In response to the recent incident in Chicago where a pilot exceeded the design range of movement of the Eclipse 500 thrust levers during a go-around, Eclipse Aviation is incorporating changes to the very light jet’s software.
Eclipse intends to increase the range limit of the Throttle Quadrant Assembly (TQA) to prevent the fault condition, pending approval from the FAA. These changes will be administered via a software update to all Eclipse 500 owners and operators.
“Interestingly, an analysis of more than 12,000 hours of flight data from across our fleet collected through the Eclipse Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) system reveals that three Eclipse 500 aircraft have experienced the TQA range exceedance fault, and one was the aircraft in Chicago,” said CEO Vern Raburn.
“While this tells us there is an extremely low probability of this fault happening, we are moving very aggressively to ensure it will not occur again. We’re working closely with both the staff members of the NTSB and the FAA to understand this condition fully, and put the necessary design improvements in place to safeguard our customers and our fleet,” he added.
Thomas B Haines
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