Originally Posted by
vilas
dream747
The fuel leak procedure is a bit ritualistic. The procedure LEAK FROM ENGINE/PYLON NOT CONFIRMED or LEAK NOT LOCATED also assumes that there is fuel in center tank. When there is no fuel in the center tank then it is straight forward case of leak from one side because the cross feed is always off and fuel imbalance will also be developing.
Our usual routes are short enough to not have fuel in central tank. However we practiced an scenario in the sim in which we are dispatched with one engine driven generator inop, so we have to use the APU in flight. That's another way to get to case two even if you don't have any fuel in the centre tank (APU feeding line).
Having this fault in that particular scenario adds another intricacy to whole thing as, in theory at least, you might action case one first, which instructs you to shut down the leaking side engine which is always, you guessed it: the side with the live generator. This would leave you with just one gen alive (APU) and OEI for nothing as this is not where the leak is. What skipper and I decided to do was to read the rest of the procedure but not performing any actions to try and find some logic in the procedure before doing anything. After discarding the symptoms for a possible engine/pylon/wing tank, we just skipped case one altogether and went straight to case two, shut down the APU and that was it.
@citation2
One of the lines on ECAM after engine failure is "Imbalance... Monitor". It is my understanding that in the past that line used to say "Xfeed... Open". After several fuel advisories doing initial training (especially if after flying the EOSID we'd fly a single engine go around for another EOSID), if opening the Xfeed such advisory wouldn't pop up. Now, I'm not sure how it works since during the whole procedure you don't turn the
receiving (not supplying) tank pumps off, but it works and it keeps the tanks balanced. Although it's not important on the A320, as vilas said, because you can land with one wing full and one wing empty without any issues