View Full Version : Airbus A321 loses directional control on takeoff
tcasblue
26th Mar 2020, 13:58
What could have caused this emergency. Seems a bit strange. Warm weather in an area that does not get snow.....
"X-XXXX an Airbus A321 was operating as flight Flight XXX from Point A to Point B. During take-off roll
at approximately 15 kts, Flight crew rejected take off due to loss of directional control. The aircraft
was brought to a full stop and flight crew declared a MAYDAY. After assessment of the situation
and inspection, flight crew taxied the aircraft to the ramp."
Locked door
26th Mar 2020, 14:07
Asymmetric spool up of the engines might be the culprit. As might many other scenarios.
There’s a comedy set of skid marks on the threshold of 27R at LHR at the moment caused by this very reason. It’s usually handling error.
Airbubba
26th Mar 2020, 14:11
Declaring a MAYDAY after a reject at 15 knots? :D
DaveReidUK
26th Mar 2020, 14:26
"X-XXXX an Airbus A321 was operating as flight Flight XXX from Point A to Point B.
Air Transat A321 C-GEZO operating TSC783 KFLL-CYQB on March 5th.
atakacs
26th Mar 2020, 14:28
Declaring a MAYDAY after a reject at 15 knots? :D
My thoughts exactly. Sorry but WTF?
[LATER] ok, on second thought, I will agree... better safe than sorry. Still...
Mad (Flt) Scientist
26th Mar 2020, 14:35
If, for whatever reason, you thought you'd just had an engine fire, uncontained engine failure, etc., would "mayday" not be the correct call to get the appropriate emergency response?
Clearly in this case it wasn't so serious, and was deemed so shortly after the call, but isn't better safe than sorry supposed to be the idea at that point?
pattern_is_full
26th Mar 2020, 14:49
Derivation of MAYDAY = "m'aidez" (imperative of "help me" in French).
If one is stuck on the active runway with a problem that can't be solved from the cockpit - there is a certain urgency to the situation. You need ground support ASAP.
A320-class have been known to have jammed nose-gear.
Airbubba
26th Mar 2020, 14:59
Edited LiveAtc.net tower audio attached as a .zip file which will open on most computers and some tablets and phones.
Maybe the MAYDAY is procedural on a reject at Air Transat.
The captain says that the nosewheel was about 90 degrees to the left. As mentioned above, this cocked nosewheel seems to be a recurring issue on the A320 variants.
She doesn't ask for assistance and exits runway 28L at J8.
A/C: "Mayday,May..."
...a few seconds later...
TWR: "Do you require any assistance right now?"
A/C: "Negative"
If the crew could do it over again, they most probably wouldn't use the M-word again. Training instinct kicking in? Like the crashing 777 at LHR, using the training callsign for their mayday call
And just maybe they had more important things to focus on, than the optimal phraseology?
macdo
26th Mar 2020, 15:17
Couldn't agree more with Dibo. So they said MayDay. Big deal. You get attention real quick which is what you want in a 'situation'. It can be cancelled at any point after.
Tay Cough
26th Mar 2020, 16:27
Anyone considered that he may have called MayDay because he was stuck on a live runway, unable to vacate and maybe, just maybe wanted to get everyone’s attention that something potentially dangerous was going on....
Herod
26th Mar 2020, 16:28
Agreed. With 20/20 hindsight, unnecessary. At the time? Good call, Skip
DaveReidUK
26th Mar 2020, 18:06
Aircraft departed 60 minutes after the RTO.
733driver
26th Mar 2020, 21:01
Not that I feel strongly about this but it reminded me that years ago I had an Air France pilot as sim examiner who really wanted us to declare a mayday for any abort. I didn't necessarily agree with him but apparently it's a thing for some people.
N1EPR
26th Mar 2020, 21:07
Engaging the ATs before engines are spooled up can sometimes result in an engine spooling up much faster than the other one. This can, and has, caused a similar problem on a B757.
dirk85
26th Mar 2020, 21:14
Engaging the ATs before engines are spooled up can sometimes result in an engine spooling up much faster than the other one. This can, and has, caused a similar problem on a B757.
On all the Airbus types I know the AT is engaged at thrust reduction altitude. As per system logic on the TO roll the system is only armed, so I doubt it’s the case here
deja vu
27th Mar 2020, 01:24
Been there, done that. Badly judged "rolling take-off" with TLs stood up before aircraft even close to lined up on runway heading. This then required more tiller input which made it worse. I spent next few months blushing with embarrassment each time I passed the very impressive tyre marks I had left on the piano keys.
My thoughts exactly. Sorry but WTF?
[LATER] ok, on second thought, I will agree... better safe than sorry. Still...
Transat pilots are required to call Mayday for any reject. They also fly to various places in the Caribbean and latin america where ATC coms (and efficiency) are substandard and they had issues during rejects (in Cuba): ATC did not understand the words reject/stopping and cleared the other aircraft to land. Consequently the Mayday call is now required to improve the safety especially in these countries (and pilots use it as robots at any destination even if it may not be necessary).
safetypee
27th Mar 2020, 07:28
All decisions are correct at the time, in the view of the decider, in the situation, and as understood by them.
With hindsight, decisions might be be questioned, but not concluded unless you were there or have all of the facts leading up to the event.
Re asymmetric engine spool-up, see Airbus article in :-
https://www.airbus.com/content/dam/corporate-topics/publications/safety-first/Airbus-Safety-first-magazine-27.pdf
Note discussion on the effect of crosswind.
DaveReidUK
27th Mar 2020, 08:21
Transat pilots are required to call Mayday for any reject. They also fly to various places in the Caribbean and latin america where ATC coms (and efficiency) are substandard and they had issues during rejects (in Cuba): ATC did not understand the words reject/stopping and cleared the other aircraft to land. Consequently the Mayday call is now required to improve the safety especially in these countries (and pilots use it as robots at any destination even if it may not be necessary).
It's a tad unkind to describe pilots who follow SOPs as robots.
Capn Bloggs
27th Mar 2020, 09:27
Been there, done that. Badly judged "rolling take-off" with TLs stood up before aircraft even close to lined up on runway heading. This then required more tiller input which made it worse. I spent next few months blushing with embarrassment each time I passed the very impressive tyre marks I had left on the piano keys.
This you, Deja Vu? :ouch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoGeKdNxH4U
mustafagander
27th Mar 2020, 09:39
As I recall it the A380 could get you into big trouble if you advanced the outboard engine to help you turn onto the runway then proceeded with a rolling start. something similar perhaps.
Capt Fathom
27th Mar 2020, 09:58
Mayday equals life in imminent danger.
Calling Mayday on a low speed RTO is equivalent to calling 000 or 911 for a broken toenail!
Total over-reaction!
deja vu
27th Mar 2020, 14:28
This you, Deja Vu? :ouch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoGeKdNxH4U
No not me, different type and different place but similar event.
morismarina
27th Mar 2020, 16:19
A/C: "Mayday,May..."
...a few seconds later...
TWR: "Do you require any assistance right now?"
A/C: "Negative"
If the crew could do it over again, they most probably wouldn't use the M-word again. Training instinct kicking in? Like the crashing 777 at LHR, using the training callsign for their mayday call
And just maybe they had more important things to focus on, than the optimal phraseology?
Wow.. Ref that 777LHR do you have a link, I'd like to look it up thanks.
Airbubba
27th Mar 2020, 16:46
Wow.. Ref that 777LHR do you have a link, I'd like to look it up thanks.
Here's a reference from a post on Quora:
Captain Peter Burkill of British Airways 38 explains his radio call, “Speedbird, Speedbird, 95, 95,” in his book, Thirty Seconds to Impact. (https://books.google.com/books?dq=%22speedbird+95%22+thirty+seconds+to+impact&hl=en&id=d9awTH0PAtUC&lpg=PA173&ots=Z9y53PvMjd&pg=PA173&sa=X&sig=ACfU3U0Wl_bDRej3f-o8h2Ky7o9Sv9Hvow&source=bl&ved=2ahUKEwjE-6u3hL_iAhUkHDQIHTDLBXgQ6AEwAnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22speedbird%2095%22%20thirty%20seconds%20to%20impact&f=false) He said “Speedbird” twice because he was trying to remember the flight number. Even so, he got it wrong—BA 95 was the next flight he was scheduled to operate. He didn’t realize his mistake until he heard the CVR recording during the investigation. But his error was inconsequential, as there was no active “Speedbird 95” at the time and it was obvious which aircraft had crashed.
https://www.quora.com/When-British-Airways-Flight-38-was-about-to-crash-short-of-the-runway-at-Heathrow-Airport-why-did-the-pilot-or-first-officer-yell-out-speed-bird-speed-bird-just-before-the-crash
Mayday equals life in imminent danger.
Calling Mayday on a low speed RTO is equivalent to calling 000 or 911 for a broken toenail!
Total over-reaction!
Bollocks. If I'm stuck on a runway with an aircraft on approach behind me, I am in imminent danger.
Wow.. Ref that 777LHR do you have a link, I'd like to look it up thanks.
This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJNVVlBPi8M gives a nice recording of the events. "Speedbird 38" was the flight's callsign and the Mayday call was done using "Speedbird 95" as callsign. I was led to believe back in those days, that this was a non-exisiting flightno. often used in the sim sessions.
However, looking things up again 10 years later, I see that info was incorrect and based on his book, the captain in the heat of the moment simply used a wrong callsign (the one from his next flight, it seems). And he was surprised during the investigations, hearing himself doing just that.
Edit: seems I was very slow on the keyboard, Airbubba already provided a similar answer
As for the A321 mishap, it seems that Mayday is AirTransat SOP for rejects, so my referring to possible training drills/instincts kicking in, is irrelevant...
MichaelKPIT
27th Mar 2020, 17:34
Mayday call was done using "Speedbird 95" as callsign. I was led to believe back in those days, that this was a non-exisiting flightno. often used in the sim sessions.
However, looking things up again 10 years later, I see that info was incorrect and based on his book, the captain in the heat of the moment simply used a wrong callsign (the one from his next flight, it seems). And he was surprised during the investigations, hearing himself doing just that..
Back in those days BA95 was LHR-YMX-DTW. Just etched in my mind from 12yrs there! :p
tdracer
27th Mar 2020, 23:22
As I recall it the A380 could get you into big trouble if you advanced the outboard engine to help you turn onto the runway then proceeded with a rolling start. something similar perhaps.
Also an issue with 747s. I studied several FDR files over the years after the pilots RTO'd and reported an asymmetric accel "engine control" problem when in fact they simply hadn't allowed the outboard engine to return to idle before advancing the throttles for takeoff.
However if they'd followed the SOP of allowing the engines to stabilize at 1.10 EPR/40% N1 before engaging the A/T it wouldn't have been a problem...
FlexibleResponse
28th Mar 2020, 05:40
Although apparently not the issue in the subject incident...Asymmetric spool-up on takeoff may cause loss of directional control.
Engine failure during the takeoff below VMCG will cause a loss of directional control (that is how VMCG is determined).
nonsense
28th Mar 2020, 11:45
Mayday equals life in imminent danger.
Calling Mayday on a low speed RTO is equivalent to calling 000 or 911 for a broken toenail!
Total over-reaction!
More like calling 000 or 911 for a broken cam belt in the middle lane of a freeway.
Twitter
28th Mar 2020, 18:02
So has the learned jury reached its conclusion?
Maybe time to park the armchairs and get on with life - er - oh...
mrdeux
29th Mar 2020, 02:18
As I recall it the A380 could get you into big trouble if you advanced the outboard engine to help you turn onto the runway then proceeded with a rolling start. something similar perhaps.
The 380 engines are very laggy from ground idle. Using one to help the line up makes that engine wind up rapidly compared to the others. Not a problem if you wait for them all to match up at 30% or so, but a gotcha otherwise.
Ascend Charlie
29th Mar 2020, 06:28
A 707 ran off the runway in Rome some years back. A rearwards cg lightened the load on the nosewheel, the FO was operating the steering while the captain advanced the throttles while they had not yet lined up. Nosewheel on full deflection just skidded along, and it was too late before the throttles came back and the bird stopped in the grass.