mvoight

All, I can think of is the Five Man Electrical Band and the song "Signs"......... Sign, sign, everywhere a sign.

Antarius

Appears the wing got bent as well.

Seems that they felt they could repair it given the length of time since the incident, but ran into more issues. Other possibility is that the value of aircraft has dropped due to COVID resulting in a different economic picture.

cmd320

That's got to be a pretty severe impact to bend the wing. I'm surprised they got it all the way up to FL200 before turning around.

CPRich

I guess the surprise is that it took them a minute and a half to request a return.

Per the ATC conversation, they didn't seem to have any issues controlling the aircraft.. Given the lack of declaring an emergency, they would have just been handled with other traffic. They were already through 17,000 by the time the return request was communicated - and climbing rapidly (though probably not at the 5K/minute the video seems to imply). So ATC seemed to get them back as expected.

jcain

Anyone care to speculate on whether they'll take the interior from this one and put it in another A321 to create a "new" A321T? Seems like lower demand and the JetBlue partnership would make that unnecessary but I suppose anything's possible.

Antarius

Maybe eventually. Right now, I suspect the interior can be used for spares.

bzcat

I'm sure the F and J seats and galley will be stored as spares. I doubt AA will need to expand the A321T fleet for awhile. The A321T F seats are identical to 77W J seats so there will be a demand for spare parts or whole seat replacements as they age.

The Y seats and toilets will be reused as soon as the next narrow body comes for downgrade to Oasis.

Antarius

Same model, but I believe the 321T seats are narrower.

dc10forlife

From reading the early news articles, this flight was literally inches away from having a wing hit the ground and the aircraft cartwheeling. Has any cause been determined for the unexplained bank to the left? I can't seem to find even the preliminary accident investigation report.

cmd320

Only real logical explanations would be either pilot error or some kind of mechanical turbulence, wake turbulence, etc. I don’t believe there was any major weather at the time.

jcain

Hah, the Y seats in the 321T have PTVs so that would be an upgrade for some A321s.

Antarius

I'm not even sure an a320 will let you do that. And regardless, can't see any reason a pilot would provide such an input during takeoff.

Herb687

Believe we have some A320 typed pilots lurking around FT but, as far as I know, and that's not a whole lot, there's nothing in the flight control logic of A320s that would inhibit movement around the roll axis at low altitude (provided the commanded input doesn't exceed allowed rate of roll or bank angle). So, yes, I believe that as long as the control movement wasn't aggressive or extreme you could command enough roll to drag a wingtip and the A320 would let you do it. You need aileron and rudder authority to counteract crosswinds.

On the other hand, the ATC tapes record the pilot mentioning "uncommanded" so it's a definite mystery. And a pretty scary one at that. Electronic gremlins in FBW airplanes can't be a good thing.

UVU Wolverine

This incident reminds me of the Lufthansa A320 that had the captain’s control stick inputs reversed during maintenance...
https://www.aviation-safety.net/wikibase/147094

I don’t think what I mentioned above happened with AA300 though. I can only speculate that they may have encountered wake turbulence into the takeoff roll. Until (if) the FDR data is released, we won’t have a clear picture of what happened. I have yet to see any info on what type of aircraft departed before them.

In my own personal experience with small aircraft, wake turbulence is a (seemingly) instantaneous roll far faster than any pilot input could match. This is anecdotal, but it seems that every time I’ve encountered it, it happens in the blink of an eye. All my experiences have been with aircraft of similar size too in regards to where the wake turbulence came from, so not definitive. One time Las Vegas Approach decided to put me, in a little 4 seat plane, 1000 feet below and about behind a 757 which was crossing paths with me perpendicularly. I declined and turned around, and credit that decision with me being alive today

cmd320

A very good decision.

This actually reminds me of a time on an EY A380 a few years back. I was in F on EY103 having just departed from AUH. The departure and subsequent climb out were completely smooth and uneventful. Seatbelt sign went off at 10,000ft and crew began taking drink orders and handing out menus.

A few minutes later, nearing 20,000ft there was a bit of sudden and sharp turbulence which I would classify as moderate (which I had yet to experience on an A380) lasting about 10 seconds. After, smooth again for about 20 seconds and then all of a sudden it was like all hell broke loose. The aircraft rolled violently to the left and then back right, left again with sudden up and down vertical movements causing glasses and bottles in the galley to fall and shatter. I could see clearly out the window into the night sky with the lights on the horizon appearing and disappearing as the aircraft rolled. This lasted maybe 15-20 seconds and I remember the aircraft making a sweeping right hand turn in the last few moments of this experience and then suddenly it was completely smooth and remained that way for the remainder of the 13 hour flight.

Needless to say, I was scared ****less at that point and had never experienced a moment on an aircraft that I really believed it was going to crash. I have flown through plenty of strong turbulence in and around thunderstorms as well as around mountains in my life but nothing was even close to this, and on an A380 of all aircraft. For those who haven’t been in an EY F apartment before, you’re very isolated and to see the person in the suite across the aisle you have to bend far forward in the seat and look across at the same time they do. I did this just after that experience at the same time as the passenger in 4K did and I’m relatively certain we both expressed the same look of ... just happened.

I never ended up finding out what exactly happened on that flight, but if I had to guess it would be wake turbulence from a preceding A380. That’s about the only thing that would make sense to me. Roughly five minutes later the crew reappeared and it was business as usual at that point, though needless to say I had quite a lot of champagne with the first couple courses, followed by a few cocktails, wine, shower, half an Ambien, and then 8 hours of sleep before enjoying a lovely sunrise and full breakfast on the way into JFK. Smoothest intercontinental flight I’ve ever been on with the exception of those ~30 seconds of terror.