Check out these photos from UK's Daily Mail of the easyJet A320 that lost a fan cowl yesterday. Thankfully the pilots safely landed the four-year-old aircraft and no one was hurt.
And thankfully the incident was far less damaging than the British Airways A319 that lost all cowls on May 24, which resulted in a fire in one engine.
In this recent Air Accidents Investigations Branch bulletin, it points out most fan cowl losses happen during takeoff and emphasizes:
Following previous events of fan cowl door separation
on A320-family aircraft, Airbus recommended that
operators strictly adhere to Aircraft Maintenance Manual
(AMM) task 71-13-00 for proper latching and closing of
fan cowl doors after each maintenance action requiring
cowl opening.
The Airbus A320-family Flight Crew Operating
Manual (FCOM) Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)
PRO-NOR-SOP-05 for the exterior walk-around
includes a check on each engine that the fan cowl doors
are closed and latched. To perform this check it is
necessary to crouch down so that the latches are visible.
