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An A400M, reportedly belonging to the Spanish Air Force, has crashed near SVQ. Reports are that 7 crew were onboard and the images coming in do not look good:


http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/05 ... _hp_ref=tw

The flight was showing under a CASA(EADS) callsign, so was probably a test/delivery flight out of Seville. Because it's a military aircraft there is no official confirmation yet.

FR24 are reporting that the vertical speed of changed quickly from +1664 feet/m to -2944 ft/m. From an altitude c.1200ft, they went down hard

http://www.netairspace.cc/news/article ... ar-seville

Photo from the crash site
Source: Facebook / Yestay Manasbaev

FR24 said 53 minutes ago on their Facebook feed that the plane was intended for the Turkish Air Force.

According to the flight path shown in http://www.aero.de/news-21667/Airbus-A4 ... uerzt.html it appears that the crash occurred only minutes after having become airborne.
-HT

Says there were actually a bunch of survivors.

Flight path with speed:

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CEkRwL_WIAE5D-F.png:large

Interesting. It didn't plummet to the ground. Took about 1:15 to go from 1700 feet to zero (granted, the sink rate increased significantly in the last 400 feet or so). But the speed did decay by about 25 knots right at the initial transition from climb to descent.

An issue with flap retraction, perhaps?

aero.de is citing one of the two Airbus´ staff, who survived the crash, that "engine problems" were experienced inflight.
Link

That is one weird looking ground scar.

One of the trade union managers from Seville has stated that the pilots managed to direct the aircraft away from a large factory and a school, instead aiming for a field when they realised that a return to the airport wasn't going to happen.

Airbus meanwhile have suspended the test-flight program for all pre-delivery frames.

JLAmber wrote:One of the trade union managers from Seville has stated that the pilots managed to direct the aircraft away from a large factory and a school, instead aiming for a field when they realised that a return to the airport wasn't going to happen.

I don't mean to be harsh on the pilots, but of course they're going to try for a field if one is available. A large factory and/or school aren't great places to try and land.

I just always find the comments of "the pilots tried to avoid this or that" right after an air crash pointless speculation. None of us know what exactly they were trying or able to do, at this point.

Anyway, off my soapbox.

graphic wrote:That is one weird looking ground scar.

Are the ones going off to the right from emergency vehicles? That was my first thought.

vikkyvik wrote:Are the ones going off to the right from emergency vehicles?

They came on seen from the left, judging by tire tracks. The scar going off to the right is far to wide and straight.

ShyFlyer wrote:

vikkyvik wrote:Are the ones going off to the right from emergency vehicles?

They came on seen from the left, judging by tire tracks. The scar going off to the right is far to wide and straight.

I believe the aircraft also came in from the lower left as can be seen by the outline of the tail, and then the ground scar to the right was possibly caused by wind blowing the smoke and burning debris while the fire was still at very high intensity.

graphic wrote:then the ground scar to the right was possibly caused by wind blowing the smoke and burning debris while the fire was still at very high intensity.

That's [i]possible[/], but that scar on the right seems far too straight. And long.

German "Spiegel Online" reports that the crash was caused by a software error. A bug caused 3 of the 4 engines to be switched off shortly after takeoff.

Source (German): http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/a ... 34421.html

Zak wrote:German "Spiegel Online" reports that the crash was caused by a software error. A bug caused 3 of the 4 engines to be switched off shortly after takeoff.

Source (German): http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/a ... 34421.html

I guess there was no procedure in the QRH for CTRL + ALT + DEL. Too much when the machine has so much control.

There usually is an override function, but that shortly after takeoff, they probably did not have the time to execute it.

Zak wrote:There usually is an override function, but that shortly after takeoff, they probably did not have the time to execute it.

If it is that complicated, they needed ejection seats. I know, not feasible, but somewhere, some code monkey and his supervisor is getting reamed, and rightfully so.

Points to the Spanish AF for sticking to their guns regarding resumption of test flights. If this is true, the arrogance of Airbus Military in attempting to continue flights should result in a major housecleaning.

Airbus warns of glitch that could affect A400M engines

Airbus on Tuesday warned of a technical glitch potentially affecting the engines of its A400M that was discovered during an internal test after one of the military planes crashed in Spain.

The company said in a statement it had sent out an alert to its clients urging them to carry out "specific checks of the Electronic Control Units (ECU) on each of the aircraft's engines."

The ECU controls how the aircraft's engine operates.

Link

From the Oops file:

Fatal A400M crash linked to data-wipe mistake

It said the focus of the inquiry was a theory that files known as "torque calibration parameters" had been accidentally deleted during a software installation process ahead of the plane's first flight.

BBC Link

And no backup system or internal software generated checksums to generate errors before flight is commenced.

Disturbing.

This could be criminal negligence on part of the software developers. Are they the same group who were responsible for the software used on the first Ariane 5?

Queso wrote:And no backup system or internal software generated checksums to generate errors before flight is commenced.

Disturbing.

This could be criminal negligence on part of the software developers. Are they the same group who were responsible for the software used on the first Ariane 5?

Nope. The engine software came most likely from Rolls Royce. All the Airbus techs did then was to upload it into the ECUs as per AMM.

Jan