LATAM flight LA-7732 had to divert and make an emergency landing at Ministro Pistarini International Airport, Argentina, on March 9th.
The Airbus A320-200 plane heading from Aeroparque Jorge Newbery to Comandante Armando Tola International Airport, Argentina, was diverted after the crew noticed smoke in the cockpit.
The plane landed safely. All one hundred sixty-seven passengers and six crew members remained unharmed.
When a Bristow S-76 Helicopter with eight passengers and two crew fishtailed as it was flying from from Humberside Airport to a gas platform in the North Sea, the helicopter made a precautionary landing. The crew smelled smoke in the cockpit at the time.
The investigation concluded that an electrical short had occurred in a wiring loom.
The incident occurred on Sept 26, 2012.
The report is below:
According to Airbus, A380 wing cracks (“non-critical wing rib-skin attachments on a limited number of A380 aircraft”) are a non-issue because they “do not make the planes unsafe.”
The plan is to use scheduled 4-year maintenance checks called “D-Checks” to screen planes for signs of cracking.
We are just curious if this was a manufacturing error or a design flaw. And even if it is not a safety issue, the idea of just waiting around till a scheduled check seems chancy at best.
In the operation of the Airbus 330, a percentage of man-made decisions are taken away from humans in the cockpit. When you closely consider the Air France Airbus Flight 447 crash, it is easy to see that bad pilot decisions occurred when the pilots were not getting accurate feedback about what was happening. In old programmer lingo, this is “garbage in-garbage out.” And, unfortunately, when the data comes out of a computer, people tend to believe it, especially pilots in a falling plane, whose lives rely on that particular “garbage.”
Sure, mistakes were made. The pilot retired, leaving the cockpit to the copilots. If he had stayed in the cockpit, none of this would have happened.
Of the two remaining co-pilots, one still should have realized the other’s mistaken attitude (flying at a nose-up attitude with falling speeds.) Even something as basic as tandem cockpit control (where the flight controls move in tandem in the left and right cockpit), would have revealed to the second co-pilot what the other pilot was doing. But cockpit controls in the A330 are asymmetrical, and move independently.
If one co-pilot had caught that the junior co-pilot was flying at the nose-up attitude while the speed was dropping, none of this would have happened.
Not only did the failure of pitot tubes (the malfunctioning equipment that reads/relays airspeed) occur when they iced up, any failsafes that should have kicked in, didn’t. Thales Pitot tube icing was a known factor prior and considered by Airbus an “optional” fix. Because these tubes were frozen (iced over) airspeed data was incorrect.
If Airbus had demanded that the flawed Thales pitot tubes be replaced, the airspeed data would have been correct, and none of this would have happened.
The plane flew for a while with falling speeds, nose up. Then, the idiosyncrasy of the stall warning alarm system kicked in. When airspeed slowed too much, the warning went off, but when it slowed even more, it stopped. The pilots were in a feedback deadzone. Flying at a crawl, the warning quit. Speeding up from a crawl to slow turned set the warning off again. So when they tried to increase to the proper speed, the stall system went off.
It is a given that correct data and feedback are essential to a pilot. In the Airbus 330, the underlying design failed to provide accurate data and feedback. Could any pilots fly a plane if they did not know what is happening? It all comes down to a whole integration of synchronicity: a coetaneous concurrence of problems and failures converged on the pilots at once. Pilot error alone does not a crash make. Not even on an A-330.
Ryanair flight FR-3131 had to divert and make an emergency landing at Brussels Airport, Belgium, on July 24th.
The Boeing 737-800 plane heading from London Stansted Airport, England, to Paphos, Cyprus, was diverted due to a wheel well fire indication.
The plane landed safely Everyone aboard remained unhurt.
The airline arranged a replacement plane for the passengers.
Alaska Airlines flight 2372 made an emergency landing at Spokane International Airport, Washington, on December 15.
The Bombardier Q400 plane was flying from Seattle, Washington, when the crew reported smoke in the cabin and declared an emergency.
The plane landed safely. All 75 passengers and 4 crew members remained unhurt.
The aircraft was taken out of service.
Egyptair Flight MS804 (AKA EgyptAir Flight 804) was a Paris to Cairo flight that ended in the Mediterranean on May 19, 2016. Sixty-six people lost their lives: three security crew, fifty-six passengers, seven crew.
Egyptian authorities published a progress report on 28/06/16 that the BEA repaired the recorders. On 17/06 that the Technical Investigation Committee of the A320 accident studied FDR data as well as performing time correlation between FDR and CVR data and cockpit voice recordings before the occurrence of the accident where the existence of a “fire” was mentioned. That report did not determine the reason or location where that fire occurred. Smoke was reported during the flight in the bathroom and the avionics bay.
The investigation has been fraught with controversy. On 22 May, 2016, M6 (French TV) reported that a pilot told Cairo air traffic control about smoke in the cabin, and the pilot consequently made an emergency descent.
On May 20th 2016 The Aviation Herald received information from three independent channels, that ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) messages with following content were received from the aircraft:
No sooner did the report come out that the Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry dismissed it as false.
One truism I have found in accident investigation is that it takes time to find the truth. Another is that facts can be misleading. Reportage from official sources moves slowly; reportage from commercial, so-called “news,” or social sources is frequently speculative, unsourced, or purely imaginary. Sometimes it is actually correct. It is difficult to tell the difference. Contradictions are a frequent finding, such as this:
How does a close reader respond to a statement that “traces of explosives were found WITH human remains?” A close reader finds more questions. With the remains is not ON the remains. But it could be either way since we are dealing with languages. In English, WITH the remains could mean a bomb was floating in the water near the bodies, or ashes, or gasoline or TNT residue. And what constitutes near? Inches? Miles? It all is relative. Or if the original report is loosely translated, did the original document use a preposition such as ON the remains? And then, there are the forensic questions. Were explosive remains washed off of bodies that were submerged in the ocean?
If the case goes to court, the court will want to know if something failed on the plane, and if so, what it was. Manufacturers of failed components are considered responsible parties. No matter what the cause, international treaty determines carrier responsibility to the victims of the crash.
The determination of failed components provides additional responsible parties. The discovery of a bomb would make airport security one of the potential responsible parties. In addition, international treaty provides guidelines for what carriers owe to the families. (Which treaty is involved depends on which treaty/treaties the involved country/countries are signatory to. If it sounds like it can get complicated, you are correct.)
It has been nearly a year since the accident, and though some things may be believed in the court of public opinion to be one way or another, questions remain unanswered. How grievous and how difficult for the families that must wait so long to find out what brought about this tragedy that took their loved ones.
