Overspeed Event with Crew Take-over and OEB49 Application
While flying at FL380, an A340 aircraft encountered a strong and abrupt tailwind decrease that triggered significant MMO overshoot and overspeed warning.The crew disconnected the AP, took over and inappropriately applied OEB49 (ADR2 & ADR3 set to OFF).This article describes this event and presents two main aspects from its analysis: the management of an overspeed […]
Preventing Fan Cowl Door Loss
Fan cowl door loss events are still reported to Airbus. In all cases, the fan cowl doors were not latched closed and secured following a maintenance task. This article provides an update on the design and procedure improvements introduced on the Airbus fleet to prevent fan cowl door loss events.
Correct Escape Slides Maintenance for Successful Slides Deployment
It is of the outmost importance to make sure that escape slides’ maintenance is properly done so that they can deploy correctly when they are the most needed. This article recalls the importance of reporting scheduled and unscheduled slide deployment results to Airbus. It highlights the most common causes of unsuccessful slide deployments and provide recommendations […]
Hard Landing, a Case Study for Crews and Maintenance Personnel
In this article, Airbus would like to take you through a case study and use it to learn some lessons and share our safety first culture. The article is split into three distinct parts:The first will describe the eventThe second, targeted at flight crews, will discuss and develop the stabilization criteria and present a prevention […]
Safety, Our Shared Destination
As professionals, working in an industry with annual growth rates between 5 & 6%, we must ask ourselves the question ‘what could be the impact on Safety of a doubling of air traffic?’. Without industry-wide action to lower the accident rate, by 2030 we will be experiencing accidents more frequently.This article looks at an Airbus […]
Lessons Learned About the Teach-in Function
Emergency lights must illuminate when required for aircraft evacuations. If maintenance is not performed correctly, this can compromise the availability of the emergency lights.
Engine Thrust Management – Thrust Setting at Takeoff
The FCOM Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) provide specific guidance to flight crews for thrust application at takeoff.This article explains why 2-step thrust application is required at takeoff and why some extra steps should be taken in tailwind or significant crosswind conditions. It also provides recommendations to ensure optimum lateral control of the aircraft during takeoff […]
Preventing Violent Door Opening due to Residual Cabin Pressure
Thousands of aircraft doors are opened daily, usually without incident. However, several events are reported to Airbus each year where residual cabin pressure caused a door to open violently, leading to serious injuries or aircraft damage. This article describes the available residual cabin pressure warnings, with their limitations. It recalls the recommendations for flight crew, cabin […]
Preventing Inadvertent Slide Deployments
The number of people injured when emergency escape slides are inadvertently deployed is low. Nevertheless, such events pose a threat to the safety of people in or around aircraft. They are also a cause of aircraft damage, and departure delays. This article looks at how Inadvertent Slide Deployments (ISDs) can be avoided, and presents a new […]
Using Aircraft as a Sensor on Contaminated Runways
In any analysis of aviation accidents, Runway Excursions (RE) are usually identified as the top cause of aircraft hull losses. Many of these accidents occur on runways where braking performance is degraded by runway surface contaminants.Airbus and its subsidiary NAVBLUE have developed a new technology to use the aircraft itself as a sensor to measure […]