A/C faults & Accidents (split)

[320DRIVER]

Lets hope that if it turns out to be another wiring fault (as the same NTSB have stated as a probable cause for TWA800), that the FAA and NTSB get out of their slumber and do something about rather than shuffling their feet.

Same thing with B737 rudder problem... You can see the difference between who seriously thinks about aircraft safety when the Concorde was grounded for months, even when the cause of the crash was ascertained to be an external factor while the B737 continues to fly (and be manufactured!) to this day without redundant rudder control, a probable cause for two if not more fatal crashes.

Yankee dollars talk!

[Dale Harris]

Under the circumstances, very helpful post 320.:rolleyes:

[320DRIVER]

DH, may I point out the conditional IF by which I gave my point of view. Unluckily, it seems that we are all into the business of imitating the proverbial ostrich who sticks his head in the sand rather than do something about failures in our system.

[LMD]

320DRIVER,

i hope that you will also call for the grounding of all A300/330/340 aircraft. (missing vert stab problem)

the euro seems to speak just as loud as the "yanks" dollar, mate.

[320DRIVER]

LMD, if you take any commercial passenger aircraft, give a hard rudder turn to one side then to the opposite side, the rudder/fin will almost certainly come off presto... the system is simply not designed for that type of manouvre since it is only tested for one full rudder deflection to one side and then restoring a neutral rudder input.

If you had followed NTSB and other reccomendations after the A300 crash at Queens,you would have seen that they are basically aimed to retrain crew to understand this concept (above) rather than find anything wrong with the aircraft.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Arguably, this is all a matter of professional ethics, and much of that down to Engineers - since we design, build, approve for flight, and if-necessary ground aeroplanes, as well as approving much of the operating data.

After some similar problems in my own sphere, and having to ground quite a large number of areoplanes (none that have been discussed on Pprune as yet), I've started to think more deeply about this subject. En route I found http://ethics.tamu.edu/ which is a university site discussing such ethical issues, with some very readable case studies. Not all in aviation, but all very pertinent to it. I recommend it to the interested reader - particularly the Challenger (Space Shuttle) case study which reads very similarly to issues faced almost daily by aircraft operators.

I've offered to provide some case studies to the authors of the site (although haven't finished any of them yet), and perhaps other people here are in a position to do the same. Anybody who was, for example, involved in the investigation and grounding/not-grounding decisions on 737, Concorde and A310 might well have some useful experience to empart.

G