FCA Slide blow in BRS

[WATABENCH]

FCA A321, G-OOAE blew a slide last nite in BRS, Oopsie Daisy, Scared the bejesus out of the caterers apparentley, is there any way at all this can be done whilst the door is disarmed? just wondering? :confused:

[WindSheer]

Watabench me old mucka!

I do believe that if the door is armed and opened from the outside it automatically disarms.
The inside is a different matter......

:8

[WATABENCH]

Apparently it was some sort of mechanical fault as slide didnt inflate and door was disarmed.
Poor crew member must of s**t herself at first, bet the old FCA engineers had fun doing that one overnight at -2 degrees, on whisky apron aswell. :ugh:

[big.al]

How many 321s does FCA have? I'm due on one EMA-SZG this Saturday, and wonder if it's the same aircraft. If so, hope they've fixed it!

[WindSheer]

Down to four 321's now, with 7 320's.

[WATABENCH]

G-OOAF Operating out of EMA at the moment, so you can keep your sanity for the moment.:bored:

[Matty J]

About 2 years back i was dispatching an FR 737-300 (Continental Hybrid ex Buzz thingy!) when the slide blew at the rear of the A/C on Cpts side.

I was perfoming a walkaround just prior to push back and the thing almost hit me! They do come out with a hell of a force!

Was funny to see at the time when no danger is involved, sliding down one in an emergency would be very different im sure!:uhoh:

Matt.:ok:

[WATABENCH]

I remember about 3 years ago i think and a MYT 320 had a slide blow in BRS, think that was down to CPT not disarming door though, just suprised me that it can happen when door is disarmed as per this FCA, wonder if its more prone to happen on Airbus as aposed to Boeing? anybody any ideas?:confused:

[fastjet2k]

As was said earlier, the Airbus door (if armed) will disarm if opened from the outside. Naturally, if opened from the inside, the slide will blow (as one would hope anyway!).

One problem that the Airbus does have (maybe Boeing's do too, not sure) is that it's very prone to getting debris stuck beneath the door, sugar sachets, cutlery, security seals etc. etc. Its not uncommon for a door to be 'armed', yet in practise for the girt bar not to have engaged and thus show as disarmed on the crew's FAP and on ECAM.

Just a theory, perhaps the door was disarmed after flight, but ina reversal to the usual scenario, perhaps something was stuck so when the door was opened, it tugged the girt bar and deployed the slide??

I don't know the facts so please accept this is just a thought!!!

FJ2k

[World of Tweed]

WATABENCH another theory??

I worked on the 757 for a while and I remember being told a number of times that occaisionally after a long cruise and rapid decent that around part of the mechanism i.e. the girtbar locks, that frozen moisture can be present causing an obstruction to the mechanism. Paritcularly if you've had a "blowing" door - one were FastJet2K's sachets of sugar and/or stirrers got in the way of the door seal making the cavity within the door colder than usual. We were advised that should we suspect the door not disarmed after a first attempt to try again and then just 'crack' the door open and hope that we weren't flung to the other side of the apron byt the power assist!!!

I certainly know that the 757 disarm lever would ocaisionally be hell to try and move after a long luxor 6hrs - which does kind of support the freezing theories.......Thankfully never got to "fly" across an apron though!

P.s. FJ2K I believe the 757 also has the problem of debris around the gubbins down below.

[Safety Guy]

From what is reported to have happened in this case, my comment isn't directly on point, but I think it bears mentioning none the less.

The A320 family main cabin doors have a minor design flaw, in that the ergonomics of the slide arming and door opening handles are the same (i.e. vertical) motions. As a result, A320 family operators experience a higher than normal rate of unintentional door slide deployments by cabin crew. Most other airliner doors have been designed so that the action of arming and disarming a door is ergonomically unique to the motion of opening and closing the door.

In know that many airlines (particularly in the UK) require that the cabin crew arm the cabin doors while refuelling with pax on board? Is this still a CAA requirement? If so, I must question the logic of this requirement. The vast majority of accidental slide deployments occur in this configuration. Ground crew working below these doors are exposed to an unnecessary risk, IMHO. Also, the cost both in dollars and in delays far outweighs the improvement in safety gained by arming doors. The number of evacuations carried out in the industry during refuelling can be counted on a small part of one hand, and I've yet to read of one where the slides were even employed. It's much smarter to set a procedure that requires a member of the crew to remain in close proximity to the doors while refuelling is in progress (i.e. less than 10 feet away). It takes very little time to arm a door if required. It takes a whole lot longer to remove and replace an accidentally deployed slide.

[jettesen]

no airline that i've ever worked for in the UK, have required us to have doors armed whilst refuelling with pax onboard. Where did you hear that from?

[bustitagain]

It is a byelaw of many airports (I can certainly vouch for Gatwick) that a slide is armed during the refuel process, but as you say I have never known of one being deployed due to a refuel problem. I can also say that I have never seen any slide deployed whilst disarmed, but I have seen many slides deployed when the cabin crew have forgotten to disarm the girt bar. Most aircraft are prone to the debris at the bottom of the door, but this usually manifests itself by making the girt bar difficult to arm/disarm and would be very surprised if this wasn't noticed. The answer is, if in doubt don't touch the door until an engineer is present, then we can take the blame! Lets face it, we all make mistakes, and this was probably one of them! :O

[speedbird_heavy]

no airline that i've ever worked for in the UK, have required us to have doors armed whilst refuelling with pax onboard. Where did you hear that from?

All airlines that I have worked with and permit refuelling with punters on board (e.g BY, FR) have had to arm any door that didn't have a set of steps or an airbridge attached. Think about it. Its common sense. If there is a fire during refuelling, do you think that you can get upto 230 pax through 1 maybe 2 doors in 90 seconds? With the doors that don't have steps or an airbridge attached, if they are armed and a fire does break out, pop the slide and more punters can get out quickly. Some foreign airlines even request that the fire service be in attendance during refuelling at smaller airports.

[WindSheer]

For the airline I work for, slides are NOT ARMED until the aircraft is sealed (boarding finished, doors closed).
It is not safe practice to remove rear steps (or obviously front) BEFORE fuelling is finshed.
So to conclude there is no need to arm the doors on the ground because the steps are still there! Simple really.


The FCA incident has been traced down to an icing fault. The door WAS disarmed but the 'mechanism' that arms/disarms the door was frozen in place hence the slide dropped out upon opening the door. Gladly, the catering truck was there to catch it.

:ok:

[apaddyinuk]

I had the pleasure of blowing a 777 slide whilst on a familiarisation walkaround in the hangars....an engineer came down and asked if any of us wanted to do it as they were operating a test and i was front of the line.... whatever about being underneath as the slide deploys im telling you I would hate to get my arm stuck on the assist handle as the pnuematic assist kicks in!!!

[WATABENCH]

Cheers peeps,
All very intresting stuff, i have since found out that as per 'Windsheer - the route of all welsh knowledge' says, the problem was an ice build up, and the a/c had just come back from a TFS trip.
Windie pops - fancy another road trip to LGW with the 3 bristolian muskateers? ha ha you love us really mate.:mad: