AAIB Reports On Damaged Airbus A320

February 26th, 2008

The UK Air Accident Investigation Branch seemingly has its hands full this month.

It recently reported on its initial findings of the January 2008 British Airways Boeing 777-200ER crash at London Heathrow, and has today released a report on a Thomas Cook Airbus A320 that flew (and landed) with damaged undercarriage.

Image courtesy of samhaes

The AAIB report can be found by clicking here.

The A320 in question had been involved in a hard landing prior to the discovery of the damaged landing gear, but had already flown since that initial impact incident, forcing the AAIB to highlight that “the weakest point appears to be the landing gear, and in particular the upper diaphragm, the failure of which is not readily apparent when the aircraft is on the ground,“.

Interestingly and most critically, the report noted the following:

“During the shutdown procedure the crew were presented with an automatically generated aircraft warning indicating that certain parameters had been exceeded during the landing. “

It is with some concern that checks were not done by a more experienced member of maintenance staff in lieu of the AAIB noting that some “engineers maintaining the aircraft at Bristol had not received adequate training,“.

While this incident occurred some time ago, the AAIB has proven that it is not shy to recommend new protocol for passenger and airline operation safety. Four new recommendations were made to Airbus to amend its safety documentation.

These points can be located here for your perusal.

Entry Filed under: Air Transport, Air Travel, Airbus, Airbus A320, Airlines, Airplane, Airplanes, Airport, Boeing, Boeing 777, British Airways, Thomas Cook