SAS was told by European air safety authorities to swap some aluminum rivets on its A380 flagship for stronger titanium fasteners, less than a month after the company was forced to fix cracks on the jet’s wings.
According to a so-called airworthiness directive by the European Aviation Safety Agency today, six aluminum rivets used to join fuselage stringers, or stiff pieces of metal to which the aircraft is fastened, weren’t in compliance with certification requirements. The rivets were discovered in an engineering review, said EASA, which made no connection between the rivets and the hairline cracks found in the A380’s wings. (…)
via Airbus Told to Swap Aluminum Rivets for Titanium on A380 Jumbo – Bloomberg.