Schiphol air crash

[crl848]

Turns out the autopilot thought it was landing at 2,000ft and turned the engines off. Surely there are redundant systems to prevent this happening? Pilot oversight of the autopilot?

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7923782.stm

[bwild]

The auto throttle (not auto pilot) apparently got a false altitude reading from the left hand Radio Altimeter, actual altitude was 1950ft (as right hand RA indicated) but it reported an altitude of -8ft. The pilots noticed this, but did not think this was a problem (from CVR). The auto throttle however reduced the power to idle to prepare for the flare, as though it was just some feet above the runway.

 

The throttles remained at idle untill the stick shaker engaged and stall alarm went off, by then they were too slow and low to recover.

 

The further investigation will focus on faulty radar altimeter / auto throttle interaction and pilot reactions.

 

Personally, I find it strange the pilots did not notice the reducing speed untill they stalled.

[+DWCAce]

If I recall, the wx was not hat bad, but I could be wrong.