QF Flight returns to SFO after engine blows up

[yohy?!]

it seems this incident should never have happened:


Qantas engine explosion followed safety warning

 

[markis10]

it seems this incident should never have happened:


Qantas engine explosion followed safety warning

I think you will find once the cause is established that the AD has nothing to do with the cause, regardless its way to early to say it should never have happened.

 

[samh004]

it seems this incident should never have happened:

Qantas engine explosion followed safety warning

So the lesson here is:

Another passenger panicked and yelled, ''We're going to go down, we're going to go down','' but most handled the emergency calmly. Those who were not able to cope were ushered to the front of the aircraft.

If your plane has a problem and you want to experience F before what you think is the inevitable, make a commotion and you’ll get your chance

 

[jb747]

So is a 4-engined aircraft twice as likely to experience an engine failure than a twin-engined aircraft, thus making the 2-engined aircraft less likely to require a diversion/return and hence more likely to arrive on time?

Simple engine failures are not uncommon, and have the effect of reducing a twin's range by about 30%, whereas a quad, whilst slightly more likely to have the failure, has a range reduction of about 10%, and so is more likely to be able to either continue the trip, or to to divert to somewhere relatively nice. Placing that in perspective...a quad, as it crosses the WA coast heading east, will in most cases have every airport in Australia within range.

If a twin is converted to a single, then it's a case of almost any runway will do.

The only reason I fly an aircraft with four engines is that they don't make any with six.....

 

[jb747]

it seems this incident should never have happened:


Qantas engine explosion followed safety warning

That's a lovely bit of mud slinging. All ADs come with time frame instructions. Whilst important ones might well be 'before next flight', the vast majority are anything but instant. And realistically, the chance of a simple AD having any chance of catching what appears to be a disc failure would have to be about zero.

The same sort of rubbish was printed after QF30, but I note the papers never withdrew the comments when it was shown that the AD did not apply to the incident aircraft, nor, in fact would it have had any affect on the failure.

Basically, newspapers = rubbish.

 

[rtyuiop]

Simple engine failures are not uncommon, and have the effect of reducing a twin's range by about 30%, whereas a quad, whilst slightly more likely to have the failure, has a range reduction of about 10%, and so is more likely to be able to either continue the trip, or to to divert to somewhere relatively nice. Placing that in perspective...a quad, as it crosses the WA coast heading east, will in most cases have every airport in Australia within range.

If a twin is converted to a single, then it's a case of almost any runway will do.

The only reason I fly an aircraft with four engines is that they don't make any with six.....

JB, can you comment on QFs policies on where to head for in a unexpectedly-triple-engined vehicle? I'm assuming after all the kerfuffle with BA, continuing the trip generally isn't an option, unless that's the closest recovery point anyway?

Is it a case of captain's discretion, or head for the nearest suitable strip regardless of facilities or convenience, or take a balance of everything and do what you think is best?

Danny

 

[rtyuiop]

I'm downright shocked that Plane Talking has jumped on that bandwagon as viciously as he has:

How and why Qantas is dropping the safety ball – Plane Talking

Are airlines supposed to disregard the advice coming from manufacturers or something?

Danny

 

[NM]

The only reason I fly an aircraft with four engines is that they don't make any with six.....

Ahh, I see the progression ... A4 -> 767 -> 747

So any desire to head for a B52 for eight engines?

Your "runway" requirements keep increasing too . Some people are just greedy .

 

[straitman]

I'm downright shocked that Plane Talking has jumped on that bandwagon as viciously as he has:

How and why Qantas is dropping the safety ball – Plane Talking

Are airlines supposed to disregard the advice coming from manufacturers or something?

Danny

rtyuiop,

Have another look at post #45 above.

All I can say about it is that the article is a load of cxxp? (Oops can't say that can I :!

When weighing up who to believe Ben Sandilands OR jb747, I'll go with jb747 any day.

 

[markis10]

Ahh, I see the progression ... A4 -> 767 -> 747

So any desire to head for a B52 for eight engines?

Your "runway" requirements keep increasing too . Some people are just greedy .

No need - here is the special JB7107 model:

 

[docjames]

How and why Qantas is dropping the safety ball – Plane Talking

What a good idea, ground 2/3 of their 744s and cripple the airline financially and cheese off a huge % of their customers. They'll be the safest carrier if they're no longer flying..... :evil:


+1 on believing jb747 - I trust he knows just a little more about the flight operations of a 744 than some two-bit reporter.

 

[TanyaGordon]

Qantas flight emergency
Listen to the exchange between the pilot and the San Francisco control tower after flight QF74 lost an engine.

Video - The Australian

 

[markis10]

Qantas flight emergency
Listen to the exchange between the pilot and the San Francisco control tower after flight QF74 lost an engine.

Video - The Australian

Its not the tower, its Oakland Control/Approach , towers only talk to aircraft within 5-10 miles of the runway. I thought the request from despatch was a little odd, I had visions of the pilot wing walking to satisfy their request!

 

[rtyuiop]

rtyuiop,

Have another look at post #45 above.

All I can say about it is that the article is a load of cxxp? (Oops can't say that can I :!

When weighing up who to believe Ben Sandilands OR jb747, I'll go with jb747 any day.

Oh, I agree - sorry, I wasn't clear in my level of sarcasm, in hindsight!

Was just hoping a specialist aviation blog would do a bit better than that... Oh well.

Danny

 

[TanyaGordon]

Longer version from Fairfax.

Video - coughpit audio as QF74 handles engine failure - The Age

 

[oz_mark]

RB211 is a family of engines, and from my googling, I am not sure the AD referred to in the articles even applies to the versions on th 747-400. Or maybe I have just found the wrong AD - back to google

(The AD I found was at Federal Register | Airworthiness Directives; Rolls-Royce plc (RR) RB211-22B and RB211-524 Series Turbofan Engines)

 

[jb747]

JB, can you comment on QFs policies on where to head for in a unexpectedly-triple-engined vehicle? I'm assuming after all the kerfuffle with BA, continuing the trip generally isn't an option, unless that's the closest recovery point anyway?

Is it a case of captain's discretion, or head for the nearest suitable strip regardless of facilities or convenience, or take a balance of everything and do what you think is best?

Basically, it is up to the captain to decide just what he wants to do. They don't micromanage you, but advice is readily available at the end of the satphone. Just how you handle an engine problem depends on a vast array of items. If you continue, are you heading towards high ground? What is the weather like at the various optional fields? What is the actual state of the aircraft? Just what optional fields are you looking at.

For the example I gave earlier, in theory you could go almost anywhere in Oz from the west coast. But, that would involve up to 5 hours of flying? What is the state of the engine. If it is still turning in the breeze, is it going to be badly damaged by continuing. Continuing would burn up the reserves, and so remove your options at the other end. Answer is, of course, that you would go to a closer major destination, with Darwin, Perth, or Adelaide being the obvious choices.

On the other hand, if you were in Pakistan heading toward London, then you'd have Afghanistan in front of you. There's no way any sensible person would initiate an overflight of that area with an engine down, so the obvious options would be to land in Delhi or Mombai, or perhaps to head up to the gulf, to one of the many major airfields there.

Once past Afghanistan, the high ground mostly goes away, but the gulf states become less attractive, because you'd have to cross the high ground to get to them, so places like Kiev and Istanbul become options. And then, in the last couple of hours, you can look at Warsaw, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, or London itself. There is simply no hard and fast rule as to what would be the best choice on any given day.

Nearest suitable strip becomes the choice in a QF30 type of scenario. But, it would be a pretty bad idea to go somewhere with minimal ground facilities, and a temperature of -30°C (i.e. Kuraganda in winter), if you've had a straightforward shutdown.

I guess my answer isn't clear cut, because in many cases there are multiple choices, and the balance can swing in favour of any of them, sometimes with a small change to the initial conditions.

 

[rtyuiop]

Many thanks JB!

I'm kind of glad to hear something like this is left up to (suitably experienced) judgement on the spot in our increasingly bureaucratic proceduralised world.

Danny

 

[Danger]

ATSB investigators have arrived in SFO: MEDIA RELEASE : 02 September 2010 - ATSB examines damaged plane in San Francisco

 

[NM]

So JB, in a situation like this just out of SFO, I guess the major choices would involve returning to SFO, continuing to HNL or possibly returning to LAX. Given the sparks show seen by the passengers and the vibrations noted by the crew, I expect continuing to HNL is not likely to be preferred, but may be if it was a routine shutdown.

Would the Captain consider LAX as a diversion given that QF is more likely be able to squeeze 300+ displaced passengers onto the larger number of daily LAX departures than from SFO? Or that consideration not even considered in such an event? Obviously the Captain's main priority is to get the aircraft and its "cargo" down safely, but flying to LAX while dumping vs circling off SFO may reduce the logistics for the ground staff.