European aircraft manufacturer Airbus said on Tuesday that up to 628 of its A320 aircraft worldwide may need to be inspected due to a quality problem with metal plates at the front of the aircraft. This is reported by the Reuters news agency. Of the 628 aircraft, 168 are already in use.
The number of 628 also includes 245 devices on the assembly lines, Reuters reports. According to industry sources, 100 of these are intended for delivery this year. Another 215 aircraft are in an earlier production phase.
Problems have not only been discovered with panels at the front of the aircraft. Similar thickness problems were also found in some panels at the rear and in other parts of the model. These problems have not been found on aircraft in use, according to the documents seen by Reuters.
“We can confirm that both aircraft in production and aircraft in service may be affected,” an Airbus spokesperson told the news agency.
Software error
Last week, the aircraft manufacturer sent an urgent warning to customers to “immediately stop” flights of A320 aircraft due to a software error. This involved approximately 6,000 aircraft. The update could lead to “operational disruptions for passengers and customers.”
The software update followed an incident with an A320 aircraft from the American JetBlue Airways. The aircraft, which was en route from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark (New Jersey) at the end of October, suddenly experienced a loss of altitude. The analysis of the incident showed that the aircraft’s controls were disrupted by “intense solar radiation”. According to the European aircraft manufacturer, a software update will be enough to solve the problems for approximately five thousand aircraft.
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