Are Airbus Aircraft Safe?

Aviation Aviation News
1

Rather than add this to the Air France crash page, I thought I’d start a new topic about Airbus and safety.

The following is part of the summary of a report that can be found at nowpublic.com/tech-biz/ground-airbus

Since entering service in 1974 with many technological innovations, such as computerized fly-by-wire control systems, user-friendly cockpits, and extended use of composite materials, 5,717 aircraft have been manufactured by Airbus, an European aerospace company. More than 5,100 Airbuses remain in service.

Not including losses attributable to terrorism, rebellion or military action, Airbuses have been involved in 23 fatal crashes causing the deaths of 2,584 passengers, crew members and people on the ground. In addition, there have been five nonfatal accidents causing 21 serious injuries.

While the overall number of accidents and fatalities are not disproportionate to the crash experience of Boeing aircraft, three of the Airbus crashes involved a separation of the composite vertical stabilizer (tail fin) from the fuselage. Five hundred, or one in five of the Airbus deaths, including 228 from Air France Flight 447, resulted from these three crashes.

In addition, Airbus composite stabilizers, rudders and couplers have also been involved in a number of other emergency in-flight incidents that did not lead to crashes, injuries or deaths.

There is now a question whether all Airbus aircraft equipped with composite stabilizers and rudders should be grounded until the cause of the crash of Flight 447 can be identified and it can be determined if the aircraft can be inspected, safely repaired, and returned to service.

Used in law, science and philosophy, a rule known as Occam’s Razor requires that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex, and/or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities.

We do not know if Air France Flight 447 was brought down by a lightning storm, a failure of speed sensors, rudder problems or pilot error. What we do know is that its plastic tail fin fell off and the plane fell almost seven miles into the ocean killing everyone aboard.

2

I don’t think that the Airbus is unsafe but composites might be unsafe. The article brought up that composites cannot conduct electricity which I never thought of when we were talking about AFR447. It seems that the composite tail causes many problems for Airbus but as we go later on into the article, it shows that research by NASA had made vast improvement in composite materials on aircraft have not been the source of problems that resulted in crashes but this is what caught my attention.

There are 3 key factors that contribute to the lack of maturity of the design and manufacturing technology. These factors are the lack of a full understanding of damage mechanisms and structural failure modes, the inability to reliably predict the cost of developing composite structures, and the high costs of fabricating composite structure relative to convention aluminum structure.

Eventually we should be able to overcome all these problems but the first one will most likely be paid in blood.

3

What’s the number of Boeing/Canadair/Embraer fatal accidents and vertical fin seperations, respectively?

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Grounding all Airbus aircraft is simply not a practical solution.

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There is now a question whether all Airbus aircraft equipped with composite stabilizers and rudders should be grounded until the cause of the crash of Flight 447 can be identified and it can be determined if the aircraft can be inspected, safely repaired, and returned to service.

Interesting argument, which gains strength by focusing on a specific failure mode. It misses (or avoids) the possible point about the computer software. When the computer pushes its own ideas in between the pilot and the control surfaces, fault trees become much more complicated, and probably the vulnerabilities multiply.

What we do know is that its plastic tail fin fell off and the plane fell almost seven miles into the ocean killing everyone aboard.

Careful, there. Either of these facts could have been the cause of the other.

6

Now is that a trick question?.. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Well, the tail certainly came off the BOAC 707 which got too close to Mt.Fuji. Aviation Safety Net probably has others, I do know somebody tore the tail off a Canadair water bomber, but that’s a different subject.

I can only think (off the top of my head) of 2 crashes where the vertical fin separating was the precipitate cause: Partnair CV580 (bogus bolts) and AA 300 (copilot dancing on the pedals). I don’t particular like the idea of composites either, but I’m gonna need some proof they are a danger.

8

i wonder what that Yeaman girl whom survived the airbus crash will say?.. is it safe or unsafe? :unamused: