Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Well that was not fun at all

The Airbus is a fabulous aircraft. I truly enjoy flying it more than any other plane I have flown. True I've only flown 5 different transport category jet aircraft...but the Airbus is my favorite.

For new readers I started with the CRJ-700 as a First Officer then the ERJ-145 as a First Officer, CRJ-700 as a Captain, ERJ-175 as a Captain, MD-80 as a First Officer and now the Airbus 320 series as a First Officer.

The Airbus is automated, quiet and spacious. When things go wrong the ECAM walks you through fixing many things.

On Christmas day I had three flights to complete before heading home.

I started in SFO with a flight to DFW in a 321. This 321 was legacy US Airways and only had about 5000 cycles on it. There was a MEL on the left generator. The generator was having issues and was taken offline. We ran the APU for the entire flight to take the place of the left generator.

We were full plus two jump seaters. One was a Airbus 330 dispatcher and the other was an Airbus pilot from Alaska.

Things were fine until we started our descent to DFW from 33,000 feet. Once the engines idled down things got "exciting". The RIGHT engine had a compressor stall. The ECAM stated the engine failed...but it was still making power. We followed the ECAM checklist. One action was to take the number right generator offline. The left was already offline. We were left with just the APU. If that failed we would be on the RAT.

Once the ECAM actions were done we were on one engine as the right engine was idled per the checklist. I made a radio call I never thought I would make...."Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan American 1198".

I advised ATC that we were on one generator with one engine idled. We were given priority to the airport.

I continued running checklist and preparing the aircraft. The Captain advised the Flight Attendants and Passengers. Everything seemed to be going smoothly.

Once on final the right engine somehow appeared normal. All the errors went away. We decided to land normally.

There were emergency vehicles on each end of the runway. Normal landing. The Captain went to full reverse on both engines. Both reacted normally. Once he came out of reverse....the right engine fully failed. Gone.



No exterior issues were noted. We taxied to the gate with the emergency vehicle escort. The plane was placed out of service.

The Captain and I ate the company sponsored Christmas Dinner then went to an Airbus 319 for the last PNS turn.

Thankfully those flights were normal. I like normal.

For January I bid reserve (versus a line) for the First Time since 2018. There's a strategic reason due to my contract. Basically I will get paid for 85 hours and only "work" 13 days. Of those 13 I only expect to actually work maybe 8. So far I've worked 4. We will see.