Accidents, Airbus, and Aviation Safety

In a recent conversation we heard of, a woman talking to an airline representative in regards to a delayed flight due to a mechanical problem with an Airbus aircraft told the airline they should buy Boeing. We found that rather amusing. Boeing and Airbus are both companies that produce good products.

No one really knows what happened with the Air France Airbus 330 that went down off Brazil. Considering the black boxes are still missing, and less likely to be found with each day, we may never know exactly.

We tend to agree with Mark Ashley, of Upgrade Travel and Benet Wilson at Aviation Week. Where is Airbus telling us their planes are safe in all this? Why aren’t they making us feel confident in their brand?

The Air France incident has been attributed by many to the airplane’s heavy use of computer systems, as opposed to the Airbus 310, which uses traditional hydraulics. An Airbus 310 operated by Yemenia crashed off the coast of Comoros earlier this week.

The Air France flight, according to the latest from the investigation, was intact at the time it hit the Atlantic Ocean. The French BEA, their equivalent of the NTSB, issued an interim report. They concluded that the crew had the licenses and ratings to fly the plane, the plane had been certified as airworthy, and that no problems were indicated by the crew to the airline or air traffic control.

Ultimately, the fact the various governments are not calling for the grounding of aircraft as some of the news media are suggesting they might indicates they are keeping a level head and realizing that grounding thousands of planes is not the answer when all they have are suspicions. We hope however, Airbus is checking and rechecking everything about the A330 to try and figure out what might be going on, and airlines are voluntarily replacing a potentially faulty component.