Stresses EA500 Fleet Remains Fully Operational

Eclipse Aviation announced Tuesday it will incorporate design improvements to Eclipse 500 FADEC software to prevent an engine fault that may occur if the aircraft's throttle levers are advanced with enough force to exceed the Eclipse 500's FAA-certified design limits.

Eclipse intends to increase the range limit of the Throttle Quadrant Assembly (TQA) to prevent the fault condition, pending approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). These changes will be administered via a software update to all Eclipse 500 owners and operators.

"One of the advantages to having such a technologically-advanced aircraft is that we can quickly isolate the cause of an incident and then rapidly deliver a solution to our customers via a universal software update," said Vern Raburn, president and CEO of Eclipse Aviation. "In contrast to traditional aviation industry approaches, the time and customer inconvenience factor saved is immeasurable."

As ANN reported, earlier this month an Eclipse 500 engine fault occurred during a landing at Chicago Midway International Airport. N612KB (s/n 026) encountered windshear on short final to land. The plane's pilot applied full power, using enough force against the forward stops to exceed the design throttle position signal maximum range. The associated fault mode with the plane's FADEC held the engine thrust settings at the last known throttle position -- full power.

Following the balked landing, the pilot elected to shutdown one engine in order to reduce thrust. After spooling down the right engine, however, the left-side turbofan reduced thrust to idle... and failed to respond to subsequent throttle inputs. Fortunately, the pilot was able to perform a safe emergency landing at MDW, with two blown maingear tires the only damage to plane and crew.

Through analysis of the incident aircraft's advanced data collection and reporting system, Eclipse determined the fault was generated by an exceedance of the Eclipse 500's FAA-certified design limits. The company says it took immediate steps to notify owners of the issue, but the NTSB and FAA acted on the problem as well.

In compliance with an Emergency Airworthiness Directive from the FAA, pilots were told to inspect the throttle quadrants on their aircraft before further flight, and to place updated procedures pages in the Eclipse 500 flight manual and quick reference handbook to provide guidance on how to handle a similar incident.

Eclipse also announced that of all the Eclipse 500 aircraft in customer operation -- 207 planes, according to the FAA -- over 80 percent have been inspected as directed by the AD. Of this group of inspected aircraft, seven have reported fault errors. Four of the seven reported faults were determined to be erroneous due to noise caused by normal operation of the TQA. 

"Interestingly, an analysis of more than 12,000 hours of flight data from across our fleet collected through the Eclipse Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) system reveals that three Eclipse 500 aircraft have experienced the TQA range exceedance fault, and one was the aircraft in Chicago," said Raburn. "While this tells us there is an extremely low probability of this fault happening, we are moving very aggressively to ensure it will not occur again. We're working closely with both the staff members of the NTSB and the FAA to understand this condition fully, and put the necessary design improvements in place to safeguard our customers and our fleet."

FMI: www.eclipseaviation.com, www.faa.gov