Airbus and pitot probes

[centuryseries]

This has been puzzling me for a while now ever since there have been suggestions that the pitot probes on the Air France A330 had become iced up - now there lies my question:

Surely airliners have Pitot heating, so why can they still freeze up - assuming the Pitot heat was turned on?

 

[DaveKDEN]

Pitot heat should have been on as a matter of procedure. There would have been ECAM warnings about the pitot heat being off. I think the problem lies in a design problem/malfunction with the specific pitot tube model used on that aircraft. Air France is replacing the affected pitot design with a different one.

 

[centuryseries]

Pitot heat should have been on as a matter of procedure. There would have been ECAM warnings about the pitot heat being off. I think the problem lies in a design problem/malfunction with the specific pitot tube model used on that aircraft. Air France is replacing the affected pitot design with a different one.

Thanks for the reply, I'd not heard any news report mentioning pitot heat either, just thought it was odd.

May flight 447's passengers and crew rest in peace.

 

[Wing_Z]

Some Airbus flights previously reported pitot tube drain hole blocked with debris.
This caused loss of airspeed indication in flight.
The replacement model is less prone to blockage.