Your Comment and report on the AA587 Airbus A300-600 rudder separation (Flight International, 9-15 March) neatly encapsulates the issues. But will the entrenched parties listen?
Having just spent over five years investigating prescription-drug side-effects, I have learned that in accidents, effect is not always a corollary of cause - there are bits in between. The parties involved in this case would do well to remember that.
The Airbus A300-600 rudder is more sensitive than that of other types, but providing the manufacturer issued adequate warnings, this should not be a problem. If the user has been trained properly, why should there be an issue?
Surely it comes down to the conduct and training of the prescriber (the operating airline) and the end user (the pilot). Unless the supplier (manufacturer) failed to give an adequate product warning.
This does not appear to be the case: Airbus announced the feature, so too did others - notably the US National Transportation Safety Board. Yet the airline has had four previous related events. The obvious legal question would be: is there a flaw in this customer's user training? And is that due to the customer, bad advice from the maker, the culture of the day - or a combination of the lot?
In the pharmaceutical world, it takes years for this sort of problem to emerge and be admitted, let alone addressed. American Airlines and Airbus need to work together - otherwise it will all happen again.
Lance Cole Swindon, Wiltshire, UK
Source: Flight International
