Rules and regs
Because of some misinformation on this thread and at risk of being pedantic, let me spell out requirements pertinent to ditching and bird ingestion. I’ll paraphrase the late 1980’s version of Federal Regs which I think is close enough to certification basis of A320. Note that the regulations current at the date when design began generally apply for the whole production life of the type – which in itself a contentious issue!
“FAR 25.807(e) Ditching Emergency Exits” requires “…..one exit above the waterline ….for each unit of 35 passengers….” Flotation attitude of the aircraft for all distributions of payload and fuel is usually demonstrated by tank testing a model.
“FAR33.77 Foreign Object Ingestion” requires that ingestion of :
- one 4 pound bird not cause fire or hazardous fragmentation
- one 3-ounce bird per 50 suare inch of inlet area up to max of 16 birds or one 1.5 pound bird for first 300 square inches plus one for each additional 600 square inches not cause more than 25 % power loss.
Bottom line is that 2 geese and you’re down!
Congratulations to the pilots and whole crew but let’s not forget the designers and regulators who came up with a robust plane