Created Sunday, May 28th 2023 15:54Z, last updated Monday, Dec 8th 2025 14:39Z
An Air France Airbus A350-900, registration F-HTYO performing flight
AF-291 from Osaka (Japan) to Paris Charles de Gaulle (France) with 324 people on board, was enroute at FL350 about 420nm northeast of Osaka when the crew decided to turn around and return to Osaka due to a malfunction of the weather radar and malfunction of the airspeed indications. The aircraft descended to FL200 and landed safely on Osaka Kansai's runway 24R about 3:10 hours after departure.
Japan's Ministry of Transport reported a post flight inspection revealed a dent at the nose of the aircraft, that was not present before the flight. The malfunctions of weather radar and airspeed are thought to be related to the dent. The cause of the dent, possibly a bird strike, is under investigation.
On Jun 15th 2023 the French BEA reported they opened an investigation into the occurrence rated a serious incident and reported: "Thirty minutes after takeoff, a radome failure leads to multiple flight systems failures. The crew declares itself in MAYDAY and returns to the departure aerodrome."
The aircraft returned to service on Jun 9th 2023.
On Dec 8th 2025 the French BEA released their final report concluding the probable causes of the incident were:
The following factors may have contributed to the non-detection of the damage on the inner wall of the radome during maintenance operations in connection with the flights preceding the incident flight:
- Probable insufficient awareness and training of maintenance technicians in the risks caused by a bird, hail, lightning or other FOD strike on a composite structure. This lack of knowledge can result in the technicians failing to apply all of the manufacturer’s maintenance tasks. Thus, in the event of a bird strike, it would seem that, in many cases, if technicians do not observe damage on the outer surface of the radome, they do not inspect the inner face despite this being a requirement of the maintenance task.
- A maintenance task pertaining to a radar fault that does not guarantee the systematic detection of damage to the inner wall of the radome; the deformation of the composite structure may differ in flight and on the ground and impair the operation of the other systems, especially the weather radar, in different ways.
The following factors may have contributed to the crew’s insufficient knowledge of the operation of the NAIADS equipping the Airbus A350:
- The drafting and organisation of information pertaining to the NAIADS in the manufacturer’s documentation (FCOM and FCTM) that probably do not enable pilots to have a clear understanding of the functioning of this system.
- Limited simulator training, not closely related to the operational conditions in which this type of fault can occur.
The aircraft seen back at the gate:
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