Bad luck for Qantas - now the Associated Press is reporting, citing local TV stations, that another of its aircraft (a 747 this time) returned to Singapore with engine trouble shortly after taking off for Sydney today.
It’s the airline that chooses the engine. There’s a GE/Pratt and Whitney derived alternate to the RR model.
Ah, Thank you, didn’t know the airlines could do that.
Initially I saw some speculation about the volcanic ash, have they ruled that out yet?
Blame Singapore!
Nothing gets past the AP: Qantas: faulty design, build may be behind blowout
Well, that narrows it down.
Airbus would have had to prove to certification authorities (EASA, FAA, TC, etc) that the aircraft could successfully accelerate, take-off, cruise for some time and land on three engines, so the loss of one engine is really not that big a deal in that respect. I’m not sure if it’s part of certification, but 4-engined planes are definitely able to cruise and land on two engines, or even one or none (though of course they begin to act more like gliders, and landing quickly becomes much, much more important!)
As for ruling out bird strike - this can generally be done pretty easily. Depending on the plane’s altitude when the event happened, and distance from land, it’s generally possible to say that birds simply don’t fly that high and therefore weren’t a factor, though of course some birds have been known to fly very high (B747 birdstrike over West Africa at 37,000 ft ASL :cite is a Transport Canada handbook “Sharing the Skies”). Also, once the plane is on the ground, the presence of blood, feathers and chunks of bird are usually a pretty good sign that a bird may have been involved. Engines ingesting a bird typically have broken compressor blades as well, which are fairly easy to spot.
I agree, and I think it would be highly unlikely that the ATSB or any other aviation authority would refer to this accident as an “explosion”. The aviation community - investigators included - would call it an uncontained engine failure. (Using ICAOdefinitions, it is an accident, not an incident, since even though it’s an engine failure, the damage was not only limited to the engine, engine cowlings and accessories).
Unfortunately for Airbus, they are not completely free from liability in this instance, since they are the Type Certificate holders for the aircraft. Airbus selected the engine(s) and developed their plane in conjunction with it, and so some liability goes to them as well as to Rolls (assuming this wasn’t caused by a mechanic leaving a wrench in the engine or somesuch). How much liability goes to whom is up to the courts to decide, though; the accident investigation will only seek to find the causes and circumstances leading to the event, not to assign blame or liability.
Sorry for the double post…I just wanted to be sure this was clear, since I think Baron Greenback’s post could be misinterpreted.
Airbus designed and certificated their aircraft with two engines; the RR and the GE/P&W ones. Those will appear on the Type Certificate, and any A380 with engines other than these is not airworthy or approved for flight anywhere (well, other than Airbus experimental flights with new engines and special certificates or something).
The airlines can choose which of the two engines they want, but that’s like choosing the V6 or V8 engine on a car. Airlines really have no control over anything more than that.
It rules out terrorism, internal disgruntled employee sabotage, bird strikes, poor maintenance, and a host of other factors. I think it was a useful bit of info.
Enjoy,
Steven
Yes, sounds like someone in Singapore is playing shenanigans!
Heard that last night (Friday night). That’s going to be a nightmare if it turns out to be true. They’ll have to repair all the ones out there.
If a Ford Focus has a Mazda engine it’s still a Focus. Airbus takes the hit as well as Rolls Royce so not only is the 380 affected but any aircraft using the 900 series Trent engine.
If for some odd reason RR can’t get a handle on what happened it becomes a very expensive fix. Those engines are $13.5 million apiece. Retrofitting to the other engine would be expensive. Not sure what is involved in this because there are flight computers, wiring harnesses/fuel lines and structural changes to make. One would hope that the design is based on commonality of parts.
BZZZZT!
Blaming Singapore carries a fine of 200 Singapore Dollars.
And a caning.
Well, so much for getting any of Qantas’ A380 superjumbos back in the air soon. BBC says they’ve found “slight anomalies” in some of the engines of the other planes, so they’ll stay grounded for a while
There’s a good article here that indicates Rolls-Royce could be in for some trouble.
Excerpts: **"Modern engines are designed to contain a blowout inside the engine’s casing so that broken parts are not sprayed at high speed into the fuselage or the wings, where the fuel tanks are located. But in the case of Qantas Flight 32, parts of the engine were blown away and appeared to rupture the wing. An Airbus spokesman said it was the first uncontained engine failure and the most serious problem experienced by the A380 since it entered service in 2007.
"Rolls-Royce’s problems also raise questions about the newest plane being developed by Airbus, the A350, made out of composite material and meant to compete with the Boeing 787. Unlike most aircraft programs — including the A380 and the 787, which are built with two engine options — the A350 will be configured with only one engine, the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB.
"While the A380 program has not been a big commercial success for Airbus, the company has much more at stake with the A350. Airbus has 234 orders for the A380, but it already has 573 orders for the A350, which it expects to put into service in 2013.
"‘I think it is possible that one of the problems Rolls-Royce is experiencing overall is that they may have lost a little bit of margin in the design of their engines,’ said Hans Weber, the president of Tecop International, an aviation consulting firm in San Diego. ‘We are pushing harder to the limits because we are forced to increase the efficiency’.”**
Uh-oh. Déja Vu to the 1970s, and the TriStar…
The answer is quite simple - the front of the engine sustained NO DAMAGE at all. HTe turbine blades were all intact. Only the back half of the engine was damaged…and yes, there was a hole in the wing.
Just a side note, the 747 that turned back has a different engine.
Another side note - oil leaks have been found in other engines on the Qantas A380 fleet.
Looks like they’ve isolated the cause. Story here.
“‘The failure was confined to a specific component in the turbine area of the engine,’ [Rolls-Royce] said. ‘This caused an oil fire, which led to the release of the intermediate pressure turbine disc’.”
BBC TV just said something like 40 of these engines on various A380s are going to have to be replaced.
Replace? That doesn’t sound good at all for RR. Did they mis-speak and mean to say the engines need to be pulled for repair?
On a side not it looks like this is a 3 stage engine (3 shaft engine). Interesting.
Australia has made some significant changes to the airspace around a number of airports effective today (18th Nov). Included in the changes, my home airport has been changed from an uncontrolled CTAF with uncontrolled airspace all the way up to 18000 feet to a class D control zone with a control tower and controlled airspace from the ground up. Obviously it is very important that the pilots that fly around here receive the amendments to their charts in time for the changes. The amendments come from Jeppesen in the USA and to date very few people have received their amendments. This has caused a bit of a headache with people having to download approach plates from the internet and source scanned copies of the area charts from where they can.
Where are all the Jeppesen amendments you may wonder? Stuck inside a Qantas A380 at LAX!
No, they keep saying “replace,” including again this morning. BBC is also pointiing out that Qantas seems to be providing more information on the engines and situation than Rolls-Royce is.