Do you remember that great European achievement, the Airbus A380? Well, this story from the Daily Telegraph: makes disturbing reading:

“Joseph Mangan thought he was doing Airbus a favour when he warned of a small but potentially lethal fault in the new A380 super-jumbo, the biggest and most costly passenger jet ever built. Instead, Europe’s aviation giant rubbished his claims, and now he faces ruin, a morass of legal problems, and – soon – an Austrian prison. Mr Mangan is counting the days at his Vienna flat across the street from Schonbrünn Palace, wondering whether the bailiffs or the police will knock first. An American aerospace engineer, he has discovered that Austria offers scant protection to whistleblowers. Bankrupt, he is surviving with his wife and three children on gifts of food from fellow Baptists in Vienna. Having failed to stump up a ¬150,000 (£100,000) fine for breaching a court gag order, he now faces a year behind bars. His troubles began in September 2004 when he contacted the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), claiming that the cabin pressure system in the A380 might not be safe, and that this had been concealed.”

There could, of course, be nothing to Mangan’s claims, but the way he has been treated is not reassuring.

The crook Chirac, of course, has previously described the A380 as “the symbol of what Europe can achieve, but as I’m now overwhelmed by irony I won’t write anything more on this topic (for now).