Up to 628 A320 planes affected by “quality problems” on metal panels, Airbus announces

Airbus “is in the process of inspecting all potentially affected planes, knowing that only a portion of them will require further intervention,” said the group, which had also recently grounded 6,000 planes to urgently replace software vulnerable to solar radiation.

Airbus announced on Tuesday, December 2, that up to 628 A320 aircraft could be inspected as part of the detection of “quality problems” on metal panels mentioned Monday. “The total number of potentially affected aircraft, both in production and in service, is reduced day by day with the progression of inspections to identify those requiring specific action,” declared the company in a message to AFP, following information from Bloomberg and Les Echos.

The figure of 628 devices, mentioned by these media, is “an estimate of the maximum number” aircraft likely to be inspected, “but this does not mean that all these planes are necessarily affected” by the defects, the company said. Airbus “is in the process of inspecting all potentially affected aircraft, knowing that only a portion of them will require further intervention”she said again, specifying “always act in this way when faced with quality problems in its supply chain”.

The manufacturer announced Monday that it had met with “quality problems” on these metal panels intended for its successful single-aisle A320, claiming that this incident had been “identified” And “circumscribed”. The revelation of this latest incident came a few days after the European aeronautics giant launched a recall also concerning the A320 to urgently replace control software vulnerable to solar radiation.

This measure was taken following an incident at the end of October in the United States: a flight of the American company JetBlue linking Cancun in Mexico to Newark near New York had to make an emergency landing in Tampa, Florida, after suddenly diving downward. Airbus, which had urged its customers on Friday to “stop the flights immediately” of around 6,000 aircraft affected, was however able to quickly intervene on thousands of aircraft on Friday and Saturday, alleviating fears of large-scale disruptions to global air traffic. The A320, in its many variants, is the best-selling civil commercial aircraft in the world. Entered into operation in 1988, 12,257 units had been delivered at the end of September.