British Airways A380 Overweight Landing

musapapaya · Tue Jun 24, 2014 8:00 pm

Dear all

From: http://www.thebasource.com/
'British Airways A380 G-XLEC operating BA282 Los Angeles – London Heathrow (depart Los Angeles 18th June) diverted via Toronto in the early hours of this morning due to water pressure issues. The aircraft required checks at Toronto due to an overweight landing and continued to London after around four hours on the ground, however crew did not have sufficient hours to reach London and so diverted to Shannon. During the evening the aircraft continued Shannon – London Heathrow, however passengers had already been collected by two Boeing 767-300ERs.'

It looks weird to me that a 'water pressure' issue lead to a overweight landing, am I right? Or is the water issue a safety issue, that they cannot burn off fuel, or jettison some fuel, to avoid overweight landing and subsequent checks required, and they may be able to continue to LHR rather than diverting to SNN?

Cheers
William

WildcatYXU · Tue Jun 24, 2014 8:20 pm

I'm surprised the A380 would be still overweight after almost 40% of the planned distance flown.

This is how she looked at the gate:

zeke · Tue Jun 24, 2014 8:26 pm

Quoting musapapaya (Thread starter):
It looks weird to me that a 'water pressure' issue lead to a overweight landing, am I right?

Reading between the lines, they lost portable water to the galleys and toilets, this can happen for example if the portable water service panel door detaches inflight.

Quoting WildcatYXU (Reply 1):
I'm surprised the A380 would be still overweight after almost 40% of the planned distance flown.

An indication they had good revenue payload being up near MZFW.

RJNUT · Tue Jun 24, 2014 8:34 pm

Quoting Zeke (Reply 2):
they lost portable water to the galleys and toilets, this can happen for example if the portable water service panel door detaches inflight.

good call,,but it is "potable".,not "portable"...

zeke · Tue Jun 24, 2014 8:37 pm

Quoting RJNUT (Reply 3):
good call,,but it is "potable".,not "portable"...

Correct, thank you.

speedbored · Tue Jun 24, 2014 9:00 pm

Quoting RJNUT (Reply 3):
it is "potable".,not "portable"

To be even more pedantic, given that the water was being carried by an A380 at the time, both are probably correct

musapapaya · Tue Jun 24, 2014 9:02 pm

Thanks guys!

It still does not explain why the crew did not ensure the landing weight is less than maximum landing weight before landing. This is causing them quite a bit of extra money (and to send 2 767 from LHR to SNN to pick the passengers up!)

Stitch · Tue Jun 24, 2014 9:15 pm

Quoting musapapaya (Reply 6):
It still does not explain why the crew did not ensure the landing weight is less than maximum landing weight before landing.

They may not have been in a position to dump fuel prior to landing (perhaps too much populated area under the flight path or other issue), especially as it sounds like the diversion was not an emergency (as in "we must get the plane on the ground ASAP") and that may generally preclude dumping fuel.

wingman · Tue Jun 24, 2014 9:16 pm

Quoting speedbored (Reply 5):
To be even more pedantic, given that the water was being carried by an A380 at the time, both are probably correct

Nice one.

WildcatYXU · Tue Jun 24, 2014 9:27 pm

Quoting musapapaya (Reply 6):
It still does not explain why the crew did not ensure the landing weight is less than maximum landing weight before landing.

Let's speculate a bit and let's hope some of the pilots here will correct us. If they were indeed near MZFW, they could have only about 4 hours worth of fuel in tanks to get under MLW. Since they had some 7 hours of flight ahead of them and they can't land of fumes, I'd estimate they had about 9 hours worth of fuel aboard when they arrived to YYZ area. So they would have to dump about 5 hours worth of fuel - roughly 60 tons. Which is not small change either and takes some time, so we don't know if the crew wouldn't time out anyway.
BTW, why did they send two 767's to pick up the pax from SNN instead of sending a fresh crew there?

Zeke, does my speculation make any sense or am I completely off?

musapapaya · Tue Jun 24, 2014 9:41 pm

Quoting WildcatYXU (Reply 9):
BTW, why did they send two 767's to pick up the pax from SNN instead of sending a fresh crew there?

Good question, never thought about this but according to thebasource, this is what they done - maybe they did not have A380 crew available in LHR? Having said that, they would have been able to plan this once they left Toronto, and this should have gave them enough time to call in standby crew etc and send them to SNN on their own BA flight (or DUB if SNN sees fewer flights)

Quoting WildcatYXU (Reply 9):
Let's speculate a bit and let's hope some of the pilots here will correct us. If they were indeed near MZFW, they could have only about 4 hours worth of fuel in tanks to get under MLW. Since they had some 7 hours of flight ahead of them and they can't land of fumes, I'd estimate they had about 9 hours worth of fuel aboard when they arrived to YYZ area. So they would have to dump about 5 hours worth of fuel - roughly 60 tons. Which is not small change either and takes some time, so we don't know if the crew wouldn't time out anyway.

Thats a lot of maths but knowing Canada is a rather empty country, can they not just dump the fuel..... I would have thought 'loss of water pressure' does not warrant 'land ASAP' on the ECAM actions.

WildcatYXU · Tue Jun 24, 2014 9:53 pm

Quoting musapapaya (Reply 10):
Thats a lot of maths but knowing Canada is a rather empty country, can they not just dump the fuel..... I would have thought 'loss of water pressure' does not warrant 'land ASAP' on the ECAM actions.

If they flew the GC route that night, they would be over sparsely populated area almost until the final approach. But isn't the dumped fuel supposed to evaporate before it hits ground anyway?

musapapaya · Tue Jun 24, 2014 9:58 pm

Quoting WildcatYXU (Reply 11):
If they flew the GC route that night, they would be over sparsely populated area almost until the final approach. But isn't the dumped fuel supposed to evaporate before it hits ground anyway?

I seem to remember they could perform jettison operation at about 6,000 ft or above, but dont quote me on this.

zeke · Tue Jun 24, 2014 10:29 pm

Quoting musapapaya (Reply 6):
It still does not explain why the crew did not ensure the landing weight is less than maximum landing weight before landing. This is causing them quite a bit of extra money (and to send 2 767 from LHR to SNN to pick the passengers up!)

The simple reason is you don't have to, you can land overweight, as long as the vertical speed is under control it is fairly simple task to send the aircraft out again. There was no emergency, it was a diversion for technical reasons.

The pilot report the overweight landing in the technical log, mechanics on the ground download the data from the aircraft, it is sent off for analysis. If the analysis of the electronic data suggests a low rate of descent, the aircraft can dispatch again rather quickly.

sunrisevalley · Wed Jun 25, 2014 1:53 am

Quoting WildcatYXU (Reply 9):
Let's speculate a bit and let's hope some of the pilots here will correct us. If they were indeed near MZFW, they could have only about 4 hours worth of fuel in tanks to get under MLW. Since they had some 7 hours of flight ahead of them and they can't land of fumes, I'd estimate they had about 9 hours worth of fuel aboard when they arrived to YYZ area.

This is very much in the FWIW department but Piano-X suggests that if the payload was at 60t which is close to the A380's volume limited payload. For a typical LAX- LHR 10-hr sector the TOW would be ~491t . Fuel burn for 4hrs to YYZ would be ~55t so the landing weight was ~ 436t somewhat more than the 393t max shown in the ACAP sheets. Fuel load for the 10-hr. would be ~ 138t with burn at ~123t

astuteman · Wed Jun 25, 2014 4:27 am

Quoting Zeke (Reply 13):
The pilot report the overweight landing in the technical log, mechanics on the ground download the data from the aircraft, it is sent off for analysis. If the analysis of the electronic data suggests a low rate of descent, the aircraft can dispatch again rather quickly.

Makes sense. Especially on a type that has been landed at 595 tonnes before now

Rgds

Tristarsteve · Wed Jun 25, 2014 7:00 am

Quoting WildcatYXU (Reply 9):
BTW, why did they send two 767's to pick up the pax from SNN instead of sending a fresh crew there?

There was no full A390 cabin crew available. So two pilots went to collect the aircraft (with baggage still on board).

Quoting Zeke (Reply 13):
The pilot report the overweight landing in the technical log, mechanics on the ground download the data from the aircraft, it is sent off for analysis.

If there was a heavy landing, the aircraft will send the data automatically to the airline base. Also the report will print out in the flight deck.
If this doesn't happen, then you can manually print out the report to see the touchdown figures.

INFINITI329 · Wed Jun 25, 2014 7:17 am

Quoting Tristarsteve (Reply 16):
So two pilots went to collect the aircraft (with baggage still on board).

I could only imagine the bill to deliver all those bags.

tommy1808 · Wed Jun 25, 2014 7:26 am

Quoting musapapaya (Reply 10):
I would have thought 'loss of water pressure' does not warrant 'land ASAP' on the ECAM actions.

If lavatories can not be used due to it, you have an emergency at hand fairly quickly. Or hundred or so pissed passengers in every sense of the word.

best regards
Thomas

StTim · Wed Jun 25, 2014 7:34 am

One would hope the flight crew for the A380 positioned to Shannon on one of the 767's and so likelyhood is that the baggage made it back to Heathrow to meet up with the passengers.

Aesma · Wed Jun 25, 2014 7:37 am

Quoting Tristarsteve (Reply 16):
There was no full A390 cabin crew available.

And Airbus was a couple days short of delivering the first A390.

vv701 · Wed Jun 25, 2014 10:16 am

Quoting StTim (Reply 19):
One would hope the flight crew for the A380 positioned to Shannon on one of the 767's and so likelyhood is that the baggage made it back to Heathrow to meet up with the passengers.

Looks likely.

The Flight24 web site:

http://www.flightradar24.com/data/

reports that the second 763 carrying the W and Y Class passengers (G-BNWA) arrived at LHR at 19:42 UTC followed by the 380 (G-XLEC) 25 minutes later at 20:07 UTC.

a320fan · Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:49 am

Why didn't they just fly them back in on the A380 rather than have 2 extra aircraft fly out to SNN

tommy1808 · Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:51 am

Quoting a320fan (Reply 22):
Why didn't they just fly them back in on the A380 rather than have 2 extra aircraft fly out to SNN

Not cabin crew available.

best regards
Thomas

Tristarsteve · Wed Jun 25, 2014 4:08 pm

Quoting Zeke (Reply 2):
they lost portable water to the galleys and toilets, this can happen for example if the portable water service panel door detaches inflight.

On the BA A380 (and others??) there is a problem with the potable water filling system, so that the water system circuit breakers need to be tripped to fill the water tanks.
These need to be reset after filling, before flight. This was done in Toronto!

barney captain · Wed Jun 25, 2014 6:40 pm

I wonder what the cost of replacing 60t of fuel is compared to an overweight landing inspection (assuming one was even needed).

Lofty · Wed Jun 25, 2014 6:48 pm

I understand the flight diverted to SNN as LHR had inbound holding delays which would have take the flight crew out of hours.

zeke · Wed Jun 25, 2014 7:46 pm

Quoting Tristarsteve (Reply 24):
On the BA A380 (and others??) there is a problem with the potable water filling system, so that the water system circuit breakers need to be tripped to fill the water tanks.
These need to be reset after filling, before flight. This was done in Toronto!

That is not normal, sounds like an ADD issue. That is essentially also what happens with the service door missing, it has a micro switch on it, when open it depressurizes the system.To add water takes some work.

prebennorholm · Wed Jun 25, 2014 10:41 pm

Quoting barney captain (Reply 25):
I wonder what the cost of replacing 60t of fuel is compared to an overweight landing inspection (assuming one was even needed).

You choose a long runway with nice weather, no severe sidewind, and no chance of severe windshear. Then you make a nice landing, easy on the wheel brakes not to put them on fire, maybe you make a little more noise with the reversers than ususal.

And then you check the data log and see that nothing has been overstressed, and off you go again.

The wheel brakes are likely not a big deal. They are dimentioned to stop the plane at MTOW from V1 speed at half way down the runway without use of reversers.

Norcal773 · Thu Jun 26, 2014 3:46 am

Quoting Tristarsteve (Reply 16):
There was no full A390 cabin crew available. So two pilots went to collect the aircraft (with baggage still on board).

I don't think you'll find A390 cabin crew available anywhere in the world

Quoting a320fan (Reply 22):
Why didn't they just fly them back in on the A380 rather than have 2 extra aircraft fly out to SNN

Haha, you sure didn't read the whole thread, did you?

British Airways A380 Overweight Landing

British Airways A380 Overweight Landing

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