A319
Time Pressure; Workload; Situational Awareness; Communication Breakdown; Confusion
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
Flight Crew Took Evasive Action; Flight Crew FLC Overrode Automation; General Maintenance Action
Human Factors; Procedure
Prior to pushback the fueler entered the flight deck and described having problems with fueling properly and needed to know limits for manually selecting fuel to position to the wing tanks. He then left and fueled the aircraft as we expected to the 28;000 lbs requested. We confirmed prior to pushback that fuel was loaded correctly and symmetrically.Just after takeoff (approximately 5000 feet); we received an ECAM (FUEL R WING TK LO LVL). We complied with the ECAM and determined there was no leak but discovered a significant imbalance. It appeared that most of the fuel in the right wing (had transferred to the center tank). This resulted in nearly a 10;000 lb fuel difference between left and right wings. It did result in a noticeable out of trim situation (Rudder) which was manageable.We were able to cross feed fuel from the Left tank and alleviate the imbalance and then burn only from the center tank to bring that down to just under 500lbs. We then switched back to a normal mode which caused the right tank to transfer back to the center tank again. We then cross-fed from the Left tank to rebalance the load and landed at our filed destination with 2760 in Left and Right tanks and 1900 in the Center tank.Upon landing I turned all the pumps back on and the Right Tank transferred 2200 lbs to the center tank between just exiting the runway and parking at the gate.After discussing this issue with Maintenance on the ground at our filed destination; we discovered that all of the switches on the refuel panel had been left in unlocked positions and sequenced so as to transfer fuel.Throughout the flight we were able to monitor the fuel system and manipulate fuel transfers so that the flight was conducted with the utmost safety.This event could have been prevented had the fueler returned the switches on the refuel panel to their correct neutral and locked positions.
An A319 departed after a confused fueler clarified manual fueling procedures. In flight the ECAM alerted FUEL R WING TK LO LVL and the crew had difficulty maintaining fuel balance. After landing maintenance found all fuel valve switches in the unlocked position.