QF32 388 - emergency landing in SIN after Engine failure

[serfty]

I guess it means that Singapore will keep flying and just conducting the now mandated checks every 20 cycles until the engines are replaced.

 

[jb747]

13) are passengers going to be told 'we put 2 new engines on the inner, and moved the patched up older engines to the outer if rationing takes place

I don't understand this comment. You can't just stick the 'suspect' ones on the outboards. They just won't be flown.

 

[jb747]

A friend of mine who is a captain with DJ sent me the following information he acquired from a pilot friend.

I heard the leading edge slats couldn’t be deployed at all, leaving the approach flat and fast, and the Brake ABS systems failed once he landed meaning he used all the length of Changis 4,000m (13,123ft) !!!! runway … that might be heresay (Daily Telegraph), but if you add that to the below list that’s starting to make me think Ron Berry’s method of giving failures were soft.

The worst sim exercise you could imagine x 50 ... in real life!

etcetera.....​

This list was lifted verbatim from pprune, and was also printed, verbatim, by the newspapers. It is very suspect in a number of ways, not least because it includes both cause and effect for some failures, thereby converting one problem into a number of them.

Firstly, loss of the leading edge devices does not mean you make an approach that is 'flat and fast'. Yes, it will be faster than normal (by roughly 20 knots), but the approach angle will be exactly as per normal. You normally fly a 3° glideslope, and you do in this case too. What does differ is the aircraft body angle, which, if I recall correctly was 2° different to normal.

A fuel leak is A fuel leak. All fuel transfers shut down during jettison anyway. Jettison may not have been a great deal of use, as the aircraft cannot jettison fuel in the feed tanks, and that would have been about 85% of the total on board.

Holes per se are off little consequence. A hole you can fit your body through is a minute percentage of the wing area, and would, in itself be unnoticeable. Of course damage to things behind the holes may be more interesting. Same with 'shrapnel damage to flaps'. As long as they ran, a few holes would make no difference to their performance.

Loss of G hydraulic system, will always give you partial spoilers and an alternate landing gear extension...not, a manual extension. This is a normal consequence of losing that system. (For what it's worth, and not applicable here, a double engine failure will always give you a hydraulics failure on that side as well, and so always gives you an alternate gear extension and partial spoilers.)

Leading edge slats did not partially fail. They did so totally. Whatever the mechanism that caused the failure, the system does not let some panels out whilst withholding others. It always works totally, or not at all.

Loss of 1 generator. Well, if you lose an engine, you always lose a generator. If they lost another one, well there's still two more, plus an APU generator.

Fuel imbalance. Well, you never try to balance things out after a leak. That's a good way of running out of gas, and was tested by an A330 from Air Transat. As for the tail fuel, the take off CofG is normally around 39.5%. It generally drifts aft until it reaches 42%, and is then held between 41 to 42% (by pumping fuel forward). The ECAM for FUEL EXCESS AFT CG states that the maximum flight time is 4 hours. I don't see it as a big issue with a flight time of less than two hours, even with a fuel leak.

 

[NM]

I don't understand this comment. You can't just stick the 'suspect' ones on the outboards. They just won't be flown.

Maybe someone should tell SQ about that .

Seems they are flying the "suspect" donks and just inspecting them on a regular basis. Somehow I think QF's response is more appropriate.

 

[NM]

Loss of G hydraulic system, will always give you partial spoilers and an alternate landing gear extension...not, a manual extension. This is a normal consequence of losing that system. (For what it's worth, and not applicable here, a double engine failure will always give you a hydraulics failure on that side as well, and so always gives you an alternate gear extension and partial spoilers.)

And I expect this is something well rehearsed in the sim.

Thanks for the clarifications. Most interesting.

 

[Danger]

This list was lifted verbatim from pprune, and was also printed, verbatim, by the newspapers. It is very suspect in a number of ways, not least because it includes both cause and effect for some failures, thereby converting one problem into a number of them.

Thanks for the clarification, jb747. The information from my pilot friend was contained in a forwarded email; I assumed that the person who forwarded the email to my friend was giving his understanding but you've clarified that it was taken from pprune.

To be clear (and I'm not suggesting you inferred this in your post) I was not suggesting the information to be correct; I was merely adding some information that I thought may have been useful. Your technical analysis of it was very useful - and something I'll copy and email back to my friend!

 

[ethernet]

I don't understand this comment. You can't just stick the 'suspect' ones on the outboards. They just won't be flown.

Oh - replace 'suspect' with 'not the new improved model, but the original ones with changes with things we did not tell you about' - much like the reconditioned car engines from GEM :evil:
put a euphemism like refurbished on the 'suspect' engines, and you get 'compliant engines' with 5 red quality ticks to prove they are okey dokey.
As long as the airline can put its hand on its heart, and say 'we were told these engines were safe' all bases, in theory, are covered.

1st off, I think ALL RR engines are flight worthy - risk adjusted, and to test at 20 cycles - massive overkill. People forget DRIVING to the airport is more risky. After V1 I am only worried about strange and unwelcome smells. If RR could not come up with something plausible, they would be grounded. The metallurgy tests are still not released. Even with a full blown oil fire, I suspect a plane engine could wing it through V1, then hit the extinguishers.

Well, the 'New Engines' cannibalized from whatever are newer, better and less defecty in all ways. RR mentioned 1 vector, I came up with about 5 'improvements'.

Physics/Vectors tell me if an engine were to explode and eject shrapnel, the further away from the airplane body, the better - square of distance rule.
out of 360' degrees negligible risk is lowered further. I am not a pilot. I also saw what looked like titanium honeycomb made to deflect stray blades took a big hit when the IP disk decided to get up and leave. after bouncing of a main spar. The A380 seems a tough beastie. Engineers probably have fancy weaselly words to describe this technical event.

Murphy's law tells me the newer better engines may still do something unexpected, when least expected, and that the old engines will become 100% reliable when not watched like a kettle.

Therefore I would rather fly with a mix of of new engines on inner and old pre-enhancement / patched up engines on the outer , and take off with a bit less weight until the software enhancements come through, with massive inspections till then. It may even be plausible that SQ at 20 inspections is the safest airline in the skies. It seems SQ got preferential treatment form RR.

Engine failure in my books, rates below 'banned from EEC airlines' or ATC issues in that congested bit over India, or a snowstorm/Icing event, or deranged airport taxicab.

As stated by another member:- "I knew there was a problem when the 1995 Charles Heidsieck Champagne Blanc des Millénaires was getting warm!"

Once again, another example of QF's crew being calm and totally professional in an unfortunate situation.

I'm going to buy a lottery ticket. With QF collecting all the bad luck, I reckon things can only get better from here.I'm sure the QF PR drones are banging their heads on the table saying 'its not fair'. Don't forget the 'other 380' brand of engine is not in the clear - it too has an 'inspect often and frequently' order or 3 on it too.

 

[oz_mark]

I guess it means that Singapore will keep flying and just conducting the now mandated checks every 20 cycles until the engines are replaced.

Maybe someone should tell SQ about that .

SQ are not flying it to Australia at the moment, and have just extended their cancellation of Australian A380 flights until 25 Nov.

 

[oz_mark]

The A380 seems a tough beastie. Engineers probably have fancy weaselly words to describe this technical event.

It certainly does seem a tough nut. For all the coomentary on the amount of damage, I do wonder how older aircraft designs would have coped. Still, they may need to have a think about how some of the control systems coped.

 

[Flying Fox]

Some photos of the damage available here

Photos reveal Qantas A380 superjumbo damage | Herald Sun

 

[maninblack]

1st off, I think ALL RR engines are flight worthy - risk adjusted, and to test at 20 cycles - massive overkill. People forget DRIVING to the airport is more risky. After V1 I am only worried about strange and unwelcome smells. If RR could not come up with something plausible, they would be grounded. The metallurgy tests are still not released. Even with a full blown oil fire, I suspect a plane engine could wing it through V1, then hit the extinguishers.

Well, the 'New Engines' cannibalized from whatever are newer, better and less defecty in all ways. RR mentioned 1 vector, I came up with about 5 'improvements'.

Physics/Vectors tell me if an engine were to explode and eject shrapnel, the further away from the airplane body, the better - square of distance rule.
out of 360' degrees negligible risk is lowered further. I am not a pilot. I also saw what looked like titanium honeycomb made to deflect stray blades took a big hit when the IP disk decided to get up and leave. after bouncing of a main spar. The A380 seems a tough beastie. Engineers probably have fancy weaselly words to describe this technical event.

Murphy's law tells me the newer better engines may still do something unexpected, when least expected, and that the old engines will become 100% reliable when not watched like a kettle.

Therefore I would rather fly with a mix of of new engines on inner and old pre-enhancement / patched up engines on the outer , and take off with a bit less weight until the software enhancements come through, with massive inspections till then.

All I can say is WTF :!:

 

[samh004]

Some photos of the damage available here

Photos reveal Qantas A380 superjumbo damage | Herald Sun

Interesting.

So the question is, how do they fix that damage? Can they take the wing off and attach a new wing, because it certainly seem like reinforcing and patching the area would be costly and dangerous.

 

[NM]

SQ are not flying it to Australia at the moment, and have just extended their cancellation of Australian A380 flights until 25 Nov.

So does that mean the problems are only manifest on engines that fly south of the equator?

 

[serfty]

Interesting comment on a relevant FT post (@1:31pm AEDST today):

I saw two A380 at LAX parked on the back side of International area. Neither plane had any engines.
There were 4 QF planes at LAX around noon on the back side of International. 2 were A380's, 1 was a 747-400. I could not get a clear view of the 4th (A380 or 747).

I was taking the airside shuttle from AA to AS.

 

[oz_mark]

So does that mean the problems are only manifest on engines that fly south of the equator?

Apparently so.

There is a rumour that CASA may have something to do with it.

 

[oz_mark]

Interesting.

So the question is, how do they fix that damage? Can they take the wing off and attach a new wing, because it certainly seem like reinforcing and patching the area would be costly and dangerous.

I have wondered whether a patch or new wing would be the way to go. The issue with the new wing may relate to how do they get the aircraft and new wing in the same part of the world. I guess the engineers will need to assess the best approach.

 

[serfty]

Also, here's some stuff from Ben Sandilands; the pictures might interest some:

• The Anatomy of the Airbus A380 QF32 near disaster – Plane Talking

 

[ozbeachbabe]

By Geoff Easdown Herald Sun November 17, 2010 8:26PM

While Qantas has grounded its aircraft until its 14 Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines are modified, the two other affected carriers - Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa - are still using them.

So Geoff has cut and pasted photos from pprune which seems to be the main source of info for journos despite the fact the acronym for pprune is the professional pilots rumour network.

Hey Geoff, why don't you or any of your fellow hacks ask SQ or LH why they haven't grounded all their A380 flights also?

 

[samh004]

I have wondered whether a patch or new wing would be the way to go. The issue with the new wing may relate to how do they get the aircraft and new wing in the same part of the world. I guess the engineers will need to assess the best approach.

Yeah I recall the parts are all too big to be easily transported and there was the rumour that QF couldn’t get insurance for the ferry flight. I wonder though, would an An-225 have a big enough cargo hold for the wing?

There’s also shipping if all else fails.

 

[simongr]

Sling it under a Chinook and hop all the way here - they can carry a shed load