No Sudden Moves
Pilots of some Boeing 787s are being cautioned against making abrupt flight control inputs in response to “an unrealistic sudden drop in displayed airspeed.”
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in early April that it is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for all 787-8 and 787-9 airplanes, calling for revision of the airplane flight manual to instruct flight crews to avoid abrupt inputs, which the FAA said could exceed an airplane’s structural capability, “and to reinforce the need to disconnect the autopilot before making any manual flight control inputs.”
The FAA said the AD was prompted by “reports indicating that in certain weather conditions with high moisture content or possible icing, erroneous low airspeed may be displayed to the flight crew before detection and annunciation via engine indicating and crew alerting system (EICAS) messages.” The FAA added that it had received three reports of such in-service anomali…
