CNN.com just posted this:
"An Airbus airplane was forced to turn back to New York 90 minutes into a flight to Paris, Air France said Monday.
The Air France A380 turned back due to a “minor incident,” the airline said, refusing to say what the technical hitch was.
Airbus also declined to specify what caused the plane to turn back, saying the incident was an issue for the Air France maintenance team not the aircraft’s manufacturer.
The pilots made the decision to turn back “in strict accordance with procedures and as a precautionary measure… following a minor technical problem in order to carry out ground checks,” Air France said.
The plane landed at New York’s John F. Kennedy International airport “without incident” at 10:17 p.m. ET on Friday, November 27, Air France said. The plane was serviced and later completed its transatlantic journey, the airline said.
Air France had begun flying the brand-new A380 across the Atlantic only days before, Airbus said.
Its inaugural commercial flight from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport to JFK was on November 21.
Air France became the fourth airline to operate the superjumbo when it received its first A380 at the end of last month."
Is it normal for a flight like this to return to its airport of origin? Obviously if it were some sort of emergency they would put down at the closest available strip… did the pilot or maybe the FO forget their laptop?
New A380 captain transitioning from the A340 made this trip numerous times and can do it in his sleep - calculated only enough fuel for an A340 to make the trip. FO doing routine in-flight fuel calculations tells captain they don’t have enough fuel to make the trip…?
Incident: Air France A388 near Long Island on Nov 27th 2009, autopilot problems
By Simon Hradecky, created Saturday, Nov 28th 2009 11:28Z, last updated Saturday, Nov 28th 2009 11:37Z
An Air France Airbus A380-800, registration F-HPJA performing flight AF-7 from New York JFK,NY (USA) to Paris Charles de Gaulle (France), was climbing out of New York at about abeam the eastern tip of Long Island, when the crew did not accept a clearance to climb above FL280 reporting they were not RVSM compliant because of autopilot problems. The airplane levelled off at FL280 and continued eastwards for another 30 minutes, then the crew decided they were unable to fix the problem and needed to return to New York’s John F. Kennedy airport, where the airplane landed safely about another hour later and about 1:45 hours after departure.
The airplane was able to depart again about 4 hours after the return and is currently estimated to reach Paris with a delay of 6:15 hours.
Typically they will return back to the origin in a situation like this. AF has a station at BOS but BOS doesn’t see the A380 and their gate there may not be able to handle it.
