Airspeed indication failure on take-off involving Airbus A330, 9M-MTK
Preliminary report is out...
The pitot probe covers were fitted on the aircraft’s three pitot probes by one of the engineering support personnel, as it was his understanding this was normal practice. He later reported that he advised the operator’s maintenance engineer that pitot probe covers were fitted during a brief exchange discussing turnaround tasks, but that the maintenance engineer did not directly respond. The maintenance engineer later reported that he did not recall hearing the advice, and he did not make an entry in the aircraft’s technical log to record that the covers had been fitted.
The presence of the pitot covers was not detected by the operator’s maintenance engineer or captain during separate external aircraft inspections.
Covers on during push