Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 125; Flight Crew Total 13000; Flight Crew Type 5000
Confusion; Troubleshooting
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew Landed As Precaution; Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport
Aircraft
Upon takeoff; the landing gear would not retract on system one position detection. Switched to system two and the gear retracted. At 1;000 feet AGL; the captain called for 'autopilot one command' (on) and the autopilot would not engage due to the Captain's flight director being inoperative. With this event; pitch trim one was inoperative also. Engaged autopilot number two successfully. Departure called to inform us that they were not receiving altitude reporting from our transponder. We tried both transponders and were not successful in fixing the problem. Neither transponder was able to transmit our altitude to ATC. Climbing through approximately 15;000 feet; we received further warnings of Total Air Temperature (TAT) inoperative; monitor ADC1. There is no solution in the QRH to fix this issue. Climbing further through 18;000 we got further warnings of Captain/Standby/First Officer pitot probe overheat; requiring us to turn those probes to 'OFF'. At that point we were above the freezing level so we contacted ATC for an immediate descent and return. We descended below the freezing level of approximately 14;000 down to 11;000. We coordinated with maintenance control and our dispatcher to return. As we were overweight to land; we held at 11;000 to burn off enough gas to put us underweight to land. Thunderstorms in the area; landed in mostly visual conditions on the ILS.
A300 pilot experiences a failure of the landing gear to retract after takeoff on system one position detection. On system two the gear retracts but autopilot one will not engage as the Captain's flight director is inoperative along with his pitch trim. Autopilot two is successfully engaged but other anomalies begin to appear and the crew elects to return to the departure airport after burning off enough fuel.