EasyJet A319 Complete Loss of Electric Power?
 

Apparently an EasyJet Airbus had a major electrical failure a couple of days ago and diverted to Bristol after the Captain contacted ATC via his mobile phone.

This incident seems to have been kept quiet, but apparently the AAIB attended the aircraft as soon as it landed. I would have thought that a complete loss of electrics was almost impossible and one would assume that they had at least emergency electrical config - does anybody have further details?

(edit to downgrade to "major" electrical failure because I can't imagine they lost battery power as well).

God save Vodafone.

Good job the old draconian security regs weren't in force, otherwise he wouldn't have had a phone to use !

I read about a BA 319 or 320 that had a complete electrical failure just out of LHR, they managed to sort it (or most of it)and pushed on to Budapest, but it couldn't be replicated again. I read about in flywise, the BA publication. Please noboody shoot me if i've missed some info - i'm only an ATCO.

dead right...if info correct..

would'nt it be weird if someday the people that make security regs were in a bind like that as passenger..!!!!...not for a moment wishing that ill on anyone...:oh:

Surely it couldn't be a 'complete' electrical failure? May be the
radios, screens and other avionics were down, but (forgive my ignorance)
there must have been power via fly by wire to operate the flying surfaces,
and command the engines.

I now wait to be jumped upon!! :hmm:

I thought one was not allowed to use a mobile on a/c? That skipper is sure in trouble now.

mobile phone?
 

i've tried several times to check and see if my mobile would work in flight and i never get a signal?

how low and slow must you be to get it to connect?

or is it a function of certain services work better than others? or do i need to arrange an in-flight subscription add on?

i have seen numbers to contact ATC in the loss of comm section, but have never been able to imagine it to work-especially if one were at the higher FL's.

please let me know how it works.

cheers;

When you say a complete power loss surely you don't mean the fecking lot. Are you left with the essentials like fag lighter and vanity light on the visor. Surely the battery would power the essential bus

If slats/flaps extended it should work (low and slow).

Ive tried at 2000ft at 100kts in a 152 and it doesnt work, mind you my phone doesnt work in the kitchen.

airbus 320 series has a RAT (ram air turbine) which can spin a hydraulically powered generator.

perhaps it wasn't a complete loss of electrics, but perhaps shutdown many vital functions.

more info would be nice.


A friend (who shall remain nameless) reported a good signal on his cell phone at 30,000feet near Las Vegas, Nevada USA...also strangely near Area 51...

I heard from a friend of a friend so take the information how you will but allegedly the aircraft was operating with one IDG u/s which calls for the APU to be running and it also caps the maximum flight level. Towards the end of the cruise the amber caution lit and the ECAM commenced to display multiple failures which ran into several pages.

They were left with only the FO's PFD, ND and the lower ECAM display.

There were no fault lights on the overhead panel.

ALL three radios were dead as well as the transponder. Switching the transponder to number two system made it work again and they were able to transmitt 7700.

When working through the ECAM they were presented with a hydraulics and flight control page with amber xx's through everything and an indication that the RAT had deployed (on the ground it was confirmed that the RAT had NOT deployed).

FO was flying raw data with Alternate Law. INOP sys page listed just about everything from Seat Belts to Thrust Reversers. Both suffered from hypoxia symptoms but thankfully were already in descent.

Gear lever would not lower the gear and so manual deployment was actioned early which was not ideal as it meant a direct law approach. They landed safely in BRS and thrust reversers deployed and brakes worked normally despite being listed as inop.

They came to a stop but could not shut down the engines with the master switches and had to use the fire push buttons. In the cabin the CIDs was dead as well as the seatbelt signs, PA worked but intercomm did not.

Allegedly Airbus is perplexed and have said that these failured together should not be possible especially the triple radio failure.

The AAIB are allegedly involved and have the the FDR and CVR data, unfortunately the CVR appeared to stop recording at the time of the initial fault (not supposed to happen) and there is no record of any out of the ordinary event on the FDR or CDS.

Apparently when the aircraft was next powered up everything appeared normal!

I know no more and what I have written is third hand.

Regarding cell phones I have occasionally, accidentally left mine switched on and have received text messages during the flight, discovered upon landing.

andy pandy

thanks for that great information, that at least stirs the imagination even if not official.

as wonderful as electronic things are, sometimes they quit working right. call it a short, call it what you like, but...

first off, good job to crew for getting down in one piece...nice too that flight controls worked even if only in direct law or another law...still easier than using trim and rudder//assymetric thrust etc.

I am a fan of fly by CABLE and not by wire...


Every once in awhile you hear or see for youself an odd electrical situation...it does happen even if the manufacturer says its impossible. I hope that this plane remains grounded until problem can be duplicated!!!


regards

jon
"daisy, daisy, give me your answer dooooooooooooooooooooo"

Even if only half true, Andy, Excellent post so thank you. Gives plenty of food for thought on Le 'Bus systems.

Airbourne mobiles Mobiles will pick up messages from ground stations, welcoming them to their networks most of the way from Hong Kong to London.
Good thing the security industry has stopped binning them.

Mmmm, shades of the British Eagle Viscount that had a history of total electrical failures. The last time it happened, the aircraft tumbled out of a layer of stratus followed by the outer wings being torn off trying to level out. Electrical quirks have to be taken very seriously.

surprised no one has said it but this is obviously a :

BUS FAULT ;-)

This one I think,
http://aviation-safety.net/database/...0809-0&lang=en
Hope it helps
Be lucky
David

Why don't flight decks have a handheld VHF transceiver stashed away in a niche somewhere? You might not be able to get to ATC directly with the integral antenna inside the cockpit, but you should be able to get someone on 121.5 if you're anywhere remotely busy. Cost negligable, reliability good (keep it on trickle charge and change the battery every year), and I can think of other scenarios where it might just make the difference. Certainly beats having to rely on a GSM mobile - getting text messages in flight is very different from maintaining a voice-grade connection.

R

Last year an instructor and pupil out of Exeter had a complete radio failure, a fair distance and height from the field. Instructor called tower on his phone, getting priority clearance in what has become affectionately known as the Nokia approach. Seems to have caught on! Good work by the crew.

Fly by cable, fly by wire... do away with the lot. Go wireless and fly by broadband!

h

sarah737
 

Sarah,

Surely you cannot be certain of finger trouble until the investigation is complete. Lets wait shall we?

BTW I'm not nuts on the 'bus', but I only flew it for about 3years and then went back to Boeings. I would imagine that I would still have a lot to learn about the intricacies of Airbus products.

The ECAM was not as straight-forward as the system on theB777 for sure.

Nothing like a straight-forward QRH which is easily amended - unlike the ECAM on buses.


Kind regards
Exeng

Dave O'Leary: A Captain can break any regulation or procedure in an emergency situation, if he has a good reason for it.

Andy Pandy: The turbofan aircraft flown by many of us are old and they can only fly in a condition which Airbus pilots call 'Direct Law'.

Loose Rivets: Years ago a Zantop "Logair" mission Electra crashed near Provo, Utah in IMC. The Flight Engineer made a mistake during an electrical fault and the pilots lost both ADIs/horizons.
Under the'grandfather' rule, Zantop's Electras were never required to have standby horizons powered by the batteries etc. Neither were the US Air Force/AFRES/ANG C-130s for decades.

My father twice lost all C-130 (A and E model) electrics and both horizons+ everything else in night IMC. Outstanding professional Flight Engineers saved everyone's lives twice. The second time was about 500' agl in solid IMC above Scott AFB, east of St. Louis. The FE immediately switched on his flashlight (torch) and put it on the Aircraft Commander's horizon as the 'gyro' flag came on. This flying was a frequent part-time job over many years for my Dad and thousands of others.

Complex aircraft are no longer designed with Flight Engineers. The AF KC-135 and B-52 never had them.

Airbus don't have much luck with CVR's. Didn't the Air France tree-cutter's CVR stop working at an inopportune moment, as did the CVR on the China Airlines A300 that went down at Shanghai?

Airbus! I just don't TRUST them. These aircraft are still trying to fox crews with their bollocks but the manufacturers STILL claim "its not possible". Jaysus!

One of my old captains once said, "All God's pilots got torches." Hopefully, all God's pilots can get at them when the aircraft is in an extreme unusual attitude....and also find that they work.

The following is something I feel very strongly about...since the 747 crash at Stansted really.

When I was a new ppruner, I made some comment about turn and slip indicators and the fact that they are such a simple piece of kit...and even while on batteries, could output to a warning system if on full scale deflection. Why did they get taken out of the standard panel I asked. I got flamed.

Much of the flaming was about posting my meanderings on R&N, and one soul piped up and said that there was little chance of controlling an aircraft on such an instrument. It wasn't put so politely.

Having done dozens of approaches and occasionally full blind landings on limited panel–monitored by a test pilot in the RHS I hasten to add–I know that this modest instrument would have saved the Viscount. That particular captain loved such challenges and with power on just one tied gyro he would, I am sure, have pulled off a cloud-break.

This little instrument can take any amount of chaotic input, and still be as good as before any upset. Some of the standby horizons, while on back-up power are not as solid as they may appear.

I have had two major losses of instruments in my career, plus two across-the-board black screen scenarios. Yep, the standby horizon worked in these latter cases, but the power came from the heart of a rather badly designed electrical system.

As any glider pilot will know, there is an horizon that is so small that you could put it in your shirt pocket. It's strange to think that such an item plus a mobile phone, could save hundreds of lives.

Looks like a DC ESS BUS FAULT.
Have to do some Ecam/Air Data switching to get captns PFD and the status page back.
Cab press 2 available, no need for em. gear ext. as LGCIU 2 is still there. Both gen`s are working, no RAT.
Also you loose a lot of non essentials.
Anyway, it`s not an easy one as for instance RMP 3 (radio) is the only one working, together with CAptn`s PTT!
Fire pushbuttons have to be used to shut engines down as FCMC 1 and 2 (part) are not working.
NOT an easy failure, requires some Airbus thinking. Cheers.

Yeah I heard similar details to Andy Pandy although I did hear that the RAT was out upon landing.

AAIB did a good job of keeping it hush. I walked into work the next day to pass a guy in a huge bright red coat, with AAIB INCIDENT CO-ORDINATOR written all over it. No-one suspected a thing!

I have absolutely no idea if this story is correct or not - it certainly seems to have an air of truth about it. What I can say is that this is the first I have heard about the alleged incident and there has been absolutely nothing from the company on the subject. If it is true I would hope that that a very full and thorough description of what happened will be forthcoming very soon.

Reading some of the posts here, you could be forgiven for thinking that electrical failures on Airbuses are regular events. All I can tell you is that I have flown them for years and have never had a single electrical failure of any kind (except in the simulator!).

NSF - the event did happen - ask any engineer at Bristol. Originally the aircraft departed with one gen. u/s with the apu on to substitute. As for the RAT, it did not deploy - I know that because I watched the aircraft land.

this event did happen,the rat did not deploy,which is very concerning.

SLF hand held radio
 

SLF,

You asked a question earlier about hand held radios. It is my understanding that to be effective it would need to have an output of aroung 20W and the best on the market is only 5W with most less than 2W. You could route it through an existing aircraft arial but that would be a major modification and still probably not enough power to send a useful signal.There are only one or two very old or obselete models which are approved by the UK CAA for use in an aircraft. Of course a company could do some trials and certification but it would be very expensive especially if the pre-study suggested it would not work sufficiently well.

In summary I think it is a good idea which would not be effective in practice. But I am not an engineer and would welcome informed comment by an engineer.

Perhaps this is something which could be discussed in the Tech Log forum.

MM

22000 ft over southern Denmark with full signal.
/CP

Mobile phones!

Having used mobiles on ferry flights reception has nothing to do with height speed or atttitude.
It is like buying a house - Location location location.;)

Like walking down the street on the phone - one minute you have it then nothing.

It the location of the relay station.

I must say height is a factor I have had reception up to 20,000 feet but not after that as it then is a pure distance thing.

You can see from the various comment how scientific it is !!:)

It has to do with height and speed. Too high means too far. And too fast means the mobil loses contact or simply can't log in. BTW even if it shows FULL SIGNAL it may not work.

For anyone Manchester based in the UK, My mobile normally picks up signal just before you fly over Tesco and Asda in Stockport!! not sure how high you are there roughly? maybe a member of flight deck can tell us? ;)

I have since learned that what I posted is broadly correct. The AAIB are investigating and I shall await the report with great interest.

One correction is that a mobile telephone was NOT used by the crew to contact ATC.

Usually 1500 to 2000 ft I think. Around the times that the u/c drops down.

Excellent hint, Bylaw, that's what it was, DC ESS BUS FAULT.
Btw, you recognize it when gray background of speed tapes on PFD disappear - if you still have a PFD :}

I agree it's difficult to recognize this failure and needs quite some switching (especially for radio). Airbus syllabus doesn't cover that failure, you don't speak about it at all during your whole course. We played it through in Swiss Training where you do a bit more than just basics.

Dani

ELEC DC ESS BUS FAULT

-VHF 2 OR 3..............USE
-AUDIO SWTG..............SELECT
(ACP 1 and 2 are lost. Therefore, set the AUDIO SWTG selector to CAPT 3 or F/O 3 to recover communications.
- BARO REF..............CHECK

NAV GPWS FAULT
-GPWS..............OFF

FUEL L TANK PUMP 1 LO PR
FUEL R TANK PUMP 1 LO PR
VENT BLOWER FAULT
NOTE: To shut down the engines on ground, use ENG FIRE pushbutton

AFFECTED SYSTEMS
* CAB PRESS
* HYD
* F/CTL

STATUS
LDG DIST PROC..............APLLY
ENG 1 APPR IDLE ONLY
ENG 2 APPR IDLE ONLY
BOTH PFD ON SAME FAC
SLATS/FLAPS SLOW
CAT2 ONLY

INOP SYS DISPLAYED ON ECAM
B HYD
SPLR 3
VHF1
ACP1+2
WING A. ICE
AP 1
A/THR
FCU1
FAC1
L TK PUMP 1
R TK PUMP 1
REV 2
ENG 2 START
CAB PR 1
VENT EXTRACT
B ELEC PUMP
GPWS
ENG 1 LOOP A
ENG 2 LOOP B
FCDC 1
CAT 3

OTHER INOPERATIVE SYSTEMS
BRK PRESS INDICATOR
FLIGHT INTERPHONE
EIU 2
CPT REIN REPELLENT
AVIONICS AIR COND VALVE
STBY HORIZON
STBY COMPASS LIGHT
HP FUEL SHUT-OFF VALVES
SFCC 1
RMP 1
HYD FIRE VALVES ENG 1 AND 2
RAM AIR INLET
ECAM CONTROL PANEL
LEFT LOUDSPEAKER
DC SHED ESS BUS

---
From Airbus FCOM training manual.

Best Regards

Rampi