Tue, Mar 15, 2005
Action Comes After Air Transat Rudder Separation
Acting out of "an abundance of caution," Airbus says it will
recommend visual and aural inspections of rudders aboard its
A300-600 and A310 aircraft. This, after the bizarre separation of
an entire rudder from the tail of an Air Transat flight at altitude
on its way from Cuba to Canada.
An Airbus spokesman told Bloomberg News the company will
recommend these inspections -- a visual once-over and a "tap"
inspection -- take place within the next few weeks. Those
inspections usually come up every five years.
The recommendation, which could come as early as Tuesday, comes
on the heels of an in-flight incident involving a Air Transat
flight from Varadero, Cuba to Quebec City, Canada, more than a week
ago. Departing in the wee hours of the morning, the aircraft, with
270 people on board, was at cruise altitude 30-minutes into the
flight when the rudder suddenly departed the aircraft. There was
virtually nothing left of the composite rudder -- it had separated
at the hinges.
The crew was able to use ailerons and differential thrust to
nurse the aircraft back to Cuba where it landed without incident.
Air Transat immediately grounded the rest of the A310s in its fleet
-- all ten of them. Some flights were delayed for hours during the
inspections, but all ten aircraft were returned to service later
that day.
As for the incident aircraft, "We don't know yet what happened''
with the Air Transat plane, Airbus spokesman Clay McConnell told
Bloomberg News. "We feel that this event is so unusual it really
does require that we do something to be sure that there's not a
problem out there.''
The Canadian Transportation Safety Board is investigating the
Air Transat incident. But there's a problem. "Structure-wise we
don't have much left of the rudder there, so what we've decided to
do is remove the whole tail of the aircraft,' 'Canadian
Transportation Safety Board Senior Investigator Marc Fernandez told
Bloomberg. A CTSB team will travel to Cuba Thursday to further its
investigation.
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