Originally Posted by Alicatt
Preliminary report is now out:

http://www.ecaa.gov.et/documents/20...1EQS914Wm-ECeoSDCJVmaSKHUCOxUHDZHikoIF8s

Not read it yet, just about to start.

Accordng to the cockpit voice recorder (page 11) they used the "stab trim cut-out" at 5:40:35, and the flight data recorder (page 26) indicates a few seconds later an automatic trim down command that gets supressed (no change in stab position) => cut-out does its job.
At 5:41:30 they try stab trim again, and I assume that's supposed to be manual electrical input, but there is no such input indicated in the FDR plot. Correction, not by trim but pitch up by pulling the stick, I guess. The pilot then asks the co-pilot whether trim is working, which he answers no and then tries to trim manually, which seems not to work either.
But then at 5:43:20, short before the end (no indication that they would have reverted the cut-out, but the switch position seems not to be part of the FDR plot), they trim again, two short manual electric up inputs are indicated in the FDR, ~5secs after the last manual input followed by a longer automatic down - that's the last inputs before the crash.

I am a bit confused that right after the cut-out the FDR still recorded the suppressed automatic trim input, but it later does not indicate the apparently attempted manual electric at 5:41:30 (I guess there might still have been such an attempt before the co-pilot said that trim doesn't work and tried manually). So it seems supressed automatic inputs are recorded, but supressed manual electric inputs are not recorded?
Question is, did they revert the cut-out before the last manual electric trim inputs?

Trying to put the quoted excerpt from the report into a quote or spoiler here, but the forum does not accept the post in that way...


Last edited by WhoCares; 04/05/19 12:27 PM.