Large Plumbing
The B777 uses two of just about the most powerful engines in the business, so each engine is presumably fed by some of the largest fuel lines in service.
Strange that this very fuel plumbing may have provided the first recorded example of an engine suffering serious fuel starvation due to a major blockage caused by gradual ice accretion, despite the contents of the fuel tanks being of good quality.
It is suggested that this may have been brought about because the engines were not operated at climb power again after the initial top-of-climb, but at slightly lower (cruise) power settings.
During the last several decades, how many other long-haul jet-transport engine-fuel systems − from those feeding Speys on G2s, through aircraft with engines of ascending fuel flows like (for example) JT3Ds on B707s, DC-8s and C-141s; to CF6s, JT9Ds and RB211s on various aircraft − have been operated successfully at similar altitudes and temperatures to BA038, for similar flight times, often without the application of climb power after initial TOC?
There’s nothing new or particularly unusual in crews avoiding the unnecessary use of climb power when an aeroplane is light.
What’s so special about the B777-Trent? Does anyone find the hypothesis convincing?