This is scary!

I always wondered about the AA Airbus 310 crash right after 9-11. The A310 uses "fly by wire" controls, meaning that the pilots input is interpreted by computers to control the airplane. The "experts" concluded that pilot error caused the crash. But if the pilots moved the flight controls too violently, why did the programming of the computer allow those pilot inputs to destroy the airplane? Lot's of political input into this one. I'm not a conspiracy buff, but this is beginning to look like a major cover up. Keep an eye out for more on this story.


Instapundit.com -: "March 14, 2005
HMM. I'D MISSED THIS STORY:
At 35 000 feet above the Caribbean, Air Transat flight 961 was heading home to Quebec with 270 passengers and crew. At 3.45pm last Sunday, the pilot noticed something very unusual. His Airbus A310's rudder -- a structure over 8m high -- had fallen off and tumbled into the sea. In the world of aviation, the shock waves have yet to subside. . . .
One former Airbus pilot, who now flies Boeings for a major United States airline, told The Observer: 'This just isn't supposed to happen. No one I know has ever seen an airliner's rudder disintegrate like that. It raises worrying questions about the materials and build of the aircraft, and about its maintenance and inspection regime. We have to ask as things stand, would evidence of this type of deterioration ever be noticed before an incident like this in the air?'
He and his colleagues also believe that what happened may shed new light on a previous disaster. In November 2001, 265 people died when American Airlines flight 587, an Airbus A300 model which is almost identical to the A310, crashed shortly after take-off from JFK airport in New York. According to the official report into the crash, the immediate cause was the loss of the plane's rudder and tailfin, though this was blamed on an error by the pilots."