Originally Posted by DozyWannabe
A Service Bulletin also says "fix this" - the difference between that and an AD is that the aircraft should not be considered airworthy without the repair being done promptly (and supervised by the regulatory authority) in the case of the latter, which was not the case based on the evidence prior to AF447.
No
Dozy.
Service Bulletin = You may fix this
Airworthiness Directive = Fix this (but that does not necessarily require immediate compliance prior next flight - You might as well have a full year compliance time)
No justification to state anything like this :
"An AD would have resulted in the grounding of all A330 and A340s"