Narrative:

On departure my first officer and I both noticed an acrid dirty sock smell. [We advised ATC]. We donned our O2 masks and executed a return to field. I transferred the controls to the first officer; he worked the radios and flew while I ran as much of the checklist as possible prior to landing. I was unable to complete the diagnostic portion due to our proximity to the airport and needed to prepare for landing. We were fully configured 80 ft. Low but due to the [situation] we elected to continue. Upon landing we removed our o2 masks noticed the smell remained. I shut the packs off and opened our windows. All in all I was fairly pleased with our performance in such a compressed time table. General observations. Communicating through the o2 mask is more difficult than anticipated. ATC obviously asks their required questions. If we have our interphone selected to facilitate coms between us; it makes it impossible to hear ATC. If we use the interphone in ptt mode it makes communication between us more difficult. The fumes were isolated to the flight deck. Suggestions: the QRH guidance for sof event is complicated. With tons of great information for diagnosing a problem. The issue in our case was the compressed timeframe of this event. It would perhaps be wise to design a separate checklist for sof on departure. That isolates the most important systems; and most probable failure points. Then defers to the longer checklist with time permitting. Obviously landing an airplane experiencing sof is a higher priority than fighting the fumes. In our 11 minutes of flight time it was impossible to run the entire checklist; as well as the standard procedures; and execute a return to field. This necessitated prioritization of tasks and load shedding. In retrospect I should have completed the remaining checklist after landing. However isolating the packs and opening the windows cleared the smell. So we merely returned to gate.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A321 flight crew reported that a fume event on takeoff resulted in a return to the departure airport.

Narrative: On departure my First Officer and I both noticed an acrid dirty sock smell. [We advised ATC]. We donned our O2 masks and executed a return to field. I transferred the controls to the First Officer; he worked the radios and flew while I ran as much of the checklist as possible prior to landing. I was unable to complete the diagnostic portion due to our proximity to the airport and needed to prepare for landing. We were fully configured 80 ft. low but due to the [situation] we elected to continue. Upon landing we removed our o2 masks noticed the smell remained. I shut the packs off and opened our windows. All in all I was fairly pleased with our performance in such a compressed time table. General observations. Communicating through the o2 mask is more difficult than anticipated. ATC obviously asks their required questions. If we have our interphone selected to facilitate coms between us; it makes it impossible to hear ATC. If we use the interphone in PTT mode it makes communication between us more difficult. The fumes were isolated to the flight deck. Suggestions: The QRH guidance for SOF event is complicated. With tons of great information for diagnosing a problem. The issue in our case was the compressed timeframe of this event. It would perhaps be wise to design a separate checklist for SOF on departure. That isolates the most important systems; and most probable failure points. Then defers to the longer checklist with time permitting. Obviously landing an airplane experiencing SOF is a higher priority than fighting the fumes. In our 11 minutes of flight time it was impossible to run the entire checklist; as well as the standard procedures; and execute a return to field. This necessitated prioritization of tasks and load shedding. In retrospect I should have completed the remaining checklist after landing. However isolating the packs and opening the windows cleared the smell. So we merely returned to gate.

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.