A French pilots’ union is urging its members to boycott A330 Airbuses over fears that the Air France crash last week was caused by faulty airspeed readings.
Reports state around 10% of Air France crew belong to the Alter union, which is urging the airline to upgrade sensors following the crash which killed 228 people on June 1 off the Brazilian coast.
The union wants to see the pitot tubes, which help measure an aircraft’s airspeed, replaced on both the A330 and A340 series following fears that their icing up at altitude led to the crash.
Air France has claimed it is replacing the tubes on its fleet, although it was yet to do so on the one which crashed.
Meanwhile, the recovery operation in the Atlantic continues. The remains of at least 28 bodies have been found while the aircraft’s black boxes – which supply vital flight data and could shed further light on the causes of the crash – remain lost.