Technical and maintenance
FAA orders new flight computer standard for the A330 after a touchdown fault
A fault that once cost an A330 its autobrakes and thrust reversers on landing has pushed the FAA to mandate a new flight control computer standard.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a final rule on 27 October 2026 requiring operators of the Airbus A330-941 to install a new primary flight control computer (FCPC) standard, closing out a fault first identified on an A330 landing in Taiwan.
The event behind the rule happened on 14 June 2020, when a China Airlines A330-300 lost all three primary flight control computers moments after touching down at Taipei Songshan. Losing the computers also cost the crew their autobrakes and thrust reversers. They stopped the aircraft on manual braking alone, coming to rest only a few metres short of the runway end. Taiwan's Transportation Safety Board found the computers shut themselves down because a monitoring check between each computer's command and monitor channels triggered when it should not have.
In plain terms
An A330 flies with three primary flight control computers that constantly check each other's work through paired channels. The check exists to catch a real fault. Here it mistook normal operation for one and shut all three computers down at once, at the worst possible moment to lose them.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency adopted a mandatory fix in 2025, AD 2025-0208, requiring a new FCPC software standard known as P17B/M32NEO 2K2. The FAA's rule adopts the same requirement for the US registered fleet and bars installing the superseded standard going forward.
On the line
Check A330-941 tails against the new FCPC standard ahead of the compliance date, and confirm the configuration on any aircraft returning from a computer swap or software load. A superseded standard is not just a paperwork gap, it is the specific fault this rule exists to close.
No A330 has lost all three computers at once since the Taipei event, and neither Airbus nor the FAA has linked the fault to another aircraft in the family.
Sources
- Federal Register, "Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes", final rule 91 FR 67455, published 27 October 2026. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/10/27/2026-21861/airworthiness-directives-airbus-sas-airplanes
- Flight Safety Australia, "Beast in the machine", 2025. https://www.flightsafetyaustralia.com/2025/12/beast-in-the-machine/
- Airportia, "China Airlines A333 at Taipei on Jun 14th 2020, all primary computers, reversers and autobrakes failed on touchdown", 2021. https://www.airportia.com/news/china-airlines-a333-at-taipei-on-jun-14th-2020-all-primary-computers-reversers-and-autobrakes-failed-on-touchdown-2/