Flight Crew reported failures of numerous systems in cruise. The crew ran the QRH and check lists and reconstructed a flight plan and continued to destination airport. A go around was performed and the approach was accomplished again; allowing for a safe landing at destination airport.

Date: 2023-03 · Aircraft: A321 · Phase: cruise

Anomalies: aircraft-equipment-problem-critical|deviation-discrepancy-procedural-clearance|inflight-event-encounter-unstabilized-approach

Synopsis

Flight Crew reported failures of numerous systems in cruise. The crew ran the QRH and check lists and reconstructed a flight plan and continued to destination airport. A go around was performed and the approach was accomplished again; allowing for a safe landing at destination airport.

Narrative

After Aircraft X landed successfully 7 minutes early in ZZZZ. Captain was informed by Maintenance that the following items failed at Cruise.Autoflight System (AFS): FMGC2 64 AFS 1 Electronic Instrument System (EIS) 2; IR2; IR3; IR1; EIS1AFS: FMGC1 61. AFS 1 IR3; IR1; EIS1; EiS2 IR2CAB PR LDG ELEV FAULTFMGC2 (1CA2) BUS FM2/DMC2 (1WT2). EIS2The above failures began at 28;000 ft. approximately 150-180 miles from ZZZZ. The first indication of any problem was an auditory triple click; followed by GPS Primary lost on both the Captain and First Officer's (FO's) displays. What followed next was an ECAM action to set manual field elevation. I was Pilot Flying and verbalized my aircraft; my radios. At the same time Captain began to run the ECAM actions.Following ECAM actions; it was evident that we were having navigation issues. The primary flight plan and secondary flight plans were gone. While the Captain with his 19 years of Airbus experience worked diligently to re-establish a flight plan; I let ATC know of our issues and requested vectors and a lower altitude.The Captain was able to establish a partial flight plan with ZZZZ as our destination. This allowed points and altitudes to appear back in our MFD. However the aircraft would not manage to any point; any altitude or airspeed. Thus resulting in using HDG; open Decent and manual speeds for the remainder of the arrival and approach.Not being able to arm an approach in either AP1 (Autopilot 1); or AP2 (Autopilot 2) a visual approach to landing was preformed. Approaching 500 ft. from touchdown with 1;100 ft. down on the VSI; Captain calmly said 'What do you think about a go around'? I said that sounds like a good idea your call. We did the go around according to the new procedures without event. After vectors for a downwind and base back to Runway XX and fully aware of the aircraft capabilities or lack thereof a visual approach was flown and successfully landed on Runway XX; making the high speed taxi way of X.The successful completion of the flight was made easier by the training received and the adherence to the SOP's established by company. The Captain set expectations the very first time I met him in ZZZ for the start of the sequence. These expectations along with good CRM and the experience of the Captain aided in the successful outcome of the flight. I believe that this was a computer failure in nature.

Second reporter narrative

Kudos to Person A. For a probationary pilot to focus on what he was taught to do during training made this a non event. His CRM and flying skills made the events that unfolded seem like a normal flight with 2 FMGCs; 2 Electronic Instrument Systems (EISs) and 3 Inertial Reference Unit (IRU) failures. Despite these issues; he continued to make every altitude and airspeed restriction on the arrival. His CRM skills were timely and spot on. Recognizing we were unstable and deciding to go around showed his situational awareness.The second approach was a visual pattern with ATC assistance. The skills he obtained in training made this hand flown approach the success that it was.We were at 28;000 ft. roughly 180 miles (?) from ZZZZ. It was a beautiful VMC day. The dry riverbed's luminescence perfectly pointed us to the field the closer we proceeded to land.My first recollection was an auditory triple click noting system downgrade. Checking the Flight Management Advisory; FMA; I saw 'HEADING' displayed. We tried to push the Navigation button without success. Switching Autopilots multiple times lead to the same result. Person A was the Pilot Flying; PF; and I was the Pilot Monitoring; PM. The next item we verbalized was 'GPS' in the scratchpad of the Multi-functional Control Display Unit; MCDU. Finally the first and only Electronic Centralized Aircraft Monitoring; ECAM; was to set the destination elevation. 'My aircraft' said the PM. I set the field elevation from my 10-9 page roughly 300 ft. and selected manual. Our next issue was 'set offside range'. From experience; I knew an FMGC had failed. We coordinated ranges all the way from top of descent to final approach segment.I looked down to see the flight plan was gone and only Present Position; PPOS was displayed. I flipped back and forth between the primary and secondary flight plans and noticed the secondary Line Select Key Right One; LSK R1; showing INIT. I typed in ZZZZ/ZZZZ and actually got a destination. Once a flight plan was built; I activated the secondary. This allowed me to go back to auto for the Cabin Pressure Controller. I verified the field elevation was good and it worked like normal.During this evolution; Person A confessed to ATC we were having navigation issues. He was getting headings and descents. We were cleared to intercept a radial but couldn't. We got some directs at this point but the plane would not allow us to manage the descent. Due to only having open descent available; we set the bottom of each restriction even though we were cleared lower. We hadn't gotten ATIS due to the distance. I obtained the current ATIS and reset the performance page. I made a simple cabin PA and did not advise the flight attendants or passengers of our situation as I felt there was no need to invoke pandemonium. The airplane was flying and operating normal with minor peculiarities that we kept dealing with. We ran the descent checklist on time. We prepared the cabin; activated the approach; did landing lights and sterile all per the FOM.ATC did an excellent job of vectors and altitudes to set us up for the VOR 2 Runway XX. It took a few times to get what we wanted but persistence paid off. Once we were cleared to intercept the VOR the airplane showed 'SPECIF VOR/D UNAVAIL'. I have never seen this display in 19 years on the Airbus. PF could not Arm the approach! We also tried to manage the speed and it would not arm. The perf page showed no approach speeds. These distractions pushed us to the high side of the VASI.Approaching 1;000 ft. we were stable but were three white one red on the VASI. Person A was trying his best to correct without exceeding 1;000 ft. per minute. Somewhere below five hundred feet I saw 1;100 down on the VASI. I calmly said; 'What do you think about a go Around'? Person A calmly replied 'Yeah; that's a good idea'. We did the Go Around according to the new procedures. Because the approach had not been armed we did not set the Missed ApproachAltitude. On the new go around procedure we caught this threat! We had practiced this on each descent brief the previous two briefs and I feel this helped slow down an already bad situation. The go around allowed is to regroup and be better prepared for the nuances of the second approach. Person A had selected 185 kts. on the go. This was actually good in that we climbed quicker and yet were ahead of the airplane. We stayed at flaps one in the pattern as we discussed the upcoming approach. We ran a descent checklist and a before landing checklist like the first approach.We landed long because we were fast due to a bugged speed verses a managed speed. We had no reference speeds so we set VLS plus 5 which is typically what I have seen. In the uniqueness of the situation we had selected medium auto brakes which I feel was significant to a successful outcome. I verbalized 'Full Reverser' to which Person A did per the SOP.Keys to our success:The day one brief helped set the tone for Person A to give inputs in the cockpit. We talked about our expectations of each other to mitigate mistakes. Procedures were written to help us get through this unique scenario.Training makes us fly a hand flown approach in the simulator. Person A showed his comfort with this when he stated 'Flight Directors off give me the bird' on final. The simulator pilots did their job well!Standardized procedures cut out any guess work between the two of us. My expectations while in the heat of the battle were met by Person A doing things the company trained way.Person A briefed the approach at 250 miles. Had we not done our briefing early; we could easily have gotten behind the plane. The familiarity with the points in the arrival and final helped us when the secondary flight plan was rebuilt and activated.This could happen again. Would love to see this scenario built for [future] training.

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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.