New York A320 Airplane Ditching;How it Was Done?
How the Airbus Pilot Successfully Landed His Plane in the River
Jan 27, 2009
The recent crash of the Airbus A320 into the Hudson River was dubbed ‘a miracle’ by many people, since all those on board were saved. But what did the pilots have to do? A current A340 pilot summarized the sequence of events for the author of this article.
Immediately After the Bird Strike
It would appear that after hitting the birds the power loss on both engines would have been instantaneous. The Airbus has almost all automatic systems, but the pilots would lose all of these. The flight deck probably went dark momentarily, with all screens blank. Then the electrical system would reconfigure itself on to battery power, and emergency hydraulics would be available.
The aircraft would now have manual flight controls and limited electrics. There would be an awful buzz of aural warnings and illuminations as the aircraft reported itself to the pilots as being unfit for use. The only pilot instrumentation showing would be the Captain’s primary flight display. Up to this point the First Officer had been doing the flying, but now the Captain would have to take over.
What the Captain and First Officer Did Next
The aircraft apparently reached 3200 feet before transitioning to the glide. The Captain was now hand flying the Airbus and also took over the radios, while the First Officer dealt with the systems and failures.
There would be a screen full of pages and pages of procedures for him to work through, but the aircraft itself would prioritise the failures, putting engine relight procedures at the top of the list. This system is called ECAM (electronic centralized aircraft monitoring)
The ECAM Instructions
The pilots would be instructed to:
- Switch on the engine igniters
- Return the thrust igniters to idle
- Fly at 280 knots, the optimum speed for engine relight
- Select the emergency generator manually on
- Use the only radios and transponder which would be powered by the emergency system
If there was no engine relight after 30 seconds, then the ignition sequence would start up again.
What Did the Pilots do When a Crash Seemed Inevitable?
At some point – and without wasting too much time – the pilots would have to accept their fate and transfer to the Ditching Checklist. This is not on ECAM but would have to be accessed from the quick reference handbook which every pilot would have.
Now the First Officer would have a new list of tasks to perform:
- Prepare cabin and cockpit, ensuring cabin crew are notified
- Switch aural warning systems off so that the aircraft is not shouting things like ‘too low gear’ and ‘whoop whoop pull up’ when the pilots were concentrating on the ditching.
- Put seatbelt signs on
- Turn off cabin and gallery electrical power
- Select landing elevation to zero on the pressurization control panel, so that the doors could be opened on landing.
Last Minute Tasks Before Ditching
At 2000 feet the First Officer would switch all engine and APU bleed valves off, and switch on the overhead ‘ditching’ button, causing valves to close to slow the ingress of water. At 1000 feet he would tell the cabin crew to take their seats for landing, and at 200 feet tell everyone to ‘brace for impact’.
At touchdown the First Officer would turn off the engine and APU master switches. After ditching he would notify ATC, then discharge all fire extinguishers and initiate evacuation.
Pilots practice all of the above many, many times on aircraft simulators. Nevertheless, it is clear that they had a huge amount of work to do in an extremely high pressure environment. So well done to both pilots, and top marks to Airbus for creating such a strong aircraft which could survive this potentially disastrous situation.
See Also:
- New York Plane Crash – Airliner Ditches in River
- How to Survive an Airplane Crash
- New York Airbus Crash - Some Little-Known Facts
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