Airbus A330

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There's an Issue With Airline's Comfy New First-Class Suites

Rebalancing is now needed to fix Swiss Air's nose-heavy A330s

(Newser) - Swiss International Air Lines announced last year that it would be updating its first-class suites for 2025 based on consumer feedback. Up to 37 square feet with 6-foot walls and lockable doors, these new suites may bring privacy for those who can afford the ticket, but they're causing a...

Airbus Adding Sleeping Berths to Some Planes

Berths with beds will be rolled out by 2020

(Newser) - Anyone who's ever wished for the comfort of their own bed during a long-haul flight will be excited to hear Airbus will soon offer the next best thing. The jetmaker has plans to create beds for the cargo holds of its Airbus SE planes, Bloomberg reports. The beds will...

Lack of Training Blamed for Deadly Air France Crash
'Autopilot Addiction'
Doomed Air France Flight
in case you missed it
Jun 10, 2012 10:54 AM CDT

'Autopilot Addiction' Doomed Air France Flight

Startling lack of training endangers passengers, experts say

(Newser) - Airbus likes to boast that its A330 jet is "pilot-proof," but that sentiment may have helped trigger one of the worst airline disasters in recent years, experts tell ABC . They say that the co-pilots on Air France Flight 447 depended too heavily on the plane's autopilot system,...

Body Recovered From 2009 Air France Crash

But it may not be possible to recover all the bodies found

(Newser) - Following the recovery of the black box and cockpit recorder from the 2009 Air France crash, officials have pulled a passenger's body from the ocean. The French Gendarmerie says the remains, which were still attached to a plane seat, were pulled up this morning. The first search effort after...

Air France Recorder Pulled From Atlantic

Investigators hope for clues in 2009 plane crash

(Newser) - On the heels of recovering the black box from the doomed Air France flight that fell out of the sky off the Brazilian coast nearly two years ago, French investigators have pulled the cockpit recorder from the depths of the Atlantic, reports the AP. It's not yet certain whether...

Wreckage Found From 2009 Air France Crash

It could shed light on what brought down jet, killing 228

(Newser) - Investigators might finally get a better idea of why an Air France flight crashed into the Atlantic nearly two years ago and killed all 228 aboard. A fourth deep-sea search led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has yielded plane parts believed to be from the Airbus 330, reports the...

Lone Child Survives Libya Plane Crash, 103 Die

8-year-old boy believed to be only survivor from Afriqiyah Airways flight

(Newser) - Over 100 people were killed today when an Afriqiyah Airways flight from Johannesburg crashed at Libya's Tripoli Airport. Authorities say at least 93 passengers and 11 crew were on board the Airbus A330 when it crashed while trying to land, Reuters reports. The only survivor was an 8-year-old Dutch boy,...

Computer Crash May Have Doomed Air France Flight

Crash raises questions on if today's pilots can cope with computer failure

(Newser) - Investigators trying to piece together the fate of Air France Flight 447 in the absence of its black boxes are focusing on possible computer failures, the Wall Street Journal reports. The evidence suggests a problem with the sensors quickly snowballed into widespread computer outages, leaving the crew struggling to manage...

Airbus Glitches Probed on 2 New Flights

Cockpit sensors failed in same model as crashed Air France jet

(Newser) - Federal investigators are probing two recent incidents in which speed and altitude sensors malfunctioned on Airbus 330s, USA Today reports. The failures, one on a Northwest Airlines flight and one on Brazil's TAM Airlines, are similar to those being investigated in the crash of an Air France A330 earlier this...

I Know What Happened to Flight 447: Trump

Posts theory on his blog about 'plastic rudders'

(Newser) - Donald Trump: entrepreneur, reality show host, airline safety investigator. The real estate mogul has a friend who makes handcarts out of the same material the Airbus 330 rudders are made of, so the Donald has a theory about Air France Flight 447, the New York Post reports.

Air France Airbuses Get New Speed Sensors

(Newser) - All of Air France’s long-haul Airbus jets have had their airspeed sensors replaced, AFP reports. A pilots union says the airline accelerated its program to switch out questionable pitot tubes on A330s and A340s. Though the circumstances are unknown, some think a faulty sensor could have caused Flight 447...

Airbus 330 Makes Emergency Landing in Guam

Cockpit fire forces move; plane same type as in Air France crash

(Newser) - An Airbus 330 carrying 203 people has made an emergency landing in Guam after an electrical problem sparked a small fire in the cockpit, airline officials said. There were no injuries. Though it's the same type of plane as the Air France flight that crashed last week in the Atlantic,...

Air France Union Urges Crews Not to Fly Airbus

(Newser) - A French airline-workers union has urged Air France crews to boycott long-haul Airbus jets until new speed sensors are installed, the Times of London reports. “To prevent a repeat” of the Flight 447 disaster, the Alter union said, “we call on flight deck and cabin crew to refuse...

Air France Changes Airbus Speed Sensors

Icing concerns fueled replacements beginning last month

(Newser) - Air France is speeding up the process of replacing sensors on its Airbus planes following the crash of Flight 447, the BBC reports, a process it began in April. In May of last year, Air France said, it observed a “small number” of “incidents of loss of airspeed...

Airspeed Woes Have Long Plagued Airbus A330

(Newser) - Regulators have warned Airbus for years that speed sensors on its A330 planes were unreliable and made flying unsafe. In the wake of last week's Air France disaster, which killed 228 people when an A330 crashed in an Atlantic storm, Reuters has unearthed regulatory warnings to Airbus. "Lost or...

Airbus Sends Warning on Speed Sensors

Faulty readings may have played a role in Air France crash

(Newser) - The maker of the Air France jet that crashed in the Atlantic issued a warning to pilots on how to respond when speed sensors malfunction, buttressing a belief that faulty readings played a role in the disaster, Reuters reports. An Airbus memo also says the company is replacing all such...

Recovered Debris Not From Air France Crash

Officials say pallet found in crash zone was just 'sea trash'

(Newser) - Brazilian officials say debris they earlier believed was from Air France Flight 447 was actually just "sea trash," the BBC reports. A wooden pallet found 600 miles off Brazil's coast in the area where the jet is thought to have crashed probably came from a ship, and an...

Searchers See More Debris From Air France Crash

Weather alone can't explain crash: aviation analyst

(Newser) - Searchers spotted more wreckage today from Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean earlier this week with 228 people aboard. A team of international aircraft discovered four fields of metallic debris and a 12-mile fuel slick some 220 miles off the Brazilian coast, the Washington Post reports....

Air France Tragedy Stumps Investigators

Pilot on separate flight may have seen fire in ocean

(Newser) - As French and Brazilian military aircraft continue to search the Atlantic Ocean for signs of lost Air France Flight 447, investigators are mulling a range of possible explanations—lightning, bad electronics, a pilot error, or a combination of the three. Late last night the Brazilian airline TAM said its pilots...

Only Certainty in Air France Crash: Catastrophic Failure

(Newser) - We might never know what brought down Air France Flight 447 early today, but aviation expert Miles O’Brien believes it was either an exceptionally unlikely event or a series of cascading failures, he writes for True/Slant. A lightning strike, widely reported as a factor, could only have sent the...

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