Note to Airbus:

[Mitch Cronin]

Give it up... put it on a post in front of your HQ and move on... It's a dud. How 'bout building a decent little commuter bird?

[J.O.]

How dare you talk about my beloved A320 that way!

[ccairspace]

Picked this link off Pprune today. Doesn't seem to matter whether it be ships at sea or ships in the air... people just don't read their history books anymore...

Passengers' safety on board A380 assured

DUBAI— The Airbus A380, which is considered as the world's largest long-haul airplane featuring two decks, four aisles and the capability to carry 600 to more than 800 passengers on board, is also a "zero-crash aircraft".

ccairspace

[handyman]

"zero-crash aircraft"

So what does that actually mean? Have they actually written in to the program to override pilot inputs or to maneuver the aircraft due to TCAS conflicts? I'm not really sure if I'm ready for an airplane that could conceivably malfunction and not let me land!

...and a 50 year old AIRBUS? I would like to see that...from a distance.

[Kip Powick]

"zero-crash aircraft"

possibly means one hasn't crashed yet ???

[Guest rattler]

Designed to be "Zero Crash"

Perhaps it has one of those built in "aircraft parachutes".

My French is rusty but perhaps this best describes their claim.

merde de taureau

[Mitch Cronin]

"Zero Crash" ?....must be something like that ship they built back in the early 1900's... you know... that big one they called "unsinkable"

I couldn't access that link any time I tried, but I'm inclined to believe it's a nonsense translation error... surely nobody would make such a claim...

[Kip Powick]

Here you go MITCH

The Airbus A380, which is considered as the world's largest long-haul airplane featuring two decks, four aisles and the capability to carry 600 to more than 800 passengers on board, is also a "zero-crash aircraft".

"Technology is what we master at Airbus. We just cannot afford to crash. The A380 has been designed to be a zero-crash aircraft and we made sure that it carries passengers safely to and from their destinations," said Jacky Joye, flight test engineer of Airbus.

Set to revolutionise commercial aviation, the A380, which is one of the featured aircraft at the Dubai Airshow 2005, has an 8000-mile range, the lowest costs per seat ever, and is expected to serve as the most effective solution to the increasing number of travellers worldwide.

According to Joye, safety and security of passengers and crew on board have been the prime concern of Airbus in designing and manufacturing the A380.

"It is as safe as it can be. We have tested the aircraft fully by conducting various failure scenarios and checking the systems extensively to avoid any single failure from happening which would cause a plane to crash," Joye added. He also noted that 75 per cent of actual airplane accidents do not happen due to technical failure. "Human error, miscommunication with air traffic controller, and bad judgement are just some of the factors that leads to air accidents," Joye said.

Fully computerised, the A380 is equipped with 100 black boxes, also known as flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR). The plane's system is likewise monitored regularly so that to prevent the occurrence of any problem.

Joye explained that the aircraft has been designed to last a service period of 50 years and beyond so they made sure that the systems and technology used are highly sophisticated.

"We have put in mind that the pilots who will fly this plane may not have even been born yet," Joye mused.

The flight test engineer mentioned that pilots as well as cabin crews will be trained on the A380's features as well as how to handle emergency situations.

Manufactured in the Airbus headquarters in France, parts of the A380, however, have come from various suppliers all over the world including the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, and the United States.

[Mitch Cronin]

Thanks Kip...

Geez! ... Do you suppose he knows this statement could be made about any current large commercial aircraft: ""It is as safe as it can be. We have tested the aircraft fully by conducting various failure scenarios and checking the systems extensively to avoid any single failure from happening which would cause a plane to crash,""

...yup... all the failure scenarios they can think of anyway, right?.... it's those ones they never thought of that sometimes come back to bite.

I do wish they'd park the thing, but in the mean time.... I wish them the best of luck.

[Guest Cessnapimp]

Fully computerised, the A380 is equipped with 100 black boxes, also known as flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR).

I don't understand... this is supposed to be a zero crash airplane

[Don Hudson]

While it can be easily understood both in meaning and in motivation, the statement from Airbus is a silly one.

The great temptation to the "normalization of deviance", (first referred to in Diane Vaughn's book, "The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture and Deviance at NASA") is a phenomena of "groupthink" as much as it is a political, not flight safety, phenomena.

Such predictive statements, ("we are the world's safest airline", "we need an uncrashable aircraft", "God himself cannot sink this ship", "the O-rings will seal", "we don't need imagery of the left wing as there is no damage", etc) are statements grounded in a distressing ignorance of the true human/social factors at work in risky technology, and I include airline work in that category even though the marketers and political elements in management may not like it. Such statements reveal an inappropriate (and perhaps dismissive) comfort in terms of managing inherent risk. "At ease" is never an appropriate stance in aviation. All too often, technological hubris is a precursor to embarrassing and even disastrous "corrections".

At least the Airbus statement recognizes that human factors remain a major component of any approach to flight safety. I frankly think that their silly statement is saying something they didn't really intend to say, but that's what happens when you let marketing people make statements about technology's capabilities. I won't even deal with their statement that their design is meant to last 50 years...such chest-beating audacity should be reserved for the ring, the gridiron or political campaigns. Who, in 1956, would have (or could have) made such a claim about the "modern, long-range DC7C" or the Lockheed Constellation, both great designs for the time? Sheesh.... Another embarrassing "press release" moment.

That the aircraft is equipped with the very latest in recording technologies is a very good thing and is certainly industry standard. Airlines that don't know what their fleet is doing and manufacturers that don't deliver aircraft "FDA-ready" (in some way) are not taking on appropriate, current responsibilities in a human-factors world.

The other side of the question is, of course, will those airlines which purchase the aircraft financially support and resource the departments and the people who can do something with all this information? Who will turn data into a story? Will airline managements commit to the necessary funding without requiring their flight safety departments to be "profit centers" as is the popular business model today? Will the fervent drive to increase share price and shareholder value by cutting costs prevent airline managements from committing the necessary resources?

These are the true flight safety questions and they have nothing to do with hubris, audacity or publicity. Flight safety is not sexy, it is dry, it is expensive and produces "nothing" that can be PowerPointed in an exciting way. It is the bread-and-butter of aviation however, and if not supported, especially in times of enormous pressures to cut costs where there is no apparent or immediately demonstrable ROI, can, among many outcomes, have precisely the effect upon shareholder value and the stock price that such cost-cutting exercises are intended to avoid.

We can be confident that the Airbus statement was made in all innocence but it just doesn't "play" very well to an enlightened and aware aviation community.

[Mitch Cronin]

Here... I've taken the liberty of helping Airbus out a bit with this one... They could put it on a gimbal bearing and use it as a wind vane... Heck, they could even fire it up and use it to change the wind direction if they wanted to.

[J.O.]

Mitch:

Looks like some folks think she has a future. Check out the video near the bottom of the page.

RC A380

Jeff