A380 completes wing static test

The Airbus A380 was put through a static wing load test at the Airbus static test facility in Toulouse, France. One of the A380's wings snapped between the inbound and outbound engines at an applied pressure of about 96.67 percent of the ultimate load. Airbus vice president for engineering, Alain Garcia, felt the wing test had been a success since the rupture occurred "within 3 percent of the target." Garcia also predicted that the wing's failure will require "essentially no modifications" to production aircraft. Chief officer John Leahy recently added that the wing failure was "not a big problem at all."The ultimate load has a built in safety factor of one-and-a-half times the limit load, which is the highest aerodynamic load expected during an aircraft's lifetime of normal service. When the same test was conducted on an Airbus A330 in 1992, the wing failed just below its target load just as the A380. As American Airlines Flight 587 took off from JFK on November 12, 2001, the tail of an A300-600R had snapped off. This tragedy killed 265 people, a small number compared to the potential 853 passengers on the A380.Although not subject to operationally realistic temperature and humidity conditions, the Airbus A300 had been fully tested to ultimate load, 1.5 times the estimated limit load. Unfortunately, Airbus had clearly underestimated even the limit loads for the A300.Last fall, FedEx maintenance workers found a three-foot section of the rudder had begun to break apart on one of its Airbus jets. This discovery comes after a nearly identical Airbus lost its rudder during a flight from Cuba to Canada in early 2005. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said that the rudders of many Airbus passenger jets are made of composite plastic that appears to be dangerously prone to disintegrating. The 2001 crash and a March 25 recommendation on safety posted by the NTSB raise questions about maximum capabilities, or "limit load," of many Airbus aircraft, said Robert Spragg, an aviation lawyer in the Manhattan firm, Kreindler and Kreindler. "If there are a number of events where the limit load is exceeded, that would draw into question Airbus Industries' initial calculations," Spragg said. In a recent Airbus safety drill in Hamburg, Germany, which tested how long it would take to evacuate a fully loaded A380 with half of the exits blocked, 32 volunteers suffered minor injuries, and one man broke his leg. Airbus manager Gustav Humber said, "That was a very great success."No American carriers have so far placed orders for any A380's