SQ 777 emergency at Copenhagen ?

[aviator_38]

Hi all,

Just heard that an SQ 777-200 did an emergency landing in Copenhagen this morning.

Anyone has any details?

Cheers

[SAAB SAFIR]

I saw it too dumping fuel over Skanor and Falsterbo then making a 360 on long final to runway 22, then I lost sight of them.

Cheers!

Happiness is a black ECAM

[niss]

I parked just beside the 777, and yes, they had an engine failure with a app. 20x100 cm hole in the turbine section on the left side of engine # 1. According to the enginener a turbineblade was the reason and not a birdstrike as they said in the radio.
The passengers was leaving the aircraft when I parked beside.

[wryly smiling]

What engine type was it?was it another GE90 failure?

[nilnotedtks]

SQ operate an all RR Trent fleet of B777s

[aviator_38]

Hi folks...an update from the Singapore Straits Times:

Cheers

==============================

U-turn for SIA plane in Denmark

A SINGAPORE Airlines plane carrying 270 passengers turned back in mid-air on Thursday after leaving Copenhagen, when its captain was warned that debris was falling from the plane's left engine.

The alert was radioed over by air traffic controllers to SQ 351 shortly after the plane took off from the airport for Singapore.


The flight captain did not shut down the Trent 892 engine, which was still working normally, but made a U-turn back for the Danish capital after dumping fuel.

SIA said in a statement yesterday that early checks found parts of the Boeing 777-ER's fuselage damaged.

The airline said there was 'some damage' on the plane's fairing. Fairings are panels placed under the aircraft's wings to make it more aerodynamic.

The aircraft also had 'minor impact damage' on a refuel panel and a flap on its wing. SIA did not elaborate on the extent.

It added that the aircraft was two weeks old and making its 10th flight.

Most of the passengers, it said, had been booked on other flights bound for Singapore.

[Kopfschmertzen]

Picture of the engine (http://www.airliners.net/open.file/263125/L/)

[lomapaseo]

Thanks for the picture, it was worth a thousand words:)

It really wasn't a big deal after all in spite of the hole and the flotsam on the runway. Looks like it was either the very last fan drive stage that was involved or just nacelle stuff.

[BlueEagle]

Look a bit like noise insulation stuff?

[Tosh26]

aviator_38

As “The flight captain did not shut down the Trent 892 engine, which was still working normally, but made a U-turn back for the Danish capital after dumping fuel”, does the Straits Times give any subsequent indication that the above reported event will enter the Singapore Airlines In Flight Shut Down (IFSD) statistics, or will it remain comfortably outside them, as a number of such past SIA B777 incidents have?

[bodstrup]

Why should it appear in a shut down statistic - if they did NOT shut down.

Obviously, it should appear elsewhere, but the engine apparently kept running as designed.

Regards
Michael

[Kalium Chloride]

Bit of the nacelle fell off I understand. Engine wasn't shut down. SQ needn't worry about ETOPS yet.

[Tosh26]

bodstrup

Please read between the lines, or if not, use a little imagination. The event could well have taken place over the North Pacific. Would the crew then have elected to keep the engine running, perhaps to self-destruct, whilst diverting to an ETOPS suitable airport? Equally, during the combined time taken by the CPH failure event, subsequent drills, the decision making time, plus the fuel jettison time prior to approach and landing, which I’m guessing must have occupied around about an hour, would it not perhaps have been prudent, for engine preservation reasons, to have closed the engine in question down? There was obviously something wrong with it otherwise the crew would have continued to SIN.

The point being that shut down statistics are used for ETOPS qualification consideration by relevant regulatory authorities and if true failures are masked by unwillingness to shut down, then the statistics become distorted and ETOPS clearance could well be awarded to undeserving cases – but then any professional pilot would be aware of this.

[navtopilot]

The crew had no indication that they had an engine problem, they were only advised that some debris had been seen leaving the aircraft,,,,so which engine do you shut down

[G.Khan]

Tosh26, hope your not suggesting that the SIA pilots acted incorrectly?

In this case they did everything that was required of them and since they only had ground observervations to go by, but not backed up by any other warning systems they did what most professional pilots would have done, kept it running, reduced to a satisfasctory landing weight and landed. I doubt if ETOPS even entered their heads.

Do you close engines down at the slightest whim for 'engine preservation considerations' I doubt it, don't you require some kind of positive warning first? Had 'it' happened in mid Pacific how do you suppose the crew would have known about it? From the captain of a passing ship? If prelonged operation would have adverse effects other warning systems are likely to have been triggered.

I suspect that, for whatever reason, you don't particularly like SIA and are now endevouring to make a mountain out of a mole hill.

Well done the crew, you got it right.

[Capt PPRuNe]

Tosh, may I politely remind you about the problems caused on this forum when people with 'presumed' experience make comments or (shudder at the thought) even make suggestions on technical matters when they make it obvious to those of us with 'actual' experience that their understanding of the subject matter is extremely limited. In this case I am trying to pre-empt the inevitable flaming that you are about to receive because of your observations and suggestions.

Although I make no claim to being any sort of expert and only have a few years of limited ETOPS experience, your comment: "The event could well have taken place over the North Pacific. Would the crew then have elected to keep the engine running, perhaps to self-destruct, whilst diverting to an ETOPS suitable airport? shows a considerable lack of understanding. Do you know what the engine indications were on the F/D? If, as the picture shows it was only a piece of cowling or soundproofing material that broke off and on the F/D all the egine indications were normal or within operating limits then you should know that it is not advisable to shut down the engine. If the event had occured within the ETOPS portion of the flight and again the engine indications were normal or within limits it would be prudent for the crew to weigh up all the facts before they blindly shut down an engine that is perfectly able to generate good thrust and divert to some obscure and remote location. Why would an engine that has suffered some damage to exterior cowlings but is otherwise operating normally 'self-destruct'?

In your second paragraph you go on to contradict yourself. If an engine is not shut-down then it is not shut down. Simple fact. If the engine suffers a catastrophic failure then there is no option but surely you will know that if an engine can operate on reduced thrust and remain within operting limits then that is not a shut down. It may be a technical problem which has to be addressed and reported to the relevant authorities for statistical purposes but any pilot who does this for a living knows that you don't just shut down an engine if the indications on the F/D show that it is operating normally and within limits. To suggest that there is an unwillingness to shut down an engine to preserve ETOPS stats is rather naive.

As an example, I once took off from a Greek island in a B757 and had a bird strike on the take off roll. We heard the thumps as we went through a flock of seagulls on rotation and after we got the gear up and the a/c cleaned up we looked at all the instruments and nothing was out of the norm. We continued the flight back to base noting that there were no unusual vibrations or indications. Back at base we told the engineers about the multiple bird strike and they went off to investigate and after a few minutes called us down to have a look at the damage. At least one bird had gone through the No. 1 engine and had bent three of the fan blades. The blades were very obviously bent and if they had been observed as such on a walk around then the a/c would have been grounded but in this instance, because the damage occured during take-off and there were no obvious F/D indications we continued even though the engine had to have three fan blades replaced before its next flight. There was no need to shut down the engine in flight because there was no indication on the F/D that anything was wrong.

I include the above snippet to highlight the fact that in the Singapore B777 incident at CPH, although I do not know all the facts, the crew probably had no indication of an engine failure and therefore had no need to shut down the engine if all that happened they lost a piece of cowling or soundproofing material. But then any professional pilot would be aware of this! :rolleyes:

[Albatros6]

Well done guys from Singapur, i would'nt go for the big journey if somebody tells me my plane looses parts; just because nobody can tell me when the losses get stopped. And in this case, with all parameters in green range, maybe a idling engine was the optimum, preserving it at least for a last try should the "good" engine fail, and, as mentioned in the title, a idling engine is still delivering electricity, hydraulic pressure and bleed!

[lomapaseo]

Tosh26

In spite of your imaginative "what ifs" the historical data base of large high bypass engine cockups has shown that catastrophic failures that have threatened other aircraft systems have fully run their course in about 5 seconds.of abnormal engine indications.

On the other hand there has been extensive good experience with continuing to run engines without symptoms that have been initially throttled back for cause.

The safety of the aircraft is better served by technical understanding and experience than by imagination.

ETOPS considerations belong in another thread

[bodstrup]

Tosh, over the Paciffic they would probably not have known.

Anyway, I am NOT questioning or commenting the decision of the crew, That I leave to the technical pro's who will investigate the event.

I was only questioning the logic that this should be reported as an engine shut down event - when it was not.

Regarding reading between the lines - I think that I get your messages - and feel that it is an accusation with possible legal consequenses - I have no knowledge or desire to enter that. The message in red at the bottom of this thread also suggest that I should not.

Greetings
Michael

[aviator_38]

Hi folks,

A friend here tells me that he heard that it is part of the engine
thrust reverser cowling that disintegrated. As the both of us are not familiar with jet engines,we are not able to make any sensible comments on this.

Would it have caused problems?

Cheers

[BigEngine]

from the photo it appears that rear part of the cold air duct ( D-duct ) which closes on to the outside of engine casings has started to break away. On the IFSD discussion - SQ pilot would have followed his drill just like all professional pilots.

[penguin]

Tosh: I thought you are an SQ pilot!

[PPRuNe Towers]

Hmmm, this thread has got me thinking. A cut and dried, very professionally handled non-event. By all rights everyone's nodded their heads, made a mental note of a job well done and expects the thread to drift down the forum listing and into obscurity.

This steady course into oblivion was only momentarily deflected by the arrival of Tosh onto the scene. Yep, he was talking ETOPS and this incident was nothing to do with it. No, there were most likely a total lack of flightdeck indications and no evidence other than visually from outside the departing aircraft.

So why am I sticking my nose into a dying thread regarding a non story??

Well, there are to me at least some indications of us us pros missing some underlying problems in the industry. Whether it's discussed here or on a specific Etops thread is immaterial to me but as I've got a few of you reading here's some food for thought from a sad git working on one of the groups that think these things through.

ETOPS IFSD stats are utterly barren - there is no distinction between shutdown causes made and therefore official analysis of trends/history.

After the required maximum number of hours stat gathering ceases.

LOTC (loss of thrust control) events are not recorded - i.e. running as a nice APU to give hydraulics, sparks and air.

The airframers and engine manufacturers fought, lobbied and insisted on these statutory elements to be recorded and no more. They might just keep a closer tally on events privately:D :D

One airframer, at the request of a pilots association, has run the numbers on an ETOPS LOTC for a current widebody twin. They calculate an extra 3 to 4 tonnes of fuel burn on a 'average'180 minute ETOPS route with that confidence inspiring 'APU' running at idle for you guys.

Makes one hell of a hole in your beautifully produced and oh so accurate ETOPS flight plan doesn't it? So no legal requirement to fuel for it or record it happening on a worldwide basis - the aforementioned companies don't want it to be either.

Ain't life grand??

[lomapaseo]

> The airframers and engine manufacturers fought, lobbied and insisted on these statutory elements to be recorded and no more. They might just keep a closer tally on events privately

One airframer, at the request of a pilots association, has run the numbers on an ETOPS LOTC for a current widebody twin. They calculate an extra 3 to 4 tonnes of fuel burn on a 'average'180 minute ETOPS route with that confidence inspiring 'APU' running at idle for you guys.

Makes one hell of a hole in your beautifully produced and oh so accurate ETOPS flight plan doesn't it? So no legal requirement to fuel for it or record it happening on a worldwide basis - the aforementioned companies don't want it to be either. <

A couple of points

1) SQ probably doesn't deserve this kind of thread diversion, why not simply start a new thread under the appropriate Safety section.

2) You bet that the manufacturers have a complete data base.

3> How does thus really differ from tri and quad operations with an engine operating at idle and increased fuel burn?

[ttesna]

Aviator_38 is correct,the thrust reverser system, believe it or not, has caused this problem.(okay i know it was on t/off)
Sq has told R/R to REPLACE the engine since it has only 10 or so sectors on it. A sensible move since you would not know what other damage was done.
Its painfully obvious that the crew did the job that was required of them.
If they did not shut the engine down,then it was obviously not required, Im sure they would have followed the companies
c o p's.and the indications from the engine indications and information at hand to direct them.
Also for SOME of you experts,why shut an engine down on a 2 engine aeroplane when its NOT required?(better 2 running than 1)
The decission of the Capt to return and land, obviously was one of safety,verses commercial pressure to continue on.

Well done guys.

For you TOSH 26 if in fact the engine was not shut down it will NOT enter the (IFSD) in the sq statistics,but dont worry,the way this engine is preforming there will be another event.

[Traffic]

navtopilot asked THE question.

Someone tells you some bits have fallen off your very big and very heavy a/c just as you have cleared the fence. Looks like #1 engine from here they say.

No way you can confirm from where you sit or from the cabin.

What would you do? Play Russian Roulette??

I seem to recall some years back a BMI 737 shut down the wrong engine and when they wanted some more horses to get over the fence nothing happened for a few seconds and then there was sudden encounter with terra firma some distance short of the numbers.

[J-Class]

Traffic, thanks for pointing out - again - to lazy readers that since ATC gave no indication of which engine was trailing debris, and there were (allegedly) no negative cockpit indications, the Singapore pilots did absolutely the right thing by not shutting the engine down.

SQ is also, in my view, doing the right thing in requesting that RR replace the engine completely (although this is bad news for RR). The engine purchase would be covered by UK Sale of Goods legislation and SQ are perfectly entitled to ask for a new one - although given the nature of such things I smell a nice court fee for a top London commercial silk coming up!

[BlueEagle]

J-Class, (are you really a beautiful old sailing yacht?) - I doubt the court case, SQ are very good customers of RR, (77 RR engined B777), and I expect there would be a warranty clause that applied as the engine was so new.

[Flight Safety]

I've read that the aircraft was brand new, only 10 trips carrying passengers before the incident. I'm sure RR will replace the engine under warranty.

[Low-Pass]

Will be interesting to see the report on the failure. I must say that the thought of in-flight failures of thrust reversers make me shiver. Remember Lauda Air 767 over Thailand (I think)?