While Asiana Airlines acknowledges the culpability of its pilots in the loss of airspeed that ultimately caused the July 6 crash of one of the carrier’s Boeing 777-200ERs on approach to San Francisco International Airport, it also blames the design of the airplane itself, calling the warning system to alert the flight crew that the autothrottle had stopped maintaining airspeed “inadequate.” According to documents released by the U.S. National Transportation Board on Monday, Asiana also claims that inconsistencies in the aircraft’s automation and autothrottle logic that disabled the aircraft’s minimum airspeed protection contributed to the failure of the crew to monitor and maintain a minimum safe airspeed during final approach, resulting in the deviation from the intended glide path. Apart from inadequacies in the autothrottle system, the airline notes that a low-speed alerting system did not provide adequate time for recovery in an approach-to-landing configuration.
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