Flight manuals for the Airbus A320 family are being amended to alert pilots to a "software anomaly" which can cause the aircraft to adopt "an unintended flight path". The US Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness directive (AD), to take effect on 3 November, is sufficiently urgent for the FAA to have bypassed the normal consultative process, warning that the fault "could result in an increased risk of collision with terrain or other aeroplanes".
The AD states that the DGAC, France's civil-aviation authority, had advised the FAA of its similar decision on the fault, which is associated with the flight-management guidance system (FMGS) software. Airbus says that the anomaly can affect the aircraft's navigation when the autopilot and flight-management system are in use.
Airbus has confirmed that appropriate service bulletins have already been sent to all operators, and emphasises that the flight-manual amendment, which affects the A319, A320 and A321, is flagged as temporary.
Source: Flight International
