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What: Thomas Cook Airlines Airbus A330-200 en route from Belfast to Orlando
Where: Norfolk
When: Jul 10th 2009
Who: 265
Why: En route, an engine started vibrating and had to be shut down. The crew decided to divert to Norfolk,VA

George’s Point of View

Another Airbus.

Shutting down the engine is standard operating procedure, and at the same time, it is a near fatality because the pilot had to shut down that vibrating engine while the plane was still over the Atlantic Ocean, 60 miles from land. Can you imagine what was going through this Airbus pilot’s head as he made the decision to shut down that engine? No doubt he was thinking about last month’s two latest Airbus tragedies: Air France flight 447, or perhaps the Yemenia Airlines Airbus.

I know how overdramatic this sounds. Pilots shut down engines all of the time. it’s the very reason they fly with more than one. Just in case. Pilot training covers how to fly on the remaining engines. But this is just July 2009. Even the most well -trained Airbus pilot has last month’s story of Air France flight 447 in his mind, especially when he’s flying something that fails over the ocean.

This Thomas Cook Flight wasn’t experiencing a subtle problem. It wasn’t some subtle, quiet control panel error that could be handled as passengers flew along blissfully unaware and uninformed. In interviews of passengers, they are quoted as describing the engine as “vibrating” or “clackity.” No doubt there were 530 sweaty palms on that plane.

This was one of at least 5 airbus events we heard about today–and it is not in fact, even a complete listing. Hopefully at least the pilot gets serious credit for getting these people safely on the ground.

Who in the world is going to intercede and demand that Airbuses (every model) get checked from A-Z BEFORE they take off ‘in every part of the globe’? Vero?