Airbus knew of tail woes before crash, union says

By Jim Morris
The Dallas Morning News

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The Airbus memo, which union officials said they obtained from crash-related court files, states that movement of the A300-600's rudder back and forth could create stresses far beyond what the plane's tail was designed to tolerate — a critical point that manufacturers call "ultimate load." The memo was written in June 1997 by Thomas Thurnagel, an Airbus engineer in Hamburg, Germany.

"People died because this memo wasn't disclosed, in my opinion," said John David, deputy safety chairman for the Allied Pilots Association.

Airbus, which has overtaken Boeing as the world's dominant commercial-aircraft manufacturer, denied the allegation. Airbus spokesman David Venz accused the union of "shopping" the document to the media.

The memo's release and the Airbus response represent the latest volleys in a war of words between the manufacturer and American. It comes two weeks before the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is to issue its findings on the crash of Dominican Republic-bound American Flight 587 on Nov. 12, 2001. The aircraft plunged into a Queens neighborhood shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing 265 people.

NTSB officials couldn't be reached for comment yesterday, a federal holiday.

American spokesman Bruce Hicks said the airline couldn't comment on the document because of court-imposed restrictions. But he said the airline had been "concerned for a long time about how much Airbus knew and never properly disclosed."

Airbus has consistently maintained that it wasn't aware of any potentially catastrophic design flaw with the A300-600 before the crash. Instead, it has blamed the crash on mistakes by pilot Sten Molin.

The New York Times reported last month that the safety board "is poised to conclude that actions by [Molin] were the main cause" of the Flight 587 crash.

Pilots-union official David, however, said if Airbus had alerted A300-600 operators or the safety board to the potential rudder problems, the crash of Flight 587 might have been prevented.

The plane's tail snapped off 103 seconds into a flight from JFK to Santo Domingo.
 
Airbus maintains that Molin caused the accident by using the rudder too aggressively to steady the plane after encountering turbulence. It says it warned American about "dangerous use of rudder and the fact that such use could result in loss of controlled flight or damage to aircraft structures."

Thurnagel's memo summarizes Airbus' investigation into the near-crash of an American A300-600 on approach to Miami in May 1997. The pilot lost control of Flight 903 at 16,000 feet and moved the rudder from side to side to recover, almost tearing off the tail in the process. "Rudder movement from left limit to right limit will produce loads on fin/rear fuselage above ultimate design load," the memo says.

Had this problem been disclosed, David said, pilots of the A300-600 could have been cautioned about use of the rudder, which he described as being "unusually sensitive" to foot pressure.

As it happened, the NTSB didn't issue such a warning until after Flight 587 was lost.