Qantas emergency landing

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Airbus issues alert

Oct. 15 — Airbus SAS issued an alert to airlines worldwide after Australian investigators said a computer fault on a Qantas Airways Ltd. flight
switched off the autopilot and generated false data, causing the jet to nosedive.....
Toulouse, France-based Airbus, the world’s largest maker of commercial aircraft, issued a telex late yesterday to airlines that fly A330s and A340s fitted with the same air-data computer. The advisory is “aimed at minimizing the risk in the unlikely event of a similar occurrence.”
.......The flight control system was supplied by Litton Industries, a subsidiary of Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp., according to the telex issued to airlines. Carriers can choose data computers made by Litton or Honeywell International Inc. forthe model. The fault hasn’t occurred with Honeywell equipment.

Bloomberg - 22:28Z

A bit more on the technical end:

A “preliminary analysis” of the Qantas plunge showed the error occurred in one of the jet’s three air data inertial reference units, which caused the autopilot to disconnect, the ATSB said in a statement on its Web site.
The unit continued to send false stall and speed warnings to the aircraft’s primary computer and about 2 minutes after the initial fault “generated very high, random and incorrect values for the aircraft’s angle of attack.”
The flight control computer then commanded a “nose-down aircraft movement, which resulted in the aircraft pitching down to a maximum of about 8.5 degrees,” it said.