We found a few cases of take-off thrust set too quickly, spread among all fleets, which showed that the risk of such incidents was latent and not limited to a specific fleet. Using a criterion based on stick activity, it has been determined that, at flare, the Airbus A321 is much more prone to roll pilot induced oscillations than the A320, the rate of such occurrences being twice as high for A321. This had already been perceived and reported by some pilots, but hard data added some credibility and allowed us to quantify what would be subjective. This data are now used to brief A320 pilots when being checked out on the A321. FOQA data complements pilot reports and give valuable information about the seriousness of a problem.
FOQA statistics give a quasi immediate answer through access to a large database.
An additional benefit of FOQA is the fact that it develops and maintain a data analysis expertise which is valuable when an incident occur. This is important in the case of multiple detection, when several deviations are detected during a leg 3 . We should stress that it is essential to tell to all crew what we are getting from FOQA and what lessons the whole airline should learn. This also prepares and encourages other crewmembers to write their comments if one day they should receive questions about an event in which they were involved. FOQA Events Related to CFIT The frequency of FOQA events related to CFIT is low, but each of those events may be of great value since CFIT is still one of the main causes of fatal accidents in our industry.