Posted on 06/09/2009 9:41:32 PM PDT by Schnucki
Air France scrambled to replace pressure sensors on its A330 Airbuses yesterday after a pilots’ union urged crew to boycott the long-range jets because faulty airspeed readings are suspected over last week’s crash off Brazil.
“To prevent a repeat of this disaster we call on flight deck and cabin crew to refuse flights aboard the A330 and A340 series which have not been modified,” said Alter, a union to which 10 per cent of the airline’s crew belong.
As salvage teams in the Atlantic recovered more of the 228 bodies from Flight 447, Air France and European aviation authorities sought to calm a scare over unreliable pitot tubes — the pressure probes that assist in measuring airspeed. Several airlines flying similar aircraft rushed to reassure passengers that they used a different sensor.
The first data from the doomed airliner reported a pitot failure and Air France has acknowledged that its jets had suffered several similar incidents. The Airbus went out of control as the electronic flight system failed after receiving conflicting airspeed readings via its three pitot tubes.
Pitot tubes have long been prone to blocking by ice, rain and insects. A failure in airspeed indication is a big handicap for a pilot but the aircraft can still be flown by hand with power settings and attitude, the orientation of the aircraft in relation to its flight direction.
Air France said that it was upgrading the probes, made by the French company Thales, on each of its 35 long-haul Airbuses but had not done so on the one that crashed on June 1.
Last night the SNPL, the main pilots’ union, said that two out of three pitot tubes had now been replaced on all A330s.
Seeking to calm fears, the European Aviation Safety Agency insisted that all A330s were
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Airbus = POS.
Where is the AirCav guy here who keeps telling me that “Boeing has the same problems?”
What I've been saying all along....
Buy American
I just wish it was made with non-union labor. The airplane union boys including the defense industry wrokers are about as bad as the UAW.
Bomb or missile
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