Airbus Industrial Flight 129

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Airbus Industrial Flight 129
THAI AIRWAYS INTERNATIONAL Airbus A330-321 (HS-TEA 050) (4550538014) .jpg

A similar machine from Thai Airways International
Accident summary
Accident type Loss of control
place Toulouse-Blagnac Airport , FranceFranceFrance 
date June 30, 1994
Fatalities 7th
Survivors 0
Aircraft
Aircraft type EuropeEurope Airbus A330-321
operator EuropeEurope Airbus Industry
Mark FranceFrance F-WWKH
Departure airport Toulouse-Blagnac Airport , FranceFranceFrance 
Destination airport Toulouse-Blagnac Airport , FranceFranceFrance 
Passengers 4th
crew 3
Lists of aviation accidents

The Airbus Industry Flight 129 (flight number: BGA129 ) was a test flight of the Airbus Industry with an Airbus A330-321 on June 30, 1994. On this flight, the crew lost control of the machine, killing all 7 people on board . It was the first and up to Air France flight 447 only fatal incident involving an Airbus A330 and the first total loss of a machine of this type.

plane

In the concerned aircraft it was an Airbus A330-321 with the air vehicle registration F-WWKH which in Airbus -Werk Clément Adler in Toulouse has been finally assembled as 42. Machine A330. The aircraft made its maiden flight on 14 October 1993. The twin-engine wide-body aircraft was equipped with two Turbojettriebwerken type Pratt & Whitney PW4164 equipped. The aircraft was intended for Thai Airways International , was 259 days old at the time of the accident, had a total operating performance of 360 hours and was borrowed from the owner by Airbus for testing purposes. Airbus Industrie had already damaged a Thai Airways machine during tests in December 1993 and owed the airline compensation. For the test flights, the company logos and the Thai Airways lettering were painted over in white, but the surrounding abdominal band was retained.

Crew and passengers

The captain was the Airbus lead test pilot, the US American Nick Warner. First mate was Michel Cais, an Air Inter test captain who worked at Aeroformation , an Airbus training organization. A test engineer was on board as the third crew member.

The management of Airbus was interested in presenting the new aircraft model to potential customers and did not consider the test flight to be dangerous. An Airbus executive, a Thai Airways executive and two Alitalia pilots , Alberto Nassetti and Pier Paolo Racchetti, who were in Toulouse for flight training at the Airbus headquarters , were therefore taken on board as passengers .

Flight plan

The test flight was part of a series of tests to have the machine's autopilot certified according to Category III standards. As part of the test flight, the flight behavior of the machine should be tested with simulated engine failures after take-off. An engine should be switched to idle and a hydraulic circuit switched off. In this way, values ​​for the autopilot of the A330 should be determined, as they can only be obtained when taking off under extreme conditions.

the accident

The first part of the test flight with a flight time of 55 minutes was successfully completed with a landing of the machine on runway 15L. On the ground, the machine was turned to make a subsequent take-off from lane 33R. The second take-off was carried out under similar conditions to the first, but this time the autopilot modification to be tested should be activated. The center of gravity of the machine was far back at this start. This time the machine was flown by the first officer, the captain had the task of switching off the engine and the hydraulic circuit and switching on the autopilot.

The start of the machine and the shutdown of the systems went smoothly. The take-off was performed by the first officer in TOGA mode instead of Flex 49, a lower power setting set for the test flight. When the pitch angle increased from 12 to 18 degrees, the first officer stopped the control movement to pull the machine up. An unsuccessful attempt to switch on the autopilot was made for five seconds; this only succeeded on the third attempt. The machine then went straight to a climb to 2000 feet (approx. 610 meters), which was still stored in the flight control computer from the previous test flight. With the climb, which was much too steep, the aircraft's pitch angle increased rapidly while the flight speed decreased. Another two seconds then passed before the autopilot was activated, as the first officer slightly reduced the pitch angle by moving the sidestick. The machine's pitch angle, which was still set to rise 2.2 degrees, increased to 29 degrees while the speed dropped to 145 knots (about 269 km / h). The master then reduced the power of the left engine in accordance with the test instructions and switched off the hydraulic systems. The machine rolled to one side. The master then reduced the thrust of the running engine in order to reduce the thrust asymmetry. This made the situation worse as the machine's speed continued to decrease. With a pitch angle of 32 degrees and a speed of 100 knots (190 km / h), there was a stall . A flight speed of 118 knots (approx. 219 km / h) would have been required to maintain the lift. The machine went down at a pitch of -15 degrees, which increased to -43 degrees, while the machine reached a left roll angle of 112 degrees. The pilots succeeded in partially regaining control of the Airbus, but due to the low altitude, the aircraft could no longer be completely intercepted from its abnormal flight position. After only 60 seconds in the air, the machine fell to the ground at 17:41 from an altitude of 400 meters on the edge of Toulouse-Blagnac airport. All seven occupants were killed in the impact and the Airbus was irreparably destroyed.

Accident investigation

The accident investigation was carried out by the French BEA. The accident investigators found a combination of factors which, seen individually, would not have led to an accident. This included the BEA

  • activating TOGA mode (full thrust) instead of Flex 49
  • the center of gravity far back at the last start
  • the start configuration with too steep a pitch angle
  • the preset climb to 2000 feet
  • unclear and late determination of the conditions of the test flight as well as the duties of the captain and first officer
  • the first officer's abrupt inputs to rotate the machine
  • the heavy use of the captain immediately after take-off. This had to activate the autopilot, reduce the thrust and switch off the blue hydraulic circuit.
  • the lack of control of the roll angle in the selected mode of the autopilot

The BEA noted as factors that contributed to the accident

  • the inability of the crew to correctly identify the set mode of the autopilot
  • the crew's confidence that the aircraft behavior of the machine would meet expectations
  • the late reaction of the first officer to the dangerously reduced airspeed
  • the long reaction time of the captain to the abnormal flight situation

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Airbus A330-321 accident report, F-WWKH in the Aviation Safety Network
  2. ↑ Operating history of the machine on planespotters.net

Coordinates: 43 ° 38 ′ 6 ″  N , 1 ° 21 ′ 30 ″  W.