LATAM upset SYD-AKL Mon 11 Mar
 

A few articles are attributing the injuries to a “technical issue causing a strong movement” rather than turbulence. Will be interesting to see as some facts are released.

Stuff News

Not sure of any truth, but rumor going around in a South American pilot group, is that the entire aircraft electrical system (including primary instruments, flight computers, lights, pax IFE, etc) went out for about 45 seconds and when systems came back online, there was a 'large, rapid, uncommanded' movement of the vertical stab.

Faulty RPDU?

The FAA had a AD out around a decade ago from memory around generator failures. Be interested to see if the RAT was deployed

Might be another one for the FAA to look at. They might need to hire some more staff soon due to workload.

Just another crap Boeing product. Very similar to a MAS 777 off the West Australian coast in 2005. That one was due to faulty software in the FT-ADIRU.

That really stands out when you look at the A350 program. Sure, Airbus didn’t get everything right, few issues about, but they did a damn good job and I’ve not seen such a flawless entry into service for a new type. It’s a brilliant machine also, crew and passenger favourite.

777X is the next problem child on the horizon. I don’t even need to check the crystal ball to tell me that is going to become a problem also.

More likely rapid elevator movement given passengers & cc encounters with the cabin ceiling.

If the uncommanded rudder inputs are right, the tongue in cheek comment would be if it was an Airbus the the tail would have fallen off!

Or they didn’t recognise, confirm and breathe.

QF72 was an A330. Fortunately, events like that are rare.

The cause of the LATAM incident remains unknown at this stage.

Different incident. Locations were similar but Malaysian had an upset too. ATSB investigation number 200503722

I'm very much aware of that DirectAnywhere ;). The comment stated that it was just another crap Boeing product.
I merely pointed out that Airbus products are not immune to problems.
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So, no battery powered standby AHRS? Yikes! That’s what you’d call a catastrophe. But, but, but wait… everything resolved itself after a few seconds. Phew.. crisis averted, well other than the 50 pax jammed onto the ceiling enjoying their few seconds of zero G astronaut time.

All I’m saying is there’s more than meets the eye here.. not blaming hardware, not blaming crew.. let’s see what the FDR and CVR say.

I am amazed that despite all the requests, pax still don't leave seat belts loosely fastened. Would avoid all these unnecessary injuries.

Sounds like full system restart..

Am I the only one old enough to be thinking about the Captain turning around and yelling: CHECK ESSENTIAL!. ?

My thoughts exactly...

Dunno where you get that from - the B777 also had a virtually flawless entry into service.

Tbh if it wasn't CAT it is certainly an interesting one
I guess CVR will be if no use ?

Don't be too sure; FDR will certainly be of interest though

“The universe is hostile to computers” is a video floating around the web explaining how random cosmic particles can affect computers. It gives examples of it occurring and mentions the Qantas A330 over Western Australian as a possible.

The investigation of the QF A330 looked at the possible effect of the Learmonth facility and found there was no link.

True, but the Airbus NB fleet does not have any manufacturing and quality control issues on the scale of Boeings.

Oeb48 might like a word.

It would appear from the pilot's comments that the aircraft had suffered an electrical failure that blanked out his gauges and which also prevented him from controlling the aircraft (ie, he was unable to use the flight controls to maintain cruise flight).

Questions that need answering are:

1. Why the essential/emergency electrical backup for maintaining pilot control of the primary flight controls of the aircraft did not occur?
2. What is programmed to occur to the pitch flight control surface positions (primarily elevator and THS) when electrical power is lost...when electrical power is restored...or briefly interrupted?
3. Is this an electric/flight control program design defect that is a one off, or will it occur every time such a similar electrical fault occurs?

It is of concern that whilst the B787 electrical power system re-configures in flight in this manner, that the flight control surfaces don't at least freeze, rather then putting the aircraft into a zero or negative g bunt which eventuated in injury to passengers hitting the roof.

The FDR will be interesting to analyse when it becomes available.

There was an AD in 2020 requiring all operators to power cycle B787s to "flush stale data" in the Common Core System every 51 days. Not sure if it could be connected if it did suffer an indication or control failure?????

Details here ....https://ad.easa.europa.eu/ad/US-2020-06-14

FWIW… This finding always interested me as prior to both the Malaysian and QF72 incidents, we had a momentary total electrical failure in a 767 passing Onslow (100km from Exmouth/NW Cape). The screens went blank for 4 or 5 seconds and the Status page indicated the HMGs had been commanded to operate.
There was no physical change to the flight path. We were enroute PER-DPS and upon arrival in DPS the engineers ran a series of checks that confirmed we had an electrical failure that lasted less than a second.

On the return journey, once again over Onslow, we had a double FMC failure. Again there was no serious adverse reaction on the aircraft other than what you would expect with a dual FMC failure. It took about 5 minutes to get one FMC back up and running. The other would not come back online.

These events were also considered during the QF72 investigation.

It happened over the Tasman Sea, for heaven's sake. About an hour before arriving in AKL. No iron ore mines there the last time I looked!

Pro pilots scan PPrune in the 24 hrs after rumours of an event, to quickly determine whether something did in fact happen.

A day or so afterwards the threads descend into nonsense and the pro pilots leave.

It's taken less than 24 hours this time!

I'll bet my hat there is a lot more to this story........

That has to do with software, my statement was about manufacturing and quality control. At least Airbus gave flight crew a heads up with that OEB, Boeing gave Max pilots a single point of failure design in the flight controls.

I see there was a Virgin Atlantic 787 return with the RAT out yesterday, LHR I think.

Possibly some sort of green energy initiative.

TAIC assisting Chile investigation into LATAM flight LA800 accident | TAIC

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lucille (Post 11613223)

So, no battery powered standby AHRS?

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I don't think it was quite as you suggest, but with reported loss of primary displays and reported loss of control it is instructive to note that in the anticipated situation for which FAA-2015-0936 Interim Airworthiness Directive that at a predictable point in time the 4-off Generator Control Units could simultaneously go into Fail-safe mode and deprive the aircraft of AC electrical power, it "could result in loss of control of the airplane" and could occur regardless of flight phase That related to exceeding a 248 day powered period, so the AD instructed that power was removed at least every 120 days.

Regarding the 120 day maintenance action interval, note that in 2020, FAA-2020-0205 (not an Interim AD) was raised due to counter/timers associated with the Common Core System, that could affect data integrity after 51 days, and a power-down repeat interval of 25 days was specified in B787–81205–SB420045–00, Issue 2.

There may well be other mechanisms that have similar symptoms, so

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lucille (Post 11613223)

...let’s see what the FDR and CVR say.

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In this case, they should have a lot more info from the aircraft, although if the CCS was interrupted, the Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorder might have some missing ARINC 664 data.

The immediate take away is that whatever did occur, the point in the flight and the actions taken recovered the situation, which 787 pilots will hopefully learn more about soon.

Purely out of interest, the TAIC have taken (seized they say!) the CVR and FDR of the B787. Does this mean the airframe can’t fly until replacements fitted (duh! -no) but where do they come from? ANZ spares, Boeing stock, LATAM bits flown in?

The airliner is grounded in Auckland. I'd imagine it won't be allowed to fly out until an investigation is undertaken by Chilean civil aviation authorities.

​​​​​​​Ummm...yeah...

Yeah, bloody bit dramatic, huh? Seized, no less!