The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has ordered urgent inspections of 16 Airbus A380 aircraft after cracks were discovered in wing structural components, according to Aerospace Global News.
The emergency airworthiness directive, issued on Monday and taking effect on Wednesday, requires operators to inspect wing mid-spars on affected aircraft after regulators found that cracks identified during earlier inspections could affect wing strength.
Of the 16 aircraft covered by the order, 15 belong to Emirates and one to Qantas. Five aircraft must be inspected before they are permitted to fly again, while the remaining 11 must be checked within 25 flight cycles.
According to the report, the EASA said the directive followed analysis of inspection data already gathered under earlier airworthiness requirements, and operators had been instructed to obtain inspection procedures from Airbus and report results within seven days, regardless of whether cracks are found. Any aircraft with discrepancies will need repairs before returning to service.
Emirates, the world’s largest A380 operator with more than 100 of the type in its fleet, accounts for the bulk of the affected aircraft. Qantas confirmed that its one affected jet, VH-OQI, was already undergoing heavy maintenance in Dresden, Germany, and that the directive would not affect its flight schedule.
The outlet noted that there is no indication of an immediate safety risk across the wider A380 fleet, and the EASA has permitted limited ferry flights without passengers to allow aircraft to be repositioned for inspection work.
This is not the first time the A380’s wing structure has come under regulatory scrutiny. The report recalled that the EASA ordered fleet-wide inspections in 2012 after cracks were found in wing rib feet and structural brackets, while a separate wing-spar cracking issue emerged in 2019, initially affecting the outer rear spar on early-production aircraft.
That concern reportedly worsened after the pandemic, when aircraft returning from extended storage showed accelerated spar cracking, prompting the EASA to widen its inspection criteria in 2023 to account for time spent on the ground.
The A380, the world’s largest passenger aircraft, entered service in 2007 and has carried more than 300 million passengers across over 800,000 flights, per the report.
Airbus delivered 251 of the aircraft before ending production in 2021, though the type has seen a resurgence in demand, with Emirates, Qantas, British Airways, Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa among carriers continuing to operate it on long-haul routes.
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