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Comment by abadpoli | Hacker News Reader

The very first A320 demonstration flight _and_ one of the first A330 flights both crashed and killed multiple people due to issues with the autopilot programming. The whole “if it’s not Boeing, I’m not going” thing was because of distrust around the fly-by-wire system that Airbus used.

I guess all big companies eventually succumb to this fate. It sucks.

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AF296 crashed because the pilot selected TOGA too late for the engines to spool up in time, and was completely unprepared. There was no issue with the FCS, nor the autopilot which was disengaged.

For Airbus Industrie 129, it seems that the FCS was not the root cause of the issue, but I don't know a lot about this flight.

The pilot of AF296 claims the crash happened because the fly-by-wire system preventing him from being able to select TOGA and from pulling up. The official investigation still found the pilot at fault, but there were also claims and later investigation that Airbus interfered with the official investigation, leading to general distrust of Airbus and the fly-by-wire system.

Asseline can claim what he wants, but, unfortunately for him, the FDR and reconstitutions (performed in a simulator and in a real plane) do not back him up. And the only “proof” of FDR tampering comes from someone who did not understand what he was looking at.

Now, I don't want to be too harsh on him. AF set him up to fail (acknowledged by the BEA report), then threw him under the bus. I can understand why he chose the support of the SNPL, even if it meant going at war against the plane.

Yeah older pilots distrusted the Airbus design and joystick controls. They preferred Boeing's direct cable-and-pully design. But many of them are retired now, younger pilots probably don't have such strong opinions. They also like airplanes where the doors don't blow out in flight.

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