Speculation abounds following a plane crash. Mechanical flaws, terrorism, pilot error, and weather are the usual suspects. In the the Air France disaster, there's a particularly urgent need for government authorities to eye the aircraft's on-board computer system as a possible culprit.
It's obvious that if the ADIRU is sending bad data to the flight instruments there's real potential for disaster. The Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU) is a key component of the integrated Air Data Inertial Reference System (ADIRS), which supplies air data (air speed and altitude) and inertial reference (position and attitude) information to the pilots' Electronic Flight Instrument System displays as well as other systems on the aircraft such as the engines, autopilot, flight control and landing gear systems.
Wonky ADIRUs have been identified as the culprits in several recent near-catastrophes involving Airbus. Last year, for instance, authorities blamed the ADIRU after a Qantas Airbus 330 started porpoising wildly while at cruising altitude.
The Air France disaster should be watched very closely as there are numerous political implications in the aircraft industry. The Australian is reporting investigators may be looking at the Airbus Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU) System that sent a Qantas A330 on a wild ride over Western Australia last year.
The Qantas incident last October, and another in December last year also involving an Airbus 330 near Western Australia, involved a problem with a unit called an air data inertial reference unit, which prompted flight control computers to twice pitch down the nose of one of the jets.
Even casual observers know that today's airliners are heavily dependent on computers for everything from the autopilot to the in-flight movie. But some systems are more important than others. If the critical ones fail, there can be big, big problems.
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It's obvious that if the ADIRU is sending bad data to the flight instruments there's real potential for disaster. The Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU) is a key component of the integrated Air Data Inertial Reference System (ADIRS), which supplies air data (air speed and altitude) and inertial reference (position and attitude) information to the pilots' Electronic Flight Instrument System displays as well as other systems on the aircraft such as the engines, autopilot, flight control and landing gear systems.
Wonky ADIRUs have been identified as the culprits in several recent near-catastrophes involving Airbus. Last year, for instance, authorities blamed the ADIRU after a Qantas Airbus 330 started porpoising wildly while at cruising altitude.
The Air France disaster should be watched very closely as there are numerous political implications in the aircraft industry. The Australian is reporting investigators may be looking at the Airbus Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU) System that sent a Qantas A330 on a wild ride over Western Australia last year.
The Qantas incident last October, and another in December last year also involving an Airbus 330 near Western Australia, involved a problem with a unit called an air data inertial reference unit, which prompted flight control computers to twice pitch down the nose of one of the jets.
Even casual observers know that today's airliners are heavily dependent on computers for everything from the autopilot to the in-flight movie. But some systems are more important than others. If the critical ones fail, there can be big, big problems.
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