News Qantas A380 makes emergency landing in Singapore

[garyw]

Whilst I agree with Urwumpe that issue with Engine one concerns me the greatest, not being able to fire the fire bottles or shut it down with the fire handles is a major issue.

I'm wondering if that engine could have run away causing a second failure?

 

[Urwumpe]

I'm wondering if that engine could have run away causing a second failure?

Possibly yes, though it is controlled by its own electronics box. It just didn't get new commands and it is in flight safer to let it keep its old thrust level, as shutting it down... on the ground, you then need the dramatic water injection to choke the combustion, until the FADEC gives up to restart the engine.

But overspeeding is especially for new types of engine, a realistic risk, despite FADECs.

 

[tblaxland]

Qantas to replace up to 14 engines
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/18/3069989.htm

Mr Joyce told reporters the airline expects to know within days how many engines need to be removed from its planes to be inspected by Rolls-Royce.

His comments come after Rolls-Royce indicated about 40 A380 engines will need to be swapped on Airbus' global fleet of planes.

 

[tblaxland]

Some pictures of the damage to the wing here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/19/3070934.htm

 

[Sky Captain]

A more detailed article about the accident with lots of pics and diagrams
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetal...natomy-of-the-airbus-a380-qf32-near-disaster/

 

[Cairan]

Wow! -That- was close!

Some information is making the rounds of the net as of now, and is also mentioned in the comments of the link posted by Sky Captain...

1 Bus #2 is supposedly automatically powered by Bus #1 in the event of Engine #2 failure – didn’t happen.

2 Buses #3 & #4 will supposedly power Bus #2 in the event that the auto transfer from Bus #1 fails – didn’t happen.

3 After some time the RAT deployed for no apparent reason, locking out (as a load-shedding function) some still functioning services.

4 One of the frequently recurring messages warned of the aircraft approaching the aft CoG limit (the procedure calls for transferring fuel forward), the next message advised of fwd transfer pumps being u/s. This sequence occurred repeatedly.

5 Apparently landing/approach speeds are obtained from the FMS, but there weren’t anywhere near sufficient fields to load all the defects for speed corrections – the crew loaded what they thought were the most critical ones.

6 The crew commenced an approach NOT because they’d sorted out all the problems but because they were very worried about the way-out-of-tolerance and steadily worsening lateral imbalance.

7 The aircraft stopped with just over 100 metres or runway left, brakes temps climbed to 900C and fuel pouring out of the ruptured tank. Unable to shutdown #1 engine (as previously mentioned) but elected not to evacuate as the fire services were attending in great numbers.

8 The other comment from the source of the above (who was on the flight deck) was that the aeroplane did many things they simply didn’t understand and/or failed to operate as expected.

 

[tl8]

Sound like they were lucky, damn lucky.

I guess the gods decided it was bad to have Qantas's first fatal crash on their 90th birthday...

 

[Urwumpe]

Sound like they were lucky, damn lucky.

I guess the gods decided it was bad to have Qantas's first fatal crash on their 90th birthday...

Lets hope the A380 has more luck in terms of accidents as the 747 in its early years...the 747 was bananaware in the fullest definition of the word: Ripes at the customer. Took awhile until the -200 version was what the customers really wanted.

 

[tblaxland]

An update:

Oil leak likely cause of Qantas engine failure
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/03/3083857.htm?section=justin

The [Australian Transport Safety Bureau's] chief commissioner, Martin Dolan, says the initial assessment found the most likely cause of the engine failure was problems with the release of oil into a particular part of the engine.
[...]
"The report outlines a range of further lines of inquiry, we are not yet at the stage that we can definitely say the potential fatigue problem that's been detected is the cause of what happened over Batam Island, but we think it is significant enough in any event," he said.
[...]
Mr Dolan says it is unlikely the problem could have been detected during scheduled maintenance.

That is implying that an oil leak caused some sort of fatigue problem. I wonder if that is in addition to the previously mentioned fire, and if one is the cause of the other?

 

[tl8]

For those that like reports: http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/2888854/ao-2010-089 preliminary report.pdf#page=0

 

[Urwumpe]

And the next one of Quantas... a 747 of Quantas had a multiple generator failure, resulting in the aircraft flying on battery power, having only 9 Minutes of electricity left after reaching the gate. The failure was caused by a failed heater, that caused ice to plug the waste water line and cause a flooding below the kitchen.