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.

FMI: www.airbus.com