World's largest passenger plane may be unsafe, some say

LazyLion

LazyLion

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http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-57354488-52/worlds-largest-passenger-plane-may-be-unsafe-some-say/

The world's largest passenger plane may not be sky-worthy, some aircraft engineers in Australia are saying.

The BBC reports that the engineers are concerned about small cracks that have appeared on the wing ribs of some Airbus A380 airplanes, and that they're calling for the whole fleet to be grounded for investigation.

The cracks were found on A380s operated by Singapore Airlines and Qantas Airways, the BBC reports, and Singapore Airlines says it has repaired the wings of two of its A380s.

Airbus recommends that airlines check for cracks but says they present no real danger. The BBC quotes the following from a statement by the company:

"We confirm that minor cracks were found on some noncritical wing rib-skin attachments on a limited number of A380 aircraft. We have traced the origin. Airbus has developed an inspection and repair procedure, which will be done during regular, routine scheduled four-year maintenance checks. In the meantime, Airbus emphasizes that the safe operation of the A380 fleet is not affected."

But Steve Purvinas, secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association, disagrees. "We can't continue to gamble with people's lives and allow those aircraft to fly around and hope that they make it until their four-yearly inspection," the BBC quotes Purvinas as saying.
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Qantas has an excellent airline safety record. So is this just puff in the wind, or are they being as careful as they can be?
Considering that this plane is made of fairly new technology composite materials, it will be interesting to see how this pans out.
 
Can't really mess around with this stuff. Rather have the investigation and tests now than after something happens. I think airbus could learn a lesson from the BP and Blackberry debacles and at least sound like they're taking it very seriously as top priority.
 
It's a question of what crack length is safe and the rate at which the cracks are likely to grow. Also what happens if a crack reaches critical length.
 
Airbus knew about the problem with icing on speed sensors for years that played a role in that Air France crash a few years ago and did nothing. Hopefully they've learned from that costly mistake
 
From someone in aviation, its not a massive thing because it is repairable and with propper maintenance, these aircraft can be kept airworthy. But I still prefer boeing to airbus' fantastic plastic
 
Been is those planes a few times and the passenger space and in flight entertainment is much better than any plane i have flown in ...but i would rather they find a fault now and fix it before any one dies
 
A lot potential dead people in such a massive plane.
Rather be extra cautious I'd say.
 
Alan said:
Airbus knew about the problem with icing on speed sensors for years that played a role in that Air France crash a few years ago and did nothing. Hopefully they've learned from that costly mistake
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In fact Airbus sent out a recommendation all airlines to have the faulty probes replaced. It was Air France who delayed replacing the pitot tubes.
 
This has been discussed to death on various aviation related forums (discussion on our own Avcom); the general consensus is that it's a non-issue. There's also a bit of context to this: Qantas and their maintenance engineering union are having a major fight right now (to the extent where Qantas had to ground their fleet to force arbitration not too long ago). Qantas outsources their A380 maintenance, resulting in the union being particularly unhappy about loss of work (and by extension loss of jobs); they'll therefore use any form of leverage that they can get to show that the outsourced maintenance is deficient. They'll use this tactic against planes made by any manufacturer (Boeing, Airbus, etc. -- it's just that the last few incidents have been Airbus), and will use ignorance by those outside aviation circles (some of which has been displayed in mass media and this forum thread) about what constitutes a threat to safety. Any negative comments about aviation safely coming from the Aussies has to be taken in this context.

Due to the fact that aluminum does not have a fatigue limit, cracks in aircraft are inevitable, and the inspection for them routine. The following comment on Slashdot explains it far better than I ever will:

Aluminum does not have a fatigue limit [wikipedia.org]. That is, there is no way to design an aluminum structure so that it does not experience fatigue (growth of microscopic cracks). Any aluminum structure will eventually fail under cyclic loading like a fuselage experiences (pressurization / depressurization which each flight). That is why pressurized airframes must be retired after about 100,000-120,000 cycles (at which point they are chopped up to prevent an unscrupulous person selling it to an unsuspecting buyer).

Since you cannot prevent the growth of cracks, the best you can do is predict when they will become a problem, and do regular maintenance checks to catch any which may have formed before. In the Southwest incident, it turned out the predicted time til a maintenance check was needed was too long. The crack formed and enlarged to failure sooner than expected. "Admitting" that you know of this "weakness" is simply acknowledging what every materials science student already knows - there is no way to prevent fatigue failure of aluminum. Doesn't matter if it's a Boeing plane or an Airbus plane - every aluminum plane has this weakness.
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PS: to the person who mentioned the AF 447 crash, that one was pilot error. (As an aside, the plane's anti-icing system had managed to bring the pitot tubes back to operation before the plane hit the water.)
 
Gaz{M} said:
In fact Airbus sent out a recommendation all airlines to have the faulty probes replaced. It was Air France who delayed replacing the pitot tubes.
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I get the impression that's not unusual, airlines ignoring the recommendations of the manufacturer.
 
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