It is always a sad moment when an aircraft is damaged beyond repair and has to be written
off.
This typically happens as a result of being involved in an accident while in airline service.
However, for one very unfortunate Airbus A340, it didn’t even reach delivery before this
happened.
Let’s take a closer look back at the events of November 15th, 2007.
Let’s start by establishing the nature of the aircraft that never made it beyond pre-delivery
testing.
The plane in question was an A340-600, which bore the Airbus test registration F-WWCJ.
This variant of the Airbus A340 was not just the longest in the family, but, at the time
of its launch, also the longest in the world, stretched to a length of 75.36 meters.
The aircraft’s intended customer would have been Etihad Airways.
Data from ATDB.aero shows that it would have been registered as A6-EHG, had the Abu Dhabi-based
airline been able to take delivery of it.
This database reports that the airline ended up flying seven examples of the A340-600,
with the jet being the only canceled acquisition.
According to ch-aviation.com, the aircraft had been in testing for nearly two months
before the incident.
Its first flight took place on September 21st, 2007, powered by four Rolls-Royce Trent 556-61
engines.
ATDB.aero adds that its delivery to Etihad would have been exactly two months later,
on November 21st.
However, six days before, catastrophe struck.
So what happened?
Before an aircraft makes its way from the manufacturer to the customer, it has to pass
a series of tests.
On November 15th, 2007, F-WWCJ was in a test pen at Airbus’s headquarters in Toulouse,
France, for the purpose of undergoing stationary engine testing.
According to Aviation Safety Network, a team of engineers began these trials at 15:19 local
time.
Their purpose was to monitor the possibility of oil leaks.
However, and crucially, the engineers had not properly secured the aircraft with chocks.
To begin with, this didn’t result in anything untoward, with the Engine Pressure Ratio being
between 1.04 and 1.22 until 15:58.
Following an hour’s break, testing re-commenced with the engines running at higher thrust
levels, with the pressure ratio being as high as between 1.24 and 1.26 for three minutes.
Eventually, this caused the unchecked aircraft to move.
The aircraft was in motion for 13 seconds before being brought abruptly to a stop.
While engineers applied the brake pedals within seconds of the movement beginning, they did
not reduce the thrust.
This meant that, despite turning the plane to the right, it collided with the pen wall
at around 30 knots (55 km/h).
With the aircraft not having been chocked, this could lead you to wonder why it didn’t
move sooner.
As it happens, its parking brake had been applied, and so only reached its limit once
thrust had been increased.
When the engineers applied the brake pedals as the plane started to move, this deactivated
its parking brake, hence the acceleration.
FlightGlobal notes that, as the aircraft turned 37 degrees to the right, it took just seven
seconds to accelerate from four to 31 knots.
This surge meant that, when the aircraft came to impact the pen’s retaining wall, the
impact on it and its occupants was significant.
As can be seen in photographs, the collision pushed the aircraft’s nose up and through
the concrete barrier.
This caused extensive damage to the forward part of the quadjet’s fuselage, with the
cockpit ultimately breaking off.
The left engines also took a hit, and the angled wall caused the tail to hit the ground
as well.
The collision also had safety and health implications for the aircraft’s occupants.
All in all, there were nine people onboard F-WWCJ when it collided with the test pen’s
concrete retaining wall.
Of these, five received injuries as a result of the incident.
FlightGlobal adds that four of these were of a serious nature.
The fact that the impact of the collision sheared the plane’s cockpit from its fuselage
meant that writing the aircraft off was the only viable option.
ATDB.aero notes that the wreckage was dismantled in 2008, with the tail briefly being displayed
at the Champs Elysées in Paris.
Meanwhile, Virgin Atlantic reportedly used part of it as a cabin crew trainer.
The incident was, of course, subsequently the subject of an investigation from French
investigators, who found that the collision was the culmination of test procedure violations.
They added that a lack of detection and correction of these violations had resulted in the aircraft’s
terminal crash.
But why did those onboard the aircraft not think to reduce its thrust in tandem with
their brake applications?
This is where the human factor comes into play, with the BEA ultimately determining
that quote “surprise led the ground-test technician to focus on the braking system,
so he did not think about reducing the engines’ thrust.”
unquote.
Had Etihad taken delivery of the aircraft, it would have been the carrier’s third A340-600.
A month after the incident, its actual third A340-600 arrived, bearing the registration
A6-EHH.
Deliveries continued in 2008 and 2009, resulting in a seven-strong fleet.
The A340-600 was part of Eithad’s operations for a decade.
Did you know about this incident?
Are you aware of any aircraft that have suffered similar fates?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments.