The FAA last Friday grounded all Cirrus Vision Jets through an Emergency AD prompted by Cirrus reporting three incidents on Cirrus Model SF50 airplanes of the stall warning and protection system (SWPS) or Electronic Stability & Protection (ESP) System engaging when not appropriate. Over the weekend, Cirrus senior vice president of sales and marketing Ben Kowalski told Flying, “Out of an abundance of caution, we immediately began working with the FAA and our internal teams to determine the root cause and began our operator communication process. We proactively and quickly issued two service advisories and one mandatory service bulletin to ensure our operators were up to speed on the issue and to remind them of the proper airplane flight manual (AFM) procedures to follow in case of an angle of attack (AOA) related issue. We then quickly identified the root cause as an AOA sensor hardware issue, not a software issue.”
Cirrus Releases Update on Vision Jet Grounding
Key Takeaways:
- The FAA grounded all Cirrus Vision Jets due to the stall warning and protection system (SWPS) or Electronic Stability & Protection (ESP) System engaging inappropriately.
- Cirrus identified the root cause as a hardware issue with the Angle of Attack (AOA) sensor, not a software problem.
- The AOA sensor malfunction was due to a "quality escape" at the supplier, Aerosonic, involving improperly torqued set screws in the sensor assembly.
- New, corrected AOA hardware sensors are being shipped by the supplier to replace the faulty units and resolve the issue.
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