| - | ACCIDENT DETAILS |
| Date: | August 24, 2001 |
| Time: | 1846 |
| Location: | Lajes, Terceira, Azores |
| Operator: | Air Transat |
| Flight #: | 236 |
| Route: | Toronto - Lisbon |
| AC Type: | Airbus A-330-243 |
| Registration: | C-GITS |
| cn / ln: | 0271 |
| Aboard: | 304 (passengers:291 crew:13) |
| Fatalities: | 0 (passengers:0 crew:0) |
| Ground: | 0 |
| Summary: | The crew reported that they had a loss of fuel and were going to have to divert to Lajes AFB. Shortly thereafter, they said that they only had five minutes of fuel and probably would not reach Lajes. The Airbus 330, without engine power, glided for almost 20 minutes, descending from for more than 30,000 ft. before landing safely at Lajes Airport. Several tires blew out causing a fire which was quickly extinguished by emergency crews. Eleven passengers were slightly injured. The leak was caused by a damaged fuel feed pipe that was caused by interference from the aft hydraulic pump. Mechanics did not completely follow a Rolls-Royce service bulletin. In addition, software mistakenly identified the fuel leak as a fuel imbalance, prompting the crew to respond erroneously to the situation. The official report stated the cause was the pilots responded incorrectly to the fuel leak. The pilots acted from memory rather than utilizing a checklist, so they never saw a "Caution" note in the Fuel Imbalance checklist that might have caused them to consider that the real problem was not an imbalance but a fuel leak. |
Sources
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