A380 in mid-air malfunction

An Airbus A380, en route from Beijing to Guangzhou Tuesday, was forced to return to Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) less than an hour into its flight because of mechanical failure.

This is the third time a China Southern Airlines (CSA) superjumbo has been affected by mechanical problems.

The flight, CZ3000, with 418 passengers on board, took off at 9:30 am Tuesday morning, and landed safely at 11:18 am.

The airline announced on its microblog several hours later that the flight was aborted because of a failure in the aircraft cabin pressurization system, and said another A380 had been scheduled to resume the flight.

"It was oddly hot after we boarded, but we were told it would get better after takeoff, but it didn't," said Yang Wei, a passenger from Beijing.

"A lady sitting in front of me also told the flight attendant that she heard a strange tremendous roar coming from the engine," Yang said.

"Then the captain announced we should put on an oxygen mask," he said, "but I couldn't understand why the mask didn't automatically pop out like it was supposed to."

"The captain announced we had to return to BCIA as 'the passenger cabin needs to be pressurized,' after only 50 minutes," said Yang.

CSA paid each passenger 200 yuan ($31.7) in compensation after landing in Guangzhou five hours late, Yang told the Global Times.

Some passengers had earlier posted pictures on their microblogs showing how excited they were to fly on the superjumbo, but later they posted pictures of their compensation contract.

"I booked the A380 for the return journey as well, but I'm going to reschedule to another airline if I have enough time," said Yang.

CSA's media department could not be reached, and an anonymous hotline operator said customers "are free to choose whichever airplane makes them feel comfortable."

CSA was the seventh airline to put the A380 into service, and its inaugural flight was on October 17, 2011.

However, 12 days later, an A380 was taken out of service because of a mechanical fault in its wing flap power-drive system, according to the Beijing Youth Daily on October 30.

In December last year, over 600 passengers traveling on a CSA A380 were rebooked on smaller planes due to another mechanical fault, the Legal Mirror reported on December 10.

The first A380 entered commercial service on October 25, 2007, operated by Singapore Airlines.

A Singapore Airlines Airbus A380 aircraft was forced to return to Singapore on Tuesday after encountering a problem with one of its engines, according to Reuters.

Recently, A380s have been subjected to checks for wing cracks, caused by a flaw in a bracket, according to an Aviation Week report in January. There are currently 67 A380s in service, the report said. CSA bought five A380s, and expect delivery of the remaining two in the next two months.

According to a report in the National Business Daily yesterday, a representative of Airbus China said the fault had nothing to do with the Airbus A380 wing crack inspections.

Airbus is only responsible for technical support to CSA, who are obliged to release the report on the cause of this incident, the paper said.

"The cabin pressurization system should maintain a comfortable air pressure. Above 3,000 meters, there is a lack of oxygen in the cabin, and if the system fails, you must turn the flight around," said Zhang Qihuan, a professor at the Civil Aviation Management Institute of China.

"It's too soon to gang up and criticize the [A380] flaws in design and manufacturing, because we don't have enough details to analyze what caused this problem. I hope CSA will explain the cause of this problem quickly to negate the panic," said Zhang.