Qantas mishaps under review
Australia's air safety watchdog is investigating two inflight system malfunctions on Qantas jets.
In the latest incident, on December 27, a Qantas Airbus A330-300 heading for Singapore was forced to return to Perth after the autopilot disconnected. The malfunction occurred while the jet was cruising at 36,000 feet about 500 kilometres north-west of Perth. "The crew elected to return to Perth and an uneventful overweight landing was conducted," the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in a statement. It said the incident was "similar" to one that occurred in October and would be investigated as part of the inquiry into that emergency. On October 7, 70 of the 313 people on board a Qantas Airbus A330 travelling from Singapore to Perth were injured, with 44 needing hospital treatment, after the aircraft suddenly plunged, hurling passengers around the cabin. The aircraft was cruising at 37,000 feet when the fault occurred, causing it to descend up to 650 feet in seconds.
I was talking to someone working at Qantas over the holidays who told me that what has been happening with these new Airbus A330-300s are much more serious than is being reported, in both situations the onboard computer tried to land the plane while the plan was in mid-flight and that there might be some sort of softwear problem with the onboard computers, but that these faults aren’t surfacing until 3 years into the service life of the planes . IF that is true it would help explain why the Air NZ Airbus flight crashed.
UPDATE:
Warning issued to airlines flying Airbuses
As emergency safety directive has been issued to airlines using twin-engine Airbus A320s after both engines on one stalled over the Mediterranean, just 18 days after an Air New Zealand A320 crashed killing all seven on board.
However, an Air New Zealand spokesman said its A320s, including the one that crashed, are equipped with rival International Aero Engine V2500s plant. The directive from European and United States aviation authorities, comes as mystery continues as to the cause of the Air New Zealand crash off the coast of southern France.
no
ReplyDeletestill, its enough to avoid catching an airbus at any cost
ReplyDeleteDude,
ReplyDeleteWhen a freshly painted airliner crashes at high speed after manouevering erratically it doesn't take a genius to work out that the most likely cause is some painted over/forgot to take the masking tape off a static port/pitot tube. The static ports/tubes are critical to the operation of virtually all flight instruments that provide basic aerodynamic data such as airspeed, altitude and vertical speed, not only to the pilots BUT ALSO TO THE ONBOARD COMPUTERS.
Check out AeroPeru Flight 603.
Regarding the above, yes that could the cause but why did it fly perfectly well for two hours before the crash? Something like that would be noticed very early on in the flight methinks.
ReplyDeleteBomber - it was an A320 that ANZ crashed, not an A330, quite different aircraft.
On 7th October 2008, an Airbus A330-303, VH-QPA, operated by Qantas Airways as Qantas Flight QF72 from Singapore to Perth carried out an emergency landing at Learmonth Airport after two uncommanded pitch down manoevers caused injuries to 74 persons on board the aircraft.
ReplyDeleteUnrestrained passengers and crew suffered injuries, some serious, when the aircraft dived, as a result of being thrown into the cabin ceiling and overhead luggage bins, however there were no fatalities and the pilots were able to carry out a sucessful emergency landing at Learmonth.
The initial ATSB investigation and preliminary anaysis of the Flight Data Recorder suggests that the QF 72 incident was caused by a fault in one of the aircraft’s three Air Data Inertial Reference Units, which caused the aircraft’s Flight Control Primary Computers to command a nose-down movement, in response to a random and high angle of attack value generated by the malfunctioning ADIRU unit.
This caused the aircraft to suddenly drop approximately 650 feet before the pilots recovered control of the aircraft.
In other words, part of the the very complex sensor system thats allows the plane’s computer to fly failed - confusing the computer to think that it was climbing rapidly. The computer then acted to correct the fake climb, which caused the aircraft to suddenly drop about two hunded meters.
Drawing parallels between the XL Airways A320 accident (where the Air New Zealand-owned aircraft crashed into the sea off Perpignan, France) and the previous QF72 incident is specious, as there have been no released findings in the investigation of the A320 accident, and the investigation into QF72 has not been completed.
Whilst it does seem convenient to speculate that there are links between the two events - the aircraft were both made by Airbus, both are fly-by-wire controlled (where the pilot’s controls are not mecanically connected to the aircraft’s control surfaces – the computer is always in the background, doing its thing like some great big PS3 game) and the A330 aircraft shares its cockpit and fly-by-wire system with the A320, until the accident investigations are completed, uninformed comment and conjecture about the causes of these as-yet unrelated incidents is inappropriate.
When dealing with aircraft incidents, it is very easy speculate, to listen to rumours, “I know someone who was talking at the pub to someone who is married to someone who works at the airport and they said…” whereas the vital thing is that the truth is told, the lessons the investigations uncover are learnt and that nothing is left undone that could prevent a similar event occuring.
"that there might be some sort of softwear problem with the onboard computers"
ReplyDeleteI guess the computers were wearing softwear rather than hard rigid plastic/fibreglass shells - presumably that would easily cause a plane to crash as all that softwear is easily damaged.
In regards to what andrew (12.10am) stated in respect to the flight reports, perhaps Bomber, it is fair to say that HE should have written the story instead of you. Get facts correct before you start shooting them out your arse since nothing that you have written make sense.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, well published and well documented article.
C.B.
that was fantastic andrew
ReplyDelete