Andrew Doyle/MUNICH Ramon Lopez/Washington DC
Airbus is assembling the A340-600 prototype with a passenger emergency exit door configuration that fails to comply with European and US certification requirements.
Production is underway as the manufacturer continues to lobby the European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) and US Federal Aviation Administration to grant the stretched A340 an exemption to a regulation demanding that the distance between adjacent doors does not exceed 60ft (18m) (Flight International, 17-23 March 1999).
Airbus says the first aircraft is "going to be our testbed and will not be used in passenger service". It declines to comment on how the design of production aircraft will be modified if it does not secure the waiver, but would almost certainly be forced to add a pair of Type III overwing hatches.
"Do not assume that subsequent aircraft will look like the prototype," says the consortium. "But we won't speculate on what may or may not happen."
The distance between the full-size Type A doors 2 and 3 on the A340-600 is 74 ft (22.6m) on each side of the fuselage. The 60ft maximum was introduced to prevent airlines blocking off the overwing exits on Boeing 747s.
JAA certification director Koos van der Spek says: "In order to get the aircraft certificated in Europe, Airbus needs a solution to the 60ft rule. They would like this rule to be changed," he adds. "We have not given permission for the distance to be increased to 74ft."
Airbus says it is pushing for the rule change on safety grounds, because the smaller Type III doors can become blocked during an emergency evacuation. "We believe the arrangement we're pushing for offers the best evacuation time," it says.
Not including the overwing hatches would also save 500kg in weight, allow room for an extra row of seats and reduce production costs by allowing a common centre fuselage section to be used for the -600 and smaller, longer-range -500.
Cabin crew represented by the US Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) are threatening to boycott the A340-600 if Airbus is granted an exemption to the 60ft rule. The labour group, representing 49,000 flight attendants, says the aircraft would not have enough exit doors for safe emergency evacuations. Flight attendants previously successfully protested against the removal of overwing exit doors on the 747.
Source: Flight International
