Flight Crew Last 90 Days 250; Flight Crew Total 16000; Flight Crew Type 4000
Human-Machine Interface
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Diverted; Flight Crew Landed As Precaution; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; Human Factors
Just after a normal takeoff; received the ECAM 'AIR ENG1 BLEED ABNORM PR.' This is a special ECAM and requires us to go to the QRH instead of running the ECAM checklist. After reaching a suitable altitude; I ran the QRH with the Captain backing me up on any switches being moved. Secured the bleed via the checklist; then once on with ORD center; we started to evaluate our situation. The Captain was new to the plane. He was concerned there might be an issue with what maximum altitude we could fly at with only one bleed running two packs.  He was also concerned that we might not be legal to continue over the Rockies in this configuration. I have been on the plane for a long time; but had not had this come up and I was unsure as well. I was still the pilot monitoring so I sent off some messages to Dispatch and sent in the MEL to Maintenance Control. We got nothing back from Dispatch; or Maintenance Control; except the auto print out of our write up. The Captain had me tell ATC that we would like 20;000 as a cruise altitude for now as we worked what we thought would be a minor issue. After 15 minutes; we had not heard anything from anyone via ACARS. So the Captain gave me the plane while he looked for a frequency to try to get in touch with Dispatch. We had some very specific questions that we needed to find answers to. Was there a restriction on our cruise altitude with only one bleed? Could we go past the Rockies with only one bleed? Did they want us to go back to departure airport if we could not continue to destination? The Captain could not find any frequency. It was now 20 minutes into the flight; and we still had no contact with Dispatch. Finally; we got a frequency. The Captain tried that frequency; but could not maintain the connection.  Each time he would speak to Dispatch the line failed. He kept trying to get a connection; but each time it failed. This went on for about 20 minutes; meanwhile we continued on our flight plan. We still had not received our MEL from Maintenance Control; or any answers to our questions with one bleed. Now it was about a half hour into the flight; and our gas was getting critical to make it to destination if we did not climb. Finally got a message from Maintenance Control; and they were saying that they showed our bleed valve was closed and why did we close it? We did not close the bleed; it closed on it's own. We made sure we ran the proper checklist and had not missed anything. The procedure does not have us close the bleed; but Maintenance Control was insistent that we did as they showed it closed and it should be open. But nothing was communicated as to our questions about this flight. They only cared about why we closed the bleed; and Dispatch still had not given us anything concrete about our other questions. Now it was about 40 minutes into the flight; we were still at 20;000 and even if we had been able to climb to flight plan altitude; we would most likely not have enough gas to get to destination. But we still had no viable way to contact Dispatch; as they still had not responded to our questions via ACARS. Finally; the Captain got a working patch to Dispatch; who also had Maintenance Control patched in. The only thing they cared to talk to us about was why the bleed was closed and what had we done to close it. The Captain kept saying to them we did NOT close the valve; but they were adamant that we had; or implied that we had run the wrong checklist. The Captain mentioned to me earlier that he had seen the bleed fault light at the same time we got the ECAM.  It had since extinguished sometime while I was running the QRH or before.  I did not see it and it was not on or indicated on the ECAM message page; but the valve was closed via the schematic on the bleed page. So now the Captain was thinking that maybe we had something more wrong with this plane than just the over pressurized bleed. [At this point] continuing to destination was not possible.  We needed to go back or divert. Again; Dispatch did not have any guidance for us.  They said go back; then came back and said no; go to ZZZ as there was a spare plane there.  Then they came back and said the Captain could use his emergency authority to do what he wanted. We were on our own. Only 15 minutes to ZZZ; and not sure about the real status of the plane; so the Captain said how would I feel about diverting into ZZZ. It was a CAVU day; we had a long runway; but we were a bit over max landing wt. Our choices were to hold for an hour; or land overweight.  We reviewed the Overweight Landing Checklist; evaluated the performance; and thought the best idea was to land now. So we did; and taxied into the gate uneventfully. Once at the gate we were met by a Mechanic and a Flight Manager. The Mechanic had already done some research and had inspected the bleed before coming up to the cockpit. He said that valve had been replaced overnight and that it was leaking a lot of hydraulic fluid and he suspected it had been installed incorrectly. So we did in fact have other issues with this plane; as the Captain had surmised. The Flight Manager heard all of this; said we made the right call and that if we felt up to it; there was a spare and that we could be ready to proceed within the hour and that is what we did.
A320 First Officer experiences an ECAM for 'AIR ENG1 BLEED ABNORM PR' shortly after takeoff. QRH procedures are complied with; which included turning off the associated bleed valve. Questions arise concerning continuing the flight over the Rockies and climbing to higher altitude with one bleed system powering two packs. The crew elects to divert for maintenance; land overweight and continue to their original destination with another plane.