What happened
On 24 January 2007, an Airbus A319-131, registration G-DBCI, was performing a commercial passenger flight from London Heathrow to Leeds Bradford Airport. During the approach, the aircraft encountered snow showers and several wind advisory messages from Air Traffic Control.
At approximately 1,300 ft, the first officer requested the flaps be moved to the full position. At that exact moment, a wind advisory was transmitted and acknowledged by the commander. In response to this request, the commander inadvertently rotated the parking brake handle to the ON position instead of selecting full flaps.
Upon touchdown, the flight crew noticed the aircraft decelerated more aggressively than usual. While the crew initially thought only one tyre had failed, an inspection revealed that all four main landing gear tyres had deflated. There were no fatalities and no injuries to the 53 passengers or 5 crew members on board.
The investigation
The investigation examined the physical layout of the flight deck, noting that the parking brake handle and the flap selection lever are located near each other on the centre pedestal and can be grasped in a similar manner. It was discovered that the identifying placard for the parking brake selector was missing.
The investigation also reviewed the aircraft's Flight Warning Computer (FWC) standard. The aircraft was fitted with an older standard FWC, which generated an advisory message on the ECAM display but failed to trigger the master caution light or an audible alarm. Furthermore, the existing landing checklists did not require the crew to monitor the lower right quadrant of the ECAM for such advisory messages.
Findings
- The commander's attention was focused on multiple ATC wind advisories, which coincided with the request for full flaps.
- The commander performed a subconscious control selection of the parking brake instead of the flaps, a task he did not recall performing.
- The physical similarity in how the two controls are grasped contributed to the error.
- The older FWC standard meant the error did not trigger a visual or aural alert that could have alerted the crew.
- The operator's Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) did not require the crew to check the specific area of the ECAM where the advisory message appeared.