Airbus could be asked to ground all long-range airliners

Seems a bit extreme to ground every one of them. I thought that many already had had the sensors changed anyway and 447 was one that had the suspect sensors.

Airbus is expected to face calls to ground its worldwide fleet of long-range airliners tomorrow when French accident investigators issue their first account of what caused Air France Flight 447 to crash off Brazil on June 1.

It is believed that the accident bureau will report that stormy weather was a factor but faulty speed data and electronics were the main problem in the disaster that killed 228 people.

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is likely to be asked why it had never taken action to remedy trouble that was well known with the Airbus 330 and 340 series. Nearly 1,000 of the aircraft are flying and until AF447, no passenger had been killed in one.
www.timesonline.co.uk...

Its all conjecture on the part of some London Law firm, nothing official or even near official yet.

Originally posted by RichardPrice
Its all conjecture on the part of some London Law firm, nothing official or even near official yet.

Yeah its spotty to say the least. To ground an entire series of jets. By that logic, Boeing should have grounded every 737 because of rudder related issues years ago.

Originally posted by FredT
Yeah its spotty to say the least. To ground an entire series of jets. By that logic, Boeing should have grounded every 737 because of rudder related issues years ago.

Or every 777 on account of the BA accident.


A bit of a silly article by the times IMO.

“EASA has a legal and moral obligation to get to the bottom of this problem now. If there is a defective system and the aircraft is unsafe then it should be grounded,” said James Healy-Pratt of Stewarts Law in London. The firm, which specialises in aviation, is representing the families of 20 of the victims of flight 447.

There is the motive for the lawyers - if they can pin the blame on Airbus, then they can sue for extra compo.

This upset the air data computers which in turn caused the automatic pilot to disconnect. The pilots would have had to fly manually in near-impossible conditions.

Listen to that - you'd think it was asking a CEO to hoover the carpets.

Pilots are paid stupidly high amounts of money to do exactly that - step in when the auto pilot stops working.

Reply to post by kilcoo316

they do need to look at training however. Im betting an effort to save fuel ruled out a divert around bad weather. Three cells.... at least 1-e could have been avoided.

The captian should have been on deck imho as well. I realize the copilots were experienced but given the sequence I would expect him to be in the cockpit


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reply to post by FredT

they do need to look at training however. Im betting an effort to save fuel ruled out a divert around bad weather.

From looking at the satellite depictions of the weather system that night, the amount of diversion needed would have had minimal impact on fuel burn. I would guess that they were steering around the worst that they could see on the Radar....AND likely were lulled by the fact that other airplanes had preceded them....

Originally posted by FredT
they do need to look at training however. Im betting an effort to save fuel ruled out a divert around bad weather.

Decent point. However when is the last time you heard of an aircraft being brought down by weather in cruise?

Also, as pointed out, they were not the first, or last, aeroplane to go through the storm area.

Originally posted by FredT
The captain should have been on deck imho as well. I realize the copilots were experienced but given the sequence I would expect him to be in the cockpit

Me too.

How far into the flight (time) was it?