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New Info 8/29/06:

Here's another explanation, sent in by T. Field, an airbus pilot, explaining why this crash had nothing to do with the "autoland" system.

"Advancing the thrust levers all the way forward (to TOGA) will disconnect autothrust and command full thrust manually. There are no go-around switches at all on the Airbus FBW aircraft (A320's, 330, 340 or 380), nor has there ever been."

"Proper procedure in case of a go-around is simply to push the thrust levers all the way forward, and that's it! The autothrust system will never ignore this command due to a bugged speed or anything else."

"And there is no such thing as 'landing mode' within the autothrust system. The airfield at Habsheim, has no navaids whatsoever, let alone an ILS which is required to perform an autoland. The Airbus aircraft, past or present, can only perform an autoland if there is an ILS without localizer offset available, same as any other aircraft with autoland capability from other manufacturers."

"The Airbus in question did not have a magical autoland feature that would enable it to perform an autoland at Habsheim, an there is no way the flight crew could inadvertently engage any type of autoland feature. This fly-by was flown MANUALLY and with MANUAL THRUST. This was Capt. Asseline's testimony in court, and it was confirmed by readouts of the flight data recorder and also by the callouts made and recorded by the cockpit voice recorder. It is also confirmed that they eventually did advance the thrustlevers forward and that this gave the TOGA/SRS response, but by that time it was simply too late."

"This accident has absolutely NOTHING AT ALL to do with a failed autoland attempt, nor a problem with the aircraft being in 'a landing mode'."

Here's another explanation of this crash, sent in by viewer Chris Hahn::

"The third entry in the Test Flights section is the A320 Mullhouse Habsheim crash, the alternate version is also way wrong. The pilot, not the computers, put that aircraft in the trees.
 
That dubbed tape is a criminal misrepresentation of the facts.
 
The aircraft was being flown by an experienced Air France pilot -- he was not inexperienced on the type.  It is inconceivable that a pilot with insufficient experience on the aircraft would be allowed to fly at an airshow.

He had disabled some of the safety systems to allow him to fly low and slow without the aircraft taking over and flying up. He briefed to remain higher than 100 feet as he flew over the runway.  As he is still descending on idle power the copilot says something like "the trees" and the pilot acknowledges but doesn't take action to increase power and altitude.

On some versions of the tape you can actually hear the engines start to accelerate just before they start ingesting the trees. Some recordings also have a popping sound which may be a compressor stall. The flight data recorders appear to have been tampered with, at the very least the trail of evidence was broken.
 
Wikipedia does a good job of covering the facts and the subsequent accusations.
 
The pilot, not the computers, put that aircraft in the trees.
 
Unfortunately the adulterated and dishonest TLC video has spread like a disease."

Another Explanation, From Paul, an A320 Pilot:

"Hey there - great website! I've been flying the A320 for 10 years and would like to add a third (or is it 4th?) clarification."

"The Airbus has a safety feature called Alpha Floor/Toga Lock that normally commands full power and limits the maximum angle of attack (called Alpha Max) as it a approaches a stall. This feature would normally allow you to simply pull back on the stick and the computer would command full power and allow the aircraft to climb out just below the stall AOA."

"The reason there was no power increase ( and no pitch up ) in this accident was because this feature does not exist below 100 feet, otherwise it might add full power in the landing flare, which is not a good thing. So if the flyby had been done above 100 feet radio altitude, it would have worked just fine."

"Hindsight being 20/20, if the pilots could have recognized it earlier and pushed the throttles forward to the stops, they could have climbed out. Its really a case of an engineering safety feature being relied on when it really didn't exist!"