Thu, Mar 17, 2005
Lost Tail Off Cuba Leads To Fleet-Wide Examination
The inspection of Airbus tail feathers, ordered in the wake of
an alarming, but fortunately non-fatal, inflight separation of an
A310's composite rudder, is a little bit different from the usual
AD-mandated inspection. The difference: Having no idea what caused
the initial failure, and very little evidence to go on, Airbus
engineers are probably hoping some anomaly will be found somewhere
in the fleet, this time. They may need the results of the
inspection to know what the problem they're looking for looks
like.
The mighty European maker has just ordered a worldwide
inspection of Airbus A310 and A300-600 airplane rudders, after one
of them broke off Canadian Air Transat Flight 961 heading from
Varadero, Cuba to Quebec City on March 6th. The plane landed safely
back at the departure airfield. All 270 souls on board were safe,
but the rudder showed severe, even shocking damage. About 95% of it
apparently fell off the plane.
Airbus Industrie issued the service bulletin Wednesday. The
French civil air authorities are expected to issue an AD making the
SB mandatory, which will be picked up across the world of civil
aviation, including the US FAA, more or less simultaneously. The SB
will recommend visual and audio "tap" inspection for possible flaws
in the rudder.
Other Airbus models are not affected, just the 300-600 and A310,
which share a single design for the carbon-fiber rudder.
No one is quite sure they know what they are looking for, and so
far, the investigation into the Air Transat incident had found no
clues in the little bit of rudder left hanging on to the incident
airplane, Air Transat Airbus A310-308 C-GPAT. It's possible
that something that is found in the fleet will explain the accident
to C-GPAT, but if nothing is found, what then?
The good news is that an Airbus can land safely with no rudder.
The bad news is that it had to.
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