Air Transat Flight 236

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Air Transat Flight 236
Air Transat A332 C-GITS.jpg

Air Transat Airbus A330-200 C-GITS
Accident summary
Accident type Lack of fuel
place Lajes Field , Terceira , Azores
date August 24, 2001
Fatalities 0
Survivors 306
Injured 18th
Aircraft
Aircraft type Airbus A330
operator Air Transat
Mark C-GITS
Departure airport Toronto-Pearson
Destination airport Lisbon Portela
Passengers 293
crew 13
Lists of aviation accidents

Flight 236 was a scheduled flight of Air Transat from Toronto Pearson in Canada to Lisbon in Portugal . On August 24, 2001, an Airbus A330-200 used on this flight with 293 passengers and 13 crew members on board over the Atlantic ran out of fuel due to a leak caused by incorrect maintenance by the ground technicians. By not handling this problem in accordance with the procedure, the flight captain Robert Piché and his copilot Dirk De Jager exacerbated the emergency. They then succeeded in one of the longest gliding flights of a jet aircraft in the history of aviation - about 19 minutes, covering 120 km - and the subsequent emergency landing at the military airfield Lajes Field on the Azores island of Terceira .

Course of the incident

The aircraft took off from Toronto Pearson Airport on August 24, 2001 at 00:52 UTC (August 23, 2001 8:52 p.m. EDT ) . The flight was carried out with an Airbus A330-200 with the aircraft registration C-GITS, built in 1999, designed for 362 passengers and put into service in April 1999. At the time of departure, the aircraft was fueled with 47,900 kg of kerosene .

After almost four hours of flight time, a fuel leak occurred on the right engine at 04:38 UTC. In the cockpit then an audible alarm was triggered. However, this did not primarily indicate a fuel leak and was initially interpreted as a false alarm by the captain and copilot. It was only when the alarm persisted that the captain decided to divert the aircraft to the Lajes Air Force Base in the western Azores . When they noticed an imbalance in the distribution of fuel between the tanks in the right wing and the left wing, they tried to remedy this by pumping, but this only accelerated the loss of fuel.

At 06:13 UTC, 28 minutes after leaving the course towards the Azores, engine number 2 (on the right-hand side) ran out of fuel. As a result, the power of engine number 1 was increased to maximum continuous power. However, since the performance of one engine was insufficient to maintain the current cruising altitude of 39,000  feet , a descent to 30,000 feet was initiated. Another 13 minutes later, engine number 1 also came to a standstill due to a lack of kerosene. Gliding flight had to be initiated about 15 minutes after the pilots had declared an air emergency .

All Airbus aircraft from the A320 family are equipped with a fly-by-wire control. If all engines fail, an aircraft would lose propulsion and power supply. An emergency power supply is therefore necessary so that even in the event of a failure of all engines, an aircraft is still supplied with sufficient electrical energy to keep essential components of the hydraulics and electrical systems functional. This emergency supply is guaranteed by a dynamic pressure turbine.

While the captain was steering the aircraft, the copilot kept an eye on the rate of descent, which was about 2,000 feet / minute (approx. 10 m / s). This resulted in a gliding flight of around 15 to 20 minutes. The height was sufficient to reach the airport so that there was no risk of ditching . The crew managed to align the aircraft on runway 33. The speed was higher than usual, however, because the restricted function of the hydraulics meant that no spoilers or buoyancy aids could be set.

At 06:46 UTC, 20 minutes after the complete engine failure, the pilots succeeded in touching down the Airbus A330. The landing speed was about 200  knots (about 370 km / h). Since only the emergency braking system (without anti-lock braking system) was available for braking after touchdown, all the main landing gear tires burst. Nevertheless, the aircraft came to a stop in the middle of the runway. 16 passengers and two crew members were injured when leaving the aircraft on the evacuation slides . The happy outcome was also due to the fact that the flight was carried out on a more southerly Atlantic route that passed closer to the Azores.

Approximately 120 km were covered during the unpowered flight. This is one of the longest gliding flights of a jet plane in the history of aviation. The Airbus A330-200 with the registration number C-GITS and the serial number 271 is still in use for Air Transat.

List of events
UTC event
00:52 Depart from Toronto-Pearson .
04:38 Start of fuel loss.
05:04 Unusual display of the oil temperature of engine no. 2. This was followed by a lively radio conversation with the base of the airline via HF communication , which impaired the attention of the cockpit crew.
05:33 The message “TRIM TANK XFRD” was shown on the ECAM display. This means that the fuel has been successfully transferred from the trim tank to the wing tanks. However, this happened much too early, which the cockpit crew also noticed.
05:34 ECAM Fuel Page was selected. A so-called “fuel imbalance” was then found between the right and left wing.
05:36 The crew carried out a “fuel crossfeed”. One or more engines are supplied from the tank on the opposite wing.
05:45 The crew made the decision to divert the aircraft to Lajes .
06:02 The cabin crew prepared the flight passengers for a ditching .
06:13 Engine # 2 failed at an altitude of 39,000 feet.
06:26 Engine # 1 failed at 34,500 feet due to a lack of fuel.
06:45 The Airbus A330 landed on runway 33 in Lajes .

Determination of causes

The investigations revealed that a component that did not correspond to the modification status of the engine had been installed in the hydraulics during engine maintenance. Vibrations in the hydraulic line led to vibration-related wear on the fuel line, so that the line eventually broke and a leak developed. Air Transat took responsibility for the incident. The Canadian government then fined Canadians 250,000 .

Since the plane landed safely at an airfield, few passengers were injured and the plane showed little damage, the pilots were received like heroes by the Canadian media. However, the investigation report concludes that if the pilots had carried out the procedures foreseen in the event of a fuel leak, the fuel would have lasted to land.

The incident led to the DGAC and FAA an airworthiness directive out gave that all operators of aircraft of the type Airbus A330 made to the edition, the handbook ( Airplane Flight Manual to change). The change required that if an imbalance occurred, the pilots should check whether a fuel leak was the cause before opening the equalization valves. This instruction had to be implemented within 15 days. The French aviation authority even demanded that the manual be changed before the aircraft types concerned were next taken off.

Piché and De Jager were honored with the Superior Airmanship Award in 2002 for their flying performance and saving human lives .

The media incident

Based on this incident, in 2003 a documentary was filmed, which as part of the docudrama series Mayday - alarm in the cockpit in Season 1 as the 6th row: Air Crash Investigation under the German title with empty tanks of Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel aired has been. Since the final report of the Portuguese aviation authority was only published afterwards (in October 2004), the filmic representation of what happened - as mentioned in the film itself - is partly speculative.

MSNBC reported on the incident ( A Wing and A Prayer ).

Similar incidents

Emergency landings due to a lack of fuel also took place on the following flights:

Cinematic adaptation

The Canadian feature film Piché: entre ciel et terre from 2010 describes the incident of Air Transat flight 236.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mayday - Alarm in the cockpit - S01E06 - With empty tanks. Retrieved January 8, 2020 .
  2. ↑ C-GITS Air Transat Airbus A330-243 Airframe Info , planespotters.net, accessed on October 15, 2019
  3. ^ Accident Investigation Final Report , p. 63
  4. ↑ Federal Aviation Administration: Airworthiness Directive ( Memento of the original of March 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , airweb.faa.gov, accessed September 14, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.airweb.faa.gov
  5. ^ Accident Investigation Final Report , p. 1
  6. ↑ Trailer of the episode on YouTube
  7. ↑ Spiegel.TV: With empty tanks (Air Transat 236) ( Memento from July 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ^ Piché: entre ciel et terre in the Internet Movie Database, accessed on December 23, 2014