A380 grounded in cracks check but Qantas says problem minor
Qantas says cracks discovered on the wings of one of its A380s, grounded for maintenance, never affected flight safety and the plane will be back in the air within a week.
SBS News reported that the plane was the one in which seven people were injured when it struck severe storm turbulence over India last month during a flight from London to Singapore.
The aircraft was checked by engineers and cleared to continue its flight to Sydney but was grounded at the weekend after 36 hairline cracks were discovered on some wing rib feet. The discovery was made during extra precautionary inspections of the wings requested by Airbus.
“This cracking is not related to the turbulence, or specific to Qantas but it is traced back to a manufacturing issue,” SBS quoted a Qantas spokesperson as saying. “Airbus has confirmed that it has no effect on flight safety.”
The situation became more complex last night, however, with the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issuing an order that all A380s be checked for wing cracks.
The EASA Airworthiness Directive (AD) stated said that following “an unscheduled internal inspection of an A380 wing, some rib feet have been found with cracks originating from the rib to skin panel attachment holes (Type 1 cracks according to Airbus All Operator Telex (AOT) terminology).
“Further to this finding, inspections were carried out on a number of other aeroplanes confirming the existence of these cracks. During one of those inspections, a new form of rib foot cracking originating from the forward and aft edges of the vertical web of the rib feet has been identified (Type 2 cracks according to Airbus AOT terminology).
“This condition, if not detected and corrected, may lead to reduction of the structural integrity of the aeroplane.”
The EASA directive “requires High Frequency Eddy Current (HFEC) inspections of certain wing rib feet and accomplishment of applicable corrective actions” and also requires that the inspection results are reported to Airbus.
“This AD is considered to be a further interim action to address this condition. As result of the on-going investigation, further mandatory actions may be necessary.”
The order covers all 67 A380s now in service. The type of cracking was different to the sort that affected certain A380s subject to a European airworthiness directive last month, Qantas said. EASA last month ordered 20 A380s to be inspected following the discovery of cracks in the wings of Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Air France planes.
The Qantas A380 being serviced at Mascot in Sydney will be back flying within a week.
Minor airframe cracks and manufacturing anomalies arise regularly in aircraft and thousands of service bulletins are issued. Those relating to more important and urgent issues are called airworthiness directives, but those are pretty common as well. The A380 is the world’s largest passenger plane.
Written by : Peter Needham
