Airbus issues safety alert

[bmc]

The first real clues have emerged of the possible cause of the Air New Zealand Airbus crash off the coast of France in late November.

Five New Zealanders and two Germans died when the Airbus plunged into the Mediterranean near the southern French city of Perpignan.

When the crash occurred the three-year-old Airbus A320 was on final acceptance flights and was due to be handed back to Air New Zealand after a two-year charter to the German company XL Airways.

It had just been repainted in Air New Zealand livery.

Now Airbus has indicated that the paint job may have contributed to the crash.

"I think it's certainly far too early at this stage to say they've necessarily identified what happened or why it happened," says Air New Zealand Chief Executive Rob Fyfe.

As a direct result of information obtained from flight data recorders, Airbus has issued an urgent bulletin to airlines which recommends that all maintenance or painting (must) comply with published procedures to protect all aerodynamic data sensors.
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And that tests such as low speed tests must be performed at safe altitude.

Fyfe says it is important the information from Airbus not taken as a prejudgment of the outcome of the official investigations.

"We desperately want to know what's happened here, as do all the families of those that have lost their lives, but they want the facts," he says.

Twelve years ago, an Air Peru Boeing 757 crashed into the sea killing all 70 people on board because maintenance workers forgot to remove masking tape that covered flight sensors.

Aviation analysts say that if flight sensors are painted or taped over, that could give false information to the flight crew about airspeed, height and pressure. That could have caused the aircraft to be flying too low, and too slow, causing it to stall.

Air New Zealand says French investigators will now focus on recovering more debris that contains flight sensors.

"They will look to recover pieces of debris and wreckage from the seabed that are relevant to the investigation," says Fyfe.

The Airbus bulletin almost certainly rules out any suggestion that there is anything wrong with the design of the A320 aircraft.

Air New Zealand fleet and operational specialists are to due return to France this weekend to provide further technical expertise to the investigation.

The remains of four of the New Zealanders killed in Perpignan - Jeremy Cook, Brian Horrell, Michael Gyles and Noel Marsh - were returned home on Tuesday.

The body of the fifth, Murray White, is still missing.

[crazy_aviator]

It amazes me that after over 100 years of aviation , People cant seem to get it together with respect to completing maintenance functions, record keeping , discrepency resolution, follow up and final pilot checks, ALL of this is referring to tapes being placed over static ports and the like ! Human beings CANNOT be trusted to do things right every time ,,so we always need checks and balances and just 1 little error or omission can kill 200 people ! Problem is, human nature , ego, pride, selfishness works AGAINST systems designed to prevent failures caused by human error !! How many times have control locks been missed BECAUSE the final checklist was omitted or the pilot was sooo good and proud that he figured that he will always get all the preflight items ?

[yycflyguy]

I say no more painting of the disco blue on Air Canada Airbuses. Problem solved.