Yes GB, I also remember that the Pitot probe manufacturer warned that his new probe was not designed to withstand increased specifications about icing conditions. I also remember that the regulatory bodies said that the replacement of the Pitot probes was not mandatory precisely because they had not the guarantee that the new probes would solve the problem. I would understand this reasonning if there was only a unique Pitot manufacturer, but it appears that there is another brand of new Pitot probes which does not fail so frequently.
...and continued airworthiness must be done in light of operational data, service history, lessons learned, and new knowledge, for designs that are derivatives of previously certificated airplanes.
Ok HN39, this might be this part that was not fully implemented: the regulatory bodies state that Pitot problems do not impact the overall flight safety (hence the not mandatory replacement). The AF 447 flight may enable to reevaluate this statement about the safety impact, but given the previous two Air Caraïbe incidents, considering that a total airspeed deprievation, alternate law 2 & prot lost, false stall alarms, unsatisfactory "unreliable airspeeds" proc. poses no problem of flight safety sounds really weird.
Jeff
PS) It seems that Cathay Pacific's large Airbus fleet has not experienced any Pitot problem with their new Goodrich probes (designed to improve anti-icing performance).
PPS) some FDR/CVR specs (requirements of ED-56A)
- Impact Shock 3400g’s, 6.5 msec. duration (half-sine)
-Deep water immersion at a depth of 20000 feet for a period of 30 days (it took 2 month to locate the wreck and more than one year to recover the CVR for the flight SA 295, in the Indian ocean at 4900 m of depth )
http://www51.honeywell.com/aero/common/documents/Voice,_Data_-_Combined_Recording_Systems.pdf