Air France A320 near Leipzig on Oct 9th 2012, emergency descent after loss of cabin pressure

Last Update: January 14, 2013 / 23:16:49 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Oct 9, 2012

Classification
Incident

Airline
Air France

Flight number
AF-2252

Departure
Paris Charles de Gaulle, France

Destination
St. Petersburg, Russia

Aircraft Registration
F-GFKJ

Aircraft Type
Airbus A320

ICAO Type Designator
A320

An Air France Airbus A320-200, registration F-GFKJ performing flight AF-2252 from Paris Charles de Gaulle (France) to St. Petersburg (Russia), was enroute at FL370 about 90nm westsouthwest of Leipzig (Germany) when the crew declared emergency reporting a technical problem and initiated a rapid descent descending through FL100 about 5 minutes later (average rate of descent 5400 fpm) and diverted to Leipzig for a safe landing on runway 26R about 25 minutes after initiating the descent.

The airline confirmed the aircraft changed its itinerary due to a technical incident. Technicians are examining the aircraft, a replacement aircraft is being dispatched to Leipzig.

Germany's BFU stated that a gradual loss of cabin pressure occurred due to the failure of the electronic cabin pressure control, the crew manually released the passenger oxygen masks. Further examinations are under way to determine whether an electronic component failed or a software bug occurred.

On Oct 17th 2012 the French BEA reported the aircraft experienced a rapid decompression.

On Jan 14th 2013 Germany's BFU reported the crew noticed a gradual loss of cabin pressure, worked the relevant checklists but were unable to stop the loss of cabin pressure. When the cabin altitude climbed through 10,000 feet the crew donned their oxygen masks, manually released the passenger oxygen masks, declared emergency and initiated an emergency descent. The aircraft diverted to Leipzig for a landing without further incident. Both cabin pressure controllers were removed from the aircraft by the BFU, an examination revealed no malfunction of any of the controllers. The tech log of the aircraft contained a number of entries indicating problems with the avionics ventilation system and leakages of the pressure vessel.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Oct 9, 2012

Classification
Incident

Airline
Air France

Flight number
AF-2252

Departure
Paris Charles de Gaulle, France

Destination
St. Petersburg, Russia

Aircraft Registration
F-GFKJ

Aircraft Type
Airbus A320

ICAO Type Designator
A320

This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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