would you fly on an A330/340 that has not replaced it pitot tubes?

cojomo2

Given that speculation says the cause of the recent Air France crash was cause by faulty pitot tubes, would you fly on an airbus with similar tubes?

Im flying bangkok soon, I'm going:
DUBLIN -LONDON -AIRBUS A321(AER LINGUS)
LONDON-DOHA-AIRBUS A346(QATAR AIRWAYS)
DOHA-BANGKOK-AIRBUS A333(QATAR AIRWAYS)

I don't know about aer lingus, but as of now, Qatar Airways use the same brand pitot tubes as the doomed air france plane. They plan to modify them to make them safer, but currently have not yet done so-they are still upgrading the tubes on their smaller a300/310/320...

Would this bother you at all?I'm a bit worried!

Delta Kilo

cojomo2 wrote:

would you fly on an A330/340 that has not replaced it pitot tubes?

Yes.

It was not the pitot tubes alone that brought down the Air France plane. Even if they do go and the pilots have no air speed indicator, they can still fly safely within +/- 5 knots using just their pitch angle and thrust setting.

Don't worry at all. Airlines just replaced the tubes, and made it public that they were doing so, for publicity and to get peoples confidence in the Airbus back.

Nothing to be worried about at all.

alpha2zulu

Yes,
As Delta Kilo mentioned there is nothing to worry about at all, besides there are several indications that there is much more to the Air France story than a black and white pitot issue with the A330's.

cojomo2

Delta Kilo wrote: »

Yes.

It was not the pitot tubes alone that brought down the Air France plane. Even if they do go and the pilots have no air speed indicator, they can still fly safely within +/- 5 knots using just their pitch angle and thrust setting.

Don't worry at all. Airlines just replaced the tubes, and made it public that they were doing so, for publicity and to get peoples confidence in the Airbus back.

Nothing to be worried about at all.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not worried about the pitot tubed breaking all together,and giving no readings I'm more worried about them acting up and giving false readings to the pilots, which is much more dangerous, as the pilots may not be aware there is a problem and could potentially cause the pilots to increase/decrease speeds to a dangerous level..couple this with bad weather conditions and the outcome may be catastrophic..

FlutterinBantam

cojomo2 wrote: »

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not worried about the pitot tubed breaking all together,and giving no readings I'm more worried about them acting up and giving false readings to the pilots, which is much more dangerous, as the pilots may not be aware there is a problem and could potentially cause the pilots to increase/decrease speeds to a dangerous level..couple this with bad weather conditions and the outcome may be catastrophic..

You are dead right there buddy, airliners have been falling out of the sky recently and only last Saturday three pitot tubes landed in my back garden.
I'm having the copper melted down for a frikken medallion.
Two of them were bent and cracked like they got a belt of an airbridge!!



Would you go and enjoy your trip and stop worrying, you lúdramhán.

pclancy

No danger or they'd all be grounded. Don't get stuck on the pitot tubes being dangerous in all Airbus aircraft, its just a worry the media has helped portray. Do you think the thousands of Airbus pilots around the world would fly them daily if they thought they were unsafe? The Air France incident has not been even remotely explained yet, pitot tubes have just been one theory.

ihatewallies

not without a parachute

joey54

I'm no airplane expert but I wouldn't be too worried. If we stressed about all the potential dangers living brings we'd never leave our homes!

Enjoy your holiday.

ihatewallies

most accidents happen in the home. anybody who goes out all the time is a coward.

pclancy

Thousands of cars crashed today around the world. You don't read all of those stories and decided never to get in a Toyota again. Planes are far better made, maintained and operated then any car ever will be so when one goes down from a certain manufacturer, you cant think that they're all going to probably do the same.

LadyTBolt

pclancy wrote: »

Thousands of cars crashed today around the world. You don't read all of those stories and decided never to get in a Toyota again. Planes are far better made, maintained and operated then any car ever will be so when one goes down from a certain manufacturer, you cant think that they're all going to probably do the same.

Doesn't the grounding of the Concordes contradict this statement?

Delta Kilo

There was only a handful of concordes in the world whereas there are thousands of Airbus aircraft operating around the world.

For the record, the concorde did get it's certificate of airworthiness back, but people lost faith in it and became afraid of it, so it was an economic failure moreso than the plane being wrong. In fact, the pilots kept their ratings current at Shannon airport!

Also, the plane failed through no fault of it's own. It was a piece of metal that was bodged onto the engine of another plane and fell off onto the runway that caused the crash.

pclancy

As above economics kept Concorde out of the air. The cost of maintaining a 60s airframe with limited spare parts combined with dwindling passenger numbers after 9/11 were the killers of that airplane, not the rubber on the runway that brought down the AF one.

ihatewallies

yeah but

when a car crashes you can get out and start shaking your fist at the other driver.

when a plane crashes shaking your fist might not be the first thing you think of.