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An A300 captain reported developing fuel distribution issues; prompting a diversion.
| Attributes | |
| ACN | 1394484 |
| Time | |
| Date | 201610 |
| Local Time Of Day | 0001-0600 |
| Place | |
| Locale Reference | ZZZ.ARTCC |
| State Reference | US |
| Environment | |
| Flight Conditions | VMC |
| Light | Night |
| Aircraft 1 | |
| Make Model Name | A300 |
| Operating Under FAR Part | Part 121 |
| Flight Phase | Cruise |
| Flight Plan | IFR |
| Component | |
| Aircraft Component | Fuel Distribution System |
| Person 1 | |
| Function | Pilot Flying Captain |
| Qualification | Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) |
| Events | |
| Anomaly | Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue |
Narrative:
At FL320 I did a fuel check and noticed we only had 4900lbs in outer tanks...so we were burning from those tanks while in auto feed. We immediately looked to the QRH for proper guidance. We had no fault annunciated so we had to figure what we had to work with.....as we were doing the procedure for manual fuel...I noticed we had 6000lbs in trim tank and an aft cg so I looked at the aft cg checklist and moved the fuel to center tanks via the auto forward switch. We then worked through the manual fuel feed checklist and turned pumps off to center and then inners to reset system to no avail.....when I selected forward on the auto system I noticed fuel was flowing to trim then to center so we were able to keep burning fuel not using the outer tanks.....in the heat of the battle I decided to divert [to a nearby airport]..our best divert at that time...when we started down we started burning fuel in the outers which was creating an imbalance; because of the imbalance and cg issue associated with it....we did burn some fuel down before we landed to get a little more aft cg....landed without any issues and taxied to gate. Part of our confusion was the issue of never getting any ECAM directions for our problem...I felt it was safer action to [keep ATC apprised of the situation] just in case anything else unexpected occurred to complicate our problem.....
Original NASA ASRS Text
Title: An A300 Captain reported developing fuel distribution issues; prompting a diversion.
Narrative: At FL320 I did a fuel check and noticed we only had 4900lbs in outer tanks...so we were burning from those tanks while in auto feed. We immediately looked to the QRH for proper guidance. We had no fault annunciated so we had to figure what we had to work with.....as we were doing the procedure for manual fuel...I noticed we had 6000lbs in trim tank and an aft CG so I looked at the aft CG checklist and moved the fuel to center tanks via the auto forward switch. We then worked through the manual fuel feed checklist and turned pumps off to center and then inners to reset system to no avail.....when I selected forward on the auto system I noticed fuel was flowing to trim then to center so we were able to keep burning fuel not using the outer tanks.....in the heat of the battle I decided to divert [to a nearby airport]..our best divert at that time...when we started down we started burning fuel in the outers which was creating an imbalance; because of the imbalance and CG issue associated with it....we did burn some fuel down before we landed to get a little more aft CG....landed without any issues and taxied to gate. Part of our confusion was the issue of never getting any ECAM directions for our problem...I felt it was safer action to [keep ATC apprised of the situation] just in case anything else unexpected occurred to complicate our problem.....
Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.