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Software Glitch Caused Crash of Airbus A400M Military Transport Aircraft

Posted by Soulskill on from the complexity-breeds-failures dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A software glitch caused the crash of an Airbus A400M military transport aircraft, claims German newspaper Der Spiegel (Google translation). The accident, which happened in Seville on the vehicle's first production test flight on 9 May, killed four crew members. Airbus is investigating the system controlling the aircraft's engines. The early suspicions are that it was an installation problem, rather than a design problem.

3 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. TODO comment by ckatko · · Score: 5, Funny

    ONE_IN_FAILURE_RATE = 50000000; //Ted: reduce by 10 every time management claims they need to increase reliabilty

    if(left_engine_running && (rand()%FAILURE_RATE == 0))

    //TODO: Ted, MAKE SURE YOU REMOVE THIS BEFORE SOMEONE ACTUALLY FLIES.

  2. a new software release, not a sw install problem by slew · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some thing appear to have been lost in translation.

    According to most other English language sources, apparently this A400 had a new software release that enabled it to control the fuel tank trim during some new types of maneuvers. It appears that some bug in this software triggered a situation where fuel was actually cut-off from the engines or perhaps the engines shut-off leading to a temporary engine stall (which proved to be unrecoverable). It's not clear exactly what happened yet, but I think they are close to ruling out a defect in the installed ECU (electronic control unit) itself, but not the software running on it.

  3. Re:Irresponsible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ironically, no FADEC software is French. However, I presume you masturbate to Boeing planes without until now knowing that they're designed exclusively on French software (CATIA by Dassault Systems).