AA 587 had nothing to do with the composite construction. It had to do with the unintended consequences of improved pilot training. the pilot flying had just been to an upset training course, where he flew an Extra 300, an airplane made in germany that is stressed for +/- 12G.
He applied vigorous rudder (as one does in an Extra during takeoff, landing and maneuvering, and one normally does not do in a jet). As a result, the rudder of the airbus was stressed beyond its failure limit, of about (IIRC) 1.6G.
Why so low? Because the certification requirement for lateral loads is only 1.5G. Before this accident, not one ATP (top pilot rating) in a thousand knew this, and not one A&P/AI (top mechanic) did either. The engineers who designed the thing knew it. They took another one and chucked it into a test fixture to see where it let go -- and it let go right where the one in the mishap aircraft did.
You can find similar mishaps (in terms of overstress failure) with other aircraft. For example, a Boeing 720 or 707 got caught in a lateral jetstream off Mt. Fuji once. The ust failed the vertical stabilizer to the left, where it failed the left horizontal down and away. Stripped of the tail downforce, the plane pitched down violently enough to fail the wing outer panels down and away, and the plane tumbled down to the ground.
So why did they give the pilots upset training? Simple, there have been cases where airline pilots, many of whom have no aerobatic experience, have done the wrong thing when a plane upset. An example was the 737 crash at Aliquippa. IF it was a momentary hardover caused by a rudder actuator reversal (a controversial judgment), the plane could still have been recovered. The pilot in command at least had no aerobatic experience. Both pilots held the yokes fully back and the plane remained stalled all the way down.
Upset training would have trained those pilots to unload the aircraft (pitch to remove G loads, which would have unstalled the wings), rolled wings level ("step on the sky" was what I learned) and gradually recover the aircraft. In that case it might have made the difference, and that's why airlines pay for their pilots to go and play with an EXTRA for a few days.
As far as the whole Airbus versus Boeing thing is concerned --
1. Both companies try to build safe a/c
2. Both companies comply with the same rules
3. Airbus a/c are mostly made in England, France and Germany but often have major US content (radios, engines, big-$$ stuff).
4. Boeing a/c are mostly made in the USA buthave increasing amounts of foreign content (engines from England or Europe, parts made overseas. For instance, the fuselage of the 787 Dreamliner is made on the cheap in China; that decision idled hundreds of workers in Wichita and Seattle).
5. All manufacturers use more nonmetallic composites as more is learned about composites. Still, there's a lot of metal in any aircraft. Airbus is trying to save weight more by using exotic metals, like lithium, these days.
6. A principal advantage of composites over aluminium alloys is that composites are not subject to fatigue as nonferrous metals are. Google "Aloha 232" to see why this matters.
7. A second principal advantage is that composites are not subject to corrosion. Aluminium alloys tend to be subject to terrible corrosion -- if you recall your periodic table, it's a pretty reactive element.
8. A principal advantage of aluminum is after 100 years of building aircraft structures from it, it's a very mature technology. We know how to inspect, test and repair it well. We're still learning a lot about composites in service, and there's really no way to learn that except put them into service.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
And one thing we're learning is that Airbus composites disintegrate in hydraulic fluid.
You obviously know quite a bit about this stuff, but I'm not completely ignorant either. I've got a couple of Lancairs in my hangar, and spent quite a bit of time studying composite technology, so I'm not against composites in general or anything. And I'm not some kind of "buy American" geek that's against Airbus merely because they're built in France (and other places).
One problem with composites is they're very difficult to inspect for damage. Thus the inspection on the A320 rudders was a "knock" test, where a mechanic knocks on the part and listens to what it sounds like. As far as I know, there's no automated, or objective way to do this test. Just a trained ear, and apparently the damage must be significant to show up then. I know there are methods to imbed sensors into the part and ultrasonic map it at the factory so that later damage will be detected. But I don't know how many manufacturers are doing this.
I've heard the story about the rudder reversal on AA587. The problem is there was supposed to be some type of control system to prevent this from occuring. The airplane is fly-by-wire. Did this system fail? I'm unclear on this.
One fact we can't dodge is that if the news hit the fan that there was some kind of inherent fault in Airbus aircraft it would seriously damage the airline industry, and foreign relations with Airbus countries would be a little hot too. So there is a very large motivation to pin an unknown problem on the pilot while the real problem is quietly delt with, or even swept under the rug.
Because of the recent revelations on two Airbus incidents involving delaminations and hydralic fluid, one of which stressed the vertical stabilizer attach points nearly to the same extent as AA587, I can't completely discount the idea that things aren't all they seem to be.