A China Airlines A330 has been grounded following an incident which saw all three primary flight computers, thrust reverser and autobrake systems fail.
On 14 June 2020, China Airlines flight CI202 from Shanghai Pudong to Taipei Songshan touched down in the Taiwanese capital at 5:47pm local time, when the system failures occurred.
According to official reports, Songshan’s runway number 10 was wet when the plane touched down, at which point all three primary flight computers, thrust reversers and autobrake systems failed, affecting the stopping distance of the aircraft.
The crew were forced to apply maximum manual braking, which succeeded in stopping the aircraft just 10 metres from the end of the 2,600-metre runway.
Following the incident, the aircraft was towed to the apron, and remained grounded at Songshan until 23 June.
It was then positioned to Taipei’s larger Taoyuan International Airport, and has been grounded there ever since.
Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) stated that the root cause of the incident is still under investigation, however has advised that all A330 operators take note of the possible issues that can arise when landing on a wet runway.
The CAA provided these recommended countermeasures for A330 operators:
- prior to dispatch, consider possible deceleration deficiencies with the conditions mentioned above on wet runways;
- required landing distance shall be predetermined for a wet runway, if the distance is a concern consider an alternate aerodrome; and
- operators should enhance crew awareness of wet runway operations, if automatic braking is out of function promptly change to the alternate system or apply manual braking.
