Posted on 06/10/2009 6:44:27 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
PARIS (AFP) — Airbus on Thursday denied a press report that it was considering grounding all long-haul A330 and A340 jets to change airspeed sensors after an Air France plane crashed into the Atlantic.
The French newspaper Le Figaro said in its Thursday edition that the aircraft manufacturer "does not rule out grounding its fleet of 1,000 A330s and A340s to change the (speed) sensors."
An Airbus spokesman denied the report, telling AFP "This is wrong."
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) "has issued a press release that all A330s and other aircraft are safe to operate," he said, adding: "We will take legal action against such irresponsible reporting."
Airbus has written to clients to assure them its A330 planes were safe, including those with older speed sensors seen as a possible cause for last week's Air France crash, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Air France flight 447 from Rio to Paris plunged into the Atlantic on June 1 with the loss of all 228 people on board.
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How difficult can it be to change the pitot tubes, or whatever it is that’s in question? PS Am I mis-spelling ‘pitot’? The spell checker doesn’t like it at all.
Why not? They grounded the SST after one accident ....in 20 something years ....
“How difficult can it be to change the pitot tubes, or whatever it is that’s in question? PS Am I mis-spelling ‘pitot’? The spell checker doesn’t like it at all.”
The difficult part might be rounding up all of the replacements...but I don’t know either way.
If that is the issue, although the knowledge was perhaps obtained the hard way, the fix is easy.
BTW, given the number of DC-3s still flying, it is probable we are still learning about the limitations of the that airframe.
To give this some perspective, a B2 crashed last year due to a crappy instrument giving bad readings. Although a commercial airliner is expected to deliver a much higher safely margin, “excrement occurs.”
Vertical Stab failing in NY Crash (American Airlines) and now this. Airbus would be happy if its a bad sensor. A breakup in flight, if not a bomb, is really bad for Airbus.
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