Despite multiple walk-around inspections, ground personnel, maintenance engineers, the flight crew and a dispatcher failed to notice that covers – installed to prevent wasp damage1 while on the ground – had not been removed from a Malaysia Airlines Airbus A330’s three pitot probes. As a result, the A330 took off from Brisbane Airport in Queensland, Australia, with unreliable airspeed information. The crew failed to react to airspeed warnings until the airplane was moving too fast to safely stop on the runway.
