Airbus opinion article in Herald

[Edward Terry]

In today's Herald Miranda Devine writes an opinion piece raising questions about the A380's safety and reliability. She attempts to explain a string of incidents involving Airbus aircraft by an ever-increasing reliance on electronic systems.

I found a few of her claims dubious:

- "premium business passengers are demanding to be on the old Boeing 747". Not long ago Qantas claimed that its load factors on the A380, especially in the premium classes, were higher than the fleet-wide average, which goes against her assertion, backed up by one nameless 'insider'.

- "... computer glitch which led to a tail strike involving a United Arab Emirates Airbus A340-500 during take-off at Melbourne Airport. The investigation found an incorrect weight had been inadvertently entered..." If entering the data wrongly is indeed the reason behind the incident, then it is wrong to attribute it to a "computer glitch". Furthermore, she contradicts herself on this point in the space of a few paragraphs: on the one hand she says that in emergencies “computers override pilots” but on the other says that the Emirates pilots’ ability to “override the computer and apply maximum thrust” allowed them to avoid disaster.

- "Just this January, flight engineers were phased out of Qantas flight decks because their functions had been automated." While it is strictly correct that since January there have been no flight engineers in the Qantas fleet, this statement ignores the fact that aircraft have been flying without flight engineers for decades. It wrongly correlates the absence of flight engineers with a (perceived) decline in safety standards.

The article attempts to show that the reason behind the unreliability of the Qantas A380 (and in the same breath, Airbus in general) is an over-reliance on buggy electronics, but then quietly concedes that “747s had similar teething problems when they were introduced by Boeing”.

The inconsistencies and factual errors in the article make me think that this is just an attempt by an armchair expert (ahem… me included ) to explain away a complex technical problem.

[Andrew P]

just look at the writer Miranda Devine

99% of what she writes is .....

[Kent Broadhead]

Exactly - Miranda is there to get a response, not necessarily make a valid conrtibution to anything. Just like Piers in the Tele (and i love how they swapped newspapers a few years ago).

Of course there have never been difficulties with Boeing aircraft which are purely hydro-mechanically operated, without any computer intervention/assistance....

Kent

[David Knudsen]

There is an interesting read on the subject here, written by a very experienced A319/320 Captain - The entry is dated June 12 "Fly-By-Wire"

[Philip Argy]

Good quality objective information - thanks for the link, David. The rest of the blog, including the italicised contribution from 'Dave' in the first P.S., is all worth a read. I'd add this quick reference guide to the 'law' hierarchy of Airbus avionics: http://www.airbusdriver.net/airbus_fltlaws.htm

To my mind lightning, thunderstorm-generated turbulence, and avionics faults remain as the three most plausible scenarios (and not necessarily mutually exclusive). I think it will be hard to determine what role each played without at least one of the FDR or CVR.

[Andrew M]

The only part I agree with is that J passengers want to use the F toilets, as Qantas hasn't provided enough J class toilets!

[Ash W]

Ash, please refrain from quoting the whole previous post. This is unecessary, thank you - mod

Or Y for that matter. Premiumum Y seems to be ok, 2 for 32 pax.

[Sarah C]

Nice work Edward - your letter got published in the Herald today. A very measured response to an opinion piece. For those who missed it:

Qantas still safety leader
The fact that there are no longer flight engineers on Qantas flights does not mean the airline is jumping into the great digital unknown ("Too late to reboot when in the air", June 18). Aircraft have been flying without flight engineers for decades, and the tasks they used to perform are safely executed by computers installed in the vast majority of modern airliners.

Miranda Devine says that in emergencies "computers override pilots", but that in the case of the Emirates A340 tail strike in Melbourne, the pilots "managed to override the computer".

Every new aircraft type has glitches when it enters service. But it is irresponsible to present limited operational faults with the Qantas A380 alongside crashes of aircraft with high levels of automation. Doing so risks stirring up unwarranted concern among passengers.

Edward Terry Mosman

[Dan Hammond]

Great work Edward!