Airbuses are not Toys

This   brand spanking  new Airbus 340-600, the longest   passenger airplane ever built, sits just outside its  hangar  in Toulouse ,   France without a  single  hour of  airtime. 

Enter   the Arab flight  crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft   Technologies
(ADAT) to conduct  pre-delivery tests on the ground, such as
engine  run-ups prior to delivery to Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi    .
The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600  to the run-up area..   

Then   they took all Four engines to takeoff power with a
 virtually empty aircraft. Not having Read the  run-up
 manuals, they had no clue just how light  an empty
 A340-600 Really is.  
  

   The  takeoff warning horn was blaring away in the cockpit
 because they had All 4 engines at full power.
The aircraft computers thought they were trying  to take off,
but it had not been configured  properly (flaps/slats, etc..) 

Then  one of the ADAT crew decided to pull the  circuit
breaker on the Ground Proximity Sensor to  silence the alarm.
This fools the  aircraft  into thinking it is in the air. The  computers automatically released all the brakes  

and set the aircraft rocketing forward.
The ADAT  crew had no idea that this is a safety feature
 so that pilots can't land with the brakes on. 

 Not  one member of the seven-man Arab crew was smart enough  to throttle back the engines from their max  power setting, so the $200 million brand-new  Aircraft crashed into a  blast barrier,  totaling it. 

The  extent of injuries to the crew is unknown due to the  news blackout in the major media in France and  elsewhere. 

 

 Finally,  the photos are starting to leak out. 

A  French Airbus:                   $200   million dollars
  Untrained   Arab Flight  Crew:         $300,000  Yearly  Salary

Unread Operating Manual:             $300

 Aircraft   meets retaining wall, and the wall  wins.  

PRICELESS!!!
These pilots should have

stuck to camels.

Hat Tip to Opus #6 at MAinfo