BA038 (B777) Thread

[TechnoFreak]

Let's stick to the facts

Ladies and Gents,

Over the last few months I have read most of this thread, perhaps I should get out more.

Some contributors seem to ignore the facts in order to support wild conspiracy theories.

My understanding of the state of the investigation is as follows:

The fuel valves were fully open but very little fuel was being delivers to the engines.
The High Pressure fuel pumps showed evidence of cavitation damage on the input side.

When cavitation occurs, the pump will not deliver the required output pressure and therefore not enough fuel will be delivered to engines.

Cavitation occurs when either the fuel is less dense that it should be or there is not enough of it reaching the pumps. In this case it seems that the latter is most likely.

Why is the investigation taking so long?

All they need to do is to put the 777 wings, tanks and fuel system in to a big fridge and run a temperature simulation of the entire flight. Then repeat this for an infinite number of different combinations of fuel contaminants. Can’t see the problem myself, (sarcasm).

For what is worth, I think that this accident was caused by debris/contaminants in the fuel together with the abnormal low temperatures experienced during the flight. Due to the complexity of modelling the infinite number of variables, we may never get a final answer.