BIRMINGHAM, Alabama |
..."The autopilot (click here) was engaged until the last second of recorded data," said Robert Sumwalt, a senior official with the National Transportation Safety Board.
He said information retrieved by investigators from the flight data recorder aboard the United Parcel Service jet showed that its auto throttle also was engaged until moments before the fiery crash.
The Airbus A300 jet was approaching the runway at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth airport before dawn on Wednesday when it clipped the trees in an adjacent residential area and crashed into a steep embankment well short of the runway.
Sumwalt, who spoke at a media briefing near the crash site, had said on Friday that the pilots received a low altitude warning barely seven seconds before the sound of impact. He repeated that in his remarks on Saturday but did not say whether the alert had triggered any attempt by the crew members to disengage the autopilot as part of a last-ditch attempt to abort landing and re-gain altitude....
