The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has proposed to issue an Airworthiness Directive (AD) requesting the operators of Airbus A380 aircraft to check its superjombo jets for trailing-edge cracks.

After the cracks in the left and right sides of wing trailing edge (TE) devices of Airbus A380 planes in-service were found, the EASA proposed to carry out inspections in order to eliminate safety risks.

“This condition, if not corrected, could lead to in-flight loss of parts located in the TE, possibly resulting in damage to the aeroplane, and reduced control of the aeroplane”, says EASA in the proposed AD.

Airbus, in turn, has reacted to the occurrence by issuing service bulletin (SB) with instructions for inspections for different locations and modifications to achieve the “design service goal”. The proposed AD also provides the specific A380 airframes to which these instructions have to be applied to.