Airbus Is Ordered To Inspect 16 Jets After Cracks Are Found In Wings
8 61schwit1 shares a report from The Wall Street Journal: The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has ordered (PDF) urgent inspections of 16 Airbus A380 planes operated by Emirates and Qantas, after cracks were found in a wing component on some aircraft (source paywalled; alternative source).. Cracks were found during earlier inspections of the wing spars structure, a key component of the wing, EASA said in a directive effective Wednesday. EASA determined that they "could reduce the structural integrity of the wing."
"To address this potential unsafe condition, Airbus determined that an additional special detailed inspection has to be accomplished," EASA said. The first group of five aircraft, operated by Emirates, need to be inspected immediately, while the second group of 11 aircraft can be inspected later but within 25 flight cycles, EASA said in a separate statement. From the second group, 10 are operated by Emirates and one by Qantas, the aviation safety agency said.
8 comments
Re:Would a Spar be Repairable? (Score: 5, Informative)
by PPH ( 736903 ) on Friday June 26, 2026 @11:30AM (#66211954)
Possibly repairable with the application of doubler plates, depending on the extent of cracking. Replacing a wing spar may be uneconomical and result in the aircraft being written off. Such major structural repairs may be possible in other parts of an aircraft. But not so much the wings. The entire weight hangs from those.
Re:Would a Spar be Repairable? (Score: 5, Interesting)
by jd ( 1658 ) on <imipak@yaho[ ]om ['o.c' in gap]> on Friday June 26, 2026 @12:10PM (#66212010)
As production has ended, if the A380 is genuinely necessary, then the economics shift somewhat. That doesn't mean they CAN be replaced, from the sounds of it they can't* (at least in many cases), but the inability to replace the aircraft would mean that options that aren't rational become necessary.
*I have to be careful here. If the wing is designed to be the absolute minimum weight possible, then I don't see how they could be without fully disassembling the entire wing and then reconstructing it from the ground up. And adhesives/welding might mean that just can't be done. At all. On the other hand, there's no obvious reason why you couldn't design a wing to have far more structural support than actually needed AND make spars deliberately maintainable and replaceable. I don't have an A380 handbook in front of me, so can't say how Airbus approached this. But it seems improbable that they're built to be swapped.
Re:Would a Spar be Repairable? (Score: 5, Interesting)
by dunkelfalke ( 91624 ) on Friday June 26, 2026 @01:51PM (#66212156)
The A380-800 wing is massively oversized because it has been designed for the even larger and heavier A380-900 that never went anywhere beyond Catia.
Re:Would a Spar be Repairable? (Score: 5, Interesting)
by deadweight ( 681827 ) on Friday June 26, 2026 @01:31PM (#66212130)
Usually. The common place for cracks is in or around the fittings that attach it to the airplane. Replacing an entire spar is quite an operation, it might be cheaper to make a new wing. The much more common repair is reinforcements around the area that cracks, not an entirely new spar. This is for aluminum airplanes, a wing made of fiberglass (carbon, epoxy, etc. etc.) may not be repairable like that. I recently delivered an airplane that could have this issue, we had to get the paperwork to prove inspections and repairs had been done before leaving.
"Emergency Airworthiness Directive" (Score: 5, Insightful)
by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Friday June 26, 2026 @11:16AM (#66211922)
"...while the second group of 11 aircraft can be inspected later but within 25 flight cycles"
It's an emergency but we'll get to it when we get to it...
Re:"Emergency Airworthiness Directive" (Score: 5, Informative)
by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Friday June 26, 2026 @03:00PM (#66212284)
"It's very important and cannot be skipped, but the danger is not imminent" is a perfectly reasonable classification for risk. You used the word "emergency". They did not.
You would be amazed how many things continue to operate in this middle ground. Like an absurd number of bridges in the United States.
Re:a380 concorde (Score: 5, Interesting)
by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Friday June 26, 2026 @03:09PM (#66212300)
The A380 is already out of production. The airlines that fly A380s really want more though. "Not economical" depends very much on what types of routes you fly and how much landing and takeoff slots cost at the airports you service.
Re:a380 concorde (Score: 5, Informative)
by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday June 26, 2026 @04:08PM (#66212338)
this is probably the death knell.
The airbus A380 died 5 years ago. It hasn't been in production for a while. But your assertion that it isn't economical to fly is false. It very much is, but only on very selected routes, and there's only so much competition possible on those routes.