wigstheone
Sep 6, 01, 7:47 am
A fuel leak that caused an Airbus A330 jet to lose power from both engines over the Atlantic Ocean and glide to a harrowing emergency landing in the Azores last month highlights the reasons behind a broader air-safety trend: the spread of ever-more sophisticated computers able to warn pilots and even prevent such types of dangers.
Europe's Airbus already is renowned for its reliance on computer-driven safeguards to spot mechanical problems or aircraft-handling mistakes by pilots before they can cause a crash. Now the big aircraft manufacturer is pushing further in that direction with plans to install additional fuel-system warnings on its long-range A340-600 models, due to begin service next year. The new safety feature, which Airbus stresses was in the works long before the Air Transat incident occurred Aug. 24, is designed specifically to raise an early red flag about any possible fuel leak.
While the Air Transat probe is still in a relatively early stage, investigators suspect that the crew's actions before and after they realized there was a leak in a fuel line running to one of the plane's engines may have worsened the aircraft's predicament.
A maintenance slip-up may have initially touched off the chain of events. In the past few days, Canada's Globe & Mail newspaper has reported that one of the mechanics who worked on the plane alerted superiors about a potential engine-installation problem.
Regardless of what happened before takeoff, however, European and Canadian investigators increasingly suspect that once the plane got into trouble, the crew may have erred by following the wrong emergency checklist, apparently connecting fuel systems on opposite sides of the plane and likely speeding up the flow of fuel escaping the aircraft.
Separately, Airbus also is pushing ahead with development of certain enhanced safeguards on the flight-computer systems that are the brains of its planes. These are designed to prevent pilots from making mistakes in positioning the elevator trim, which helps control the upward and downward movement of an aircraft's nose.
Such modifications could help avoid slipups such as a relatively little-publicized incident -- but one that alarmed commercial-jet pilots and air-safety experts. In March, the pilots of a Northwest Airlines A320 with 146 passengers aboard aborted takeoff from a slushy Detroit runway but then had trouble controlling the plane. It became airborne briefly, bucked violently a number of times, slammed back to the ground and suffered substantial damage after running hundreds of feet off the end of the runway. The National Transportation Safety Board, which has investigated software-related Airbus handling problems in the past, has determined that the pilots incorrectly set the elevator trim and an evacuation slide failed to deploy. But more important, the board also is delving into the "controllability" and general stability of the A320 family's flight-control systems.
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB999730970268493755.htm
Europe's Airbus already is renowned for its reliance on computer-driven safeguards to spot mechanical problems or aircraft-handling mistakes by pilots before they can cause a crash. Now the big aircraft manufacturer is pushing further in that direction with plans to install additional fuel-system warnings on its long-range A340-600 models, due to begin service next year. The new safety feature, which Airbus stresses was in the works long before the Air Transat incident occurred Aug. 24, is designed specifically to raise an early red flag about any possible fuel leak.
While the Air Transat probe is still in a relatively early stage, investigators suspect that the crew's actions before and after they realized there was a leak in a fuel line running to one of the plane's engines may have worsened the aircraft's predicament.
A maintenance slip-up may have initially touched off the chain of events. In the past few days, Canada's Globe & Mail newspaper has reported that one of the mechanics who worked on the plane alerted superiors about a potential engine-installation problem.
Regardless of what happened before takeoff, however, European and Canadian investigators increasingly suspect that once the plane got into trouble, the crew may have erred by following the wrong emergency checklist, apparently connecting fuel systems on opposite sides of the plane and likely speeding up the flow of fuel escaping the aircraft.
Separately, Airbus also is pushing ahead with development of certain enhanced safeguards on the flight-computer systems that are the brains of its planes. These are designed to prevent pilots from making mistakes in positioning the elevator trim, which helps control the upward and downward movement of an aircraft's nose.
Such modifications could help avoid slipups such as a relatively little-publicized incident -- but one that alarmed commercial-jet pilots and air-safety experts. In March, the pilots of a Northwest Airlines A320 with 146 passengers aboard aborted takeoff from a slushy Detroit runway but then had trouble controlling the plane. It became airborne briefly, bucked violently a number of times, slammed back to the ground and suffered substantial damage after running hundreds of feet off the end of the runway. The National Transportation Safety Board, which has investigated software-related Airbus handling problems in the past, has determined that the pilots incorrectly set the elevator trim and an evacuation slide failed to deploy. But more important, the board also is delving into the "controllability" and general stability of the A320 family's flight-control systems.
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB999730970268493755.htm