A320 Ground Spoiler Position

[speedrestriction]

I was on an A320 flight yesterday. After landing on the taxi back in the ground spoilers remained fully extended and only retracted (except for one each side) when the engines were shut down (I assume leading to the hydraulics depressurising). Is leaving the speedbrake lever in ground detent during taxi SOP with any company? :confused:

sr

[ZBMAN]

The spoilers retract when they are disarmed. So my best guess is that the pilots simply forgot to disarm them. It can happen sometimes when there is a short but complicated taxi towards the parking stand !:}

[speedrestriction]

I figured as much. However I thought I would mention it to the cabin crew as I left the aircraft in case it was just a missed checklist item. I said to a stewardess that I wasn't certain but that I thought it might have been missed by the crew and that maybe she would mention it to the crew just in case. Her response: "Well they are two professional men up the front". Yes they are but so were the two men in the Kegworth incident and countless others. I would have thought that MCC and CRM would have shown all people in safety critical roles in aviation that there is no such thing as a stupid question or a stupid concern to raise.

In contrast, the captain at the start of the flight named all the cabin crew-good CRM


Cabin Crew disregarding information/concern of pax - bad CRM

[Dream Land]

Would have to disagree on both of your points, first of all identifying all the names of the cabin crew has nothing to do with CRM, secondly your safety related tip IMO, is not a safety issue at all.

[ZBMAN]

It probably raised an eyebrow, since many cc don't know what the spoilers are. (I'm not having a go at CC by the way... the ones I work with are great, although some do lack a little technical knowledge).

In my company, it is the captain who disarms the spoilers, thus initiating the after landing scan for the F/O. Don't know what the other airlines do, but it does seem to prevent stuff like that being forgotten. Nothing to be worried about, it does happen once in a while. They probably noticed the spoilers when performing the parcking checks.

[speedrestriction]

Would have to disagree on both of your points, first of all identifying all the names of the cabin crew has nothing to do with CRM, secondly your safety related tip IMO, is not a safety issue at all.

I felt that naming the cabin crew was a nice touch as it showed that the captain is interested in who is running the other half of the show. Air travel has become a much more mundane feature of life than it once was. More and more people seem to have their heads stuck in a newspaper or to be chatting while the cabin crew give the safety brief. By naming them it shows that the captain takes their role seriously and implies that the passengers should do likewise. If the cabin crew feel that the flight crew respect them there is no barrier to communication. That was very heavily emphasized on the MCC course I attended.

And re. the question of spoiler position, you miss my point. It wasn't a case of the spoiler position being a safety concern, it was a question of the cabin crew member disregarding a piece of information which she was not in a position to judge whether it was safety critical or not. What if the aircraft was lined up and there was a mis-configuration but she chose not to pass on a concern of a passenger because it was inconcievable to her that the "two professional men" up the front could ever get it wrong? Yes, I know that modern types have configuration warnings but it is the blind faith of the stewardess that worries me. Nobody is infallable and certainly not pilots. I would have thought that a better response would be something like:

"Oh, thank you for mentioning it, I don't know myself but I will be sure to pass in on.."

Just food for thought.

sr

[Dream Land]

OK, I underderstand your second point, you are right.:)

[titi]

Obviously if 1 spoiler was still extended it meant that all 4 others were retracted so the crew did not forget to disarm it after landing procedure however spoiler n 3 can sometimes remain in a not fully retract position
If you have a look at ECAM spoiler page or status page you will see it deployed and amber. After a few minutes when hydraulic loses its power it comes down to a fully retracted position.