Faulty computer blamed for airliner terror
A faulty computer was today blamed as the likely cause of a Qantas airliner’s midair plunges last week.
More than 40 people were injured after the Airbus 300 briefly nose-dived during a flight from Singapore to the Australian city of Perth last Tuesday.
The chief investigator at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said an initial investigation indicated the cause was a computer that detects through sensors the angle of the plane against the airstream.
A spokesman said one of the plane’s air data inertial reference units malfunctioned and sent the wrong data to the main flight computers.
He said that Airbus had notified all operators of the aircraft about the possible malfunction but that it was unlikely any planes would be grounded.
