A332, vicinity Brisbane Australia, 2013

A332, vicinity Brisbane Australia, 2013

Summary

On 21 November 2013, an A330 rejected its take off from Brisbane after an airspeed indication failure. Following maintenance intervention, a similar airspeed indication fault on the subsequent departure was reported to have been detected after V1. Once airborne, reversion to Alternate Law occurred and slat retraction failed. After an air turnback, it was discovered that the cause of both events was blockage of the No. 1 Pitot Head by a mud-dauber wasp nest which was created during the initial two hour turnround at Brisbane. Investigation of a 2014 event to a Boeing 737 at Brisbane with exactly the same causation was noted.

Description

On 21 November 2013, the crew of an Airbus A330-200 (A6-EYJ) being operated by Etihad on a scheduled passenger flight from Brisbane to Singapore successfully rejected a daylight take off in normal ground visibility due to an airspeed indication failure. The aircraft returned to the gate. After maintenance intervention and release to service, the flight departed again almost 2 hours later. This time an airspeed discrepancy again occurred but was reported not to have been detected in time to reject the take off. Further system problems followed and a MAYDAY was declared and an uneventful air turnback was completed.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB). FDR data was successfully downloaded and used in the Investigation.

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