INVESTIGATIONS into the 19 January loss of a Rockwell-Daimler-Benz Aerospace X-31A enhanced fighter-manoeuvrability research aircraft are focusing on the air-data system, say sources close to the project.
"There is a possibility that hardware operation of some of the systems may be involved [and] it cannot be excluded that the instruments were giving false readings," says one source, adding that there is no indication that the aircraft's advanced flight-control system was involved in causing the accident.
The first of the two X-31s to be constructed was returning to NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in California following a flight test, when it crashed in an unpopulated area north of Edwards AFB.
Project sources say that the X-31 was in "straight and level flight, or a gentle descent", in good visibility with scattered cloud, of which the aircraft was clear when the accident occurred. Pilot Karl Lang ejected safely.
An accident board has been convened, and the second test aircraft has been temporarily grounded. Project personnel sa,y that they are confident that the flight-test programme will soon continue.
Source: Flight International
