Cases of complete failure of the Honeywell Primus Epic avionics display triggered an emergency AD from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) for all Embraer 170s in late December. The AD raised the airplane’s minimum approach decision height to 500 feet above runway threshold elevation and increased the minimum runway visual range for takeoff to 1,969 feet (600 meters). It will stay in effect until operators fulfill the requirements of an Embraer Service Bulletin modification dated December 14 last year.

Early last month the FAA followed EASA’s lead, requiring all U.S. operators of the 70-seat jet to revise their flight manuals to ground any airplane with an inoperative integrated electronic standby system (IESS), even though the master minimum equipment list (MEL) allows it. Operators must install a new version of Primus Epic software before they can remove the MEL amendment.