Moggie,
You may think what you want concerning some American/Boeing conspiracy to somehow stain the reputation of Airbus by calling for a grounding. But your theory falls on its face in light of the facts. Fact one, probably the biggest customers of Airbus jets are US airlines. I know for a fact UPS's order for up to 120 A-300's was the only thing that kept that production line from shutting down, also United and USAirways have substantial orders for A-320 series, as well as Fed-Ex for A-300/380. So if Boeing and the US gov were in cohoots I'm sure these orders would have gone to Boeing. As far as to why there is no similar outcry for groundings when a Boeing product crashes, others have pointed out when US jets were grounded in the past, and I believe that over the past 80, thats EIGHTY years, Boeing has a relatively PROVEN TRACK-RECORD whereas Airbus doesn't. Also Airbus prides itself on being the "cutting edge" of airliner technology, hence some of these newer technologies/processes are looked upon suspiciously ie composite tails. And finally how many times in your life have you seen the pictures of B-17's and 29's that brought their crews safely home after absorbing huge amounts of damage. The picture of the B-52 that lost its tail after an encounter with turbulance comes to mind. These are some of my reasons why you may not here a similar outcry. Maybe someone in Pprune-land can scan the famous picture of the B-52. Theres a reason why some say "if it ain't Boeing I aint going...there may be some truth to this phrase. PS UPS flies DC-8's and they are said to be built like a tank..and there are a few incidents of eights encountering turbulance and losing engines and portions of their wings and still flying home. I think the A-300 design is sound, I feel that particular plane had some defect that went unnoticed.