AVIATION regulators have been chastised by the US air safety watchdog for not forcing airlines to fix a problem that has made the cockpit instruments in some airliners abruptly go blank.
In the Airbus A320, failures of the primary wiring system carrying power to the cockpit have not always led to the backup system kicking in automatically, leaving pilots dangerously distracted as they struggle to restore normality. This happened on 37 flights up to May 2007, prompting Airbus to publish a modification to the A320’s electrical system.
However, both the European Aviation Safety Agency and US Federal Aviation Administration have…
