Airbus cleared ... spotlight now on pilot

Press, 29 June 1988, Page 8

Airbus cleared ... spotlight now on pilot

NZPA-Reuter Paris The new European Airbus, grounded when one of the planes crashed at an airshow killing three passengers, can fly again after officials cleared the airliner’s revolutionary technology of blame for the disaster.

The French Transport Minister, Louis Mermaz, said preliminary investigations showed the plane was not at fault when an Air France Airbus A 320

with 136 people aboard crashed into a forest during an air display near the Swiss border on Sunday.

The dead included a 14-year-old handicapped boy and a seven-year-old girl who could not escape before the airliner caught fire and exploded. “No evidence at present throws doubt on the proper functioning of the plane,” Mr Mermaz said yesterday.

Air France immediately said it was ending the grounding of its two remaining A32os. Earlier, British Airways lifted the suspension of flights by the A 320, the first commercial airliner to feature the electronics of a jet fighter. The 150-seat plane, billed by its manufacturers as a model of air safety whose computers are guaranteed to overcome human error, carries the hopes of the four-

nation European Airbus consortium for the airliner market of the 19905. It broke records for international orders before entering commercial service in April. Only six have been delivered so far. The plane which crashed on Sunday was three days old.

Attention is now focused on the pilot’s last manoeuvre, seconds before the plane ploughed into a forest in front of

15,000 spectators at the air display. The public prosecutor leading a legal inquiry into the accident said he was convinced the pilot was flying far too low. The prosecutor, Jean Volff, told a news conference in the eastern French town of Mulhouse that the pilot had skimmed over the runway on low power at a height of 10m before trying to accelerate and pull the plane up again.

Mr Volff said the plane was being flown “completely outside technical norms” and that the lowlevel overflight, planned by the crew as a star feature of the display, should have been executed at a minimum height of 30m.

First results from the flight recorder could not support the pilot’s statement that the engine had not reacted to his commands, but added that this was not enough to blame

the crash on pilot error. Both the plane’s pilot, Michel Hasseline, and his co-pilot Pierre Maziere, survived the crash with only light injuries. The two returned to the scene of the accident yesterday with civil aviation experts to examine the charred wreckage.

French press reports have identified Mr Hasseline as the chief Air France trainer for the A 320.