Representatives of Airbus and by implication the certification authorities have stated that safety in the design of commercial aircraft is paramount when questioned about the crash of the AA A-300 in New York.
This is not necessarily so. When informed that there were design defects and lack of testing on the A-310 the only action taken by the FAA was to have two senior officials of a German company fired but the design was never changed. These problems included the flaps and slats not being earthed to the airframe, the lack of proper testing of the flap system and the possibility of having a flap or slat uncommanded operation. This same information was provided to the UK CAA, the French DGCA and the German LBA with no action taken. This same information was withheld from Airbus by their suppliers and when they became aware of it they took no action. Recently the FAA, the Canadian MOT and the DGCA were contacted telling them that there was a possible mistranslation of an Airbus AD by those organizations that could cause major problems in the flap and slat systems. To this date no action has been taken to investigate the possibility of a mistranslation from the French to the English. There is also evidence that Airbus did not follow their own technical documentation because if they did they would have discovered that the flaps and slats were not earthed to the airframe.
All of the above is documented and if the moderators object to my statements I can provide the documentation.
