Originally Posted by
twinotterifr
FO with just under a year experience on the airbus, had completed my recurrent/OPC yesterday, simulated smoke and emergency elec config for the first time in the sim, was definitely an intense situation. Curious to know from experienced crew, in your opinion, how you would rank the top 5 hardest abnormals/system failures to deal with in an emergency.
Smoke/fire, in particular anything that gets onto the flight deck, having flown pax and freight over the years on a variety of Boeing and Airbus airframes is the one scenario that really gives me the heeby jeebies.
I’m not sure about “top 5” because any single failure can be made nastier by the failure of another system, unrelated or not, or nasty weather/terrain or when the failure(s) happens. ECAM/EICAS/QRH procedures can also only exist for a finite number of possibilities. A dual FCU fault on a CAVOK day would be something of a nothing burger, a dual rad alt failure might be no drama at all but throw in maybe only enough fuel for one or two goes and marginal blustery weather at a remote airfield that ain’t even Cat 1… ghastly to even think about, thank you. Unreliable airspeed can also be a very nasty one.
If you want another nasty one, before your time, look up OEB48.