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At least 50 people were injured on Monday when a Laterm Airlines Boeing 787 carrying 263 people on board suddenly fell mid-air while flying from Sydney to Auckland, New Zealand.
meanwhile CNN One of the Latin American pilots reportedly told passengers that the cockpit instruments were “blank white” due to a suspected aircraft malfunction, but new information suggests it was not a technical malfunction, but rather an incident on the flight deck. This indicates an accident.
The Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources briefed on preliminary evidence, that a flight attendant may have accidentally pressed a cockpit switch while serving food in the cockpit. . This would have turned on a system that pushed the chair and pilot forward into the flight controls.
The switch is designed with a cover and is not intended to be used while a person is seated, the paper said. Still, it’s possible that it accidentally activated, pointing the plane’s nose down and causing a rapid loss of altitude.
If true, this would not be the first time the cockpit has forced a wide-body aircraft into a steep dive.
Military Airbus A330 plummets due to cockpit accident
Ten years ago, on February 9, 2014, a Royal Air Force Airbus A330 plummeted from a height of 4,400 feet in about 30 seconds. The tanker transport aircraft involved was part of the British military. voyager fleetIt is based on the civilian version of the A330, but is capable of aerial refueling and military transport.
On the day of the event, Voyager Flight 333 was transporting approximately 200 passengers and crew from Royal Air Force Base Brize Norton to Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, according to the final report. report Published by the British Military Aviation Authority. Although this was a military mission, it was operated much like a conventional commercial aircraft, with passengers served by flight attendants and in-flight movies shown.
Both pilots were military aviators with thousands of hours of experience. However, despite having more than 5,500 flight hours, the captain made a critical mistake while alone in the cockpit.
According to the report, while the first officer was resting in the galley, the captain was killing time by taking pictures with a digital single-lens reflex camera on the flight deck at cruising altitude.
This would be fine if there were two pilots in the cockpit, but RAF policy at the time prohibited one pilot from carrying out “unrelated” flying missions while the other was away. , and that’s where the problems started.
The captain placed his camera next to the A330’s side stick when he placed it on board to speak to the purser. It controls Airbus’ fly-by-wire system, allowing pilots to control the plane’s pitch and roll.
The captain did not remove the camera because he was distracted by the purser, and then adjusted his seat forward. As he did this, the armrest of the seat pressed the camera against the sidestick with enough force to disconnect the autopilot the plane was designed to do and send the plane into a nosedive.
The negative gravitational acceleration during the fall caused passengers and crew members, including the co-pilot, to fly into the air and crash into the jet’s ceiling. This is similar to the accidents in Central and South America.
Fortunately, the plane was saved because Airbus’ advanced automation automatically reduced thrust and leveled out once the jet reached a certain speed and pitch-down limit, the report said. In other words, the A330 aircraft has built-in protection features to help it recover from a dive after a pilot error.
Although the Central and South American accident is still under investigation, a similar causal relationship may have occurred with the recent altitude loss. The Boeing 787 system involved has a fly-by-wire system, but the plane maker is installing a traditional yoke instead of a sidestick.
In the aftermath of Voyager Flight 333, several recommendations were made to address the incident, including regarding loose objects in the cockpit, cockpit design, and the length of time a pilot can be left alone on the flight deck.
As for Boeing, the plane maker sent a memo to 787 operators on Thursday asking them to check for loose switch covers and provide information on how to turn off the motors, the newspaper reported. This follows a similar notice sent to airlines regarding the seats seven years ago.
“We have taken the precaution of reminding 787 operators of a service bulletin issued in 2017,” Boeing said in a statement. “We recommend that you perform an inspection at your next maintenance opportunity.”
If this proves to be human error rather than a technical issue, Boeing should breathe a sigh of relief that this problem is not related to another quality defect in its airliners.