Description

On 27 June 2000 an Airbus A300-600 being operated by American Airlines on a scheduled passenger service from London Heathrow to New York JFK was being flown manually in the day Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) climb and approaching FL220 when a loud bang was heard and there was a simultaneous abrupt disturbance to the flight path. The event appeared to the flight crew to have been a disturbance in yaw with no obvious concurrent lateral motion. Although following the disturbance, the aircraft appeared to behave normally, the aircraft commander decided to return to London Heathrow rather than commence a transatlantic flight following what was suspected to have been an un-commanded flight control input. An uneventful return was made followed by an overweight landing 50 minutes after take off.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the UK AAIB. Extensive ground testing was followed by a test flight which replicated the incident flight. No anomalies were found in the way the flight controls functioned when the aircraft was manoeuvred vigorously whilst being operated in the same manner as on the incident flight.