Airbus A320 Crashes During Test Flight

[ShotgunSteven]

Story

TOULOUSE, France (Reuters) ? An Air New Zealand Airbus A320 on a test flight crashed into the Mediterranean sea off France's southwest coast on Thursday, killing at least two people with a further five still missing, authorities said.

France's BEA civil aviation safety authority said the crash took place at 4:46 p.m. (1546 GMT) when the aircraft was approaching the airport at Perpignan, a city in southwestern France after a flight that had lasted about an hour.

A witness told French radio said he saw the Airbus dive abruptly and plunge into the sea.

"I could see it was an airliner because I saw two large engines. There was no fire, nothing," the witness, a local policeman, told France Info radio.

"It was flying straight, then it turned brutally toward the ground. I said to myself it will never pull out and there was a big spray of water," he said.

Local authorities said recovery teams with five boats, two diving teams and a helicopter were on site but conditions were difficult with bad weather and darkness.

A navy vessel had been dispatched to search for the aircraft's flight recorder, they said.

Sucks that it crashed, but at least it wasn't full of passengers at the time. Wonder if it was pilot error, equipment failure, or something else?

 

[MotF Bane]

The "Superjumbo" is the A380, released during 2005. The A320 came out in 1988.

 

[Uppsala9496]

The 320 has been in operation for quite some time. United flies quite a few of them.

 

[ShotgunSteven]

Originally posted by: MotF Bane
The "Superjumbo" is the A380, released during 2005. The A320 came out in 1988.

Why would it be dubbed a test flight? Do they still make the A320? If so, I wonder if it was a new one off the production line that the airline had just bought.

 

[Uppsala9496]

Hopefully they find the cause and it isn't anything mechanical. I prefer the widebody design over the narrow body designs like the MD80 series.

 

[LikeLinus]

3 weeks ago I was in Toulouse for a week and didn't know that Airbus was from there until I got there. We were staying at the Crowne Plaza and it seemed like there were a lot of people there. One of the front desk people told us that Airbus was doing some testing on a new plane and people were there for that. Wonder what plane it was, we all assumed it was the new jumbo jet they are making.

Sad to hear that 2 people died and 5 are missing.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Originally posted by: ShotgunSteven

Originally posted by: MotF Bane
The "Superjumbo" is the A380, released during 2005. The A320 came out in 1988.

Why would it be dubbed a test flight? Do they still make the A320? If so, I wonder if it was a new one off the production line that the airline had just bought.

The plane was undergoing maintenance so presumably the test flight was checking the mechanical work. This has been all over the news over here (it's an Air New Zealand plane) and it's very sad. All seven people on board are presumed dead, five Kiwis and two Germans.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wow that sucks. But guess it comes to show it's good they do testing before they put 100's of passengers on it. I can't believe the size of those though, they're insane huge. Would love to have the opportunity to go on one, or any other plane for that matter. Never been on one at all.