Thomas almost cooks his goose!
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Thomas almost cooks his goose!
Thomas Cook driver gets his numbers in a twist!
An Airbus A321, operated by Thomas Cook, was due to fly from Manchester airport to Heraklion in Crete when the captain was asked for its take-off weight - and read off the wrong figure. Describing the incident as 'serious', the report said the captain had accidentally read out the amount the plane weighed without fuel on board.
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An Airbus A321, operated by Thomas Cook, was due to fly from Manchester airport to Heraklion in Crete when the captain was asked for its take-off weight - and read off the wrong figure. Describing the incident as 'serious', the report said the captain had accidentally read out the amount the plane weighed without fuel on board.
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cracking journalism as usual...
I'd blame the yokes - as clearly visible in the cockpit photo in the article.
Those must have been pretty confusing for a 'bus crew, and probably got in the way of reading the paperwork. Wouldn't have happened with a sidestick...
Those must have been pretty confusing for a 'bus crew, and probably got in the way of reading the paperwork. Wouldn't have happened with a sidestick...
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When the feel of the aircraft and the displays on the speed scale alerted the pilot to the problem he 'responded by reducing the pitch attitude, which allowed the aircraft to accelerate to a safe climb speed', said the report.
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Don't be so picky you lot. TOGA would be an excellent call and one hopes it was made. They were far more likely to get 'the correct speed' that way than staying at over-optimistic reduced thrust.
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AAIB Report
AAIB - A321 - MAN - 2011 04 - Serious Incident
Erroneous Vr was 20kt below ... Too bad they don't mention the pitch which was achieved during rotation ?
Erroneous Vr was 20kt below ... Too bad they don't mention the pitch which was achieved during rotation ?
Last edited by CONF iture; 8th Dec 2011 at 15:30.
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I'm surprised they didn't "barely miss knutsford primary school and scrape the roof of the local convent"
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Obviously both pilots made a mistake but the PF did not force the rotation and avoided a tailstrike to happen. Very good.
Pprune, such topic belongs to Tech log forum, not here.
Pprune, such topic belongs to Tech log forum, not here.
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Simple thought...
The FMS knows where the plane is headed, yes? The FMS knows where the plane is taking off from? Not sure if it has a passenger number entered into it (to get an aaprox weight of them plus luggage, but in the absence of any other info could assume say 90% load?), but even if it assumes an 'average' weather en route, as a minimum the FMS could add an expected fuel load for that sector length (plus allowing for divert etc) to the known (?) empty weight of the plane to at least sense check the weight that is being entered into the FMS. Ok, it might not calculate to perfect accuracy, but suspect it could have flagged up an error here. Not saying this should be the only way the weight is calculated, but simply as a basis of a sense check that can at least question the amount entered by humans?
In fact, don't the fuel guages have electronic readouts that could also pass information to this?
Might even have been accurate enough to flag a similar problem that very nearly caused a much bigger one in Melbourne a couple of years ago (EK A340 - suspect 14hrs worth of fuel plus empty weight plus quite a few passengers could been approximated to a lot more than the weight that was keyed in on that occasion).
Not suggesting that pilots should absolve responsibility, nor should they be unaware of the weight of the thing they are about to fly, and yes, it should be flagged in a slightly more urgent manner than the "are you sure?" message we all get when we use any Microsoft software if there is perceived to be a discrepancy. (Realise this is not as simple - For example, it could be a positional flight with few or zero passengers so my 90% load suggested could be way off, but this could be overridden if appropriate).
Despite not being an engineer or pilot, I wonder if these simple additions to every FMS ever fitted would have cost less than the reported $100m or so it cost to fix that A340, and it might one day save some lives.
In fact, don't the fuel guages have electronic readouts that could also pass information to this?
Might even have been accurate enough to flag a similar problem that very nearly caused a much bigger one in Melbourne a couple of years ago (EK A340 - suspect 14hrs worth of fuel plus empty weight plus quite a few passengers could been approximated to a lot more than the weight that was keyed in on that occasion).
Not suggesting that pilots should absolve responsibility, nor should they be unaware of the weight of the thing they are about to fly, and yes, it should be flagged in a slightly more urgent manner than the "are you sure?" message we all get when we use any Microsoft software if there is perceived to be a discrepancy. (Realise this is not as simple - For example, it could be a positional flight with few or zero passengers so my 90% load suggested could be way off, but this could be overridden if appropriate).
Despite not being an engineer or pilot, I wonder if these simple additions to every FMS ever fitted would have cost less than the reported $100m or so it cost to fix that A340, and it might one day save some lives.
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321 / 320
Interesting to note that the Commander was more often working on the smaller 320 and the weight of 70T he selected for his performance data is pretty close to a heavy 320 ...
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Originally Posted by aerobat
i fail to see the incident. the pilot made wrong data input but corrected this at TO and nothing happened.
The 'incident' should serve to remind all of the importance of not allowing ourselves to be rushed/distracted/interrupted etc where VITAL DATA (appropriately named?) is concerned. Had the runway been more limiting.............................'TO' as you put it might well not have happened.