Despite insisting for weeks that their planes are in top form, Airbus is expected to announce it’s grounding its entire long-haul fleet in the wake of the Air France Flight 447 disaster last month.
The grounding order is anticipated for tomorrow, the day French regulators will issue an initial account of what took place on the tragic Paris-bound airliner which crashed killing 228 people.
While aviation authorities are expected to lay partial blame on stormy weather, the real culprit appears to be faulty speed data and electronics equipment.
The likely grounding order — which would affect nearly 1,000 Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft — comes in the wake of revelations that 36 similar incidents had previously been reported on Airbus long-haul planes.
In fact, speed sensor incidents had taken place as far back as 1994 — but nothing was done to remedy the issue.
Aviation insiders also expect the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to be asked why no action was ever taken to remedy these long-known A330/A340 defects.
There is no formal response from Airbus just yet. But coming so close to this week’s Yemenia Airbus disaster,the grounding is gonna hurt.