Latest Update
The pitch runaway problem has not yet been resolved however Dassault has provided the following information regarding the May 25th incident and how they’re dealing with the problem. While descending through 12,000 feet at 300 kias, the incident aircraft experienced an uncommanded pitch up and climbed to 23,000 feet. At that point, the crew was able to regain control and declared an emergency. A normal landing followed at its destination airport in Malaysia.
Dassault has advised that all appropriate resources have been diverted from their normal duties to focus solely on finding this event’s cause and deploying a solution. They have a team of engineers from their flight test centre and design office and a customer service team on-site with the incident aircraft. Additionally, an engineering response team has been created and is on duty 24/7 to collect and analyse the aircraft’s data.
Dassault cannot give an accurate estimate on when the fleet will return to service.
Dassault is in the process of defining a procedure intended to allow the conduct a safe ferry flight to a convenient destination of the operator's choice. This procedure is being tested but not yet validated. Dassault's target is to have it approved early in the week.