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PARIS/AUCKLAND - The airline pilots union has joined Air New Zealand in warning people not to jump to conclusions about what caused an Airbus A320 to crash off France last year.
The crash killed all seven people on board, two German pilots and five New Zealanders, four of them Air New Zealand staff and the other a Civil Aviation Authority staff member.
The aircraft was on an acceptance flight before it was handed back to Air New Zealand by German aviation company XL Airways which had leased it for two years.
A preliminary report by French investigators said today during low-level manoeuvres the crew lost control and it crashed nose first into the sea.
The 50 page document was released in Paris early this morning NZ time.
Click here for the full interim report
It said the acceptance flight was shortened and during low-speed checks, which were planned to be done at a higher altitude, the crew lost control.
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 Transport Accident Investigation Commission also sent a representative to France for the investigation and was due to make a formal comment on the report later today.
Air NZ criticises report
Air New Zealand has criticised French aviation investigators for releasing the interim report to media before it was shown to the victims' families.
Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe told Newstalk ZB he planned to complain to the director of the investigation and to France's Ministry of Transport about the way the report was published.
The French crash investigation process was different from that of other jurisdictions and he believed it breached protocol, he said.
Mr Fyfe said the airline had not been allowed to give any insight into the actions of the crew, such carrying out manoeuvres at low altitude, which the report suggested could have caused the crash.
"The excerpts that are in this report only give you glimpses of what happened at various stages and it doesn't give us enough detail to determine why this accident happened," he said.
Mr Fyfe also said Air New Zealand's specialists had not been given access to the flight recorders' data.
The report "only partially outlines certain aspects of what occurred during the flight and not why the accident occurred", he said.
"There is a combination of failures that will contribute to the cause of any accident," he said.
After reading the report Mr Fyfe said he felt nothing that happened during the acceptance flight "gave 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".
Stricter oversight
In their report, investigators called for stricter oversight of manoeuvres and training on such handover flights.
Speaking to the Herald at the release of the report, Paul-Louis Arslanian, Director of the Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses said his office was recommending that such flights have a pre-agreed programme of tasks, and not include any improvised manoeuvres particularly at lower altitudes.
Referring specifically to the Air New Zealand crash, Arslanian told the Herald. "They had some checks to do, they were unable to do these as the flight was shortened so they made a low speed check during approach. Then they lost control of the plane.
"A test check at low speed was supposed to be done during the flight and well, they decided, or to be more specific, they performed it during the approach which is not only low altitude but also as part of a flight which is linked with specific procedures and heavy work load."
The plane then reared up a steep 46 degree incline before dramatically plunging into the sea.
"We are trying to understand what caused this accident, this is a very complicated investigation," he said.
The BEA has also recommended that prior to such non-revenue flights (flights without passengers) civil aviation authorities ensure "the qualifications and training of crews" to carry out such manoeuvres.
Although it is still unclear who made which decisions, the report notes that the crew "had not received any specific training for this type of flight. The Air New Zealand pilot had undertaken two simulator training sessions."
Questioned on this, Arslanian told the Herald: "The Air New Zealand pilot was prepared for this flight, he received specific training in simulator. He was not in charge of the flight. Technically he was a passenger. In practice, he was in the cockpit and he was discussing with the crew. And he participated in the flight. We have to understand what was his role, and what was his input in the flight," said Arslanian.
The report is the first phase of what is likely to be a lengthy investigation into the cause of the disaster.
The interim document also identifies as a focus of inquiry the possibility that fuselage sensors may have been obscured or affected while the aircraft was being resprayed in Air New Zealand's colours after it had been leased to a German charter airline.
This could have affected the accuracy of the "fly-by-wire" system in which the aircraft's flight stability is automatically determined by its on-board computers, it said.
The crash off Perpignan on France's Mediterranean coast at 4.46pm on November 27 killed five New Zealanders and two Germans.
They were checking the twin-engine airliner before it was handed back to Air New Zealand by XL Airways Germany, which had leased the craft.
It had just been resprayed by EAS Industries, a Perpignan firm.
The crash was a mystery, because the plane had been doing a routine handover test flight over the sea and had not issued any distress call.
The probe by the BEA is separate to an investigation of involuntary homicide, being conducted by the Perpignan public prosecutor's office.
The BEA report was delayed by difficulties in getting data from the two "black boxes" that divers recovered from the wreckage at a depth of 40m.
Last month, the A320's makers, Airbus, issued a safety recommendation to all 218 of its customers.
Paint work
It warned them not to obscure the sensors during paint work, and reminded them that test flights should be conducted safely, and low-speed manoeuvres should not be conducted at low height.
The A320, a single-aisle aircraft seating 150 passengers is a workhorse of the air industry.
The high-tech "fly-by-wire" avionics - initially viewed with suspicion by pilots when they were introduced in 1988 - are a big factor in its success.
According to its makers, 1960 A320s were in service at the end of last year, with 155 airlines.
Four of the five New Zealanders killed in the crash worked for Air New Zealand.
They were Captain Brian Horrell, 52, from Auckland, and engineers Murray White, 37, also from Auckland, and Michael Gyles, 49, and Noel Marsh, 35, both from Christchurch.
The fifth was Jeremy Cook, 58, from Wellington, a Civil Aviation Authority airworthiness inspector.
The two Germans pilots, who were flying the aircraft when it crashed, have not been publicly named.
- NZHERALD STAFF/AGENCIES
