible double standard in conventional left-wing thinking when it comes to "domestic" (Christianity & Judaism) religion versus "others".

"And since when is religion off-limits for ridicule?"

I never said that it was. But what did religion or ethnicity (he made a point of noting that they were Arab Muslims) have to do with the flight crew's stupidity?

"You have to be a special kind of self-loathing to want to replace western, Judaeo-Christian society (whether secular or not) and replace it with a sharia-driven Muslim caliphate - which is what a lot of leftards are headed towards. Just look at Rowan Williams and the Prince of Wales."

I agree, but I just don't see how it is relevant to this particular discussion. Did the flight crew crash the plane because they had stopped to pray? Did a whiff of bacon or rye from nearby Air Canada jet overcome them? Did they accidentally see a flight attendant's ankle? No? Then how is their faith and ethnicity at all relevant here?

"This story is not a case of it but it exists in fact. This story, regardless, is damn funny. Just like the darwin awards."

Re-read the article. A funny story has been spun to a) denigrate Muslims & Arabs and b) propagate a conspiracy theory of Muslim control over our media. To wit:

Enter the Arab flight crew
Not one member of the seven-man Arab crew
Moslem Arabs

The article is also full of un-sourced and/or unvalidated opinions masquerading as "facts":

Not having read the run-up manuals
The ADAT crew had no idea
Not one ... was smart enough
there has been a news blackout in the major media in France and elsewhere
coverage of the story was deemed insulting

Thank you Jim, this is the perfect example of how to strongly disagree without being strongly disagreeable. You are a scholar and a gentleman, sir.

I thought it was the media blackout, the desire to not offend. First time I've heard of this. Did CBC or CTV take on this story?

Funny, I can't see anywhere in either of my posts that I refer to my personal opinion of the blog.

Then goes on to give a personal opinion.

Posting articles that are so clearly malicious...

When in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

Hey Gellen, this is for you (I am not the original writer):

Girlfriend 2.0 - 4.0 Upgrade.

I'm currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and I have been having some problems lately. I have been running the same version of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 forever as my primary application, and all the Girlfriend releases I have tried have always conflicted with it. I hear that Drinking Buddies runs fine as long as Girlfriend is ran in background mode and the sound is turned off.

Unfortunately, I can't find the switch to turn the sound off. Therefore, I have to run both of them separately. Girlfriend also seems to have a problem coexisting with my Golf program, often trying to abort Golf with some form of timing incompatibilities.

I probably should have stayed with Girlfriend 1.0, but I thought I might see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0. After months of conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who has had experience with Girlfriend 2.0. He said I probably didn't have enough cache to run Girlfriend 2.0 and eventually it would require a Token Ring to run properly. He was right, as soon as I purged my cache, and realized that no one in their right mind is installing new token rings, Girlfriend 2.0 uninstalled itself.

Shortly after that, I installed Girlfriend 3.0 beta. Unfortunately, there was a bug in the program and the first time I used it, it gave me a virus. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for a while. I very cautiously upgraded to Girlfriend 4.0. This time I used SCSI probe first and also installed a virus protection program. It worked okay for a while until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in my system. I tried running Girlfriend 1.0 again with Girlfriend 4.0 still installed, but Girlfriend 4.0 has a feature I didn't know about that automatically senses the presence of any other version of Girlfriend and communicates with it in some way. This results in the immediate removal of both versions.

The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still some problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some obscure language I can't understand, much less reprogram. Frankly, I think there is too much attention paid to the look and feel rather than the desired functionality.

Also, to get the best connections with your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts and I have never liked how GirlFriend is “object-oriented.”

A year ago a friend of mine upgraded his version of Girlfriend to GirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version of GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.0 expires within a year if you don't upgrade to Fiance 1.0. So he did, but soon after that, he had to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a huge resource hog. It has taken up all his space: He can't load anything else. One of the primary reasons he decided to go with Wife 1.0 was because it supposedly came bundled with a feature called FreeSex Plus.

Well, it turns out the resource requirements of Wife 1.0 sometimes prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, particularly the new Plug-ins he wanted to try. On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything. Although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw which has an automatic pop-up feature he can't turn off. I told him to trying installing Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before uninstalling itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won't install because of insufficient resources.

P.S. Watch out for the K-I-D-S virus because they have an insatiable appetite for memory and CPU time over and above everything else above.

Okay, Hoss, whatever.

Enjoy your echo chamber.

Oh, for f*** sakes. Sometimes a link and a funny photo is just a link and a funny photo. Get over yourselves.