Merged: Qantas A380 finishes London flight on three engines

[joe_bloggs]

Ben Sandilands writes...

Qantas A380 finishes London flight on three engines – Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2011/02/18/qantas-a380-finishes-london-flight-on-three-engines/#comments)

Quote: Tuesday a Qantas A380 finished its long flight from Singapore to London on three engines only, although the incident doesn’t seem to have been nearly as dramatic as the ATSB notification of an investigation this morning suggests.

That summary implies the defective engine was shut down to ‘idle’ thrust near New Delhi, with another eight hours or more of normal four engined flight time remaining.

In fact the affected Rolls-Royce engine was not closed down to idle thrust until it was within several hours of London, and in airspace with multiple suitable airports for an A380 diversion. The loss of power from an engine near New Delhi would have reduced the cruising speed and altitude of the airliner and its fuel efficiency to a level where it could not have flown all the way to London and arrived with the minimum statutory fuel reserves required by the rules.

According to Qantas the issue that affected the engine has also been found on a Rolls-Royce powered A380 flown by another airline (meaning either with Singapore Airlines or Lufthansa) and it is one which has been raised with the engine maker and is neither the same nor as serious as the issue which saw the disintegration of an engine on QF32 shortly after leaving Singapore on November 4.

That incident lead to a prolonged grounding of the Qantas A380 fleet, and as outlined in its half yearly financial result press conference yesterday, also pushed its London and Los Angeles flights into loss during the 6 months reporting period.

[1a sound asleep]

Investigation: AO-2011-026 - Partial power loss - Airbus, VH-OQC, near New Delhi International Airport, 15 February 2011 (http://atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2011/aair/ao-2011-026.aspx)

Here we go again

Quote from ATSB "During the cruise the crew observed a gradual decrease in the oil quantity for the number 4 engine. As a precaution the engine was reduced to idle for the remainder of the flight.
A subsequent engineering inspection found that the fitting of the external HP/IP oil line had less than the required torque. The investigation is continuing."

Who's to blame this time?

[airtags]

.........is not OQC scheduled for a heavy session in FRA shortly?

AT

[TBM-Legend]

Quote from ATSB "During the cruise the crew observed a gradual decrease in the oil quantity for the number 4 engine. As a precaution the engine was reduced to idle for the remainder of the flight.
A subsequent engineering inspection found that the fitting of the external HP/IP oil line had less than the required torque. The investigation is continuing."

Who's to blame this time?


Let's blame Little Al J. for outsourcing the manufacture of these aircraft and engines...:8

[sierra5913]

I know finishing a sector on 3 engines isn't really a big deal on a 380 or 747 (save the bad engine exploding), but in regards to maintenance, were these sort of instances (like screwing on hoses tight enough - please pardon my ignorance http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/smile.gif) happening when QF had the shop at Mascot looking after the RB211's in the late 80's to early 90's?

[Stalins ugly Brother]

My info is the flight was only 2 hours from LHR and engine was reduced to idle thrust, not over New Delhi as reported.

[another superlame]

This would probably be the result of not doing the lines up to the correct torque after the IP/HP bearing cavity boro. Sloppy. Nothing else.

[blueloo]

Doesnt QANTAS have a new motto......
3 Engines are better than 4!


o wait a minute that was similar to some other airline

[drop bear ten]

Perhaps this senario is an example of why (some) are paid the big bucks to make the optimum decision in a safety sensitive and highly competitive commercial environment.

If they had landed at a suitable enroute alternate one probably could not have been critiical of that decision.

They have used their experience of the route, weather, aircraft type etc and achieved a safe outcome while completing the task at hand. 500 pax arrived at their destination, the aircraft is positioned for maintenance and a return to service with little or no impact on the schedule.

The crew has just paid their salary in savings to QF for the next ten years.

A job well done :ok:

[Tankengine]

If they had not wanted to save the company money [and look after the pax]
then they may have landed at nearest suitable and then [being out of hours before aircraft fixed] simply demanded a hotel from the company [and allowances]:E
Stand by for the war Alan.:yuk:

[Old Fella]

As long as aircraft, or anything else for that matter, have required maintenance operations to be performed there have been and will continue to be unintended consequences regardless of where or by whom the maintenance is performed. If, as has been suggested by another superlame, the leak was from an area disturbed during the recent IP/HP bearing cavity boroscope inspections then it may have been done by Qantas engineering staff. Depends where the aircraft was at the time the A380's were grounded. In any event, as good as Qantas engineering is/was, nobody is infallible and "murphy's law" is alive and well. As for the discussions as to whether or not the flight should have continued it would be well to remember that the Captain who was there and not in some loungechair determined that it was safe to continue to LHR, a decision which proved to be a correct one.

[Ken Borough]

he crew has just paid their salary in savings to QF for the next ten years.

Undubtedly, but also after consultation with some very knowledgeble engineers and others in Sydney. People seem to forget the support that's provided to the pilots to make what some regard as 'omnipotent decisions'. :ok:

[breakfastburrito]

Ken, who's name is it on the flight plan? The PIC. They, and they alone have responsibility for the safe disposition of flight, despite what advice may be forthcoming or otherwise from the company.

In the 3 IFSD's that I have seen, contact with the company was not possible for a variety of reasons. Don't kid yourself, the magic happens in the pointy end, not a cubical in QCC.

[Capt Fathom]

Yep!

The buck stops with the Pilot In Command.

Be it a C152 or a A380! There is no distinction.

[Ken Borough]

Magic does not happen in the pointy end otherwise the place would be occupied by magicians rather than pilots. Yes, some are very skillful, most are trained to within an inch of their lives over many years. However, each and every one is supported by a skillful, highly trained and dedicated army on the ground. It's about time some of you here realise this and stop being so delusional that an airline can survive on the skills of the drives alone! Just how fcuking arrogant can you get?

[newsensation]

After completely missing the point its time kenny crawls back under his rock.

[flying-spike]

Ah Kenny, Sounds like a a bit of left seat envy happening here. There are members of that "Army" in the air as well but... when the ship hits the sand it is the bloke/shiela up the front that is the last line of defence. Otherwise they would be teaching EFATO drills to ground handlers wouldn't they?

[mates rates]

It would be interesting to know what the routing of this flight was? I can't believe the aircraft proceeded over Afganistan and Iran with the grid sectors in this area on 3 engines and 1 at idle.

[DERG]

How did they maintain 38k feet?:confused:

I would like to know too...not exactly a well populated area. The Himalaya routes especially risky for diversion. The routes are some times shown on a site which I just cannot rmbr at the moment. Got it FlightAware..thats the site.

BUT

The last time I checked the A388 data, the time, speed and altitude plot was omitted for most A388 flights. Make you wonder just What the F:mad: is going on.

[What The]

Ken,
I am sorry to burst your bubble, however, I will listen to your advice along with all the other sources proffered and I will then decide the course of action. Your input is appreciated and by no means dismissed. Inevitably it is MY backside that is strapped to the seat and that makes me a slightly larger stakeholder in the process.
Thanks again for your input. It is not dismissed.

[UnderneathTheRadar]

...of the various accidents/incidents where the crew/pax generally walked away but any attempts to recreate the scenario in the simulator usually results in pre-prepared C&T crews crashing. From memory, but not limited to:

- BA007
- DHL over Baghdad
- ......

[Capt Fathom]

the aircraft proceeded over Afganistan and Iran with the grid sectors in this area on 3 engines and 1 at idle

Even the media didn't exaggerate it to that extent.....

The thrust was reduced to idle 2 hours out of London, about the middle of Europe I guess?

[teresa green]

Sierra, I was flying around that time with QF, and it was a fairly peaceful time, with just the normal problems, and the F/E's mainly had to pencil in hold items and a few trans quals on a flight. Of course the engineers were happy little campers at that time, and had the old girls humming rather nicely. We never did have to worry about our duty free too much, and while we had to pod a donk every so often, it was never much of a drama. Of course there was some problems, the worst being the SP after finishing a roll at SYD and had come to a halt to turn around, suffered a nose wheel collapse on the runway. Rust being the cause, which should have been picked up, and that caused the **** to hit the fan. EBB left her aileron on the landing lights at FCU, and the combi was not a good look after flying thru volcanic dust over Indonesia. (needed four new donks, leading edges stuffed, and no vision from flt deck windows) besides those little incidents, and the occasional overspeed, there were no major problems of epic proportions that I was aware of, QF historians can add to this, but basically the airline was travelling rather nicely. Until the shareholder arrived. And Dixon. :{

[StallBoy]

Is this the same flight that had a bent bottle opener and a wheel missing off one of the food trolleys:ugh:

[another superlame]

Stall boy it also had dead bugs on the windscreen. Live ones were on back order.

[teresa green]

Obviously you were both in nappies at the time, explains everything.

[sierra5913]

Sierra, I was flying around that time with QF, and it was a fairly peaceful time, with just the normal problems, and the F/E's mainly had to pencil in hold items and a few trans quals on a flight. Of course the engineers were happy little campers at that time, and had the old girls humming rather nicely. We never did have to worry about our duty free too much, and while we had to pod a donk every so often, it was never much of a drama. Of course there was some problems, the worst being the SP after finishing a roll at SYD and had come to a halt to turn around, suffered a nose wheel collapse on the runway. Rust being the cause, which should have been picked up, and that caused the **** to hit the fan. EBB left her aileron on the landing lights at FCU, and the combi was not a good look after flying thru volcanic dust over Indonesia. (needed four new donks, leading edges stuffed, and no vision from flt deck windows) besides those little incidents, and the occasional overspeed, there were no major problems of epic proportions that I was aware of, QF historians can add to this, but basically the airline was travelling rather nicely. Until the shareholder arrived. And Dixon.

Cheers Teresa.

[joe_bloggs]

Ben Sandilands writes-

Another London bound Qantas A380 engine problem – Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2011/03/01/another-london-bound-qantas-a380-engine-problem/)

Another Qantas A380 has finished its flight from Singapore to London on only three engines after a recurrence of a problem with an oil feed line on one of the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines fitted to the giant airliner.

This time (on February 24) the A380 flew for the last five hours with one engine reduced to idle (effectively delivering no power, but able to be called upon if needed). In the earlier, similar incident on February 15 a different Qantas A380 flying the same route encountered reduced oil pressure in an engine while near New Delhi, however the crew didn’t need to reduce the power to idle until they were two hours from London.

Both incidents are being investigated by the ATSB, and in the case of the latest engine-to-idle incident, it happened near Ashgabat in Turkmenistan.

It should be emphasised neither of these incidents posed a significant threat to the safety of the flights, but they definitely pose a risk to Rolls-Royce, which has been caught in the spotlights of airline disfavor after the disintegration of the same engine type on a Qantas A380 just after it had departed from Singapore for Sydney on November 4.

That incident seriously damaged the very first A380 Qantas put into service, ripping 27 holes in its wing, disabling one of two hydraulic control systems, and compromising the handling of the jet, which is still on the ground in Singapore pending extremely expensive but fully insured repairs.

Plane Talking can report that in each of the Qantas incidents affecting London flights an external high pressure/intermediate pressure oil line was found to have worked loose enough to compromise the oil feed. At least four similar incidents are understood to have occurred on the same engine type fitted to the Singapore Airlines fleet of A380s.

Each of the Qantas A380 flights to London to experience this problem were able to retain a normal cruising altitude, in the first case remaining at 38,000 feet until cleared to descend to Heathrow airport, and maintaining 36,000 feet after the second incident over Turkmenistan. An A380 can cruise at 41,000 feet, however operational cruise levels over Europe are often reduced because of higher level headwinds or air traffic control directions.

Earlier airliner designs, like the Boeing 747 or big twins engined jets like the A330s or Boeing 777s cannot maintain similar altitudes to the A380 in these circumstances, and the twin engined designs take larger reductions in the form of single engine cruise speeds and altitudes than four engined designs. In a four engined jet the loss of one engine doesn’t necessarily require a landing at the nearest suitable airport, as is the case in twin engined jets, but the usual operating procedure is for the crew of the quad jet to plan for the loss of a second engine, which would require an immediate diversion on the remaining two engines.

The two London incidents should actually make travellers flying A380s between Los Angeles and Sydney or Melbourne more confident, because the five hours on three engines which the Qantas jet flew would have enabled the same jet to back track or divert to a range of airports in California, Hawaii, Tahiti, and Nadi (Fiji) or Noumea or Auckland within that same time at any stage of the 14-15 hours flight time for against headwinds to Australia, or just over 13 hours when flying to the US.

[kappa]

The two London incidents should actually make travellers flying A380s between Los Angeles and [Oz] more confident, because the five hours on three engines which the Qantas jet flew would have enabled the same jet to back track or divert to a range of airports ….within that same time at any stage of the…flight …to Australia, or …when flying to the US. Contrary to what Ben Sandilands thinks, this SLF certainly will not be made “more confident” by this second instance of a Trent 972 engine “problem”, “failure”, “shutdown” or whatever. Not after the initial 972 uncontained failure, the cause of which has yet to be determined. I note that in both recent incidents, an oil line failure is noted. I recall in the seemingly endless PPRuNe discussion about the ex-SIN explosion, the oil system is cited.

I had looked forward to my maiden A380 experience on the USA-OZ route; but now I’ll stick to the 747. I am also ruling out using the BA birds since the RR 900 versions differ only in the programming, not the oil system and lines. In fact, until more is known about the RR 900 problem, I’ll only consider an A380 powered by the GP7000.

[Capt Kremin]

Not excusing the Company here but many people forget that the Qantas of the late 70-80s was nothing like the size of Qantas today...... even if the ultimate aim of the current Board is to make it so.

Qantas in the early 80's flew a smallish number of one type of aircraft on the longest average sector length's in the world.

The ASK's and sector numbers from the two incarnations of the same Company simply do not compare. What matter then is the rate of incidents; something that would be very interesting to compare.

[airtags]

the comparison would be interesting - even weighting for technology it would appear that the latter is racking up more incidents of significance (just a guess but I'd love to see the data).

Interesting though that the second LHR 'incident' echoes the first and again raises the issue of review, governance and oversight when critical functions are jobbed out. Single contract responsibility may be good for the P&L (and the statement of claim for that matter) but it is not always good for the product or your employees.

Slight diversion:
Also interesting that "informed anecdotal" suggests that both the a/c have a comparitively higher use of theraputic oxygen (ex bottles) in the cabin - as did OQA. Not enough data to make a determination but an interesting trend.

AT

[Capt Fathom]

Not after the initial 972 uncontained failure, the cause of which has yet to be determined

kappa, I get the impression they have a very good idea what happened. Hence their return to service.
Have you read the ATSB Preliminary Report (http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2010/aair/ao-2010-089.aspx) in regards the uncontained event!

[kappa]

Yes, I had read it; and now rereading it reinforces my interpretation that they know what happened, but not why it happened. And that is the opinion of most posters to the thread on the Tech Log forum.
There are a total of 32 of these engines on the 8 QF A380s – and two have had identical oil feed/loss problems. Not at all confidence building after the total loss of a third engine.

[DERG]

Kappa If you read thru the thread over there very carefully you will see that we know exactly why it is happening now and why the engine exploded You really need to follow all the links and it will take a good three to four hours.

I will add that this is no fault whatsoever of the Qantas staff.

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

I'd have to ask. If they knew the cause after the first incident, why did it happen again?

Posters here have explained the capability of the aircraft to fly on 3 engines. How would she go on 2?

[kappa]

DERG, I’ve grow dizzy reading since day one the posts (on both the original Rumours forum thread and the subsequent thread on Tech Log) by you, Turbine D, bearfoil, et. al., and the discussion of offset boring, critical oil temp, etc. I will admit that in recent days I have only skimmed the posts and if there is now consensus on the exact cause of the uncontained failure, I have missed it. And your views are certainly not without question on that thread.

I am willing to await an official report. But on this thread I have only expressed my reasoned views about flying on aircraft with the RR Trent 972 engines.

[LAME2]

Posters here have explained the capability of the aircraft to fly on 3 engines. How would she go on 2?

Or how would QANTAS cope with the publicity of an AOG in some place we haven't yet thought of as an A380 alternative field? I doubt an A380 can fly such distances with 3 or 4 engines at idle.

Given the 7.2% rise in tourist numbers and QANTAS seeing 2% fall in international passengers, passengers must be thinking with their feet against QANTAS. A diversionary landing might be seen as further evidence against flying with QANTAS.

Qantas in foreign territory as overseas passenger numbers slide | Adelaide Now (http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/ipad/qantas-in-foreign-territory-as-overseas-passenger-numbers-slide/story-fn6bqphm-1226014481414)

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

How would that look at 530 tonnes?

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

I'm just at a loss to understand why anyone would believe Qantas every time they have an incident and declare "This is not a safety issue".

The 32 was a major incident due to the uncontained engine failure.

Since then, from all accounts, another failure occured for the same reason.

I'm not aware of any modification that has since been carried out on those engines to strenghen the containment of engine components that let go.

I think it's time for some people to wake up. The blame game has to end and the heads need to come out of the sand. The engine issues are the tip of the iceberg

[Black Condor]

Some of these post remind me of the Irish joke with one engine after another giving up and the flight time ever increasing and one pax saying if this keeps going on we'll be up here all night.

It does not matter how good the aircraft is and how it's performance is affected with one engine out.

If the same problem is continuing and it has happened again to one engine it can happen to the others and if that's not a safety issue I don't know
what is.

[DERG]

kappa not everyones "cup of tea". Qantas flight crews are very competent people.

[kappa]

I have no idea what you mean by "cup of tea", and I don't question the competency of QF pilots - only of the RR Trent 972 engine. I won't be on an aircraft with them on the wings.

BTW, I only drink coffee in a cup and drink tea in a glass:)

[DERG]

Hahaha

Excuse me that was UK vernacular "cup of tea". Means the thread is of no interest to you.."kinda boring". "Not my cup of tea" often means I don't like it. Often used in conversation about other people too "he is not my cup of tea"

Yeah the lemon tea..that's how they drink it on mainland Europe..in glasses.

Regards and Ceeyas

[unionist1974]

Well if only Botany Council would have allowed QF to build a Test Cell next to to RB211 cell at Mascot . We could have tested and sorted these Engines , like we did with the RB211 and assured themin service . But , no approval from the Council gave QF the convenient way to close the facilities .. Sad to say on the Council was a LAME , but he voted to close us down

[Walter E Kurtz]

Delhi - TIGER - Arabian Expressway no terrain issues if that's the route. And good command decision likely. The A380 must be an exciting beast, those lads clearly earn the $$$$. WTF did I say...