Wombat13
That article has been written by a very reputable journalist from the LA Times and it has earlier been reported upon by other equally reputable news organizations. This particular update of the Joe Mangan story has been carried by a number of non-tabloid papers.
It has nothing to do with the chip, just the immutable fact that TTTech and Nord Micro tried to pass off a COTS program as a bona fide built-up fully certified piece of OPS software. There's no suggestion that Airbus was aware of this at the outset - but they have certainly actively participated in (and even orchestrated) the subsequent cover-up and persecution. Whether the Austrian courts have been flim-flammed (or are complicit) is another question. Perhaps the Austrian legal system is just aligned with "shonk" as an art-form.
Your status, Wombat, as an Airbus rep and/or retained apologist is equally obvious.
Developing aerospace software that will not produce the aerospace equivalent of the Microsoft BSOD is a very expensive prime cost item. The temptation to short-cut profitably by using a COTS program that appears eminently suitable (and has already done sterling service in many vehicles including other airliners) is understandable - yet reprehensible.
If anybody wants the facts and the proof, just look at Mangan's website (URL above) and don't be misled by these red herring trails being dragged across the thread ("chips?" come on now; nobody's so silly as to believe it's about chips and not bogus software). The facts are there and EASA/JAA and the FAA could go probe if they wished. The only reason that they're
not is that, as yet, we're not talking about a certified airplane here, just one undergoing flight trials enroute to certification. Airbus has now moved to rectify the shortcoming - ipso facto the six month delay in certification. As far as the other airplanes go, the FAA has been assured by Embraer that the problem is "being fixed".
There is nothing that has been done by TTTech (as reported in the initial posting) that I would have done differently. When you have an emplyee who behaves in this way, you use all legal methods to contain the situation.
Finagling and finessing the law in order to squelch whistleblowers is exactly what's going on - but I doubt that it's moral, legal or should be endorsed as the "way to go". Hiding behind non-disclosure agreements to conceal fraud is not the intention of that contractual device.
Mangan did advise Airbus - that is how they first became "aware". Keep dragging those herrings - but it won't change the underlying facts.