Incident: British Airways A320 near London on Oct 1st 2021, fumes in cockpit
 

It is time for Airbus to make some safety modifications or put sensors-detectors on the A320 is it not ? Regarding fumes events

“A British Airways Airbus A320-200, registration G-EUYO performing flight BA-2678 from London Heathrow,EN (UK) to Dubrovnik (Croatia), was climbing through about FL200 when the crew experienced fumes in the cockpit. Subsequently the crew began to feel unwell and donned their oxygen masks. When the aircraft subsequently climbed through about FL320 the crew decided to return to London for an automatic landing. The aircraft landed safely on Heathrow's runway 27R about one hour after departure.

The AAIB reported the occurrence, which did not cause any injuries and no damage, was rated a serious incident and is being investigated. Climbing through FL200 the crew noticed fumes in the cockpit and subsequently began to feel unwell, donned their oxygen masks and returned to Heathrow for an automatic landing.” Aviation Herald

Is there evidence of a history of such events involving the A320 family ?

Aviation Herald
 

The A320 is one of the safest airplanes in the history of aviation, and very well engineered.

The maintenance troubleshooting is very complex, to find the source. Might be a small quantity of oil in the bearings, at times....(?)

Please Go to the aviation herald and search “A320 fumes” if you are interested.

Filling the engine oil reservoir above max seems to be related to some events.

Filling oil above max is not good for any engine.

True but in this case oil fumes and their nasty ingredients might get into the cabin air system.

Is it just me, but why did it take 12,000ft to stop the climb when you are already on oxygen?

The extract fans have a bit of a history in that regard.

Jaf, if you get fumes,you don`t wait until you feel `unwell`,get on oxygen and get down,PDQ....

The crew went on O2 because of the quality of the air in the cabin, not because of the pressure. “Getting down” is irrelevant, the cabin altitude was always below 10,000ft.

Presumably they donned O2, performed some robust decision making, came up with a plan and executed it in a timely manner without rushing.

I subscribe to the Flight Safety daily emails and anecdotally there is an Airbus fumes or smoke event somewhere in the world several times a week.

Lookleft

Out of interest, for the A320 family what proportion of the events are IAE vs CFM vs PW ?

Jaf4fa

Thanks, glad it wasn’t just me thinking that!

What’s your thinking behind stopping the climb?

Maybe the fact the crew were already on oxygen isn’t significant enough to turn back?! What’s the bloody point in continuing the climb?

I refer you to locked door’s comment upthread…..

If you are established in the climb in busy airspace, what is the immediate priority, changing the flight path or protecting yourself from possibly noxious fumes?

TBH I don't look at the engines, possibly they are not even mentioned.

Ref continuing the climb, the SFF checklist may well fix the problem, if you come steaming down while running the checklist and subsequently fix the issue you’ll need to divert due to lack of fuel and you’ll look a bit silly explaining that to atc, the pax and management.

The best practice is to calmly run the SFF checklist, then if necessary calmly do some decision making and then if necessary calmly initiate a diversion.

Hetting into a panicky rush reduces safety and helps no one.

Come on, really - the SFF checklist might fix the problem?! If I'd been on oxygen, running that checklist there is no way I would be considering continuing - even if the fumes did appear to stop. And as for stopping the climb, hardly labour intensive. Something is clearly not right with the aircraft, take it back for the engineers to fiddle with. If management wanted to ask questions in that scenario then quite frankly I'd be considering a new employer. Hardly an everyday occurence!

Bloody Nigels.

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