How Does One Lose All Navigation in an A330 - Incident

[punkalouver]

C-GHLM, an Air Canada Airbus A330-300 was conducting flight AC885 from Geneve-Cointrin (LSGG) Switzerland to Montreal/Pierre Elliott Trudeau Intl. (CYUL), QC. During initial climb approximately 41 NM NNE of Lyon St-Exupéry (LFLL), France, Flight crew noticed navigation errors, was unable to fly planned waypoints and shortly thereafter lost all navigation. Flight crew advised ATC, declared a PANPAN and diverted to LFLL where an overweight landing was performed. Maintenance conducted a complete reset of the inertial reference system and aircraft completed flight to CYUL without further issues following maintenance.

[Magplug]

Look at this.... It is actually quite easy. LOT Flight 283

All you have to do is take off with the wrong departure coordinates in the ADIRU. It does however necessitate you ignoring several (largely inescapable) aircraft and instrument cues as you taxy out to the runway. It was rather easier when INS systems required you to initialise with the ramp coordinates. It became less easy, but still not impossible, when the nav-kit changed requiring initialisation with the ICAO city-pair. With GPS updating however you will still get a number of cues that something is wrong before take off. Present generation aircraft like the 787 download the entire route from the company so most of the idiots are taken out of the process.... I bet you can still defeat the safeguards with a bit of prior planning though

[DaveReidUK]

The A330 spent more than 24 hours on the ground at Lyon, so possibly a bit more to it than just a reboot.

[dixi188]

I flew with a captain that had flown DC-8 freighters. One day, eastbound across the Atlantic the F/E turned both INS units off by accident instead of the HF sets.
The FO said "What are we going to do now"?
Capt. said, "Follow that white line in front".

[Consol]

Never hit 'nav update' on the FMS. You'll hear it on 1st day of line training

[markfelt]

Air Asia X incident in 2015

https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications...ir/ao-2015-029

[armagnac2010]

Originally Posted by DaveReidUK

The A330 spent more than 24 hours on the ground at Lyon, so possibly a bit more to it than just a reboot.

Indeed, the structural inspection after the overweight landing takes longer than the reboot.

[Rt Hon Jim Hacker MP]

Had somebody do this in the 330 years ago before an Atlantic crossing. Ended up returning to departure airfield.

[the_stranger]

Originally Posted by Consol

Never hit 'nav update' on the FMS. You'll hear it on 1st day of line training

But a colleague did just that. On an oceanic track.

That produced some issues and headscratching...

[Capt Fathom]

Never hit 'nav update' on the FMS.

But a colleague did just that. On an oceanic track.

Exactly what were they planning to ‘update the Nav’ on?

[Checkboard]

I hit "nav update" on the airbus just after I was endorsed on the thing. Oops. Pull Heading, re-initialize the position on a VOR/DME fix, and was good to go in about 30 seconds.

Later FMGC updates removed the option, so that's fixed, then.

[the_stranger]

Originally Posted by Capt Fathom

Exactly what were they planning to ‘update the Nav’ on?

They just pressed the button (twice), when they wanted to press another.

Stupid mistake which they'll probably never make again.

[aeromech3]

And I thought NATS operating crew were special.

[tubby linton]

Airbus still have the ability to tune conventional navaids through the RMP but that wouldn’t help in oceanic airspace.

[the_stranger]

Originally Posted by aeromech3

And I thought NATS operating crew were special.

Thats what we think too...

But we seem to make mistakes too, like those pesky other humans.. And of course not me personally,j ust my colleagues.

[Bosi72]

Should've brought Garmin Aera 500 as a backup

You Tube

[Atlantic Explorer]

Originally Posted by punkalouver

C-GHLM, an Air Canada Airbus A330-300 was conducting flight AC885 from Geneve-Cointrin (LSGG) Switzerland to Montreal/Pierre Elliott Trudeau Intl. (CYUL), QC. During initial climb approximately 41 NM NNE of Lyon St-Exupéry (LFLL), France, Flight crew noticed navigation errors, was unable to fly planned waypoints and shortly thereafter lost all navigation. Flight crew advised ATC, declared a PANPAN and diverted to LFLL where an overweight landing was performed. Maintenance conducted a complete reset of the inertial reference system and aircraft completed flight to CYUL without further issues following maintenance.

Any particular reason for an overweight landing in this case?

[poldek77]

You may find this one interesting too

https://avherald.com/h?article=40d2752c

[VHOED191006]

Originally Posted by Atlantic Explorer

Any particular reason for an overweight landing in this case?

If they were overweight by a lot, and if this bird doesn't have the fuel jettison system onboard, then they probably didn't want to circle, manually flying holds for hours on-end.

[konradeck]

I wonder whether that's a coincidence, but there were at least 2 such cases recently

Endeavor CRJ9 at New York on Jan 14th 2023, lost navigation

You Tube

United B763 at Newark on Jan 6th 2023, failure of all navigation equipment

You Tube