When Things Go Sideways at 36,000 Feet: What They Don’t Tell You About System Failures
Look, I’ve been flying the A320 for about fifteen years now, and if there’s one thing I wish someone had told me back when I was grinding through flight school, it’s this: the real learning starts when your first amber light comes on during a revenue flight with 180 souls in the back.
Flight school teaches you procedures. It teaches you memory items. It teaches you to follow checklists religiously. But what it doesn’t teach you is how your heart rate spikes when you’re over the North Atlantic and suddenly your ECAM starts lighting up like a Christmas tree, or how to make split-second decisions when the book doesn’t quite cover your exact situation.
The Night Everything Went Wrong (Almost)
Let me tell you about a flight that still gives me goosebumps. We were about two hours out of Frankfurt, bound for JFK, cruising along nicely at FL360. Beautiful night, smooth air, passengers probably settling in for their movies. My first officer – let’s call him Dave – was pilot flying, doing a great job. Then our hydraulic green system decided to call it quits.
Now, losing one hydraulic system on an A320 isn’t the end of the world. We’ve got three systems, and the aircraft is designed to handle this. The ECAM dutifully presented us with our actions, and we started working through them methodically. But here’s where flight school scenarios and real life diverge: just as we’re dealing with the hydraulic issue, we get a call from the cabin crew. Passenger in 23C is having chest pains.
Suddenly, you’re not just managing a system failure anymore. You’re juggling a technical issue, a potential medical emergency, fuel calculations for a possible diversion, weather considerations, and trying to keep 179 other passengers calm. The simulator never throws you curveballs like this.
This is where experience and what I call “big picture thinking” becomes crucial. Dave wanted to immediately declare an emergency and head for the nearest airport. I get it – that’s what we’re trained to do when things stack up. But I had him take a breath. We assessed: the hydraulic failure was manageable, the passenger was stable and talking (our purser was a former nurse), and we were only 90 minutes from JFK where we had maintenance and better medical facilities than our diversion options.
We continued to destination, worked our checklists, briefed the approach thoroughly, and landed without incident. The passenger was fine – just anxiety, as it turned out. But that night taught me something valuable about decision-making under pressure that no textbook could.
The Art of Threat and Error Management
Here’s something they barely touch on in training: most accidents don’t happen because of single failures. They happen because of cascading events and poor decision-making. We call it the “Swiss cheese model” – when all the holes line up, bad things happen.
I remember another flight where we had what seemed like a minor issue – a pack fault that left us with reduced air conditioning. Standard procedure, work the checklist, continue the flight. But then we got into some unexpected turbulence, which led to passenger anxiety, which led to someone getting sick, which distracted us from properly monitoring our cabin altitude. Before we knew it, we were dealing with multiple issues that were all connected.
The key lesson? Never let one problem consume all your attention. Aviation is about managing multiple threats simultaneously. Keep scanning, keep thinking ahead, and always have a Plan B ready.
When the Book Doesn’t Have the Answer
Flight manuals are thick for a reason, but they can’t cover every possible scenario. I learned this the hard way during what should have been a routine flight to Barcelona. We had an electrical fault that caused some of our systems to behave… oddly. The ECAM was giving us conflicting information, and the quick reference handbook didn’t quite match what we were seeing.
This is where judgment comes in. Dave (different Dave, by the way – we seem to have a lot of Daves in this business) was getting frustrated because the checklist wasn’t giving us clear guidance. I told him something my old training captain told me: “When in doubt, fly the airplane first, then figure out the problem.”
We declared a PAN-PAN, got priority handling from ATC, and took our time working through the issue methodically. We ended up doing a manual approach with limited automation, which wasn’t in any of our standard procedures for that particular fault. But we knew our aircraft systems well enough to adapt.
The lesson? Procedures are guidelines, not gospel. Understanding the why behind the procedures is just as important as memorizing the steps.
The Human Factor Nobody Talks About
Here’s something that might surprise you: sometimes the hardest part of handling a system failure isn’t the technical aspect – it’s managing your own stress response and working effectively with your crew.
I’ve seen experienced pilots make poor decisions because they were too proud to ask for help or too stressed to think clearly. I’ve seen first officers afraid to speak up when they spotted something the captain missed. Aviation is a team sport, and your ability to communicate under pressure is just as important as your technical skills.
During that hydraulic failure I mentioned earlier, Dave caught something I missed in the checklist. If he hadn’t spoken up, we might have had a much more interesting approach into JFK. Good crews challenge each other respectfully and work together to solve problems.
What I Wish I’d Known Starting Out
If you’re just starting your airline career, here’s my advice: embrace the failures during training. Don’t just memorize the actions – understand what’s actually happening to the aircraft. Ask your instructors “what if” questions. What if this happens during approach? What if we have multiple failures? What if the weather is bad?
Also, learn to compartmentalize. When things go wrong, it’s easy to get tunnel vision. Force yourself to step back periodically and ask: “What else could go wrong? What am I not seeing? What’s my backup plan?”
Most importantly, remember that behind all the technology and procedures, flying is still about making good decisions with incomplete information under time pressure. The aircraft systems will fail occasionally – that’s why we have redundancy and training. Your job is to stay calm, work the problem methodically, and always be thinking three steps ahead.
The A320 is a beautiful, sophisticated machine, but at the end of the day, it’s still just a machine. Your judgment, experience, and ability to adapt when things don’t go according to plan – that’s what really keeps everyone safe up there.
Trust me, after fifteen years of doing this job, the routine flights blend together. But the ones where everything goes sideways? Those are the flights that make you a better pilot.