Airbus A380 aircraft suffered "an engine oil defect",

[Nervous SLF]

Anyone translate this for me please?

Qantas has confirmed its flight from Singapore to London has landed safely in Dubai after an engine was shut down.
The flight QF31, operating on an Airbus A380 aircraft suffered "an engine oil defect", according to Qantas.


BBC News - Qantas flight lands safely in Dubai after engine issue (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15587519)


.

[KBPsen]

Translate to what language?

[PAXboy]

The bottom line is that a four engined aircraft, had a problem with one engine. They are designed to be able to maintain their course and altitude on three. It travelled safely to a suitable airfield and landed without incident.

Unfortuantely, the media do like to 'big up' a story and this is no story. But Qantas have just been in the news (strike action) and were in the news a year ago (engine problem). So the media cannot resist trying to make it worse for everyone, under the pretence of informing the public. Yes, this is information but commercial aircraft make precautionary engine shut downs every day because that's the safe thing to do.

[ejectx3]

Oil "quantity" probably. Useless media.

Could be indication problem, who knows .... Yet.

[EW73]

In my experience, even with a quantity problem, I wouldn't think that an engine shutdown would be required until an oil pressure variation, as a backup indication, was evident!

That is, don't rush into shutting the engine down until you've confirmed the initial indication isn't simply a faulty indication problem!

[SeenItAll]

Just remember back about 35 years ago, the EAL L1011 that had all three engines shut down en route between Miami and Nassau. The technician who had changed the oil on all three engines in Miami had neglected to replace the rubber O-rings on the plugs -- and each began bleeding oil once in flight.

So the moral of the story is: while each engine on a plane may seem independent of the others, there are things such as oil and fuel that may be common to them all. So if one engine goes bad because of a potentially common issue (oil in this case), there is a significant possibility that all are infected, so get the plane down before you find out for sure.

Note that while on return to MIA, they were able to get the center engine back operating, so landed at the airport instead of in the water. Reportedly, that engine then quit for good while taxing to the gate.

[77]

Don't actually understand why the aircraft landed in Dubai.
Perfectly possible for a four engined aircraft to continue to destination on three engines as long as the shut down was not for some catastrophic event.

[PAXboy]

77 You are Captain of the said flight. you know that a year earlier a colleague of yours had a spectacular problem with an engine that grounded the fleet and cost millions.

Precautionary divert or continue?

Your decision, no pressure. :*

[wiggy]

77

Perfectly possible for a four engined aircraft to continue to destination on three engines as long as the shut down was not for some catastrophic event.


Possible sometimes, but not always, and perhaps not desirable anyway.

Firstly you've lost range, engine out early in the flight probably means you can't reach destination ( as an example a rule of thumb for the 744, it loses about 10% of it's remaining range if reduced to three, don't have the 380 figures).

Secondly you've have to consider high ground ahead on your route of flight, your maximum altitude if you lose a second engine and wether if you do have a second failure can you clear said high ground (and there's significant high ground on most of the standard SIN-LHR routes, most of it occurring not long after you've crossed the Gulf and/or Pakistan)?

Thirdly: There's also other factors such as perhaps, in no particular order: en-route weather - if they lose a second engine and have to land on two is the weather at the alternates along the route OK, is it OK to have the "dead" engine windmilling for hours with no/reduced oil pressure (no idea if that was a factor here), where to divert to en-route to hopefully get the problem solved quickly, etc, etc.

I'm sure the QF pilots took into account all available advice (and that would have probably included talking to company operations and engineers via satcom) and then made a considered decision to divert, in this case to Dubhai.

[Hartington]

Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry's flight diverted after engine shut down - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/8869151/Stephen-Frys-flight-diverted-after-engine-shut-down.html)

By the way, Wiggy, I agree with everything you say but the flight was coming FROM Singapore so it had already crossed Pakistan etc.

[wiggy]

Indeed, but AFAIK the engine failure might have happened east of Pakistan.....it might have happened over the Bay of Bengal for all I know - it's a four engined aircraft with a relatively benign failure so there's no reason for the crew to land ASAP. The crew might have decided to continue through Indian and Pakistan/Arabian Sea whilst considering their two engined drift down performance, considered their options, talked to QF ops, etc. They then might have decided to head for Dubhai instead of turning northwards towards the high ground and relatively "alternate free" area of Afghanistan

I emphasise that this really is all speculation on my part - hence all the "mights". I have no idea what really went on, just trying to outline to the non-pilots one of the many thought processes that might have led to the flight landing in Dubhai, rather then pressing on towards Europe.

[ExXB]

I flew SQ some years ago from SIN to ZRH and somewhere over MAA they shut down one engine (ironically this was the 1000th B747 - painted proudly on the fusalage) and turned around to go back to SIN.

When I asked the purser why we didn't set down at DEL or somewhere closer. He responded that during previous diversions to India repairs had been delayed due to difficulty finding (available) engineers and the difficulties and costs 'importing' spare parts, including whole engines. He commented if we had diverted there we probably would be still there a week later. In SIN, on the other hand, they could see to the problem straight away.

Our ground stop in SIN was just under two hours before we were on another B747 headed to ZRH. Total delay was 12 hours (plus had to take the train to Geneva).

In QF's case Dubai would have many qualified A380 engineers.

[Capt Fathom]

Following an engine failure, Australian Regulations require that a multi-engined aircraft land at the nearest suitable airport. That assumes no other overriding factors that may prevent you from landing at that nearest airport. Wars, cyclones, famines etc ! :ok:

It's preferable to sort out problems on the ground, rather than deal with them inflight. A small inconvenience.

[wiggy]

Australian Regulations require that a multi-engined aircraft land at the nearest suitable airport.

Interesting, thanks for that..:ok:

Of course the use of "suitable" still leaves some wriggle room ;) (probably leaves a lot of wriggle room in the case of a A380....)

[77]

Precautionary divert or continue?

Have actually made that decision and made destination albeit back in 1999 with a 744.

[PAXboy]

I'm glad that it was the right decision for you and your pax. As an outsider, I suggest that modern day political pressures may just may have affected their choice. Irrespective of the myriad of technical detail of which we know nothing.

Qantas are in the middle of a massive crisis and a simple, short, resolution to the problem may have been preferable to "Qantas Captain defends his decision to continue across Europe and the Alps" blazed in large red letters across the globe by ignorant media!!! Company politics are not supposed to have any effect on pilot decisions but, on some occaisions, they might do.

[EW73]

Hi Captain Fathom...

I certainly agree with your comments...

Especially as now there are no qualified/experienced FEs in the flight deck any more!

"It's preferable to sort out problems on the ground, rather than deal with them inflight."

My previous comment still stands!

Oh yeah right, you've got an SO now, otherwise who elso would you have to ,.....err,...err,...well sort of, do something!

Get my drift, what a great decision to phase out the FE!

[grounded27]

In my experience, even with a quantity problem, I wouldn't think that an engine shutdown would be required until an oil pressure variation, as a backup indication, was evident!

That is, don't rush into shutting the engine down until you've confirmed the initial indication isn't simply a faulty indication problem!


Knew of a 742 that had an engine later discovered to be serviced with skydrol. Several hours out abnormal oil loss was noticed. Seemed smart of the crew to shut down the engine and restart on decent for approach/landing.

[ross_M]

The technician who had changed the oil on all three engines in Miami had neglected to replace the rubber O-rings on the plugs -- and each began bleeding oil once in flight.
So the moral of the story is: while each engine on a plane may seem independent of the others, there are things such as oil and fuel that may be common to them all.

In light of such mistakes would it make sense to stagger routine engine maintenance: oil changes etc.? It's probablistically more unlikely for two different oil-changers to make the same error.

Just wondering if this is a good idea?

[sherburn2LA]

"to be sure, if the last engine fails we will be up here all night"