A380s to undergo checks

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) ordered yesterday that all Airbus A380 superjumbo planes be checked for wing cracks, even as the manufacturer insisted there was nothing to worry about.

The cracks had been found “following an unscheduled internal inspection of an A380 wing,” EASA said.

Further to the finding, inspections were carried out on a number of other aeroplanes during which a new form of cracking was identified which, “if not detected and corrected, may lead to reduction of the structural integrity of the aeroplane,” the statement said.

EASA, which had already last month ordered that 20 such jets be inspected following the discovery of cracks in the wings of Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Air France planes, has expanded the checks to all 67 A380s currently in operation.

The announcement came after Australia’s Qantas removed one of its A380 from service after discovering “minor cracks” in its wings, but said that there was no risk to flight safety. When the first checks were announced last month, Airbus’s vice president Tom Williams insisted the tiny wing cracks could be easily repaired and did not pose any danger. Airbus reiterated that stance again yesterday.

The EASA spokesman said the checks comprised both a “detailed visual inspection”, but also more intense testing that would be able to detect potential faults invisible to the naked eye. There was no urgency to the inspections and those aircraft that had flown more than 1,800 flights would be checked first, he said.

Earlier, Qantas took one of its A380s out of service yesterday after discovering “minor cracks” in its wings. The airline stressed that it was not the ‘type two’ cracking found across the global A380 fleet last month which was “now the subject of a European airworthiness directive.”

“To date, type two cracking has not been found on Qantas aircraft,” a Qantas spokesman said.

The small cracking, on “some wing rib feet”, was discovered during an extra round of precautionary checks requested by Airbus on the Qantas superjumbo after it hit severe turbulence over India in January.