I find the whole subject of Airbus FCOMs and QRHs most interesting. Having been used to Aircrew Manuals and Flight Reference Cards which are designed to give the captain and crew the fullest picture to assist his/her decision making in what we used to term 'emergency' situations, I naturally assumed that Airbus took a similar approach to 'not normal' events.
Not so. It appears that they will
only approve 'minimum necessary' actions and crews are trained to 'observe indication, do what it says in QRH'. Airlines are, however, at some liberty to incorporate their own additions provided that Airbus cite 'No Technical Observations'....
Hence when something unusual happens and no 'procedure' is available, it is hardly surprising that correct decision making becomes unfamiliar. I am involved with a modified Airbus product which has an additional fuel transfer system into the Center Tank from 2 extra pumps in each Inner Tank; normally this runs in 'Auto'. In a synthetic training device, we gave 3 crews the same fault - a single transfer pump failure (all 4 run in 'Auto' - but only 1 per side in 'Manual'. 'Manual' also requires transfer sequencing by the crew at specific Center Tank values.) When the 'Auto' sequence was activated by the Center Tank sensor, the associated 'LO
PR' light came on at the failed pump p/b. Solution? Turn the pump off and also the corresponding one on the other side to stop any asymmetry. But there was no 'procedure' written for this; all 3 crews did the (non-critical) wrong thing and put the system into manual, compounding their difficulties as they now also had to remember to open the transfer valves at the correct value - so we 'loaded them up' to see whether they'd remember. One crew forgot, the Center Tank reached a level at which another system was affected; they then carried out the procedure which I'd written for that and the problem was resolved. On this showing, it seemed, therefore, that a simple procedure for this 'LO
PR' event was needed, so I wrote one. Hopefully Airbus will include the requisite procedures in their FCOM/QRH.........?