Hi Mudra,
That scenario of the article is to try and put the blame on the Pitot manufacturer Thales and not on Air France or Boeing.
If Air France was found at fault, people would stop travelling on Air France, especially this day and age where the economy and terrorism is high on peoples' minds.
If Boeing was deemed to be at fault, orders would be cancelled and Boeing for sure would go out of business.
I'm sure that the situation of the French pilots' union Alter has been concocted to try and steer the attention away from Air France and Boeing (after everything I've heard about the UAW in the States, dirty underhand deals made by unions will no longer be a shock to me). After all, failing companies mean fewer workers and that means the unions' bottom line will be affected.
Unfortunately I still haven't found another source for the Boeing workers' comments, I only heard the story on CBN, a very respected news channel on Brazilian radio. But just to back up my case further, not every news article about the subject has added information such as:
"But the secretary general of another French pilots' union, SNPL, said Monday the tubes were not likely the cause of the crash. Pitots are "a possible contributing factor," Julien Gourguechon said, but even without them, "we can make the plane fly.""
http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/world/...nt_8263459.htm
"But some pilots said that the planes should remain flyable even if the Pitot tubes ice over in thunder storms. European Aviation Safety Agency issued a precautionary safety bulletin Tuesday reminding operators about existing procedures to safely fly the aircraft even when air speed indicators malfunction.
"We are aware of issues with this in the past, but at no time were they classified as safety-critical," said Daniel Hoeltgen, the agency's spokesman."
"France, Brazil and the Pentagon [ What does the Pentagon have to do with it? - Steve ] have said there are no signs that terrorism was involved in the crash."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090609/...a/brazil_plane
Something just doesn't smell right.
Best regards,
Steve
Quote:
Originally Posted by mudra
Here is the article Steve:
From : " the Australian "
Rush to replace sensors after air union threat
Article from: The Australian
AIR France scrambled to replace speed sensors on its A330 Airbuses yesterday after a pilots' union urged crew to boycott the long-range jets because faulty airspeed readings were suspected over last week's crash off Brazil.
"To prevent a repeat of this disaster we call on flight deck and cabin crew to refuse flights aboard the A330 and A340 series which have not been modified," said Alter, a union to which 10 per cent of the airline's crew belong.
As salvage teams in the Atlantic recovered more of the 228 bodies from Flight 447, Air France and European aviation authorities sought to calm a scare over unreliable pitot tubes - the probes that measure airspeed. Several airlines flying similar aircraft rushed to reassure passengers that they used a different sensor.
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