Nov 30 2010
Air France has filed a report to the investigators in France accusing aircraft manufacturer, Airbus of ignoring warnings about speed sensors installed on Airbus’ aircrafts prior to the Brazil-France flight crash.
In addition, the article, released in France’s Liberation newspaper, accuses Thales, an Airbus supplier, of not responding properly to the warnings given by Air France. Air France warned Thales that the Pitot tube sensors might become unreliable due to freezing.
The crash of the Airbus A330 aircraft, Rio de Janeiro-Paris flight, on 1 June 2009, resulted in the death of 228 people. The automatic messages transmitted by the aircrafts’ computers revealed that the sensors sent wrong air speed readings to the flight. Despite the reporting of several failures, the main reason for the crash was unknown.
Airbus and Thales knew the risk and critical nature of the breakdowns relating to sensors. The document discusses that Air France did not have long-term solutions or recommendations to solve the problem.