Air NZ rejects pilot error crash explanation

Graphic: Alistair Hughes

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Air New Zealand is rejecting suggestions that pilot error was behind the November crash of an Airbus in France and says a "combination of failures" were involved.

In a statement they point to a graph in a crash report which appears to show a failure of a crucial set of instruments that could have warned of a stall.

They are furious their experts are not being given access to the cockpit voice recordings.

The Airbus A320 crashed into the Mediterranean Sea off Carnet-Plage on November 27, killing all seven aboard.

It had been under charter to German XL Airline and had been repainted in Air New Zealand colours. It was being flown out of Perpignan to Frankfurt on a "non-revenue" flight prior to handover.

In a preliminary report published today in Paris, France's Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses (BEA) said the plane performed a low speed test at too low an altitude.

The report shows a dramatic last minute struggle to save the plane, but it smashed into the sea at 263 knots or 487 kilometres per hour.

The report shows that the plane was being flown by two unnamed German pilots.

Air New Zealand pilot Brian Horrell was sitting in a middle cockpit seat and an unnamed Air New Zealand engineer was on the flight deck.

The report says the crew had "not received any specific training for this type of flight".

In a statement Air New Zealand advises against drawing premature conclusions and Mr Fyfe says a "combination of failures" will have been behind the crash.

He points to a part of the BEA report which provides readings of instruments in the last minutes of the flight.

The graph shows that when the aircraft was at 32,000 feet and beginning to descend its number one and two stall warning vanes failed.

Although clear to see on the graph, the BEA report in its synopsis makes no reference to this event.

A stall warning system is made up of vanes on the forward fuselage which are wired to cockpit indicators. They measure the angle of incidence of an aircraft or the angle up or down of the wings.  

Mr Fyfe says that the BEA report "provides a small insight into the failure of the number one and two stall warning vanes on the aircraft at 32,000 ft as well as selected information about activity in the cockpit.

"We expect the full report, which may not be completed for some time, to have detailed analysis of all factors that contributed to this tragic accident, so that any lessons learned can be shared across the industry," he said.

For the pre-delivery acceptance flight, XL and Air New Zealand had agreed on a series of in-flight checks based on an Airbus programme for flights intended for the delivery of new aircraft to a client.

"In reading the report, none of what occurred during this pre-delivery acceptance flight gives us any concern for the normal commercial operation of the A320 fleet which is an integral part of our operations and indeed for many airlines around the world," says Mr Fyfe.  

In an interview with Newstalk ZB earlier, Mr Fyfe said BEA had held the recordings of the cockpit voice recorder for six weeks.

"Normal practice in an investigation like this would be that all the parties involved would get a chance to listen to that voice recorders and interpret the conversation and what was in the minds of the crews," Mr Fyfe said.

"At this stage Air New Zealand and our experts have been excluded from the opportunity of doing that."

Air New Zealand had asked for access to the recordings but had received no response from the BEA or the Perpignan Prosecutor who is conducting a criminal investigation into the crash.

He was puzzled at why the jet would have been conducting a low speed low altitude test.

"We cannot understand why that was done because to carry out that check at that altitude is not in accordance with our normal procedures," Mr Fyfe said.

He said he could not understand why the French were conducting the investigation this way and he would be taking it up with the French and New Zealand Governments.

"Certainly I believe that Air New Zealand and its experts should be allowed to contribute their insights and knowledge into the BEA investigation, a fact I will be raising again with the BEA and New Zealand Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) as well as New Zealand Transport Minister Steven Joyce later this morning," Mr Fyfe said.

"I am disappointed that ... in a breach of appropriate protocol this report has been released to the media well in advance of being made available to the families of those who lost their lives in the accident and to Air New Zealand."

TAIC, which received the report yesterday, said Air New Zealand and the families of the New Zealanders were advised of the report's pending release. They were not, however, given the details before they were made public.

The Airline Pilots' Association (Alpa) said today the report described what happened, but not what caused the accident.

Alpa said its own pilot expert investigator would join the French investigation team.

"This gives us greater confidence in the accident investigation process under way," Alpa executive director Rick Mirkin said.

"The official investigators in France have reached no conclusions nor made any statement referring to the cause of the accident."

Speculation as to the cause of the accident would not only be improper, but potentially misleading and incorrect, and damaging to the feelings and/or reputations of parties involved, he said in a statement.

The New Zealanders killed in the flight were Auckland's Captain Horrell, 52, and Christchurch engineers Michael Gyles, 49, Noel Marsh, 35 and Murray White, 37, and Civil Aviation Authority airworthiness inspector Jeremy Cook, 58, of Wellington.

The two Germans have not been named.

- With NZPA

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