Tiger A320 - another "lost" cowling?
 

Seen a Tigerair A320 with rescue services arround parking at a remotebay in WSSS. Looks like the cowling is missing on one of the engines. Some infos on that?

TOS

From the company Facebook page.

Tigerair flight to Chennai forced to turn back after engine cowling falls off - Channel NewsAsia

http://s28.postimg.org/6iw88wt4b/Clipboard01.jpg

Predictably, the aircraft in question is another IAE-powered example.

Certainly not due to aircraft age, brand new Sharklets equipped this one.

Some of Tiger's sharklets are retrofitted.

Full ATC recording, TGW2638, lost cowling & unsafe gear warning

Wow, started laughing at that. Also the spelling lesson was fun.

So what exactly does a VIP onboard mean? What would ATC do if they had one...

It is absolutely astounding that this keeps happening to V2500 powered A320. I believe that there is a mod available to a put spring loaded plunger assembly on the back face of the Inlet Cowl such that it holds the cowlings a couple of centimeters open when not latched. I wonder why that is not mandatory?

What a bizarre question for ATC to ask the crew! I know a lot of Asian and African countries are steeped in "VIP culture", but amazed to hear professional ATC asking that. Would the ATC response have been different if there had been a "VIP" on board?

I think if they had asked me that, I might have flippantly replied "yes - 183".

It happens about 5:00 for anybody interested.

Every car I've driven in the last 40 years has a safety catch which stops the bonnet flying open if it's not been shut properly. That the IAE bus doesn't have a similar feature is unacceptable. Just think of the millions in litigation if lives are lost as a consequence.

Thinking of a simple warning to ECAM, inhibited in phases 4-10, ENG 1(2): COWL UNLKD, what's wrong with that? Somebody has to pay for the development of the modification but one day:
a) a regulatory body will mandate it; or
b) the marketing team from IAE will budget it; or
c) a large enough customer will convince AIB to build it.

FD.

It's already mandated by EASA, airbus maintenance manuals now say whenever you open an engine cowl, a log entry must be made, quite clearly this has not been followed!

The hold-open device mod is indeed mandatory, has been for several years.

But it doesn't seem to be holding-open far enough to make unlatched cowlings sufficiently obvious that they don't get missed on walk-arounds.

Or, and I am merely speculating here, the cowling locking devices are inadequate, and are failing in flight?

In fact, for all the armchair engineers (me included) how do these devices operate?

Whenever left open they do not hold the panels in place as per design, that's how they work. No failures in the public domain AFAIK.


The most interesting sequences are 00:10 - 00:50 and 07:50 until the end.

What do you think is the production date of the original video?

regards,FD.

Late '80's at a guess.

2 things jump out:
1. The cowling when unsupported and not secured does appear to be closed.
2. The lower cowling catches, in requiring the hooks to be manually engaged seems like a gotcha, if not correctly engaged on a cold wet night, lying on your back at the end of a shift with a take-off time to meet.

I guess the hold open device was not at that incorporated on the aircraft.

It has happened before....poor design leads to inevitable results (cowl separation, in this case) over time. What is unfathamable, is that it has taken this long to ID and fix it! Sam

One thing I am not seeing on this thread is what training pilots are receiving to detect an unlocked IAE engine cowling.

Of course, I am old school, but if an item on the type of aircraft I was flying was a problem, I knew the gotchas in detail and how to protect myself.

Wouldn't it be appropriate to train each pilot flying with the IAE engines to properly close the cowl by themselves, just one time, so that they can see the issues up close and personal.