Incident: Malaysia A333 at BNE on Jul 18th 2018

[davidj]

A serious incident occured on MAS 134 leaving BNE where the pitot tubes were covered resulting in unreliable airspeed. Luckily MAS retrurned to BNE, landing safely albeit with hydraulic issues and loss of nose steering.

Incident: Malaysia A333 at Brisbane on Jul 18th 2018, unreliable airspeed, hydraulic leak


Similarly, Birgenair incident with blocked pitot tubes resulted in loss of aircraft:
Birgenair Flight 301 - Wikipedia

 

[yohy?!]

Yikes....a very close call, ground tech crew and the flight crew must have missed checking the covers were off during their inspections

 

[davidj]

ground tech crew and the flight crew must have missed checking the covers were off during their inspections

I believe the technical term is a 'swiss cheese' incident. Yes, there are multiple failures here, which is the primary driver for catastrophic failures.

This incident could have ended much much worse. I'd be buying a lotto ticket if I was on board.

 

[tgh]

Surprising there is so little comment/interest about this given the seriousness and the proximity.
How did they rotate without air speed indication ?

 

[Denali]

Surprising there is so little comment/interest about this given the seriousness and the proximity.

It only happened a few days ago, news.com needs someone to read it here first, gauge responses and then blog about it, under the guise of "reporting'.

 

[yohy?!]

MH would be working hard to keep it quiet...calling in all possible favours etc.

Could finish them off if the press is too bad....firmly on my no-fly list.

Edit: Singapore and Malaysia press are calling it a "glitch"..pretty scary

Blocked Pitot Tubes - Plane & Pilot Magazine

 

[Strategic Aviation]

MH would be working hard to keep it quiet...calling in all possible favours etc.

Could finish them off if the press is too bad....

To be blunt, that is simply fanciful.

firmly on my no-fly list.

That's entirely your prerogative and you can like or dislike them as much as you wish. But either way there is no remotely credible reason to think that the most recent incident "could finish them off".

From a media perspective, the most recent incident does not compare to the Alice Springs emergency landing in January, the MH128 bomb scare last year, or the sexual assault of an Australian passenger not long after MH370 and MH17. And none of those incidents came anywhere close to "finishing them off" (so to speak).

 

[jb747]

During the takeoff roll, at 100 knots, there is supposed to be a cross check of displayed speeds, looking for just this sort of issue. If they differ, it's still slow enough for an easy abort.

 

[yohy?!]

To be blunt, that is simply fanciful.



That's entirely your prerogative and you can like or dislike them as much as you wish. But either way there is no remotely credible reason to think that the most recent incident "could finish them off".

From a media perspective, the most recent incident does not compare to the Alice Springs emergency landing in January, the MH128 bomb scare last year, or the sexual assault of an Australian passenger not long after MH370 and MH17. And none of those incidents came anywhere close to "finishing them off" (so to speak).

A simple google search would show you the press in singapore and malaysia that is playing this off as a "glitch".

As to how close they are to being finished off..why bother arguing the point? Or are you just trying to drum up business...

 

[Strategic Aviation]

A simple google search would show you the press in singapore and malaysia that is playing this off as a "glitch".

A simple google search shows me that the coverage is parroting the airline's statement, which is standard media procedure for when there are no crying hysterical passengers who thought they were going to die.

As to how close they are to being finished off..why bother arguing the point?

Indeed, there is no arguing the point because the claim/hyperbole is unsupportable.

While the incident is indeed serious from an aviation safety perspective, it does not compare from a media perspective to the major incidents I mentioned. You don't even need a google search to tell that.

Or are you just trying to drum up business...

The highlight of your reply! Desperate potshots are always great for a laugh - thank you

 

[davidj]

News seems to have made it to the ABC.

Malaysia Airlines flight emergency: Plastic covers left on fuselage

Malaysia Airlines flight emergency caused by plastic covers left on gauges - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

[davidj]

During the takeoff roll, at 100 knots, there is supposed to be a cross check of displayed speeds, looking for just this sort of issue. If they differ, it's still slow enough for an easy abort.

Swiss cheese right?

This would have been the final chance to right the situation before a catastrophic event.

Question is, did they not realise the inaccurate speed? They did realise but decided to take it into air for whatever reason? Perhaps they were beyond v1 in the t/o roll?

The aircraft is still grounded in BNE 1 week later.

 

[jb747]

This would have been the final chance to right the situation before a catastrophic event.

There was no catastrophic event.....

Question is, did they not realise the inaccurate speed?

Well, it’s not as if it isn’t obvious. Neither speed tape would have shown any increase in speed during the roll. 100 knots might be the cross check, but it would be apparent well before that. Unless, they never got to the 100 knot cross check, ‘cos the speeds weren’t working.

It’s a catch 22, of course. You’ll never get the check because the speed isn’t working...but given that it’s one of only a couple of things that the support pilot is supposed to be looking at, and it’s also in the scan of the pilot flying, it’s hard to accept that it wasn’t noticed. What were they looking at?

They did realise but decided to take it into air for whatever reason?

The only reason to do that would be that it wasn’t noticed until so late that they considered an abort wasn’t possible. Which is the whole reason that the increase in IAS is looked at many times during a take off roll.

Perhaps they were beyond v1 in the t/o roll?

They should not have been. Actually V1 is an IAS, which they weren’t getting anyway. You need the IAS at a number of points in the roll, and it is looked at by both pilots during the run. For it to be showing zero, and not noticed is pretty amazing. This should have been stopped by about the 50 knot mark.

 

[davidj]

There was no catastrophic event.....

And thankfully so. Many others in the same situation unfortunately perished. The last sure fail safe would be an aborted takeoff before fate being very much against the crew and pax in the air.

 

[tea&coffee]

And thankfully so. Many others in the same situation unfortunately perished. The last sure fail safe would be an aborted takeoff before fate being very much against the crew and pax in the air.

There are procedures for a loss of airspeed display on takeoff including flying specific attitudes and thrust settings to get the desired outcome. EY had an almost identical event in BNE due to wasps and also safely landed.

It certainly isn’t normal operations and requires declaration of an emergency (and in the airbus a number of other procedures and loss of protections that can cause secondary issues) but no airline crew should prang an A330 due to loss of airspeed display, especially so close to the ground.

If you’re referring to Air France that was a very different scenario at high level, at night with no ground references, in a area of storm cells and without the Captain at the controls.

My guess is they weren’t monitoring airspeed during the roll for whatever reason, the pilot not flying looked down at what they expected to be around 100kts for the check and realised no speed at all. A decision may have been made to take it into the air at that point as they may have been uncertain if they’d passed V1. It would also take a couple seconds to register that something was wrong and raise it with the pilot flying by which time you’re in the high speed regime and very go minded.

In BNE the pitot covers are also removed by the dispatching engineer about 5mins before push back so well after the pilot walk around due to the wasp issue.

 

[jb747]

It certainly isn’t normal operations and requires declaration of an emergency (and in the airbus a number of other procedures and loss of protections that can cause secondary issues) but no airline crew should prang an A330 due to loss of airspeed display, especially so close to the ground.

AF447?

I don't get the 'especially so close to the ground' bit. That makes it easier to crash, not harder....

 

[davidj]

but no airline crew should prang an A330 due to loss of airspeed display, especially so close to the ground.

No or false airspeed no cause for a prang? I like your optimism!

False airspeed is as good as no airspeed. Airspeed is a primary indicator for tech crew. Stick shaker could be going off when airspeed was actually normal, or overspeed etc, causing the pilots to take corrective action on false and misleading information.

Block tubes can also affect altitude indicators, although it's not mentioned in this MAS incident.

EY had an almost identical event in BNE due to wasps and also safely landed.

If you’re referring to Air France that was a very different scenario at high level, at night with no ground references, in a area of storm cells and without the Captain at the controls.

Precisely. I'm not sure of the weather at BNE, but I'm sure MAS landed safely due to other non-tech circumstances greatly in their favour. If the weather was bad, with lots of cloud, or if they were out over ocean... In normal operation these circumstances do not cause an aircraft to crash. With blocked tubes VFR becomes critical, and the tech crew would be flying blind.

 

[tea&coffee]

AF crashed because the PF at the time didn’t follow said processes and there was confusion as to who was in charge because the Capt was on rest. Of course if you hold full back stick with all your protections out you’ll stall it but no where in any airbus manual I’ve read does it tell you to do that.

I assume from your comments you’re also a pilot so as you know at high level you have a very small margin between stall and over speed. At low levels that’s a much greater margin. At takeoff config it’s even better with the flaps providing additional lower speed buffer. Just because your closer to the ground doesn’t mean you’re more likely to hit it - otherwise we wouldn’t be investing so much time in the high level upset training in the sim.

 

[jb747]

AF crashed because the PF at the time didn’t follow said processes and there was confusion as to who was in charge because the Capt was on rest. Of course if you hold full back stick with all your protections out you’ll stall it but no where in any airbus manual I’ve read does it tell you to do that.

I assume from your comments you’re also a pilot so as you know at high level you have a very small margin between stall and over speed. At low levels that’s a much greater margin. At takeoff config it’s even better with the flaps providing additional lower speed buffer. Just because your closer to the ground doesn’t mean you’re more likely to hit it - otherwise we wouldn’t be investing so much time in the high level upset training in the sim.

Thanks for that....

 

[tgh]

warming up around here….