LH A320 reportedly within 0.5m of crashing at FRA !!
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One thing I do not quite understand from the posts here: With this wired up incorrectly would the ECAM show the correct direction of movement on the control check or not? When you do the control check you should certainly should check for both movement and the direction of movement of the ailerons.
There certainly have been cases of cross controls in older aircraft. I remember the China North West TU-154 which had the autopilot incorrectly connected. Unfortunately the flight crew elected not to disconnect the A/P and the aircraft crashed. However this possibility should be designed out of modern fly by wire aircraft. The fact that the wiring connections change for aircraft with different serial numbers with aircraft of the same type is a serious design flaw.
There certainly have been cases of cross controls in older aircraft. I remember the China North West TU-154 which had the autopilot incorrectly connected. Unfortunately the flight crew elected not to disconnect the A/P and the aircraft crashed. However this possibility should be designed out of modern fly by wire aircraft. The fact that the wiring connections change for aircraft with different serial numbers with aircraft of the same type is a serious design flaw.
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Flap 5:
that's my point. And yes, the ECAM indicates the correct deflection associated with the stick input during the check, despite the surfaces actually move opposite.
You would need somebody outside the aircraft to check visually if the aileron deflection is appropriate and consistent with the sidestick input.
Any A 320 rated techi out here?
Rgds
TvB
[This message has been edited by TvB (edited 23 May 2001).]
that's my point. And yes, the ECAM indicates the correct deflection associated with the stick input during the check, despite the surfaces actually move opposite.
You would need somebody outside the aircraft to check visually if the aileron deflection is appropriate and consistent with the sidestick input.
Any A 320 rated techi out here?
Rgds
TvB
[This message has been edited by TvB (edited 23 May 2001).]
Guest
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I like to know that when I make a control input, the input is transferred through a clever combination of wires, pulleys, cranks, control rods, hydraulic pistons and actuators, toa control surface. I can't knock what I haven't tried, and maybe I belong in the ark, but I prefer computers and software to help and assist, not decide how to interpret what I've demanded.
I may well end up on the "electric jet", but at the moment, I'm glad I'm partnered with my trusty old Boeing.
Full marks to the Airbus crew for the way they handled this one. I only hope that given the same circumstances I would have reacted in the same way as that excellent FO.
I guess I'm just afraid of what I don't understand, and maybe that's why they put me on a Boeing (simple, like me).
I may well end up on the "electric jet", but at the moment, I'm glad I'm partnered with my trusty old Boeing.
Full marks to the Airbus crew for the way they handled this one. I only hope that given the same circumstances I would have reacted in the same way as that excellent FO.
I guess I'm just afraid of what I don't understand, and maybe that's why they put me on a Boeing (simple, like me).
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Mowgli
Better drive a carburetted automobile then. It would be scary to have a computer 'interpret' your throttle demands. Or would you prefer it if your conventional throttle cable snapped just in the middle of that tricky overtaking manoeuvre with the 40-tonne truck bearing down?
Had it occurred to you that conventional flying controls can be jammed?
The F/O on this occasion reacted as he was trained and isolated the offending sidestick. (Yes all you sceptics - what if the Capt had, say, a seizure at the controls at the same moment on takeoff, his arm locking on his sidestick? I'm sure all A320 operators at least introduce this idea during training)
Better drive a carburetted automobile then. It would be scary to have a computer 'interpret' your throttle demands. Or would you prefer it if your conventional throttle cable snapped just in the middle of that tricky overtaking manoeuvre with the 40-tonne truck bearing down?
Had it occurred to you that conventional flying controls can be jammed?
The F/O on this occasion reacted as he was trained and isolated the offending sidestick. (Yes all you sceptics - what if the Capt had, say, a seizure at the controls at the same moment on takeoff, his arm locking on his sidestick? I'm sure all A320 operators at least introduce this idea during training)
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3 putt:
I believe, with all due respect: you miss the point.
To the opposite: FBW almost killed them!
1. We are talking something short as 5 seconds before the wing would have hit the ground! Apparently there was light turbulence, so what if another would have hit the aircraft while flying with takeoff pwr, wingtip 1.6 feet above the ground? Do you know how damm close this is? Do you know how many fractions of an inch of additional false/right sidestick input by the Cpt. would have slammed the a/c right into the ground?
2. Yes, somebody at LHTechnics had screwed up. But: how can somebody design an electrical flight control input connector and use different wire diagrams, even within the same series of airplane? This was an incident (luckily no accident) waiting to happen. Such a device has to be designed dummy-proof and failsafe.
If you look at the famous "chain of events" leading to an accident, how many parameters here did almost make it happen? The well known 5, 4, 3, 2...?
3. And the ECAM indications showed proper aileron deflection while they were deflected to the opposite direction? So far I've not seen any A320,330,340 jockey looking out the window to the rear and checking if the ailerons move according to his input. Besides: it would be against the AI procedure. - So how should somebody catch this fault?
Now, and I know we are becoming hypothetical here, what if both sticks have been rewired according to the wrong wiring list. The f.....g ECAM would still show : OKAY!!!
This glitch has to be fixed ASAP and the good thing about this article might be that the story is out now. Might trigger some special attention in the respective workshops and maintenance facilities worldwide. Apparently the incident happend in March. So I believe AI was well aware of it by mid-April. Checked
company bulletins today: there is NIL! A simple bulletin would do the job in terms of "prevention".
This is what bothers me and it is symptomatic with Airbus Industrie and their birds.
So thanx God there was a very good trained crew, a F/O very, very quick and awake and only this one problem, no further wake, and it all happend with an airline and in a country where they didn't hide the event under some rug or somewhere else...
I believe, with all due respect: you miss the point.
To the opposite: FBW almost killed them!
1. We are talking something short as 5 seconds before the wing would have hit the ground! Apparently there was light turbulence, so what if another would have hit the aircraft while flying with takeoff pwr, wingtip 1.6 feet above the ground? Do you know how damm close this is? Do you know how many fractions of an inch of additional false/right sidestick input by the Cpt. would have slammed the a/c right into the ground?
2. Yes, somebody at LHTechnics had screwed up. But: how can somebody design an electrical flight control input connector and use different wire diagrams, even within the same series of airplane? This was an incident (luckily no accident) waiting to happen. Such a device has to be designed dummy-proof and failsafe.
If you look at the famous "chain of events" leading to an accident, how many parameters here did almost make it happen? The well known 5, 4, 3, 2...?
3. And the ECAM indications showed proper aileron deflection while they were deflected to the opposite direction? So far I've not seen any A320,330,340 jockey looking out the window to the rear and checking if the ailerons move according to his input. Besides: it would be against the AI procedure. - So how should somebody catch this fault?
Now, and I know we are becoming hypothetical here, what if both sticks have been rewired according to the wrong wiring list. The f.....g ECAM would still show : OKAY!!!
This glitch has to be fixed ASAP and the good thing about this article might be that the story is out now. Might trigger some special attention in the respective workshops and maintenance facilities worldwide. Apparently the incident happend in March. So I believe AI was well aware of it by mid-April. Checked
company bulletins today: there is NIL! A simple bulletin would do the job in terms of "prevention".
This is what bothers me and it is symptomatic with Airbus Industrie and their birds.
So thanx God there was a very good trained crew, a F/O very, very quick and awake and only this one problem, no further wake, and it all happend with an airline and in a country where they didn't hide the event under some rug or somewhere else...
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sj
>If you look at the famous "chain of events" leading to an accident, how many parameters here did almost make it happen? The well known 5, 4, 3, 2...?<
Break the chain by visually checking control surface movements following the mtx. Surely applies to any a/c, fbw or pulleys particularly if it's the control system you've been d1cking with.
I think this illustrates not that computers are infallible - we all know they are not, rather we have come to expect them to be. Many millions of trouble-free hours can induce complacency. Yeah, the design could be better, but simply checking the work would have prevented this particular chain.
Bad practices, good crew.
>If you look at the famous "chain of events" leading to an accident, how many parameters here did almost make it happen? The well known 5, 4, 3, 2...?<
Break the chain by visually checking control surface movements following the mtx. Surely applies to any a/c, fbw or pulleys particularly if it's the control system you've been d1cking with.
I think this illustrates not that computers are infallible - we all know they are not, rather we have come to expect them to be. Many millions of trouble-free hours can induce complacency. Yeah, the design could be better, but simply checking the work would have prevented this particular chain.
Bad practices, good crew.
Guest
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SOPS and Screwjack,
Any of you want to start a string on B737 rudder-hardovers, exploding centre tanks, or the Egyptair 767 "suicide"? Boeing design at its best? Or what about Concorde's flimsy fuel tanks?
Don't get me wrong, I think all of the above are great aircraft and I hope they'll keep going for as long as they can, really.
In this Incident AI obviously messed up the design, yes. But try to get a slightly more open mind about aircraft design please. We all think the fact that the ECAM didn't show the fault is outrageous. But WHY didn't it? If the system only measures deflection, how does it know if the direction is correct, or doesn't it? Believe me, the designers really were not thinking "oh, it'll never happen..." It's a bit more complex than that. Sometimes the reasons why things are designed a certain way aren't immediately obvious... Any AI people out there with an answer?
Any of you want to start a string on B737 rudder-hardovers, exploding centre tanks, or the Egyptair 767 "suicide"? Boeing design at its best? Or what about Concorde's flimsy fuel tanks?
Don't get me wrong, I think all of the above are great aircraft and I hope they'll keep going for as long as they can, really.
In this Incident AI obviously messed up the design, yes. But try to get a slightly more open mind about aircraft design please. We all think the fact that the ECAM didn't show the fault is outrageous. But WHY didn't it? If the system only measures deflection, how does it know if the direction is correct, or doesn't it? Believe me, the designers really were not thinking "oh, it'll never happen..." It's a bit more complex than that. Sometimes the reasons why things are designed a certain way aren't immediately obvious... Any AI people out there with an answer?
Guest
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Quite right - why is it that a genuine thread is so often hijacked by a bunch of folks who know nothing about the subject they are harping on about?
Screwjack - you have simply demonstrated in a particularly extravagant way how very little you understand about this technology. 'Slammed into the ground' - go back to reading the Daily Mail
Sidestick failures and inadvertant inputs are covered in the AI course very early on.
Do we really have all the facts about this incident? As I said before and E cam reiterated - what about the spoilers?
Screwjack - you have simply demonstrated in a particularly extravagant way how very little you understand about this technology. 'Slammed into the ground' - go back to reading the Daily Mail
Sidestick failures and inadvertant inputs are covered in the AI course very early on.
Do we really have all the facts about this incident? As I said before and E cam reiterated - what about the spoilers?
Guest
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Having recently come to the Airbus from Naval Aviation where our control deflections were always visually confirmed, I have always been concerned by this aspect of the flight control system. Since I cannot see ANY of the the controls move from the the flight deck, I have developed my own personal check. When I do my walk round I look at the actual control surface positions and compare them to what the ECAM flight control page displays. If the display agrees with what I have seen, then I trust it. For what its worth.
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The Airbus 320 flight control surfaces are unpowered until engine start - are you sure this is a valid check? Curious as to what Airbus would have to say about this. Also, the control deflections are easily checked on the ECAM screen. At my company, it is SOP for the captain to call out his sidestick movement, and the f/o must verify the actual movement is what is expected.
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M14P, Frederick and Oilhead,
1. I don't read the Daily Mail!
2. I believe you get me wrong here.
Of course no a/c will be ever a 100 % failsafe and there are numerous things the engineers and with AI specially software designers could not think about at the time of designing their blueprints. That's okay and nobody blames anybody for that.
BUT:
once a glitch or serious item has been identified, I expect from a key player like Boeing or Airbus to inform the rest of the community in an appropriate and timely manner. A simple bulletin, describing the facts of the incident will do it and subsequently everybody out there will try to avoid it. So here we have a case of a serious design deficency which was never adressed since the first FBW Airbus had been built a decade ago.
And it applies to the entire family (320,330, 340).
The AI design tends to give pilots and even some mechanics a wrong impression of precission and safety. Sitting in the cockpit you can't see all surface deflection, while you perform your flight control check. The SOP says PF performs the stick inputs, PNF checks the ECAM and then vice versa. So everybody tends to believe what is indicated on the screen is correct and corresponds with the actual deflection.
I recall a daily proceedure with my former European airline where the flight controls were checked every morning before the first flight with a mechanic outside the a/c, hooked into the intercom. Some egghead found out that this delays the operation by 6 minutes and since it is not performed any more...
- I wonder how the folks in Seattle have resolved the issue with their B777, but I tend to believe such a glitch can't happen here, at least it would be sensed and a warning triggered.
But this is really not that important.Let's face it: It is the "ATTITUDE" of Airbus Industrie, gentlemen!
When it comes down the line I don't see a "responsible reaction" in dealing with their product. In the past they were pretty fast in blaming the pilots for each and every mishap (latest was the Northwest A 320 take-off accident at Detroit some weeks back) instead of turning their attention inside and ask themselves: "what could we do to avoid this situation in the future?".
When it comes to information in terms of product support you get a bunch of pages, revisions and so forth on lavatory lights and other stuff I don't consider as important for flying the a/c, but you won't get a bulletin stating the incident, the findings, what really happened inside their computer brains and what you should try to avoid.
We all know that safety in our job is the no 1 priority and everybody tries to perform at his best. This includes prevention and the tool for prevention is information. I believe the industry has a massive problem, when it comes to this.
Have a good one
1. I don't read the Daily Mail!
2. I believe you get me wrong here.
Of course no a/c will be ever a 100 % failsafe and there are numerous things the engineers and with AI specially software designers could not think about at the time of designing their blueprints. That's okay and nobody blames anybody for that.
BUT:
once a glitch or serious item has been identified, I expect from a key player like Boeing or Airbus to inform the rest of the community in an appropriate and timely manner. A simple bulletin, describing the facts of the incident will do it and subsequently everybody out there will try to avoid it. So here we have a case of a serious design deficency which was never adressed since the first FBW Airbus had been built a decade ago.
And it applies to the entire family (320,330, 340).
The AI design tends to give pilots and even some mechanics a wrong impression of precission and safety. Sitting in the cockpit you can't see all surface deflection, while you perform your flight control check. The SOP says PF performs the stick inputs, PNF checks the ECAM and then vice versa. So everybody tends to believe what is indicated on the screen is correct and corresponds with the actual deflection.
I recall a daily proceedure with my former European airline where the flight controls were checked every morning before the first flight with a mechanic outside the a/c, hooked into the intercom. Some egghead found out that this delays the operation by 6 minutes and since it is not performed any more...
- I wonder how the folks in Seattle have resolved the issue with their B777, but I tend to believe such a glitch can't happen here, at least it would be sensed and a warning triggered.
But this is really not that important.Let's face it: It is the "ATTITUDE" of Airbus Industrie, gentlemen!
When it comes down the line I don't see a "responsible reaction" in dealing with their product. In the past they were pretty fast in blaming the pilots for each and every mishap (latest was the Northwest A 320 take-off accident at Detroit some weeks back) instead of turning their attention inside and ask themselves: "what could we do to avoid this situation in the future?".
When it comes to information in terms of product support you get a bunch of pages, revisions and so forth on lavatory lights and other stuff I don't consider as important for flying the a/c, but you won't get a bulletin stating the incident, the findings, what really happened inside their computer brains and what you should try to avoid.
We all know that safety in our job is the no 1 priority and everybody tries to perform at his best. This includes prevention and the tool for prevention is information. I believe the industry has a massive problem, when it comes to this.
Have a good one
Guest
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If the flight controls have been disturbed, then isn’t it normal to have a requirement for a flight control check entered in the log book? This has to be cleared before flight and requires an outside observer on headset to confirm the surface movements versus pilot inputs. If this isn’t standard practice, then maybe it should be.
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Regarding the ECAM display...DoctorA300 wrote that the amount of aileron deflection is measured directly but the direction of deflection is determined from the position of the sidestick?
Well how is direction determined when the aileron deflection is commanded by the AP and not by the sidestick?
[This message has been edited by stagger (edited 24 May 2001).]
Well how is direction determined when the aileron deflection is commanded by the AP and not by the sidestick?
[This message has been edited by stagger (edited 24 May 2001).]
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SJ
(I've read your post very carefully)
You should really watch your blood pressure! and yes I do know how close "1.6 ft" is.
Let's not get into the AI versus Boeing nonsense(it's been covered and what are they going to do?take all A320 a/c out of service)
I simply made the point that the design of the fbw is such that the f/o was able to split the stick and thus recover the a/c.Now I would imagine that this is a simple statement to understand.The fbw saved them,it would appear mtx let them down.
Are you suggesting that it is better to find yourself at the controls of a Boeing or Cessna after such an alleged mtx release?
A flight control is a flight control and it does'nt care if it is bolted to an AI or a boeing.It does exactly what it says on the tin.
Case One, When exactly do you do your walkround?
(I've read your post very carefully)
You should really watch your blood pressure! and yes I do know how close "1.6 ft" is.
Let's not get into the AI versus Boeing nonsense(it's been covered and what are they going to do?take all A320 a/c out of service)
I simply made the point that the design of the fbw is such that the f/o was able to split the stick and thus recover the a/c.Now I would imagine that this is a simple statement to understand.The fbw saved them,it would appear mtx let them down.
Are you suggesting that it is better to find yourself at the controls of a Boeing or Cessna after such an alleged mtx release?
A flight control is a flight control and it does'nt care if it is bolted to an AI or a boeing.It does exactly what it says on the tin.
Case One, When exactly do you do your walkround?
Guest
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bonajet,
nothing was wrong with the flight controls in that incident. the a/c came back to FRA with one ELAC inop (according to MEL you can conduct a flight with this handicap...). At FRA a troubleshooting was conducted and in the process they found one pin on the sidestick connector bend. therefore the connector was replaced, rewiring a new connector according to the respective (in this case 'wrong') wiring list.
The controls were then checked inside the cockpit with the ECAM indications and found okay. nobody had reason to believe that actually there was a problem with the ailerons. No work was performed there.
does this clarify it a bit?
rgds
tvb
nothing was wrong with the flight controls in that incident. the a/c came back to FRA with one ELAC inop (according to MEL you can conduct a flight with this handicap...). At FRA a troubleshooting was conducted and in the process they found one pin on the sidestick connector bend. therefore the connector was replaced, rewiring a new connector according to the respective (in this case 'wrong') wiring list.
The controls were then checked inside the cockpit with the ECAM indications and found okay. nobody had reason to believe that actually there was a problem with the ailerons. No work was performed there.
does this clarify it a bit?
rgds
tvb
Guest
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You people make us sick...this is a public forum where all Ppruners are welcome to post their RATIONAL comments/observations/ideas on ALL topics..so why jump on 411A..I happen to know that person was an aviation professional, when most of you unionizing crybabies were choking pablum down your mothers' back...we all learn from each other, even from the most unlikely sources...so if you're too good and knowledgeable to acknowledge/ignore 411A's posts, get out of the cockpit before you kill somebody....