Air France A319 at Budapest on Aug 24th 2015, fumes and smoke on board

Last Update: March 23, 2021 / 07:27:52 GMT/Zulu time

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Photo of Air France F-GRHK, Airbus A319 — Air France F-GRHK, Airbus A319 (Photo credit: airlines470 / Flickr / License: CC by-sa)

Incident Facts

Date of incident
Aug 24, 2015

Classification
Incident

Airline
Air France

Flight number
AF-1695

Departure
Budapest, Hungary

Destination
Paris Charles de Gaulle, France

Aircraft Registration
F-GRHK

Aircraft Type
Airbus A319

ICAO Type Designator
A319

An Air France Airbus A319-100, registration F-GRHK performing flight AF-1695 from Budapest (Hungary) to Paris Charles de Gaulle (France) with 136 people on board, was climbing through FL230 when the crew donned their oxygen masks, declared Mayday and requested an immediate return to Budapest, the crew advised they suspected a fire on board, subsequently reporting they had smoke and fumes in the cockpit. The aircraft landed safely back on runway 13R about 23 minutes after departure, the crew advised they were able to vacate the runway, the crew reported flight attendants advised there was no fire on board, and the aircraft taxied to the apron.

Maintenance identified a faulty display as source of the fumes and smoke.

The occurrence aircraft was able to depart about 4 hours after landing and reached Paris with a delay of 4.5 hours.

On Sep 1st 2015 the BEA reported in their weekly bulletin that the flight crew observed a burning odour and thin light smoke and spotted the upper ECAM display was out of service. The flight crew donned their smoke goggles and returned to Budapest for a landing slightly overweight. After landing there was no smoke or fire.

Some time in the past Hungary's KBSZ released their final report concluding the probable cause of the incident was:

During the technical investigation the IC concluded that the cause of the incident was;

- the top middle display unit (EWD) of the cockpit dashboard failed seriously.

The investigation committee analysed:

The incident was evoked by internal failure of the top middle display unit (EWD) of the cockpit dashboard. Detailed exploration of the mechanism of the failure would go beyond the limits of this investigation.

When perceiving the odour of smoke, the flight crew could not know the nature and extent of the failure yet. Accordingly, they applied the procedure appropriate for the most serious case possible, i.e. the appearing of fire in the cockpit: they put on oxygen masks, interrupted climbing, reported MAYDAY, and returned to Budapest. On the basis of the information available, the air traffic control service at the airport ordered "expected aircraft emergency" alert which was cancelled immediately after the aircraft landed and taxied smoothly to a stand.

When it turned out that the defect was limited solely to the inside of the display unit, the technicians swapped the lower and upper display units situated in the middle part of the dashboard. According to inspections and tests performed after the change, the top (EWD) display worked perfectly, while the unserviceable display unit was put in the electrically disconnected lower (SDU) position. As MEL 31-63-05A allows the aircraft to fly with temporarily unserviceable lower (SDU) display, the expert from authorized maintenance organisation released the aircraft to service.