EasyJet flight U25259 had to return and make an emergency landing at Gatwick Airport, England, on September 13.
It is believed that the Airbus A319, heading to Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport, Italy, had to turn back due to hydraulic issues.
The plane landed uneventfully.
Everyone aboard remained safe.
SriLankan Airlines flight UL-125 had to stop at runway 25 of Chennai International Airport, India, on September 10.
The Airbus A330-200, en-route from Colombo, Sri Lanka, to Chennai, had to be stopped before reaching the apron due to over-heated hydraulic system.
The plane landed uneventfully.
All 114 people aboard remained unhurt.
All Nippon Airways flight NH-456 had to make an emergency landing at runway 23 of Haneda Airport, Japan, on September 3.
The Airbus A320-200, heading towards Tokyo from Saga, Japan, had to be landed in emergency due to an issue with one of its hydraulic systems.
The plane landed uneventfully.
All 90 people aboard remained unhurt.
The AirAsia Flight FD 3187 had to make an emergency landing at Thailand’s Phuket International Airport, due to bird strike, on August 5.
The flight, carrying 153 passengers and 6 crew members, was on its way from Nakorn Sri Thammarat to Bangkok when a bird smashed into one of the engine intakes and damaged the engine of the Airbus A320-200.
The plane landed safely at about 5:15 p.m.
The airline provided an alternate aircraft to take the passengers to their destination.
In an international safety conference held in the USA on June 18, Airbus expressed their plan to overcoming the issue of pilots relying too much on automated flight control systems.
The European plane manufacturing company is reviewing its pilot training priorities and putting more emphasis on manual flying and enhanced flight monitoring. According to William Tauzin, director of international regulatory affairs for Airbus, the new wide body jet series A350 will be the first with an approved training procedure which re-emphasizes manual flying and improved monitoring of the situations and progress of flight. “There are times when you have to take over manually…because even the most sophisticated automated systems can get planes into situations and places from which the pilots are going to have to fly out,” he said.
The largest customer of the A350 is Qatar Airways which has 80 aircrafts on order. The airline is set to put the new design into service by the end of 2014.
The Airbus Group launched their two-seater, E-Fan electric trainer airplane in France last month.
The all-electric all-composite experimental plane designed specifically as a demonstrator for the small electric aircraft technology made its first public flight in Bordeaux, France, during the Airbus’ E-Aircraft Day.
The aircraft is comparatively quieter than the non-electric planes and has zero carbon dioxide emissions during flight. Moreover, it lasts an hour for training flights and half an hour for manoeuvres.
According to Airbus, the E-Fan electric trainer plane will be used as a model for designing, building and selling two improved versions through their subsidiary company, VoltAir.
On March 2, 2013, an Airbus A380 (flight 275) scheduled to fly from Narita International Airport to Paris aborted a takeoff on runway 34L at Tokyo-Narita. The takeoff was delayed because of a nose gear problem, and subsequently towed to the gate. After maintenance, the takeoff was rescheduled but aborted a second time because of the same trouble, canceling the flight. None of the 537 aboard were injured.
NTSB to Hold Investigative Hearing Into August 2013 UPS A300 crash in Birmingham, Ala.
Jan. 30, 2014
WASHINGTON – The National Transportation Safety Board has scheduled an investigative hearing on February 20 into the crash of a UPS Airbus A300-600 on approach to Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport in Birmingham, Ala., on Aug. 14, 2013.
The two flight crew members were killed and the airplane was destroyed when it impacted the ground less than a mile short of Runway 18. The cargo flight had originated from Louisville, Ky. Runway 18 was being used because the main runway at the airport was closed for repairs at the time of the airplane’s arrival.
The one-day hearing will examine:
• Execution of non-precision approaches, including initial and recurrent training, adherence to standard operating procedures, and proficiency
• Human factors issues associated with effective crew coordination and resource management applicable to this accident, including decision-making, communication, fatigue and fitness for duty, as well as monitoring and cross-checking, policies, standard operating procedures, guidance, and training provided to UPS crewmembers.
• Dispatch procedures, including the training, evaluation, roles and responsibilities of UPS dispatchers and the limitations of dispatch-related software.
The investigation is ongoing and this hearing will develop additional facts to support the investigation. The hearing will be held in the NTSB Board Room and Conference Center in Washington, D.C. A detailed agenda and a list of attendees will be forthcoming.
Parties to the hearing will include the Federal Aviation Administration, UPS, Airbus, the Independent Pilots Association and the Transport Workers Union. The accredited representative from the French Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile (BEA) will participate on the technical panels.
The determination of the probable cause of the crash will be released when the investigation is complete. Just prior to the start of the hearing, the public docket will be opened. Included in the docket are photographs, interview transcripts and other documents.
Some events that happened today:
Remember that British Airways Airbus A319 event we talked about the other day? The one where (oops) the engine cover fell off of the engine on that Oslo flight?
The one where “the coverings broke off and punctured the right engine’s fuel pipe, damaging the aircraft’s systems?” The Air Accidents Investigation Branch the investigation said evealed that the fan cowl doors on both engines were left unlatched during maintenance.”
On May 13, 2013, an Aeroflot Airbus A320-214 en route from Sheremetyevo Int’l Moscow to Vaclav Havel Airport Prague made an emergency landing in Prague.
The plane landed with emergency services on standby, and was towed from the main runway. Passengers disembarked and were taken to the gate by bus.
The tires were damaged on landing (or the plane landed on damaged tires.
On April 29, we saw a report that Nordwind passenger airlines dodged missles over Syria.
The Airbus A320-232 was flying from Sharm el Sheikh-Ophira Airport to Kazan Airport (from Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt to Kazan, Russia) was over Syria when two missiles exploded in the air close by.
Interfax.ru reported the crew steered the jet and saved the passengers’ lives. Unidentified forces launched the two ground-to-air missiles which came very close.
Russian authorities announced the incident.
“On April 29, at 0455 (Moscow time), a Northern Wind plane was travelling in Syrian airspace from Sharm el Sheikh to Kazan and the pilot crew has recorded military activities on the ground that could have endangered the plane and 159 passengers.”
Pilots made a safe landing.
On April 28, 2013, a Wizz Air Airbus A320-232 took off from Warsaw then descended rapidly from about 11000ft.
Passengers smelled smoke. A passenger named Barbara was quoted (machine translation) “Zachybota?o plane dropped like a machine. Then I felt a burning smell. Other passengers can feel it. After a while we went to the employee. Were informed that there was a failure”
Pilots notified ATC and turned around to return to Chopin Airport. The airport said that Pilots said this was not an emergency landing.
There were 161 passengers aboard. They disembarked without any problem, and were provided a later Wizz flight to London.
The Singapore Airlines Airbus A330-300 en route from Singapore Dhaka with 105 passengers and 12 crew aboard diverted to Bangkok when they got an internal flight warning. There were no injuries.
In spite of the cargo fire suppression system, there was a burning smell and a fire.
The plane made a safe landing in Bangkok. The plane taxied to the gate, and passengers disembarked and were provided hotel accommodations, meals and transferred to another airline.
An investigation is underway.
Singapore Airlines’ spokesman, Nicholas Ionides said that “Flight SQ446 operating between Singapore and Dhaka diverted to Bangkok as a result of indications of smoke from the aircraft’s rear cargo hold.”
When Thai authorities clear the Airbus, it will be flown back to Singapore.
But still, it is one of my least favorite things to read (especially while I’m halfway to Singapore) that there has been yet another cargo fire at all, regardless of what kind of plane it is on.
At least I had time to jot down some thoughts.
I hope that the media shines as bright a light on this airbus cargo fire as it has recently on the Dreamliner battery situation. Sure, the Dreamliner is developing new technology and Boeing is responsible for going the distance to keep new developments safe. The Dreamliner battery issue is new. But the fact that Boeing is developing new technologies and new solutions does not provide Airbus and an established plane like a A330-300 a free ticket when it comes to combustion.
Hopefully Airbus is paying attention to all problems and not getting too cocky. It should remember and respect that a plane is still an air-filled bubble hundreds of feet in the air. Until people develop their own wings, random combustion situations like cargo fires on an Airbus A330 are just as potentially hazardous situation–if not more so–than any battery incident that actually occurred on the ground.
Let us please see a fix for this problem.
Air France 447 went down over the Atlantic in 2009.
The fly-by-wire A330 incorporates technology that prevents the airplane from entering a stall, but during a complete loss of airspeed information, however, the system reverted to manual control.
The final report said said the pilots were “completely surprised” by technical problems experienced at high altitude and engaged in increasingly de-structured actions until suffering “the total loss of cognitive control of the situation.”
CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation has been recorded said pilots generally manually manipulating the controls for only three minutes:one minute and 30 seconds each for take-off and landing.
“We are moving towards automated operations where the pilot isn’t even permitted to fly. That means the first time in your career you will ever feel what an aircraft feels like at 35,000 feet is when it’s handed to you broken.”
On March 29, 3013, an Air Mediterranée Airbus A321-111 en route from Agadir-Al Massira International Airport to Lyon Saint-Exupéry Airport ran off the runway on landing at Lyon Saint-Exupéry Airport.
The flight from Dakar had a stopover in Agadir.
The plane was mired in soft ground. Firefighters assisted the passengers out one by one on waterlogged ground. Passengers were ported to the terminal by bus.
According to witnesses, the crew was Greek, and had little English and little French.
Machine translation of the incident from the beginning:
“The stop in Agadir was not provided. We said we had to refuel because of the weather. Upon landing, there were warning signs: the plane was a little unusual zig-zag before stopping. We left about 20 minutes later. In Lyon, the aircraft flew over the track for a long time, very close to the ground, without asking. Then we felt the brakes, we went left, then right, straight into a field, probably over a hundred meters. We then felt burnt and we were afraid that it caught fire.”
182 people were aboard. No injuries were reported.
On March 17, 2013:
Rumors are multiplying. Now there is an unconfirmed rumor that the captain was absent from the cockpit at the time of the event.
In NOT a Flight of Imagination , we did not go into depth about the false-rumor buzz initially created by the French publication “Le Figaro” which is owned by Dassault Group. (i.e. vested interest.) It has already been released that an Airbus rep who is in on the AF 447 black box decoding had obtained permission to send out a telex indicating:
…no immediate action is required as a result of preliminary data from the Air France Airbus A330 accident.
Of course this is what Airbus is going to say. For all we know, they had that statement ready before they even looked at the tapes. Airbus is laying the groundwork. Don’t forget that this is a criminal case in the French court. One does not need a crystal ball to see that this is going to be very expensive for Thales and Airbus and Air France. And of course, the size of compensation payouts for the victim’s families be determined by the extent of blame of the involved parties.
From this quote, a thousand rumors sprang, based on every possible interpretation of that one statement. Although the initial Airbus statement was approved by the BEA, the interpretations were disapproved of by the BEA who followed up saying that Sensationalist publication of non-validated information, whilst the analysis of the data from the flight recorders has only just started, is a violation of the respect due to the passengers and the crew members that died and disturbs the families of the victims, who have already suffered as a result of many hyped-up stories.
The telex does not rule out pitot tube icing, currently a suspected factor in the crash. But Airbus is positioning itself already to blame dead pilots who cannot defend themselves. They want to take the court of public opinion as far as possible away from potential design flaws, manufacturing shortcuts, etc. However, this is not a wise move if they really consider it. The entire bastion of Airbus Fly By Wire theory is that they make “pilot proof” planes.
So, how in the same breath, can they say their planes are pilot-proof and that they crashed due to pilot error? According to their own hype, If the plane itself is pilot-proof, then it can not crash due to pilot error. It HAD to crash due to “other than pilot” error.
As I understand it, no matter what happens on this fly-by-wire model, if there is a problem, the pilots are shut out of being able to fix it anyway.
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Bjoern Schmitt
What: Lufthansa Airbus A380-800 en route from Tokyo to Frankfurt
Where: Estonia
When: Aug 6th 2010
Why: While en route, the left engine developed oil pressure problems and the crew shut it down. The flight continued to Frankfurt where they made a safe landing.
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Royal S King
What: United Airlines Airbus A319-100 en route from Denver to Des Moines
Where: Omaha
When: Aug 10th 2010
Why: After take-off, the flight ran into weather.
The pilot diverted to Omaha, where they made a safe landing. However, on departure from Omaha, the plane developed engine vibration, and had to return to Omaha.
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact Photographer Alan Olivieri
BRAZIL’S WORST-EVER AIR DISASTER
200 Feared Dead in Sao Paulo Crash
At least 195 people were killed in Brazil’s worst plane crash, a product of a country with an inadequate air travel network that has been plagued by havoc.
Witness Paulo Carol imagined he was at the set of a Hollywood disaster film when right in front of his taxi, an airplane crossed six lanes of the Avenida Washington Luis. He and his passengers fled on foot.
Airbus A-320 operated by the Brazilian airline TAM, skidded off the runway after touching down and collided with cars and through a gas station before slamming into a TAM maintenance building. 180 deaths were passengers on the Airbus jet. Fifteen more deaths included Tam employees in the building.
tos)
Luiz Santos who barely escaped the explosion, said “The airplane was coming right at me. I could hear the sound of the engines and then it exploded.” His windows and the back end of his truck were shattered, but Santos and his passenger escaped.
Flight JJ 3054 left Porto Alegre at 5:16 p.m. and landed at Congonhas two hours later. The plane apparently touched down too far down the runway.
Accidents have made flying in South America dangerous to contemplate. Flight controllers are overworked, underpaid and untrained, and rely on aging and defective radar technology in the Amazon.
In September, a Gol airlines Boeing 737 collided with a private jet over the Amazon, killing 154. That investigation is ongoing.
The country’s air travel infrastructure has been unable to keep up with Brazil’s fast economic growth.
Projects intended To Improve Runway
BUENOS AIRES, July 18 — Brazil is planning to investigate if recent construction projects intended to improve runways at Congonhas contributed to the TAM crash, which killed at least 189.
Officials emphasized that it is too soon to determine a specific cause but the world’s worst air crash in five years, is the source of sadness and outrage in Brazil. Critics of Congonhas airport have long predicted an accident like Tuesday’s.
The Airbus 320, touched down and when the pilot realized he could not stop, he attempted to take off again, narrowly clearing an elevated roadway before crashing into a fuel station and cargo office. The capacity of the plane was 185 adults. The 186 people on board included a baby. The weight of the plane was within approved safety ranges. One day before the crash a small turboprop plane harmlessly slid off the same wet runway.
Rescue crews continued recovering bodies. Authorities confirmed all 186 fatalities aboard the plane. The number could rise. The “black box” recorder has been delivered to the United States for analysis.
The 6,362-foot runway at Congonhas is 500 feet shorter than the runway at Reagan National Airport, which is considered too short for large jet landings during rain. The newly repaved runway was scheduled to be grooved to channel rain. as standing water has caused delays in the past.
A congressional panel is already probing Brazil’s aviation security system. Accusations have been made that airport authorities have taken bribes. Federal police are investigating the airport construction projects.
The Sao Paulo attorney general’s office closed Congonhas runway to large jets. “The runway needs to be extended by 1,275 feet to provide adequate space to accommodate jetliners…The airport put at risk the lives of passengers, crew members and those living in the surrounding area due to the constant skidding caused by the inefficient drainage system.”
Responding to objections from airport and airline authorities, an appeals judge lifted the ban. The Airbus 320 was not among those planes that had been restricted from landing.
In Sao Paulo, South America’s largest city with a population of about 20 million, Congonhas airport is surrounded by densely populated commercial and residential neighborhoods. In 1996, a TAM flight crashed a mile from the runway, missing an elementary school.
Gideon Ewers said, “Runway excursions account for something like a quarter of accidents. Anytime you run off the runway and are confronted with a steep slope, a sheer drop, a four-lane highway and buildings, it’s not good.” Ewers is with the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations. The International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations represents pilots from over 90 countries.
The federation urges authorities to add safety-strip extensions to the ends of runways or install “arrestor beds.”
Since 2000, there have been seven accidents in Sao Paulo resulting major damage to aircraft. Six occurred upon landing. A Gol Airlines jet collided with a small private plane over the Amazon rain forest, killing all 154 people abpard just ten months ago, but Tuesday’s crash is the deadliest in Brazil’s history.
A U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has an investigator at the scene to assist in the crash probe. Authorities will be combing the site, checking the runway slickness and the possiblility of pilot error. Former NTSB investigator Ron Schleede said. “Most runway-overrun accidents involve slick surfaces or planes going too fast to stop.” A Miami-based lawyer representing the families of 30 victims of the Gol crash, Ricardo Martinez-Cid said he has been contacted by attorneys for families in Tuesday’s disaster. Court actions could be filed after more evidence has been collected.
