On August 13, Air Transat flight TS691 bound for Montreal had to return to it’s origin airport of Athens due to issues with the aircraft’s autopilot.
Information has been released pertinent to the incident at hand, which we will get into in this article.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
Air Transat TS691 – Athens to Montreal…
Air Transat flight TS691, which suffered the autopilot issues, is a routine scheduled flight between Athens and Montreal.
Furthermore, the aircraft involved in the incident was C-GTSJ.
As per data from Planespotters.net, C-GTSJ is a 17.8 year old Airbus A330-300 that started out life with Thomas Cook Airlines in November 2006.
In November 2011, the aircraft was handed over to Air Transat.
Of the A330-300 variant, the Canadian carrier has 2 of them in their fleet.
Within that two, all of them are in active service, with an average fleet age of 16.9 years.
As well as the A330-300, the Canadian carrier has the following other aircraft in their mainline fleet:
- 27 Airbus A321s.
- 14 Airbus A330-200s.
Air Transat flight TS691, which suffered the autopilot issues, departed Athens at 1236 local time on August 13 and initially climbed out to Montreal.
Near Ioannina, the aircraft made a u-turn and proceeded to make a return back to it’s origin field.
After an hour and 25 minutes in the air, the aircraft landed safely without further incident.
As per The Aviation Herald, it is understood the loss of autopilot features resulted in the crew having to fly back manually to the Greek airport.
Aircraft Grounded Overnight Following the Incident…
Following the autopilot issue on Air Transat flight TS691 to Montreal, C-GTSJ was grounded in Athens overnight due to this.
The next morning, the aircraft operated the flight back to the Canadian airport without further incident.
Since August 14, the aircraft has been operating commercial flights normally as well.
As soon as we have more information pertinent to the incident at hand, then we will update you accordingly.
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