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Fly By Wire w/ bad IRS results in another Airbus upset

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Somebody correct me if I'm reading this wrong, but it appears with a bad IRU telling the airplane it is in a stall, the fly by wire takes over and the crew has no control over the jet. In this case, the jet did a negative G push over injuring passengers. In August 2005 a 777 did a pitch up for similar reasons. The answer apparently is to get the IRU and any system that allows the bad IRU to communicate with the others (in this case the Air Data Inertial Reference Unit) OFF, ASAP.

Source: Australian Air Transport Safety Board
... .

The aircraft was flying at FL 370 or 37, 000 feet with Autopilot and Auto-thrust system engaged, when an Inertial Reference System fault occurred within the Number-1 Air Data Inertial Reference Unit (ADIRU 1), which resulted in the Autopilot automatically disconnecting. From this moment, the crew flew the aircraft manually to the end of the flight, except for a short duration of a few seconds, when the Autopilot was reengaged. However, it is important to note that in fly by wire aircraft such as the Airbus, even when being flown with the Autopilot off, in normal operation, the aircrafts flight control computers will still command control surfaces to protect the aircraft from unsafe conditions such as a stall.

The faulty Air Data Inertial Reference Unit continued to feed erroneous and spike values for various aircraft parameters to the aircrafts Flight Control Primary Computers which led to several consequences including:
  • false stall and overspeed warnings
  • loss of attitude information on the Captain's Primary Flight Display
  • several Electronic Centralised Aircraft Monitoring system warnings.
About 2 minutes after the initial fault, ADIRU 1 generated very high, random and incorrect values for the aircrafts angle of attack. These very high, random and incorrect values of the angle attack led to:
  • the flight control computers commanding a nose-down aircraft movement, which resulted in the aircraft pitching down to a maximum of about 8.5 degrees,
  • the triggering of a Flight Control Primary Computer pitch fault.
The crew's timely response led to the recovery of the aircraft trajectory within seconds. During the recovery the maximum altitude loss was 650 ft.
The Digital Flight Data Recorder data show that ADIRU 1 continued to generate random spikes and a second nose-down aircraft movement was encountered later on, but with less significant values in terms of aircraft's trajectory.
At this stage of the investigation, the analysis of available data indicates that the ADIRU 1 abnormal behaviour is likely as the origin of the event.
The aircraft contains very sophisticated and highly reliable systems. As far as we can understand, this appears to be a unique event and Airbus has advised that it is not aware of any similar event over the many years of operation of the Airbus.
Airbus has this evening, Australian time, issued an Operators Information Telex reflecting the above information. The telex also foreshadows the issue of Operational Engineering Bulletins and provides information relating to operational recommendations to operators of A330 and A340 aircraft fitted with the type of ADIRU fitted to the accident aircraft. Those recommended practices are aimed at minimising risk in the unlikely event of a similar occurrence. That includes guidance and checklists for crew response in the event of an Inertial Reference System failure.
Meanwhile, the ATSB's investigation is ongoing and will include:
  • Download of data from the aircraft's three ADIRUs and detailed examination and analysis of that data. Arrangements are currently being made for the units to be sent to the component manufacturer's facilities in the US as soon as possible and for ATSB investigators to attend and help with that testing, along with representatives from the US National Transportation Safety Board, The French Bureau dEnquêtes et dAnalyses (BEA) and Airbus.
  • In addition, investigators have been conducting a detailed review of the aircraft's maintenance history, including checking on compliance with relevant Airworthiness Directives, although initial indications are that the aircraft met the relevant airworthiness requirements.
  • Work is also ongoing to progress interviews, which will include with injured passengers to understand what occurred in the aircraft cabin. The ATSB plans to distribute a survey to all passengers.
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20 "Serious" injuries, cabin panels smashed, etc:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/10/08/1223145446448.html?feed=html
 
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I thought that the flight control computers would ignore one bad adirs signal, instead it would crosscheck and use the other two good adirs signals. I guess not
 
Pretty much defeats the entire purpose of redundant ADIR's if one bad one is gonna try to kill you with two good ones still operating!
 
I'll stick with cables & pulleys, thanks.
 
A number of years ago I saw a video of an Airbus, I believe an A300, that departed a French airport and pitched up to +80 degrees uncommanded before recovering. It happened to at least 4 other jets as well, all recovering without serious damage or injuries. Did they not resolve the issue? Anyone have a link to the video? I prefer old school as well.
 
A number of years ago I saw a video of an Airbus, I believe an A300, that departed a French airport and pitched up to +80 degrees uncommanded before recovering.

If it was an A300, it wasn't a computer issue. The 300 and 310 are conventionally controlled airplanes.
 
It isn't supposed to, but look at the holes in the ceiling panels and draw your own conclusions. I put a link to the video feed at the bottom.

If the airplane does not know what attitude it is in, it could command about anything.

Again, someone here probably knows more than I do, but I've seen failures where one bad data stream throws off the other data as the information is averaged in the software. In one aircraft's EICAS, bad ITT data from one of 17 sensors threw of the mean of the data, throwing the calibration of the entire data out of whack over time. It seems I recall an RJ that had a bad static input that ended up taking down the entire AHRS platform in a similar fashion.

Guess the moral of the story - don't screw with a faulting IRU/INS/AHRS - get out the QRH, expeditiously.
 
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One bad ADIRU should be over ruled, but in this case apparently not.

You could turn off the FAC computers (2 out of the 7 the A320 has) to disable the alpha limit protections. Not an approved ECAM procedure, but in their case they had become test pilots anyway...
 

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