An Air France Airbus A350-900 (AF291) suffered a radome collapse during a turnback to Osaka after repeated weather-radar outages; France's BEA says a bird strike about a month earlier likely debonded the radome's inner surface and that maintenance checks failed to find the damage.
Discovered |
Briefing
BEA traced the collapse to an undetected bird strike that debonded the radome and to inadequate maintenance checks despite crew defect reports, highlighting a direct airworthiness and in-flight-systems safety failure.
The finding amplifies scrutiny of inspection and oversight practices across operators and OEM supply chains, following recent industry issues such as an Air India probe that found systemic failures allowing an A320 to operate without a valid airworthiness permit and Airbus' supplier metal-panel defect that forced inspections and delivery delays.
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BEA: Air France A350 suffered five bird strikes before in-flight radome collapse • aerospaceglobalnews.com
FlightGlobal
• David Kaminski-Morrow
(DE) Flight AF291: Investigation after Radome Failure • aerointernational.de