All Airbus Planes May be Grounded: Report
By ANDREW GREINER
Updated 6:45 AM EDT, Thu, Jul 2, 2009
The European airplane conglomerate Airbus has had a tough year so far with multiple catastrophic crashes associate with their planes. But things are about to get worse.
The European Aviation Safety Agency is expected to call for the Airbus to ground its entire fleet of long-range airliners when it delivers its report on Air France Flight 447, which killed 228 people. Nearly 1,000 of the aircraft are currently in service.
The agency will report that faulty speed data and electronics played a part in the June 1 crash off the coast of Brazil.
“EASA has a legal and moral obligation to get to the bottom of this problem now. If there is a defective system and the aircraft is unsafe then it should be grounded,” James Healy-Pratt of Stewarts Law in London which is representing 20 victim families from that crash told the Times Online.
A problem with the Airbus 330 and 340 series planes was first reported in 1994, but nothing was done to correct the speed sensor issue. Since the Air France crash on June 1, 36 similar episodes have been reported worldwide, the Times Online reports.
Another Airbus plane went down in the Indian Ocean this week. The Yemen flight had 153 people aboard and only one person survived.
Last weekend the US National Transportation Safety Board started investigating two such incidents – one on a flight from Miami to Sao Paulo, Brazil where the plane lost primary speed and altitude information and the other on a Northwest Airline flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo.
The US agency may call for modifications to all Airbus planes.
First Published: Jul 2, 2009 5:23 AM EDT
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