A320
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Training / Qualification
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Landed As Precaution; Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport; General Declared Emergency; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; Human Factors
During the beginning of cruise climb passing 12;500 MSL ECAM of blue hydraulic system overheat/fault. PF assumed radio functions. PNF completed ECAM action and QRH procedures for the failure and overweight landing. Since the blue system is critical to flight safety reference flight control redundancy and emergency power generation; I [we] elected to return and declared and emergency with Approach as a precaution. Dispatch notified by ATC per my request and subsequent ACARS message when time permitted. Normal overweight approach and landing. After wheel/brake inspection by CFR we taxied to the gate and swapped aircraft.  Normal flight ensued. The blue hydraulic pump overheated/faulted and shutdown during initial cruise climb. Maintenance offered the fault is usually a precursor to failure mode of that pump.
A320 Captain experiences a blue hydraulic pump overheat during initial climb and elects to return to the departure airport for an overweight landing.