Citing Safety, Collins Zaps 10K Approaches from Navdata

Rockwell Collins has removed approximately 10,000 approaches from both the Jeppesen and Lufthansa navigation databases for its Pro Line 4 and 21 avionics due to a safety-of-flight issue. According to a company bulletin sent to customers in late October, manually edited or temperature-compensated “Climb To” altitudes in the databases “will command the aircraft to turn in the wrong direction under certain conditions.” The action removes about 35 percent of the approaches in the databases.

As a result of this discovery, “Starting with the 1712 cycle, Rockwell Collins will remove [affected] approaches from both the Jeppesen and Lufthansa Navigation Database types 6, 7, and 8,” the latter referring to “specific types of Pro Line databases.” The company confirmed to AIN that the issue is specific to Rockwell Collins, meaning databases for non-Pro Line 4 and 21 avionics systems are unaffected.

Rockwell Collins said it is working on corrective actions for this issue to restore the removed procedures and will provide further details for registered Rockwell Collins customers before the release of cycle 1713. It also is encouraging operators “to verify their flight-planning procedures.”