Engine Alerts Overview

The engine abnormal-procedures section is one of the heaviest in the entire procedures volume: roughly 55 alerts across 124 pages, plus six paper QRH procedures. Without a map it is dense forest. This article organises it into eight alert families, then cuts a threat hierarchy using two markers visible inside the procedures themselves: alerts carrying LAND ASAP (eight occurrences in the whole section) are the ones that change the destiny of the flight; alerts marked Crew awareness (sixteen occurrences) are "know it, deal with it on the ground"; everything else sits between — reconfigure, but no diversion required.

A note on method: the procedures volume does not print alert colour classes, so this hierarchy deliberately relies only on markers visible in the procedures — nothing is filled in from memory.

1. The threat hierarchy

1.1 The LAND ASAP group (eight occurrences — "this flight's destiny has changed")

The common denominator (synthesis): thrust already lost, being lost, or liable to become uncontrollable — dual failure, single failure or shutdown, fire, fuel contamination (a common-cause threat to both engines), and the thrust-lever branches where the lever loses its voice. Note the last two rows: a thrust-lever fault is not inherently LAND ASAP — only specific branches (such as thrust frozen high) escalate it; the precise branch attribution is in article 22.

1.2 The Crew-awareness group (sixteen occurrences — "know it")

BLEED STATUS FAULT · FADEC FAULT-family entries · FADEC HI TEMP · FIRE DET FAULT · FIRE LOOP A(B) FAULT · FUEL FILTER CLOG · HIGH VIBRATIONS (its advisory passages) · LP SHAFT PROT LOSS · MINOR FAULT · N1/N2/N3 OVERLIMIT (in certain cases) · OIL FILTER CLOG · REV FAULT · REV PRESSURIZED · SENSOR FAULT · THR LEVERS NOT SET (in certain cases) · TYPE DISAGREE.

The pattern (synthesis): failures still being carried by redundancy — single FADEC channels or sensors (the organ-borrowing margin of article 04), protection functions lost while the protected object is fine (LP SHAFT PROT LOSS, FIRE DET), filters clogged but bypassed (the "dirty flow beats no flow" rule of articles 09/10). "Awareness" does not mean "unimportant": these alerts are the margin inventory before the next failure — after FIRE DET FAULT, the next fire arrives unannounced (article 17).

1.3 The middle tier: act, but no diversion

The remainder are mostly "reconfigure and operate restricted": the thrust-mode degradation chain (21), start faults (23), oil-parameter alerts (30), stall recovery (27), and REV UNLOCKED with its AUTO RESTOW script and remainder-at-idle ending (32).

2. The eight families — full index

Family A — core failures (→ 24/25/26/27/33): ENG 1(2) FAIL (LAND ASAP; contains the SHAFT FAILURE sub-case — FADEC auto-shutdown) · ENG 1(2) SHUT DOWN (LAND ASAP) · ENG ALL ENGINES FAILURE (LAND ASAP) · ENG 1(2) STALL · the two-engine ENG START FAULT.

Family B — FADEC computer faults (→ 19): CTL SYS FAULT (with the SLOW RESPONSE / AT IDLE decision tree) · FADEC FAULT · FADEC SYS FAULT · FADEC IDENT FAULT · MINOR FAULT · SENSOR FAULT · EIVMU FAULT.

Family C — FADEC environment & protection losses (→ 20): FADEC HI TEMP · FADEC OVHT · AIR EXCHANGER FAULT (mind the ACAC service-bulletin note of article 04) · RISK OF STATOR ICING · XWIND PROT FAULT · BLEED STATUS FAULT · OVSPD PROT FAULT · LP SHAFT PROT LOSS (inhibited when only one engine is affected).

Family D — thrust-mode degradations (→ 21): EPR MODE FAULT · N1 DEGRADED MODE · EPR MODE RECOVERABLE · THRUST LIMITED · THRUST LOCKED · THRUST LOSS · T.O THRUST DISAGREE · TYPE DISAGREE.

Family E — thrust levers (→ 22): THR LEVER DISAGREE (branches incl. LAND ASAP) · THR LEVER FAULT (deriving STUCK AT IDLE / HI PWR IN MAN THR / HI PWR ONLY; branches incl. LAND ASAP) · THR LEVER ABV IDLE · THR LEVERS NOT SET (the 3-5-8 timeline of article 08).

Family F — starting & ignition (→ 23): ENG 1(2) START FAULT (the procedural face of the five start diseases, article 12) · the two-engine START FAULT · START VALVE FAULT · IGN A(B) FAULT · IGN SUPPLY FAULT.

Family G — parameters & components (→ 28/29/30/31): the exceedance triplet EGT OVERLIMIT · N1/N2/N3 OVERLIMIT · TURBINE OVHT → 28; HIGH VIBRATIONS → 29; the oil five — OIL LO PR / OIL HI TEMP / OIL LO TEMP / OIL FILTER CLOG / OIL CHIP DETECTED → 30; the fuel-side three — FUEL FILTER CLOG / HP FUEL VALVE / ENG FUEL CONTAMINATED (LAND ASAP) → 31.

Family H — thrust reverser (→ 32): REV FAULT · REV INHIBITED · REV PRESSURIZED (inhibited in phases 3/4/5 while the tertiary locks are closed) · REV SET · REV UNLOCKED.

The fire trio (→ 17, procedures in ATA-26): ENG 1(2) FIRE (in-flight and on-ground versions, LAND ASAP) · FIRE DET FAULT · FIRE LOOP A(B) FAULT.

The six paper QRH procedures: ALL ENG FAIL (with its tables and the relight envelope → 33) · ENG RELIGHT IN FLIGHT (→ 26) · ENG STALL (→ 27) · ENGINE TAILPIPE FIRE (→ 24) · ON GROUND — NON ENG SHUTDOWN AFTER ENG MASTER OFF (→ 24) · ONE ENGINE INOPERATIVE — CIRCLING APPROACH (→ 25).

Why these six live on paper (synthesis): either the ECAM itself may be unavailable (a dual engine failure means emergency electrics), or the scenario has no single triggering alert (a tailpipe fire raises no dedicated warning; a single-engine circling approach is a strategy, not a failure). The QRH is the standing backup to the alert-driven mechanism.

3. The MEL mapping, previewed

The engine MEL section maps ECAM alert names to dispatch items, entry by entry — 53 mappings covering most of the eight families (the fire trio lives in the fire chapter's MEL). Three features worth previewing (article 35 develops them): the MEL lists IGN A+B FAULT as its own item even though the procedures volume folds it in — a double ignition loss is a qualitative change deserving its own dispatch line; "obviously grounding" entries such as ENG FAIL appear in the table too, pointing to no dispatch; and most amber FADEC-family entries have a dispatch path — no crew action in flight, MEL on the ground is that family's standing temperament.

4. The thirty-second localisation drill

Given any engine ECAM: find its family in §2 → place it in the §1 hierarchy → open its home article for the triggering conditions and procedure → check the MEL face in article 35. Example — ENG 1(2) OIL FILTER CLOG: Family G → oil five → awareness tier → mechanism in article 10 (bypass + ΔP switches) → handling in article 30 → dispatch in article 35. Thirty seconds, fully located.

Self-test

[!note]- Q1. Name the eight alert families. Core failures / FADEC computer faults / FADEC environment & protection losses / thrust-mode degradations / thrust levers / starting & ignition / parameters & components (exceedances, vibration, oil, fuel-side) / thrust reverser — plus the fire-trio interface and the six paper QRH procedures.

[!note]- Q2. What do the eight LAND ASAP occurrences have in common? Thrust lost, being lost, or liable to become uncontrollable: dual and single engine failures and shutdowns, fire, fuel contamination (common-cause), and the lever branches where thrust freezes out of the crew's control.

[!note]- Q3. Why is the FADEC family mostly crew-awareness? Two channels, organ-borrowing, and richly redundant sensing (article 04) mean single-point failures are absorbed — no flight action, MEL on the ground. But awareness alerts are a margin inventory, not a nothing-list: each one names the redundancy you no longer have.

[!note]- Q4. Why is the tailpipe fire a QRH paper procedure rather than an alert? Because it has no dedicated ECAM alert — the fire burns inside the gas path while the detectors watch the bays (article 17). It is discovered by people, and handled on paper.

[!note]- Q5. Why doesn't this article quote alert colour classes? The procedures volume does not print them. The hierarchy here uses only markers visible inside the procedures (LAND ASAP, Crew awareness) — a deliberate discipline against filling gaps from memory.

Key takeaways

References

• FCOM PRO (engine abnormal procedures, complete section) — alert inventory, LAND ASAP and Crew awareness occurrences from a full-section scan, family groupings and procedure locations.
• MEL (engine section) — the 53 alert-to-item mappings (previewed; developed in article 35).
• Integrative synthesis (marked in text): the common-denominator readings of both tiers; the why-paper rationale for the QRH six; the thirty-second drill.

Independent study material, not an Airbus publication and not endorsed by the manufacturer. Always defer to the current operator FCOM, FCTM, and QRH for operational use.