AF296 31 år siden - "Not possible in our aircraft", sa Boeing

Fra Wikipedia:
Air France Flight 296 was a chartered flight of a new Airbus A320-111 operated by Air France.^[1] On June 26, 1988, it crashed while making a low pass over Mulhouse–Habsheim Airport (ICAO airport code LFGB) as part of the Habsheim Air Show. Most of the crash sequence, which occurred in front of several thousand spectators, was caught on video. The cause of the crash has been the source of major controversy.
This particular flight was not only the A320's first passenger flight (most of those on-board were journalists and raffle winners), but it was also the first public demonstration of any civilian fly-by-wire aircraft. The low-speed flyover, with landing gear down, was supposed to take place at an altitude of 100 feet (33 metres); instead, the plane performed the flyover at 30 feet, skimmed the treetops of the forest at the end of the runway (which had not been shown on the airport map given to the pilots), and crashed. All the passengers survived the initial impact, but a woman and two children died from smoke inhalation before they were able to escape.
Official reports concluded that the pilots flew too low, too slow, failed to see the forest and accidentally flew into it. The captain, Michel Asseline, disputed the report and claimed an error in the fly-by-wire computer prevented him from applying thrust and pulling up. In the aftermath of the crash, there were allegations that investigators had tampered with evidence, specifically the aircraft's flight recorders ("black boxes").

Boeing mente at i deres fly var et bare å trykke på en knapp og flygeren var i full manuell kontroll av flyet. Hvorfor er det ikke slik lenger? Et slikt kriterum burde være naturlig og et sertifiseringskrav. Nå bygges fly med en viss grad av instabilitet, noe som tas vare på av computere, så også i B737 8 MAX.

Jeg har alltid ment, og mener nå enda sterkere, at den såkalte null visjonen er umulig å oppnå. Når systemer har nådd full modning og er til å stole på, så dukker det alltid opp noe nytt. Så også i de to siste tragiske ulykkene. Mange mener at det ligger i menneskets natur å strebe etter høyere effektivitet innen alle industriområdet. Noen er mer følsomme enn andre. Det kan i alle fall sies om luftfart. Allikevel tukler en hele tiden med nye systemer som gradvis fratar flygeren muligheten for å fly manuelt på standby instrumenter. Nå bør en gå tilbake til square one, eller til bånn av bakken, og revurdere hele sertifseringssystemet, ansvarsfordeling-  og utdannelse av flygerne.