Air safety bosses order plane changes after Airbus crash

Airlines were today ordered to replace hundreds of crucial instruments of the type suspected as a cause of last month’s Air France Airbus crash that killed all 228 on board.

Investigators have focused on the possibility that the external speed sensors on the A330, known as pitot tubes, iced over and gave false readings to the plane’s computers as it ran into a thunderstorm off the coast of Brazil.

Each modern jet airliner carries at least three of the L-shaped metal pitot tubes that jut from the forward fuselage.

The European Aviation Safety Agency said it would issue an airworthiness directive ordering all planes using tubes made by the Thales to be fitted with at least two from rival company Goodrich.

It said directive – effectively an order to the planes’ operators – would be issued within the next 14 days. It described the move as precautionary, based on information the agency had analysed in recent weeks.

An Airbus spokesman said the company also had recommended that airlines using its planes exchange two of the three pitot tubes on each of its A330 and A340 aircraft from the Thales type to the Goodrich product.

The recommendation would create a mix of different sensors that would increase safety by providing redundancy if one of the systems failed.

He said the move would affect some 200 aircraft in the inventory of various airlines.

He noted that it remains unclear whether incorrect air speed data had contributed in any way to the Air France crash, but said Airbus has since received more feedback from airlines about glitches with the Thales probes.

In June, one of the Air France pilots’ unions urged its members to refuse to fly Airbus A330s and A340s unless their Thales tubes had been replaced.

“Obviously pilots are watching this very carefully,” said Philip von Schoppenthau, secretary-general of the European Cockpit Association. “We obviously want safe operations, and there is a clearly identified problem with the Thales probes that needs to be addressed.”

But air safety experts have warned that there was no hard evidence that a pitot tube malfunction caused Air France Flight 447 to crash. The black boxes containing flight data recordings have never been recovered.

Air France said it would begin replacing pitot tubes next week.