Cables found cut in Airbus 380

[Mark R]

Text

The aircraft manufacturer Airbus has said that three cables were found cut on an Airbus A380 that was being assembled at its Toulouse factory in southwestern France.
An internal investigation is underway to determine what happened and why, said an Airbus spokeswoman, adding that any indication of sabotage has not been established.

The aircraft maker did not indicate in what part of the plane or on which particular aircraft the cables were severed.

The incident was reported in Saturday's edition of the local newspaper Depeche de Midi as "sabotage" which "took place at night, at a time when there are fewer staff around," the newspaper said.

 

[dguy6789]

It was probably a seat belt.

 

[Specop 007]

If you want to sabotage on aircraft its probably better to do it AFTER its flight trials rather then before.

 

[ECUHITMAN]

No one ever said the person that may or may not have done this was very smart...

 

[EagleKeeper]

Doing it before flight trials may have been the intent to cause a serious failure.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: EagleKeeper
Doing it before foight trials may have been the intent to cause a serious failure.

Maybe, but I'm fairly sure that the final checks they do before flying it for the first time are going to be more comprehensive than those they do before a routine flight. And in any case, assuming they were cut intentionally, I'm having a hard time seeing the advantage of not crashing the airplane when it is filled with passengers. Whatever the goal, it seems like crashing a FULL aircraft would be the best way to reach it.

 

[trenchfoot]

if it was an inside job, the usual reasons revolve around framing or retaliating against a fellow employee, management/employee conflicts, or accidently damaging the aircraft while perfroming an unrelated task and not reporting it for fear of administrative punishment etc.

the probability of that cabling being sabotaged by terrorists seems rather remote, given the timing of it all as specop007 and rainsford previously mentioned. if it was sabotage at this stage of the build, i suspect it was perp'ed by some disgruntled employee more so than some terrorist organization.

given that there's all kinds of different "cables" in an aircraft, some critical and some not, and that all flight control cabling as well as other performance critical cables are redundantly backed up at least x2, and that comprehensive inspections are conducted before an aircraft is accepted by the end user, it's not logical for a terrorist to sabotage cabling and expect it pass unnoticed this early in the build. the logical time to do it would be after the aircraft has been proven flight-worthy, especially right after it's second or third hangar inspection.

unless perhaps, the damage was a diversion, and the real target of the sabotuer was in some other system not so easily detected, or where the ultimate damage is time-delayed.

at any rate, that poor aircraft is going to have to be painstakingly strip-inspected by all involved to make sure no further "sabotage" was committed on that aircraft (a very costly endeavor). not to mention that security is going to have to be ratcheted up a few notches and everyone there is going to have to put up with all of that from here on in.

all of which may have been the real intent of the possible miscreant in the first place?

edit- forgot to add - i may be reaching here, but i kind'a think that most cable damage would be detected even in pre-flight inspections at the ramp.

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: Specop 007
If you want to sabotage on aircraft its probably better to do it AFTER its flight trials rather then before.

All your grammatical and spelling errors tell me that you are really ~13 years old and a CS adict. I took this critique out of my sig, but your lack of knowledge of the english language signals that you have about a 7th grade education.

then != than