PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - How safe is (airbus) fly by wire? Airbus A330/340 and A320 family emergency AD
Old 20th Dec 2012, 14:50
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A and C
 
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In answer to the question

The Airbus is very safe !

Is the A320 as safe as the Boeing 737NG, as an aircraft the Boeing is probably marginally more safe as if all the electrics & hydrulics fail the flight controls have manual reversion. Having said that I can't think of an incident were an airbus has lost enough systems to force the crew to fly it on the rudder & stab trim.

Rather than a debate about the merits of the aircraft I think an examination of why the crew from a major airline could not set a safe pitch & power combination when the airspeed system was malfunctioning or why three pilots let the Autothrottle come back to flight idle and the airspeed drop to the point were the aircraft stalled into the ground when simply pushing the throttles forward would have resolved the situation.

I would suggest that the de-skiling of pilots who are being forced by the SOP's in some companies to be over reliant on the automatic systems is far more of a threat to flight safety than the mechanical reliability of the aircraft be it Boeing or Airbus.
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