Airbus computer problems

A main part of the incorporated Air Data Inertial Reference System (ADIRS) is the Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU), which provides air data (specifically altitude and air speed) and information on inertial reference (particularly attitude and position) to the Electronic Flight Management System monitor along with other system devices on the airplane like the autopilot, engines, landing gear system controls, and flight control. The ADIRU serves as a common, fault tolerant basis of navigational information for the two pilots on board the aircraft.This computer mechanism is commonly used on several military aircraft and civilian airliners beginning with the A320 of Airbus and 777 of Boeing. The Qantas Dive Scare (2008)Australian investigators have concluded that a flawed command from the on board computer system was the main reason behind the near fatal dive.

A computer error overrode the autopilot controls, causing one Qantas plane to freefall from mid-air over the western part Australia in October 2008, as authorities declared. The computer inputting air data or the ADIRU of the Airbus A330 sent faulty information into the flight control mechanism making the autopilot to fail.

Over 70 passengers on that Qantas flight from Singapore and Perth-bound suffered injuries when the Airbus, loaded with 303 people along with 10 crew members, suddenly lost altitude. Passengers were thrown in mid air inside the plane and the pilots were compelled to execute emergency landing procedures in the northern part of Western Australia.

The incidence of computer related problems with the Inertial Reference Systems on Airbus manufactured airplanes is not common, but this certainly was not the first time.

Considering that the flight systems are very complex and problems have only occurred a few times over the past 10 years, the continuous search for computer glitches in the sophisticated equipment is ongoing. Airbus A380 Incompatible Software Problems (2006)The Airbus concern of 2006 emphasized a problem most companies are bound to have with software -the results when a program does not talk to the other. In this case, the trouble resulted from two separate halves of a similar program, which is the CATIA software and is being utilized to design and builds one of the largest aircraft in the world, the Airbus A380. The software problem was an important European responsibility and, as Business Week would have it, the trouble occurred with communications of two parties in the company -French Dassault Aviation in Toulouse and a Hamburg manufacturing factory. In other words, the German team utilized an older version of CATIA software and the French group, on the other hand, used the most recent version. Thus, when Airbus was trying to connect two parts of the aircraft, the wiring on one could not possibly match the other because they were of different software. The cables would not link without being altered. The issue was in time fixed, although each manufacturing sites associated with it felt that fixing it would cost a lot, the project was back on the drawing board.

Linus Orakles

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