A319
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 250; Flight Crew Total 20500; Flight Crew Type 8000
Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Conflict Ground Conflict; Less Severe
General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; Human Factors
At 500 FT on final approach we got a Wheel NW STRG FAULT ECAM with no other faults. Having had this happen a few times over the many years on the airplane I knew it could be a spurious fault. I reset the A/SKID NW STRG switch and fault cleared with normal gear indications; as per the QRH. We continued and landed normally. Co-pilot was pilot flying so he transferred control to me below 60 KTS. I slowed aircraft to make left turn onto Taxiway V. As I engaged Nose Wheel Steering (NWS) and started to turn; the same ECAM returned with loss of NWS. As I was already slow; I stopped the plane; set the brake and reset NWS with switch again. I regained NWS control again and got a little more turn off runway when it failed again. I again stopped plane. By this time Tower was yelling at us to clear the runway as there was a plane in position to takeoff and plane on final. As the co-pilot was telling him numerous times we had lost our NWS steering and were having difficulty clearing the runway. Now we were using differential braking and thrust on the right engine along with continually resetting NWS steering switch for intermittent steering to clear runway. What seemed like an eternity was probably only about 3 minutes of getting the airplane finally clear of runway onto Taxiway V straight ahead. I taxied straight ahead a bit further to ensure clear of runway. The Tower was being totally obnoxious about us clearing the runway after being told no less than a dozen times we had lost NWS. The only other thing that would have made this event better was to continue a little further down runway for the high speed turnoff. Planning for that would have saved a lot of heartache; however when the NWS steering failed I was already committed to the turnoff on V; which I thought at the time was a 90 degree turn off when in fact it was about 110 degree turnoff with a widened turn area off the runway. We contacted Operations and had them come out and tow us into the gate. Airport ops car came as well to escort. At no time were we in danger of leaving any paved surfaces although we were getting close to the edge of the taxiway; and thus no Emergency was declared. If I thought we were going off the taxiway I obviously would have stopped and gotten towed from that point. I was just very busy trying to get the plane off the runway. While we were waiting to be towed I called Dispatch and let them know what had happened. The only other thing that could have been done was to just block the runway and let ATC deal with it. Honestly; the event turned more difficult than what I originally thought as I was trying to clear runway.
After control transfer and during the initial turn to clear the runway the nose wheel steering fault exam illuminated. Steering was lost. We reset numerous times and used braking and thrust to clear the active runway. Once clear we set brakes [and] coordinated the tow in with ATC and Operations. Then contacted Maintenance Control with the maintenance write-up.
A319 Captain experiences a Wheel NW STRG FAULT ECAM at 500 FT during approach. The fault is reset with the A/SKID NW STRG switch and the approach is continued to landing. Attempting to turn off the runway the nose wheel steering fails again and results in the aircraft blocking the runway for several minutes.