The incident occurred at 9.35am on August 6, 2021, on a flight from Edinburgh Airport to London Heathrow.
A report into the incident by the Air Accidents Investigation Department discovered that the aircraft hit an “uneven restore patch”, which had a knock-on impact that brought about the jet’s autopilot and autothrust to disconnect briefly twice throughout the period of the flight.
The flight landed safely at Heathrow, though the crew needed to take a manually flown method.
Within the report, the pilot described the takeoff as “regular aside from a loud bang created by passing over, what felt like, a centreline gentle on the takeoff roll”.
Through the flight’s climb, passing roughly 1,500 ft, the co-pilot noticed a ‘gps misplaced’ message briefly seem, nevertheless, this disappeared earlier than the crew may take any motion.
Nevertheless, in a while within the climb, the autopilot and autothrust disconnected and the flight administrators had been now not displayed.
In response to the report, crew had been “involved” that the flight may now not adjust to necessities, so the co-pilot made an pressing name to Air Visitors Management.
After preliminary makes an attempt to revive the autopilot and autothrust, which had been unsuccessful, crew had been in a position to re-engage the techniques after round 5 minutes of handbook flight.
Crew members then performed a prognosis, evaluation, and decision-making course of to find out easy methods to proceed. They determined to proceed to Heathrow, as on the time, the plane was in a “secure state”. Additionally they requested an prolonged remaining method to Heathrow to make it simpler to watch the plane.
Nevertheless, because the jet was heading for the runway, the autopilot and autothrust disconnected once more at roughly 4,000 ft.
The report mentioned: “The crew discontinued the method and re-briefed for a manually flown uncooked knowledge method.
It additionally mentioned that “the plane landed usually”, describing the method as “uneventful”.
After the incident, an in depth examination of the runway at Edinburgh Airport was carried out, as a part of an investigation into the incident. A barely uneven patch restore was discovered, which was regarded as the trigger.
The report learn: “When the restore was pushed over at pace, it brought about a definite jolt.”
This restore patch was changed throughout scheduled runway upkeep in early 2022.
Previous to the incident, the report mentioned: “The plane producer had investigated earlier related occasions and printed steerage to upkeep organisations however had not printed info to flight crew.”
It additionally famous that the flight operator had skilled 5 earlier related incidents on their Airbus A320 fleet, whereas one other operator had additionally reported a number of related incidents.
An spokesman for Edinburgh Airport mentioned: “Because the report makes clear, the incident was as a result of a mix of points and for our half we now have since changed the patch.”
A British Airways spokesperson mentioned: “We welcome the findings by the AAIB, which present our extremely educated pilots managed the state of affairs and landed the plane safely.”
