Airbus chief orders probe into failings
THE CHIEF executive of Airbus yesterday revealed that he had launched an internal inquiry into the failings which had allowed wing cracks to develop in its flagship A380 jet.
Tom Enders moved to allay fears that the planes were unsafe while pledging to tighten up procedures in the future.
The world’s largest planemaker, owned by EADS, was forced onto the back foot after hairline cracks were discovered on some wings.
“We made a little mistake here and we are repairing it as quickly as possible,” Enders told a news conference at the Singapore Airshow on yesterday. “This plane is absolutely safe to fly.
“Are we learning from this? Absolutely. We are taking lessons from the A380 programme for the A350 programme,” he said, referring to the company’s next project, a mid-sized jetliner designed to compete with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
“We have a thorough investigation underway on how we could make these mistakes in the first place and to eradicate the sources of the mistakes,” he added. Airbus has said a combination of design and manufacturing slips put too much stress on a handful of the 2,000 brackets that fix the exterior of each wing to the main body of the plane.
But Enders yesterday signalled that a more detailed hunt would be aimed at pinpointing how the blunders were allowed to happen.
European air safety officials extended checks for Airbus A380 wing cracks to the entire superjumbo fleet earlier this month after engineers concluded the problems were structural and widespread.
Enders declined to comment on a German media report that the slip-up could cost Airbus €100m (£63.7m) to fix, but acknowledged it was likely to be “a bit of money”.