Airbus has issued an information telex to operators stating that no immediate action is required as a result of preliminary data from the Air France Airbus A330 accident.
While the telex, issued on 16 May, is not designed to establish a conclusion over the cause of the 1 June 2009 accident to flight AF447, it effectively points away from a catastrophic technical failure on board the aircraft.
Airbus declines to comment on the document. French investigation agency Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses - which would have approved the release of the telex - has cautioned against speculation over the crash, stating that any conclusions not validated by its investigators are "null and void".
But a source familiar with the inquiry states that the advisory telex to operators "does not see a need" for any specific action as a result of initial evidence from the inquiry.
Such a telex is normally a reassurance to operators that there is no evidence of an occurrence which would require an urgent maintenance check or revision of operating procedures.
It follows the download of information from the flight-data recorder and cockpit-voice recorder from AF447, retrieved at the beginning of May after an intensive two-year hunt for the A330's wreckage in the South Atlantic.
The telex would not rule out the possibility of pitot tube icing - long suspected to have been an element of the accident sequence - but precautionary directives on this, and the appropriate pilot response to unreliable airspeed information, have already been issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency.
Flight AF447 came down en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in the vicinity of storm activity, with the loss of all 228 occupants.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
