Pitot Covers Brisbane Take 2
 

There are no words…

Perhaps we need big fluro flashing signs at the stand or something?

If it was night, they would have departed clearly. Then the fun really starts.

Well done to the observant refueller on an adjacent bay.

Looking at the history, it's obviously a Brisbane thing. They should NOTAM it.

How did the crew pre-flight walk around fail to see this... I assume without any data inputs this would have likely resulted in a rejected take-off due to lack of airspeed data? Or could they have still departed with loss of control risk?

The External Inspection is basically an excuse to take some selfies for Instagram or TikTok accounts :rolleyes:

”Between 0852:18 and 0854:03, the first officer conducted a preflight walk-around”.

Because the FO did a walk around of an A350 in less than 2 minutes.

Have mud wasps ever actually built a nest quickly in any pitot tubes at Brisbane airport? Because if not, I feel this policy about putting on pitot covers during turns is an example of overregulation that actually reduces safety outcomes.

Sure have, Etihad was the unlucky airline and they were only on ground for two hours, overall there have been 26 incidents at Brisbane involving wasp activity.
https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications.../final-report/

In 2006 it was only 55 minutes turnaround https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications...601453_001.pdf

Was suggested on previous post that covers self destruct at a certain speed but idea shot down . Maybe a big orange sign across windshield ? Maybe red streamer across thrust levers that’s kept with covers . Only thing that’s certain it will happen again .

Read the report!

A speedy walkaround indeed but obviously totally irrelevant to the pitot covers issue.

Should result in a RTO but doesn’t always. Both seats chewing up time during the roll second guessing themselves and asking questions. Waiting for V1 which never arrives. Now stuck in the sad and dangerous situation, either High Speed abort (V1 no idea which side) or take it into the air. Many have done this, Malaysian did the same, although even more problematic is they had Captain who had just moved over from a career from the Boeing, who relied on the FO to get it back in.

Airspeed alive goes back the Cessna 172. Airbus no different.

Does this failure amount to negligence? And does the FO still have a job at SQ?

Mud wasps have caused a number of RTOs at Brisbane. They turn up out of nowhere and work really fast - we’re talking about problems occurring during 30 minute turnarounds. As a result, my outfit leaves the covers fitted until 10-15 minutes before pushback, which isn’t compatible with the timing of our exterior inspection. What happens instead is that there’ll be an open item in the Tech Log which can’t be cleared until the engineer’s removed the covers and physically shown them to the flight crew. Only then will we have a valid Release to Service. If we haven’t seen the removed covers and ensured the Tech Log’s valid, then obviously we shouldn’t be going anywhere.

In a perfect world, we’d be doing the exterior inspection with the jet completely ready to go flying, but that’s rarely how it works, The cargo doors are still open, they’re still refuelling, the NWS lockout pin’s in, the engineer’s headset’s plugged in, etc etc etc. We have to rely on having robust mitigators instead. Having the probe covers still on is much the same. Not ideal, but better than the alternative.

Wasn’t the FO or other flight crew’s fault at all.
Pitot covers are meant to stay on until several minutes before pushback, whereas the flight crew walk around usually happens 20-30 minutes before ETD. The SOPs dictated pitot covers would have been on during the flight crew’s walk around.

The mitigation the flight crew had in this case was a warning placard placed on the centre pedestal by the engineer which was only to be removed once they had removed the covers, except in this case they removed the placard without taking the covers off or conducting a final walk around before pushback.

The pilots were following SOP and trusted the engineering to comply with their SOPs.

I know some pilots have a habit of opening the windows, leaning out and physically checking to see the pitot tubes are uncovered in a situation like this, however probably impossible to see from the flight deck of an A350.

It appears that like the last incident, the covers were on during the walk around AS EXPECTED. The crew would wait for the AME to remove them, that is why the engineer signs the ML as such.

Personally I would like to view them before doing any start procedures.

Ken will hopefully apologise for the inferences which could reasonably be drawn from his questions.

In any event, it’s an odd order of pre-flight inspections (though I understand the justification for it). If there’s stuff left to do which the crew cannot practicably confirm, by first-hand observation before taxiing, it’s little wonder this kind of problem arises.

Probably handy to keep Ken's questions in context. He prefaced his questions with a direct quote from the investigation report, specifically,

Regardless of whether the pitot covers should have still been in place when the FO conducted the preflight walk-around, it is fairly clear that said walk around was manifestly deficient and failed to comply with SQ procedures. Technically it doesn't meet the legal standard for negligence but it was clearly a breach of duty.

I wouldn't expect someone to be sacked for that but neither would I expect there to be no action at all.

As usual (with rare exceptions) a valid point, Mick.

My apologies to Ken if his implied call for the FO’s head was based on the pitot covers remaining on rather than the ‘truncated’ walk-around.

From personal expereince, the wasps also do their work in fuel drain tubes on aircraft parked at the Brisbane GA area. (Dec 2020)

That can't be done because of the wasps. Read the report: it describes an alternative procedure (which on this occasion failed).