QF32 388 - emergency landing in SIN after Engine failure

[Egg]

But is an Australian LAME any better than a German LAME? Or Hong Kong based LAME? Do Cathay planes drop out of the sky on a frequent basis ? How about Lufthansa? And I believe any overseas maintenance must be signed off by an Australian LAME ... so there's that watchful Australian eye.

That's a good point. It seems unlikely that our engineers are better than anyone else's. I don't honestly know whether shifting services to cheaper offshore contractors means that quality suffers, but I can understand people's fears that it might.

I don't begrudge the guy for doing his job and protecting the interests of his members. And I (just my personal view) would prefer to see these jobs stay in Australia. Qantas is our national carrier, who is afforded protection from competition on some routes because of that. If they benefit from their Australian identity, then why shouldn't we expect them to employ Australians, rather than outsourcing overseas to cut costs? And im not just talking about engineers, but crew as well.

I could well understand it if they were outsourcing because overseas contractors do a better job, but i suspect it all comes down to saving money in the end. Maybe if i were a Qantas shareholder and not just a Qantas customer, i would think differently!

Anyway, it's an old argument and a little OT... I guess I just see another side to Purvinas's comments.

 

[simongr]

That's a good point. It seems unlikely that our engineers are better than anyone else's. I don't honestly know whether shifting services to cheaper offshore contractors means that quality suffers, but I can understand people's fears that it might.

Fears based on racial stereotyping are understandable? Apologies but no.

 

[Egg]

Fears based on racial stereotyping are understandable? Apologies but no.

Well no, I don't think the motivation for the fear is racism (well, it is to some I'm sure), but I can understand a fear that lower quality service will flow from costs savings measures.

And I don't think it is racist to prefer Australians in whom you have confidence (because of familiarity) to overseas providers generally (no matter where they are) whose qualities are unknown. It's not about assuming Australians do it better but knowing that we have reasonable standards, whilst having no idea about the quality of the overseas providers.

 

[jb747]

Re: QF 32 A380 out of action - who is inconvenienced?

The early rumours mention the probable cause as electrical issues.

What? A conrod knocked the generator off?

That comment is so silly and funny, that I just spat coffee all over the keyboard.

 

[Ewing]

ABC News just posted this on Twitter:

Breaking: Singapore Airlines says it has begun resuming A380 flights following precautionary checks

-Shaun

 

[FlyboyAl]

Re: QF 32 A380 out of action - who is inconvenienced?

What? A conrod knocked the generator off?

That comment is so silly and funny, that I just spat coffee all over the keyboard.

Personally, I reckon it threw a fan belt. The belt was sucked back into the engine through the analogous air tract, which caused the 4th compressor in the rectal section to homogenise, and that caused the huge explosion.

Do you think my comment will be picked up by nonews and become a headline? I'm sure I could be "an informed source"

I'm also bored sitting in the QP trying not to watch the newspaper headlines and verbal diarohea from sky news.

 

[simongr]

Well no, I don't think the motivation for the fear is racism (well, it is to some I'm sure), but I can understand a fear that lower quality service will flow from costs savings measures.

And I don't think it is racist to prefer Australians in whom you have confidence (because of familiarity) to overseas providers generally (no matter where they are) whose qualities are unknown. It's not about assuming Australians do it better but knowing that we have reasonable standards, whilst having no idea about the quality of the overseas providers.

Do most people know anything about Australian aircraft maintenance standards? Do even a small proportion of those that know anything about Australian standards know anything about overseas standards?

Or they just assuming that Australia is better based on their ignorance?

Dress it up anyway you feel comfortable but it is a judgement based solely on the nationality - to me that is racism.

 

[jb747]

A memer on PPRUNE is stating that there might already've been an engine issue a few days earlier:

Indication system. It's nothing.

Cat A means that it's time limited to 50 flight hours.

 

[jb747]

Well, to those who wondered, I'm sitting in my study, watching this unfold like everyone else. I know the guys concerned, and I'd happily send my family flying with them. A particularly knowledgeable group.

I'm quite disgusted with the engineers' union. This has nothing to do with overseas maintenance, but these idiots raise that flag at every opportunity. This is a basically new engine, that has failed in a very spectacular way. It should not have done so, so this will eventually come back to RR. I'm not sure how the aircraft has handled things, but I'm sure we'll find that out in due course.

QF grounding the aircraft is an expensive, but safe option. I really don't know what SQ will achieve with a quick inspection. These engines are monitored in real time by RR, so any slow changes should be picked up....sudden failures like this aren't something you'll alleviate by shining the torch down the back end.

What can I see in the pictures? Well, firstly an engine failure, with severe damage. There's a checklist for that. The leading edge devices are retracted in the pictures, but the trailing edge are extended. That's not something you can select. The system itself may lock the slats/flaps if it detects an asymmetry, but as the leading edge is totally retracted, it looks like they haven't moved at all. So, either a SLAT 1+2 control failure, or the breakers to the two systems were pulled. That has the effect of dropping the aircraft back to alternate law, but the automatics still work.

The nose and body landing gear doors are still open, which means that the green hydraulic system was depressurised. That also shows up in the video of the landing, which shows only half of the spoilers rising.

Engine #1 still running. That's novel, but not unheard of. Lots of forum guessing going on about this, and I do not know what that engine's state was in flight. It's quite possible that it worked normally, but simply didn't want to shut down. Dropping to idle in flight is also possible. I very much doubt that it was at climb power, simply because that much asymmetry and power would have made the approach and landing impossible.

I see this as an example of a well trained and professional crew handling a nasty situation with aplomb.

 

[straitman]

An article from Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine. AW&ST is quite highly though of within the industry so I would rate the article significantly higher than many of the other reports.

UPDATED: Qantas Grounds A380s


Nov 4, 2010

By Adrian Schofield [email protected], Bradley Perrett [email protected]

A Qantas Airbus A380 (VH-OQA) flight bound for Sydney was forced to turn back to Singapore on Nov. 4 because of the apparent uncontained failure of one of its four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines soon after takeoff. The carrier has grounded its A380 fleet until more is known about the incident.


There were no injuries among passenger or crew. Debris from the engine cowling was recovered on the Indonesian island of Batam, just south of Singapore. Photos taken by passengers show damage to the upper surface of the left wing caused by debris from the No. 2 engine. Other photos show blackened areas of damage near the rear of the Trent 900, including what looked like a hole near the top of the casing in line with the turbines.

One picture from Batam shows what looked like a segment of a disc from the engine’s turbomachinery, without blades attached, while another shows separated blades.

 

[drewbles]

Wow. Even Channel 7 is jumping on the fear campaign for maintenance of A/C "at home".

They have Lynn McGranger (sp?) (From Home and Away) and Tom Gleeson (Comedian) saying 'aww yes it's time we bring it all back home! There have been too many incidents!'.

Not only do they not quote experts, they resort to getting D list celebs to say garbage.

QF on Channel 10 earlier said (via a PR person) bare minimum 85% is done in Australia, and 92% was the figure last year.

 

[TonyHancock]

Having heard the captain, or one of the officers on the video shot by a passenger I have to say I would have felt reassured. Very calm, matter of fact. I know they are trained for these sort of events but it still has to be incredibly daunting. Not enough praise for the air crew and too much speculation in the media for me.

Well done to the captain and crew. Certainly makes me MORE confident about flying Qantas.

 

[docjames]

Well, to those who wondered, I'm sitting in my study, watching this unfold like everyone else. I know the guys concerned, and I'd happily send my family flying with them. A particularly knowledgeable group.

<snip>

I see this as an example of a well trained and professional crew handling a nasty situation with aplomb.

Good to hear you were armchair driving at the time, and thanks for your comments. I'm sure the study is a better place to watch from than seat 0A.

Add my congrats to the flight crew who at this point sound to have handed things very very well.

Agree with some others as well - I cant believe the engineers union is commenting about offshore maintenance. One feels that will only harm them in the long run and hopefully lose whatever public support they had left.



A thought occurred to me this morning - of note, the recent well known "incidents" on QF have all been long haul a/c and statistically I would wonder if that's now significant. Or are the long haul ones just receiving more publicity because of the size of the aircraft and the impact on QF service / ability to recover.

I can name
- 744 ex-SFO engine drama
- 744 ex-HKG headed to MNL after oxygen tank issues
- A330 over WA uncontrolled dive
on top of the 744 that went golfing in BKK.

I cant name a domestic ops aircraft that's had an equivalent incident (maybe the 763 that was headed to ADL and had landing gear issues - to me nowhere near the magnitude of the ones above.)

If there any difference between intl ops and domestic ops in this regards? Are dom flights more readily cancelled (with better ability to "recover" a factor)? Is there a significant difference in maintenance schedules between 737 / 763s which do multiple shorter hops and 744/380/330s doing longer ones but less overall cycles?

Just a thought that by number of aircraft / number of cycles, domestic seems quite under-represented in the recent issues, wondering if co-incidence or a true statistacal difference.

Please note I'm commenting for discussion, not denouncing this as the reason(s) for this or any of the above incidents, just a ponder about whether there's something between dom vs int. :-|

 

[simongr]

What about the wrinkled 707 (?) in DRW (?) ?

 

[markis10]

What about the wrinkled 707 (?) in DRW (?) ?

717 to be concise, it tends to be the international ones that stick in the memory, http://www.theqantassource.com/incidentsandaccidents.html (which is not complete - ie SFO)





6/4/10, VH-OJF, 747


Engine shut down near Bangkok


5/4/10, VH-OEI, 747


Cracked windscreen near Melbourne.


31/3/10 VH-OQC, A380


Burst tyres on landing at Sydney.


30/3/10 VH-OJI 747


Engine surge on take off from Sydney.


14/03/10 VH-TJO 737


Engine shut down in flight en route to Canberra.


25/02/10 VH-OQE A380


Medical Emergency over the Pacific.


18/02/10 VH-EBG A330-200


Could not retract landing gear at Sydney.


14/02/10 VH-OQE A380


Smoke in coughpit over Poland.


01/02/10 VH-ZXA 767-338


Tail scrape on take off from Sydney.


03/02/10 ZK-JTQ 737-400


Bird strike at Wellington.

 

[medhead]

What about the wrinkled 707 (?) in DRW (?) ?

717?

perhaps

edit: too late - had to chase the cat out of the garden, that it thinks is a toilet.

 

[docjames]

Yes, although i'm talking major mechanical as opposed to "birdstrike". I guess the 763 tailstrike counts though.

I'll add the electrical gremlins heading into BKK as another I'd consider significant, again international.

 

[NM]

That's a good point. It seems unlikely that our engineers are better than anyone else's. I don't honestly know whether shifting services to cheaper offshore contractors means that quality suffers, but I can understand people's fears that it might.

Its not that the labour costs are cheaper. Germany is certainly not a cheap labour country. Its a matter of scale. Establishing a viable A380 servicing capability is a huge investment in cost and skills. It not possible for an airline to make this investment based on a small fleet of aircraft. Lufthansa Technik has made the investment with the intention of selling its services to a number of carriers, thus justifying the investment. Australia is not geographically attractive for other operators to send their fleet for maintenance. So its a very difficult task for Qantas to try to sell A380 maintenance services to other airlines in order to make the investment in the maintenance facility.

Once Qantas gets a large enough fleet to justify the investment, I expect they will consider their options for local investment vs sending to Germany for maintenance work.

Qantas customers are all demanding lower fares. Meeting this consumer demand requires Qantas to find cost-effective ways to maintain their fleet. Without the volume scale to provide the return on investment in a new maintenance facility, they cannot meet the consume demands for lower fares at the same time as using Aussie labour for the maintenance.

The union needs to realise that inefficient maintenance costs will result in the need to impose higher ticket costs, which potentially reduces market share and if left unchecked will result in he airline shrinking and needing less maintenance staff. The extreme case is that Qantas goes broke and they all lose their jobs. While the union attitude may sell newspapers, I see it as a short-sighted view that will ultimately lead to their own demise.

 

[NM]

I see this as an example of a well trained and professional crew handling a nasty situation with aplomb.

Exactly. As far as Qantas is concerned, it seems their trusted employees did exactly as they have been trained and handled the situation very professionally.

That said, those seated in the special seats up-front may be in need of a recommendation of a good dry-cleaner

 

[VHOEJ]

The union needs to realise that inefficient maintenance costs will result in the need to impose higher ticket costs, which potentially reduces market share and if left unchecked will result in he airline shrinking and needing less maintenance staff. The extreme case is that Qantas goes broke and they all lose their jobs. While the union attitude may sell newspapers, I see it as a short-sighted view that will ultimately lead to their own demise.

Bravo, well said!!!! Couldnt agree more