UA497 Smoke, Emergency Landing and Evacuation

[A-3TWENTY]

Just think what the discussion would be if they had waited until they saw or smelled smoke, disregarding the ecam, crashed and killed everybody.

If the Swissair at Halifax had successfully overweight landed for sure someone would show up and criticize them for not dumping fuel.

They decided to dump fuel , and were criticezed for not having oveweight landed.

The same in this case.

People already started criticizing the crew because they declared an emergency without smelling smoke.
Nobody seems to know that statistics prove that in case of fire inside the airplane , we have a life time of 17 min average.

So , I will not let the system burn and reach a critical situation only because I don`t feel the smell.Come on !!!!

I once had an electrical failure and lost a lot of systems. And surprisingly , I didn`t have any ECAM message.Went to the bus equipment list to try to understand a relation amongst the systems lost.As without following any ECAM I turned the APU on , I recovered part of it.And decided to return.
So , since I didn`t have an ECAM message , does it mean that I should have continued the flight?

In another situation , I had a HI OIL TEMP while starting a NPA. The procedure says to reduce THR lever and shut the engine down.
But as I reduced the trhust lever , the temp imediately came from 180º to 70º , making me believe it was just a sensor`s failure. I decided clear the ECAM and land with the engine in idle. It was later discovered an EIU sensor faulty.Should I have shut the engine down anyway?


All this said to say that we have to stop looking for manuals and checklists with lawyer`s eyes because we are not lawyers. From us adherence to the procedures is required, for sure, but above all good sense.Or the industry can start changing pilots for monkeys which will save them a lot of money and headache.

Concerning this incident I fully share and reinforce Ditchdigger`s question and wait those who criticized crew`s decision to return, to answer , which they didn`t do yet:

I hope this isn't a stupid question, and I realize that it may be unaswerable in any specific sense--how long might one expect between the initial smoke message, and the point at which shutting off the electrical supply wouldn't help? In other words, how much time does a crew have to consider the possibilities and react before a fire would become self sustaining?

[drive73]

A three,
Completly agree, the major emergencies I encountered in my career all for the most part, had two things in common. Incomplete information or no information and little time to just enough time it react. Bottom line is everybody is alive no accident or damage. Job well done!
We can all find problems with every real life emergency procedure and given enough time and complete information would do things differently, but those things are rarely present during most emergencies.

[DingerX]

From the docket:

FDR report:

The data indicate that the FDR began recording on the morning of April 4, 2011 at 06:53:47. The avionics smoke warning parameter, which originates from the flight warning computer (FWC), had a warning indication and this recorded continuously until the last recorded data point for the flight which occurred about 18 minutes later at 07:11:42. Neither the master warning, nor any other warnings or faults recorded by the FDR, activated during the recorded portion of the data. Master caution was not a parameter captured by the system.

Airbus meeting notes:

If smoke is detected for 5 minutes, the avionics smoke warning is “latched” and remains active in the FMC even if smoke is no longer detected. To remove the warning requires maintenance supervision to reset the circuit breakers in the cockpit.
‐
If the procedure is cleared by the crew and then latches, it will not reappear until it is recalled by the crew. If the procedure was cleared on the ground, the crew will get a LAND ASAP message on takeoff.
‐
If the procedure latches and is then cleared by the crew, it can be recalled on the ECAM. If a warning is recalled, there is no chime or master caution.
‐
The crew must push the RCL (recall) button for 3 seconds to recall a warning canceled by EMER CANC (emergency cancel). If the warning was cleared by pushing the CLR button, the crew just has to push and release RCL.
‐
The timer will count down from 5 minutes as a conditional statement on the ECAM. If the timer reaches zero and smoke is still detected, the conditional statement will disappear. This occurs even if the event was initiated on the ground before the crew arrived at the aircraft.
‐
If a latched avionics smoke procedure is cleared from the ECAM and the master caution is pushed before the crew arrives at the airplane, the GEN 1 line smoke amber light and the Blower and Extract amber fault lights should still be illuminated on the overhead panel. In addition, the amber vent blower and vent extract messages should have been displayed on the lower ECAM when recall was pressed. Pushing recall is part of the preliminary cockpit prep flow.

CVR:

HOT-1
managed speed uh one ninety uh five. one ninety three okay yeah. one ninety three. and uh four thousand set.
7:04:55.0 HOT-2
ninety three.
7:05:05.1 HOT-2
takeoff configuration normal. ECAM status check is complete. I thought we had a status message before. did it fix itself?
FDR ECAM PAGE reads STATUS at 7:05:16, sampling is at 4 sec intervals
7:05:15.6 HOT-1
CFDS yeah.
7:05:18.8 HOT-2
alright clear.

Operations report

The FO said that passing 4000 feet he heard a “ding” and saw the ECAM message “avionics smoke.” The captain stated that passing 4000 feet he noticed a “yellow” autothrust message on the lower ECAM screen, and saw that the FO had attempted to re-engage the autothrust. The FO said he pushed the ATHR button on the mode control panel (MCP), but this did not succeed in re-engaging the autothrust. The captain said the autothrust message was followed by a red “LAND ASAP” ECAM message accompanied by the electrical page synoptic display and the “AVIONICS SMOKE” ECAM procedure. The captain told the FO “you lost your autothrust.” The FO stated that he thought the situation was serious and that he was thinking “about the everglades.” The captain said he was thinking about prior in-flight fire accidents and that “he didn’t want to wind up like Valujet or Swissair.” He recalled that the Swissair crew had “taken too long to troubleshoot the problem,” and that the red “land ASAP” was an important message in a fly by wire aircraft.

CVR again

7:09:45.9 HOT-2
and flaps up please. after takeoff checklist at your leisure.
7:10:08.7 HOT-1
alright landing gear's up. flaps up. alright wait a minute what do we got here.
7:10:25.7 HOT-1
okay ECAM I got the uh— uh you got the jet. I got this.
7:10:30.2
HOT-2
I got the jet.
7:10:30.8 HOT-1
perceptible smoke.
7:10:31.5 HOT-2
give me two twenty * stand by.
7:10:33.0 HOT-1
there you go.
7:10:34.8 HOT-1
mask on. we don't have that.
7:10:36.2 HOT-1
cabin fans off.
7:10:38.0 HOT-1
blower...cabin fans.
7:10:40.9 HOT-1
where are where's our cabin fans? that's um—.
7:10:42.4 HOT
[sound of single chime]
7:10:43.6 CAM
[sound similar to engine rpm increase]
7:10:46.6 HOT-1
hey you lost the autopilot too.
7:10:48.2 HOT-2
what's that?
7:10:49.0 HOT-1
your autoflight's just went off.
7:10:51.4 HOT-1
auto— autopilot won't *.
7:10:53.3 HOT
[sound of single chime]
7:10:54.5 HOT-1
we— we got a no # uh deal. blower off.
7:10:57.7 HOT-1
cabin fans. where the hell are they at? uh there on your side.
7:10:59.1 CAM
[sound similar to engine rpm decrease]

Finally, FDR summary:

At 07:10:36, there was a reduction in the throttles before they returned to their previous position at 07:10:44. At 07:10:52, the ATS active parameter changed from “active” to “not active” and the ATS engaged parameter changed from “engaged” to “not engaged” with a throttle reduction shortly thereafter. The last valid data point recorded by the FDR was at 07:11:42. At this time, the aircraft was climbing through 5,224 feet, at an airspeed of 252 knots, and a heading of 251 degrees. There were no data recorded for the remaining duration of the flight.

So, the detector latched on the ground, and Airbus thinks someone reset it. For some reason, the ECAM message surfaced again after TO.
The Captain appears to notice the message before anything affecting the ATS, but . Airbus says:

Avionics Smoke is a Level 2/amber warning requiring attention but not immediate action. This also is true for the amber LAND ASAP message.

.
Got that? LAND ASAP is an attention, not immediate action message. Air circulation is through the cockpit, through the Avionics bay and out. The Avionics Bay smoke detector is supposed to be a secondary means of detection, and in testing, Airbus ran four tests where they put smoke in the Avionics bay, and determined that the flight crew could smell it.
So, 16000-hour captain reads "If perceptible smoke" to apply only to the Oxygen masks. Why? Well, Airbus Powerpoint gives us a clue on page 13. The ECAM Avionics smoke screen reads:

Code:

AVIONICS SMOKE                ¦    LAND ASAP
.IF PERCEPTIBLE SMOKE:
- OXY MASK/GOGGLE.....ON
.WHEN EMER GEN AVAIL:
- APU GEN............OFF
- GEN 2..............OFF
MIN RAT SPEED.....140 KT

So, he takes the "IF PERCEPTIBLE SMOKE:" to refer to the mask-goggle action, and not the whole procedure (edited, the line reads ".IF PERCEPTIBLE SMOKE:"). He then reads through the ECAM actions (the five minute timer had run down before they even left the gate, so it goes too the persistent smoke actions) until he loses his screen, then neither gets it back, nor starts up the generator immediately prior to landing.

(edit) -- the ECAM screen above is one of the several screens Airbus shows, starting on page 9, with the "In Flight Effects". The first corresponds to what Avionics Smoke in flight triggers: Chimes (which weren't there), a series of actions, which correspond to the ones read through, and the "5 minute" conditional, which would not have been there either. Whatever screen he had in front of him, the captain clearly understood "IF PERCEPTIBLE SMOKE" to apply only to the masks/goggles (which, admittedly, have as a primary job maintaining perception in the case of smoke).


Back to you guys.