British Airways A319 loses displays

[3202b]

UK investigators are trying to establish the reasons why a British Airways Airbus A319 suffered a serious loss of electrical power last month shortly after departing from London Heathrow at night.

The aircraft, G-EUOB, was eight minutes into the flight to Budapest at about 19:26, and nearing FL200, when there was “an audible clunk” noise, several electrical systems ceased to operate, and the cockpit became dark.

Among the electrical systems which failed were the primary flight displays and navigation displays on both the captain’s and first officer’s instrument panels. The crew also lost the upper electronic centralised aircraft monitor (ECAM) display, the autopilot and auto-thrust, intercom and general flight-deck lighting.

An attempted ‘Mayday’ transmission was not received by air traffic controllers because the aircraft’s radio was no longer powered. The highly experienced captain maintained aircraft attitude by the external horizon and standby instruments. Investigators believe the standby horizon was probably “not powered or lighted” and in any case should have remained usable for only another five minutes.

In a special bulletin on the 22 October incident the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) states that the aircraft remained in the “degraded condition” for about two minutes.

After carrying out ECAM procedures the crew managed to restore the primary flight instruments and most other capabilities, including air-ground communication, although a number of other less-important systems remained inoperative.

Following a 40min hold for further checks the aircraft was cleared to continue to Budapest, where it landed safely. There were no injuries among the 76 passengers and six crew.

Maintenance engineers reset all the affected systems and the aircraft – a four-year old example registered G-EUOB, with International Aero Engines V2500 powerplants – remained in operation for another six days with no reported electric problems.

The AAIB became aware of the event only through the crew’s mandatory occurrence report and the aircraft was then taken out of service for further inspection under AAIB supervision. Integrity checks on the electrical power system and checks on the engine pylons’ integrated drive generator feed connectors yielded nothing unusual. Before the aircraft was returned to service inspectors removed several components including the three display management computers, a generator control unit, a system data acquisition concentrator unit and a flight warning computer.

Investigators are still carrying out studies into the incident, in co-operation with Airbus and British Airways, and expect to publish a more detailed report once their work is complete.


http://www.flightinternational.com

[BOTFOJ]

Shall I be the first to express surprise that they cracked on for BUD after experiencing such an event…

[FlapsOne]

What is is this a 'quote' from exactly?

[3202b]

Flight International online news, sorry forgot to add..

[mjtibbs]

Maintenance engineers reset all the affected systems and the aircraft – a four-year old example registered G-EUOB, with International Aero Engines V2500 powerplants – remained in operation for another six days with no reported electric problems.

erm... was that really a smart thing to do?

[Hotel Tango]

OK, I'm only going on the above info but: Night time, major unexplained electrical failure, held for 40 mins and then pressed on! Go ahead and flame me all you want guys but I have grave doubts about that decision. I trust that it was at least a full moon and VMC all the way to and at the destination (should it have re-occured).

[TOGA Descent]

The only thing I can think of that would cause this problem, is DMC2 being powered from the captains side (Switching panel selection) followed by the the loss of AC Bus 1.

In this case, you would have exactly what is described above.

Interestingly, Airbus does not cover this situation in the FCOM's or the QRH.

It's something to be very concious of when operating with DMC2 MEL'ed. Since, if you then lost AC Bus 1, you would have a pretty black aircraft, but for the AC ESS BUS FEED fault light. Pushing that single illuminated button, brings light back to the Aircraft quite quickly.

Next ......



Hmmm, reference the following quote, isn't this the same company who flew a "three engine" Boeing 747 across the USA, then on to the UK just few months ago???.


"...OK, I' only going on the above info but: Night time, major unexplained electrical failure, held for 40 mins and then pressed on! Go ahead and flame me all you want guys but I have grave doubts about that decision. I trust that it was at least a full moon and VMC all the way to and at the destination (should it have re-occured)..."

[FlapsOne]

The 40 min hold I can understand to establish exactly what was OK etc, but pressing on to BUD after a MAYDAY seems a bit on the daft side.

Surely there's more to this........

[Daysleeper]

Following a 40min hold

I'm just amazed they had the fuel for that!

[threemiles]

Fuel? Hold? Amber light on thrust reverser? It's all a very official statement:
http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/cms_resources/Special%20S2-2005%20G-EUOB.pdf

[Barber's Pole Bob]

I hear the nightstop in BUD is a good 'un :O

[Carnage Matey!]

AC Ess Bus feed failure, switch to AC bus 2 to supply, problem fixed.

[Magplug]

'Twas a PAN call not a Mayday.

Any professional pilot will understand the ramifications of losing the AC Ess bus - unwarned. He will also with some thought, undestand the reason why the changeover to #2 is pilot selected and not automatic.

[Localiser Green]

'Twas a PAN call not a Mayday
Not according to the AAIB:

"The commander transmitted a ‘MAYDAY’ call on VHF No 1"

Source Here (http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/cms_resources/Special%20S2-2005%20G-EUOB.pdf)

[Knackered Nigel]

Well done chaps for remaining so cool. I would have needed a new pair of undies!

[Joetom]

Strange that Aircraft was ok to fly for 6 days, then AAIB got involved and checks had to be actioned.

Why did the Airline not action the checks before.???.

Did the crew seek advice from Engineering.???.

I wonder if the crew were X 744 fleet.???.

Lets hope Lady Luck keeps her eyes open.......!!!!!!!!!!!.

[pax2908]

Not necessarily directly related to this particular incident, but I would like to know... how many of the inflight computer-related incidents get thoroughly investigated (for example, down to a few, but very precisely situated possible root causes) as opposed to reset-everything and forget that it happened? If I understand correctly, many complex control units are equipped with static memory to store all sorts of logs etc. Are these logs ever examined as part of routine maintenance, or only in case of abnormal operations?

[African Tech Rep]

Blueloo – the ICAO requirements post is in http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=199871

[blueloo]

thanks, losing track

[Harry Potgieter]

I'm off to work for BA! All that fuel. They live in pilot heaven.

[NigelOnDraft]

I'm off to work for BA! All that fuel. They live in pilot heaven. A lot of routes are "tankering" inc. BUD. So they probably loaded enough to do LHR-BUD-LHR, or as much of the BUD-LHR as MLW permitted. So a 40min hold no problem...

Strange that Aircraft was ok to fly for 6 days, then AAIB got involved and checks had to be actioned I don't think you'll find "checks" were actioned as much as "an investigation". The key will be should BA have launched an investigation and/or alerted the AAIB themselves. It took the MOR to get to the CAA etc. which all took time.

"The commander transmitted a ‘MAYDAY’ call on VHF No 1" Minor point, but he did not... he just tried to :) The VHF wasn't working either...

but pressing on to BUD after a MAYDAY seems a bit on the daft side. We've already done the "Mayday" thread elsewhere... Any commerical pilot will tell you that emergencies are dynamic, and can rapidly worsen, or improve. DODAR blah - know what the 'R' is for?? The crew "reviewed" and apparently decided all was now OK enough. The route to BUD, if all in good weather, left many alternates, and the situation appeared resolved.

As others have intimated, the Airbus has its quirks :) Essential stuff goes via Essential Buses... And if some "quirk" means that Essential Bus is not automatically selected, then "Houston we have a problem". Whatever, 1 screen remained, and that carried a drill which told the crew to press the button that turned everything back on...

I have flown an A320 with an MEL item (DMC 1 or 2?) that meant a single (further) failure could lose ALL displays - the bottom line of the MEL was that you needed to press this button and hey presto, most (all?) would return...

I think the issues are too complex to meaningfully debate here, so let's let the AAIB do their work before people who should know better hang the crew / BA etc.

NoD

[Cardinal]

What's this about the Standby Attitude Indicator being unpowered? If it's dependent on the aircraft's electrical system (other than for charging it's own battery) for it's required 30 minutes of operation, what's the point? Might as well save 5 pounds and leave it at home....

[cactusbusdrvr]

Losing both PFDs, NDs and upper Ecam is more than just a bad day (or night). Was DMC 1 MEL'd? Did just pushing the A/c ESS PB fix the problem or did they have to reset some circuit breakers? Some CBs on the A319 have a memory that have to be depowered for up to 7 minutes to reset the system properly. The standby horizon should last at least 30 minutes. And they did not have a total a/c bus failure because the RAT would have deployed. So the standby bus would have been powered. Its been a couple of years since I have flown the 319/320 but this sounds like another "Oh, it could never happen like that" situation". I had one of those once.

I would have expected that BA Engineering would have checked it out in BUD. The snitch box would have told them what failed but if you do a BITE check and all is well then what can you say but "let 'er fly". A LOT of Sh## on Sparky the Wonderjet has been cleared by doing the Airbus reset - complete power down, go get a coffee and then power back up. Voila - she is fixed!

That's why I fly a Boeing now. (well not really but it sounds good)

[Looooong haul]

Hi Cactus

Fly Boeing?: http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19960528-0

Sh*t happens with both of them at least in this Airbus case the indications came back on!

[TopBunk]

Status: Final
Date: 28 MAY 1996
Time: 14:21
Type: Boeing 767-31AER
Operator: Martinair Holland
Registration: PH-MCH
Msn / C/n: 24429/294
Year built: 1990
Total airframe hrs: 30802 hours
Crew: 0 fatalities / 111 on board
Passengers: 0 fatalities / 191 on board
Total: 0 fatalities / 202 on board
Airplane damage: Minor
Location: Boston-Logan International Airport, MA (BOS) (United States of America)
Phase: En route (ENR)
Nature: International Scheduled Passenger
Departure airport: Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport (AMS)
Destination airport: Orlando International Airport, FL (MCO)

Blimey, I bet the passengers get good service with that ratio, either that or the hosties serve 1 cup of coffee and then get 5 hours off to recover:D ;)

[acbus1]

Yep. These Playstation aeroplanes are all very well until the electrickery starts playing up in unexpected ways. There's always the worry of something in there that the systems designers hadn't thought of.

Good job it was an experienced pilot who could fly using the horizon as his reference. One worries about the capabilities of pilots reared on glass cockpits when they have to revert to basics. (OK, so I eggagerate, but you get my drift.)

Something caused this. Find out what. The mechanics......sorry.....engineers much used "Tested satis, no fault found" isn't good enough.

[BEagle]

If something fails in the manner it was assumed it might - and a back-up kicks in, then fine.

But with some automation, you get the scenario where one computer hasn't completely failed, it's just gone a bit icky-poo. So whatever is supposed to take over doesn't, because it still thinks that the first system is OK... See the Virgin Atlantic A340-600 fuel computer AAIB report. In that scenario, what really didn't help was the way the low level fuel indication was overridden by the main system. WTF? Surely it should be completely independent?

I was flying a 4-jet with a split AC system once when a corroded voltage regulator didn't allow the one generator we had left on one side to come off line cleanly when it couldn't cope with all the loads it should following an IFSD on air test. So the system went into 'bugger this' mode and protected the other side. We then had no attitude instruments of any kind whatsoever, no autopilots, half the aileron and elevator PCUs out and one of the rudder PCUs out, a rising cabin altitude and an interesting number of lights and flags in view.....until we restarted the engine and brought its generator back on line, followed by everything else. But being an old fashioned pre-electric jet, the designers had at least thought of a way of coping with such unlikely non-graceful degradation. Or rather the original designers had - we were flying a variant with a considerably modified AC load distribution arrangement and the modification had overlooked the fact that all electrical attitude systems now came off the same side of the AC systems.

Had we dropped the Electrical RAT, we would have recovered some attitude systems. But it was a good job we didn't, because when we tested it a few days later it too had a corroded voltage regulator inside the aircraft which then burnt out on the approach, causing a fair amount of smoke. Which the smoke detector didn't detect, because it was also faulty.

The joys of flying one of HM's museum piece aircraft which had been held 'in storage' in the open at a coastal aerodrome in South Wales.....

[Cruise Alt]

From stories I hve heard MyTravel had a couple of instances of losing ALL 6 screens when they brought the new LCD aircraft into service. From what I understand there was no reset and the aircraft were recovered by SBY instruments.

In the AAIB report for the BA incident the pilots managed to recover the systems by following QRH procedures while in the hold so the system worked. Still must have been an interesting atmosphere for the first few seconds in that flight deck. Well done for staying calm.

[Shuttleworth]

The key thing about this event is that even the standby electric AH was unpowered.
I find the fact that it was slowly "running down" truly upsetting .

I can't comment on the crews decisions to continue to BUD........

However BA seems to have had a few recent "dodgy" events
(i) Inbound "3 engined "744 from LAX, diverting in to MAN, stating on the radio in his mayday that he "didn't have enough fuel for a go around".
(ii) CAA criticising the company for maintaining a "fuel league table " which highlighted fuel carried by individual captains.
(iii) A management pilot who flew a 320 across europe ( when he perhaps should have made a precautionary diversion for investigations) with low oil qty ( or similar ) indications
(iv) Force Drafting of pilots ... ie making them work on a day off even when fatigued. ( one paxed over 9 hours from his home abroad to undertake an immediate duty he was forced to operate.)

[Hand Solo]

Perhaps being a little harsh on some of your colleagues their Shuttleworth. IIRC the 747 did have enough fuel to go around (in fact more than standard reserves) but it was a misunderstanding on the part of the crew which prompted the mayday. Also the 'one engine across Europe' 320 had no ECAM warnings and no indication of a malfunction other than a fluctuating oil quantity indication. We don't call stop for a single indication so why divert for one? And while I really don't like force draft, if you live overseas its a risk you take. Unless you think those of us who live in the UK should be penalised with more force draft to protect the tax exiles?

[Fargoo]

The mechanics......sorry.....engineers much used "Tested satis, no fault found" isn't good enough.

Wow, that was funny :hmm:

[foxmoth]

From stories I hve heard MyTravel had a couple of instances of losing ALL 6 screens when they brought the new LCD aircraft into service.

First I have heard of that - and I work for them! B.S. IMHO:hmm:

[wotans simride]

Foxmoth

Suggest you talk to your colleages in Bristol ( when the base is open!) summer 2004 I think.

[woderick]

MyTravel have had one instance of a six screen failure. It self reset after 40 seconds. It has happened to other operators with the EIS2 screens, and is nothing to do with electrical power but was a software bug in the EIS2 DMC which involved a failure of one causing the others to enter the BITE cycle.
There was a short term fix which, if I recall, was to switch the displays off, then on, during pre flight checks, revised software was issued quite quickly and there have been no further issues.
Sorry not BS.

[acbus1]

The mechanics......sorry.....engineers much used "Tested satis, no fault found" isn't good enough.
Wow, that was funny
Not quite as funny if you're the one operating the aeroplane immediately after such a "repair" and the same fault recurs.

I'd estimate a recurrence....ooh.....at least fifty percent of the times I've taken over such an aeroplane....probably much more, but I'll be generous.

Still, the problem then gets passed onto another base or another maintenance shift.

I guess each airline has it's own standards.....you obviously haven't encountered the bad ones Mr Fargoo.

Ooops! No.....just checked.......I see you're an engineer, not a pilot.

[cwatters]

Not quite as funny if you're the one operating the aeroplane immediately after such a "repair" and the same fault recurs

Which reminds me of the events reported prior to the Helios/Athens accident in August.

[Fargoo]

acbus - no I wasn't meaning the nff comments. Which wasn't what was written in that particular tech log anyway.
I was more referring to your "mechanic....engineer" quip.
It's bad enough the management trying to dumb down our job without our flying colleagues doing it as well.

[acbus1]

OK, point taken.

I'm similarly annoyed by the dumbing down of engineers (eg the highly educated, qualified and experienced guys who design and develop aeroplanes) by lumping them with any profession associated with machinery/fixing things/steam train stokers/washing machine repairers etc.

Anyway, I latched onto the wrong objection and it's now way off topic.....so back to "British Airways A319 loses displays"

;)

[FullWings]

Just in case you're thinking "...could only happen on an Airbus", about 5mins after a dusk takeoff in a 777, all the screens slowly got darker and darker until nothing was visible. I put the A/P in with the hope that it was just a problem with the presentation of information to us and not something more traumatic.

We tried cycling the master illumination control and the seperate display controls but to no avail. Just before we went "MAYDAY", the screens slowly came back to life and there were no further problems or indications of the same. The 'fading out' also happened to the standby instruments, so they weren't much use either...

Filed a report but never heard any more about it - I presume that no unusual data was captured and no faults were found on testing. I think that anything that is driven by more than extremely simple software has untested/unforeseen conditions which occur very infrequently. Maybe a cosmic ray went through the controller responsible and flipped a few bits. Who knows?

[ExSimGuy]

"Thank Goodness for the RAT" - yep, it's been around many, many, years, and saved a lot of bacon.

Maybe this why they don't allow cats to be uncontained on flights - could lose the RAT :E

[sstaurus]

Forgive me for being a newb, but don't those 'floating ball' attitude indicators that have been used for decades until recently, not require power? Why have they switched to a digital standby that requires power?

[UNCTUOUS]

"Why don't those 'floating ball' attitude indicators, that have been used for decades until recently, require power?

Somebody will surely give you a "run-down" on that shortly

UNC