Incident at Heathrow

[Sunnyjohn]

Two things:

First, its good to see A and C looking at the view of the maintenance person. Having worked on the apron at turnarounds for BA (Then BEA - I'm old enough, too!), I can concur with the sometimes difficult conditions in wind and rain at three in the morning. That is no excuse for laxity but bear in mind that sometimes things are difficult to see in those conditions. Been there and dunnit!

Second, with regard the stuff from aircraft falling out of the sky in populated areas, it's worth noting that the greatest number of people killed in the UK by falling debris was over a relatively unpopulated area (Lockerbie, Scotland, eleven people killed).We live on a densely populated island and if stuff falls out of the sky it could land anywhere. Fortunately, for the most part, stuff doesn't.

[GreekIslandLover]

What a load of rubbish so any pilots flying on a shoestring budget.
can you tell us which airlines they are, would have gone straight in with out trying to save the aircraft, the mind boggles with some of the posts here

So saying that I thought the crew did a good job is wrong????? I really don't see what's wrong with that opinion. The point I was making is that not all airlines are equal, and BA do seem to have a better reputation than some with safety.

I don't think you read my post properly. My main purpose was in response to the poster who thought this looks bad for BA. I disagree, and think that the way they handled it in getting it down without loss of life and aircraft is a credit to them, and as SLF it is more likely to make me choose to fly BA than less likely. I'm sure with the benefit of hindsight lessons will be learned, but I do think it's a credit to the crew for bringing it down safely. Why people here are knocking this beats me. Surely as a fare paying passenger that's what you actually want to happen??

[BOAC]

No-one is 'knocking that' - it is "I dread to think what could have happened if it had been another airline run on a shoestring budget." which is wrong.

It is a common, possibly press-fed, perception that lo-cos are less 'safe' than mainline carriers.This is far from true and you might be surprised to compare the number of incidents per sector of many. ANY UK 'shoestring' carrier as you put it (whatever that means?) has to meet exactly the same minimum safety and training standards as BA, as laid down by the regulator.

You may well be correct in terms of foreign carriers, of course.

[GreekIslandLover]

I didn't say that there were any UK or European shoestring carriers. Many airlines fly in and out of Heathrow, and not all of them have a good safety record.

JACDEC SAFETY RANKING 2012

If that had happened on take off to some of the carriers at the bottom of the list, I wonder if they would have handled it as well, and if the outcome would have been the same.

[BOAC]

I for one do not dispute that, but your post was less than clear on that. As long as we all agree that UK 'shoestring' carriers are safe, that is fine.

[Jazz Hands]

I'd be sceptical about that JACDEC ranking. I've known people try to make a living out of calculating "airline safety", and found it to be impossibly difficult to rationalise.

Having read the small print on the ranking, I'm not convinced that the factors considered are even relevant let alone a sensible method of benchmarking.

[bullet190]

Greekislandlover,

I don't work for BA, I work for another UK airline. A couple of years ago I was presented with an A/C fit for service only to notice during the walk-round that all 3 cowling latches on the port engine were unlatched. Our cowling latches sound very similar to the ones on this incident.
Fortunately for me our 'holes in the cheese' didn't line up that day - it also means that I never got the chance to prove your theory wrong........and thats exactly the way I prefer it.

[Dimitris]

Have there been instances that a pilot has spoted an open or 'unlatched' cowl? What happens in that case? Ground crew is called to take care of it or the pilot actually closes the cowl/latch and up we go? (please tell me that ground crew is called in....)

Maybe instead of checking for a 'closed cowl' check for a 'latched cowl'. An unlatched cowl looks closed anyway. Maybe have pilots take a trip to the hangar during maintenance and have them open and close (latch) them. It would only take 5' of 'training'. Any sensible person will understand what they need to look and check once they know how the thing actually works.

I'm not saying pilots should be mechanics or vice versa, but if pilots are asked to check specific external features of the aircraft they should know how they actually work. A cowl that is not latched is not closed even if there is no gap.

As an SLF with technical background, I see how a cowl can be left unlatched once a year and I don't see any serious problem with that, sh*t happens! Were I see a problem is in people believing that ticking boxes and signing next to them if they don't know what they are actually looking for. That's not up to the pilots. What the pilot should say is: 'hey, you want me to check the cowl is latched? SHOW me how its latched by the people that actually latch it, so that I know when its not and I call you back to latch it'.

Do I make sense or should I delete this? Fly safe anyway!!

[wilnot]

Ok, I'm only an engineer, and a retired one at that, but the way it seems to me:

1. The cowls on both engines were closed but not latched.

2. It appears to be difficult by a visual check to establish whether they're latched. And without using some banned implement like a screwdriver a physical check may be next to impossible.

3. Result - a serious incident which could easily have resulted in a catastrophic accident.

Ergo, the manufacturers MUST design a mod which makes an unlatched cowl impossible to miss. Next time - and without some positive action there will be a next time - we could be looking at a hull loss with multiple fatalities.

[NigelOnDraft]

wilnot...

1: I would agree likely, we'll find out in due course
2: Agree again, a well made point by you and others against the "hang em out to dry" brigade
3: Not too sure about your conclusion, especially the "easily"?

Reading the 2009 TSB report - that was the 10th A320 series occurance. Not sure how many between 2009 and the BA one, but I would guess some more? It seems a fairly typical pattern that they break off with minimal serious corollary damage. The BA one may be unusual in that seemingly both came away, and something occurred, possibly sometime into flight, that did lead to a more serious engine problem.

It may be, hopefully, this occasion does get this issue solved in some way or other. Because history states if nothing significant is done, more A320 series engine cowls will come off.

[Agaricus bisporus]

banned implement like a screwdriver

A screwdriver is not a "banned implement". If it were how could engineers work? It should be carried if necessary and security told that it is a necessary tool of the trade.

Security regs quite specifically permit carrying "tools of the trade" and if a case can be made that a screwdriver needs to be carried by a pilot then security cannot stop you taking it through or they are preventing you from doing your job.

I only gave up carrying a Leatherman tool in about 2008 when we started doing an appreciable amount of positioning as pax but up until then had carried it every working day for 20 years. It had been spotted by sec search precisely twice since Sept 11 and on both occasions security (STN & GLA) agreed that it was permissable as a "tool of the trade".

Perhaps we are too quick be beaten by voluntarily succumbing to "rules" in our heads that don't exist/aren't valid in practice?

[DaveReidUK]

It seems a fairly typical pattern that they break off with minimal serious corollary damage.

Apart from:

a) the America West A320 fan cowl door separation in June 2000 that caused substantial damage to the horizontal stabilizer

b) the Skyservice A320 FCD separation 3 months later that deformed the engine pylon resulting in the pins being pulled out from the EEC wiring harness connector (as well as slat and slat track damage)

Even without those precursors, a risk assessment concluding that nearly a quarter of a ton of aircraft structure in total suddenly breaking loose in flight doesn't present a potentially serious hazard would make interesting reading.

[NigelOnDraft]

Dave...

It seems a fairly typical pattern that they break off with minimal serious corollary damage

I would stand by that, but clarify my remarks by "serious" meaning in terms of flight safety / hazard. In neither case was any serious control / handling or management aspects apparent in the reports, indeed the AW report:

The return for landing at the departure airport at 1331 was unremarkable.

and the serious damage amounted to:

and there were 3 holes in the lower surface of the left horizontal stabilizer, each approximately 2 inches wide and 8 inches long. The cowling door hold-open rod penetrated the lower skin and aft spar web of the horizontal stabilizer

I am not suggesting this is "satisfactory", just there has not yet been sufficient impetus for the industry/regulators to fix this problem.

We shall see if Friday's events and pattern stand out enough to get this fixed?

[spannersatcx]

Originally Posted by FERetd

Spannersatcx, surely this rather depends on why the cowlings were opened in the first place. If it was for a maintenance task, I agree with what you say.

As a F/E I could enter a defect into the Aircraft Technical Log for anything about which I was unhappy e.g. No.1 engine cowlings open. It is then up to you, the licenced engineer to clear the defect.
You could do the same.

Many (minor) defects are cleared without reference to the AMM.

Yes it is horses for courses, however if you wrote in the log no1 eng cowl not secured/open, then it would be cleared by closed and secured. Simple, the responsibilty is now mine.
In days gone by manual references may not of been used, but under todays regulations you HAVE to do everything iaw....it takes 10 mins to do a job and 30 to find the manual reference.
I only speak from my present environment, where it's me and 1 or 2 non certifying guys, so I sign and check everything, be it in the wind/rain/snow at 3am or on a bright sunny day on the ramp!

A lot will also depend on the culture within the establishment where you are.
Anyway I guess we are going off track slighly, so I'll leave it at that.

[ILS27LEFT]

Design

Too many accidents despite multiple design changes and implementation of new maintenance procedures. The fact that only this specific engine type is regularly experiencing this type of incident indicates, very clearly, that this cowl latching design can be improved e.g. cowl clearly showing as opened when unlatched. It is clearly a design fault which must be fixed, sensors should also be added to warn flight deck if unlatched, very simple and not expensive at all. End of story. It is a serious design weakness and we cannot blame engineers and pilots (humans) for such a silly design mistake. No other engine has got this problem, I mean cowl showing closed, locked even if unlatched

[Sillert,V.I.]

Apologies if this link to the 2000 Gatwick incident has been posted before (hard to tell now there are 26 pages of posts), but it seems to me to make interesting reading in the light of last Friday's incident.

[DaveReidUK]

it seems to me to make interesting reading in the light of last Friday's incident

It has been referred to before, but I agree it's well worth reviewing.

The most important point to come out of that report, IMHO, is the recommendation that the AAIB didn't make (because it would have been aimed at individual LAEs rather than an organisation):

"Don't let yourself be distracted by anything during the act of closing the cowl doors. From the point at which you disconnect the door stays until you engage the 4th latch, nothing should be allowed to interrupt the process."

[lomapaseo]

Ergo, the manufacturers MUST design a mod which makes an unlatched cowl impossible to miss. Next time - and without some positive action there will be a next time - we could be looking at a hull loss with multiple fatalities.

Purely imaginary in all aspects.

Cowls have been unlatched and missed since the beginning of flight.
Anything in your own mind can lead to a hull loss and multiple fatalities (catastrophe by definition). The certification challenge seeks to minimize such occurrences by providing redundancies and multiple hoops (post work inspections) for such to happen. Just looking at the historical data since the beginning of the jet age confirms the inadequacies against such catastrophe.

However, such minimization by themselves need be tracked as this one has been. The rate of missed inspections was unacceptable, thus something needed to be done to minimize this rate. This investigation is a perfect vehicle to look at the post service bulletin inspection adequacy (nothing will ever be 100%)

[Pinkman]

Improve the latch design by all means. But to mandate, design, certify, manufacture, and retrofit could (will) take years. In the meantime would it be too much to ask to improve the human factors aspect by instituting a cross check system as is commonly done with other flight critical items. You know, "doors to automatic and cross check" that sort of thing. Banal? Maybe. But it is instructive to remember that the new pitots for F-GZCP (the aircraft operating AF 447) were sitting in the warehouse waiting to be fitted when the aircraft crashed. A known problem, awaiting an engineering fix (recommendation, not an AD). My observation - working in a safety critical industry - is that we tend to adopt a one-dimensional approach to fixing these issues, whereas in fact they are multi-dimensional and include human factors, training, engineering, operational excellence, culture... and a big dollop of common sense.

[hyatt_1_alpha]

To the author of post 451

I found your punchy and broad tirade amusing and rather sad.

Sad, that your belief in and respect for the corporate body in question is quite so strong, but I suppose like so much in life it all depends on personal experience and also what you witness happen to certain colleagues around you, those with whom you work with or have worked with, who have been very capable operators.

I will leave it at this if I may, your faith in that things are always done in a right and proper way is entirely misplaced. Sorry to disappoint.