QF11 Eng Failure - Sensationalism journalism with Qantas or truly a trend?

[FRQ Charlie Bravo]

For more times that I care to remember over the past year and a half I woke up this morning to read about QF pax describing "a loud bang". Such was the case again this morning when I read about yesterdays "Qantas Jet Engine Failure" on QF11 SYD-LAX in a B747.

The headlines certainly always garner attention and I believe that there is most definately an aspect of sensationalism but looking also at all the QF-related threads here as well as coverage in Australian Aviation recently I wanted to know what the general feeling is amongst the profession.

To all professional pilots my two questions are these:

1. If there is an abnormal trend is it worrying to you?
2. If so are you (rightly or wrongly) tempted to place blame for this on transferring maintenance overseas?

Thanks,

FRQ CB

[1a sound asleep]

Why is it always a RR engine that goes bang??? You dont see the GE engines having the same drama.

I hate to admit it, but I am wondering myself. Offending plane was OJS built in 1991. Would like to know the history of the engine - anybody?

[ampclamp]

The rollers are having a bad run for sure.
Qf will deny any trend or any issue with outsourced maintenance ( or lower LAME v AME ratios) but they will and should be looking very closely at why.
It looks bad regardless of whether the problems are related to any of the above.

[PPRuNeUser0198]

1a Sound Asleep - it is all about the numbers. There are a greater number of "roller" units than there are GE, so, statically, the rollers should ****e themselves more often than the GE's if both engines have typical reliability numbers - which they would.

A question for the mass - why is it that anytime something goes wrong - it is "linked" to maintenance overseas?

Most of today's foreign carriers use MRO etc and "outsource" some maintenance functions - yet they don't seem to have the sam regular "episodes" Qantas has...

Or maybe it is because you just don't hear about it...Delta had two in-flight engine failures a few months ago (one had Leonardo Di Caprio on-board) yet, it hardly made the news here...perception management...

And for some other reason - people think that Australian Maintenance Engineers are the cream of the planet and are invincible. They're still humans and still susceptible to mistakes - which they make.

[blackhand]

A question for the mass - why is it that anytime something goes wrong - it is "linked" to maintenance overseas?

Is that a question to be asked in a Catholic Church, or do you mean a question for the masses.

And answer that comes to mind is " because that is where the maintenance is being carried out"
Or are you being purposely obtuse

[Old Fella]

GE Engine Failures

1a sound asleep asks why it is that it is always RR engines that go bang and says we dont see GE engines having the same drama's. Well 1a sound asleep you don't read enough. In May last year the the American ATSB issued four Urgent Safety Recommendations to the FAA as a result of four individual FAILURES of GE engines in less than 12 months. All relate to LP Turbine Stage 3 disc failures.

[Ultralights]

Would like to know the history of the engine - anybody?

well, since QF no longer maintain (heavy maintenance) their engines, they no longer have the trend data or historical data for their engines anymore.

[Tankengine]

Because when QF engine shop did heavy rebuilds we did not seem to have the current problem.

OR


Total coincidence.

[empire4]

I can't remember a time when QF had so many Inflight Shutdowns. Sure it is a relatively common thing, and quite safe. However I think the reason Qantas gets more neg publicity is due to the fact that the one and only sales pitch they have is the safety record.

Lets face it, many other airlines have better aircraft, cabins, staff etc. Slowly, the maintenance has been erroded at QF. T & C for engineers are getting worse and along with the "Boys club" that is engineering does not help to attract or keep good quality staff. blah blah blah.

I remember thinking how proud I was to wear the Uniform, to go the extra distance. Not for anything than the pride of the Aussie brand. Now that seems to have gone with management in place for short term gain.

The dead wood management that were operating Eng. have gone, but unfortunately the damage they have done may take years to right itself if at all. It will take a massive staff commitment and $$$ which in this age of greed and corruption I can't see happening.

As far as MRO's are concerned, I have worked in asia and can tell you the standards are far far lower than what they are at QF. Sure, lames from QF go up there but they only represent 10% of the workforce. MRO's are a business, and will take all shortcuts necessary to ensure they make money. period.

[BogeyBoy]

Huh?? Wrong. Of course they (QE) still have the data, and the ability (within TS) to review it.

The issue with the RR -524 fleet is well known - related to the HPC. Whether this QF11 event is linked only time will tell, however there have been numerous HPC failures in recent times and they typically result in a bang and then sparks out the back etc that the media outlets love. The fault is not linked to the maintainer - but instead to design.

I'm not talking down the significance of the fault though - a HPC failed engine is cactus and I would imagine that a self-run engine line would have assisted with the speed that any fixes were/are rolled through the fleet.

[MTOW]

The way (Sydney radio) 2UE's been beating up the 747 engine failure is amazing and not a little disturbing.

One could be forgiven for thinking the station management had some hidden, anti-Qantas agenda.

[LandIT]

Wondering why engine parameters can't indicate the trend of a fault. If an airline dispatches a plane-load of passengers only to not even get into the air they probably deserve all the bad publicity they get. Expectation is that a plane should be more reliable than QF's seem to be at this time. The Pacific is a pretty lonely place to have an engine let go. Looks more like QF's policy is just fix it when it goes wrong.

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

Hey all. Just a little story. I think it fits with this thread.

I was invited as a union leader by qantas (was still an employee then) to spend a week in the bush with managers and those who wanted to be. There was this exercise where you answered a questionnaire to determine how you viewed things. You were either in the artsy creative category or the logical clear thinking one. All the people on the course then lined up respective of their scores. I was down one far end out of the 30 people and the bloke at the other end was the former head of qantas engine maintenance. The manager was not just past the last engineer on the "artsy" end of the line, his score was so out there it was amazing he could even work out how to drive a car.

He shut down the Melbourne engine shop and shifted the work to a start up shop in tullamarine and called it a "center of excellence". They have since downgraded the engine tolerances and set records for time taken to overhaul a cfm (think it took them 12 months to do a two week job). The holes will line up one day.

[Syd eng]

MH or RH?

The old raft trips huh.

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

..................M.

[missy]

interesting that it was a mayday call...

[teresa green]

Certainly QF seems to have more engineering problems than it used to, but then aircraft in the early nineties were sent out with probably 12 hold items or so and a couple of trans quals. Now they go out with up to 70 or so hold items and I don't even want to ask how many trans quals. Even so in the seventies, eighties and nineties, from the time when TAA, Ansett, and QF were all in the air, engine failures (in some form) were fairly run of the mill, and it was not uncommon to pod a engine somewhere in a month of flying, but of course nothing to serious. What happened yesterday would not even make it into the press. More of a bugger, get another aircraft "dressed" over to the airport, is the crew going to be out of hours, need a fresh crew, stuff it, attitude, not a OMG we could have all died stuff that is printed now. As long as I flew from the late 50's to the 90's there was always a problem somewhere. But it seldom made it into the papers. Of course the fleet are now aging, and this brings its own problems, but I think QF have been unlucky (or lucky whatever way you look at it) but looking back it does not seem unusual. (The A380 and the oxy cylinder aside) The press certainly just love this sort of stuff, which happens every day, somewhere in the world, but as 99.9% of PAX make it to their destination unscathed, we can assume that things are not to bad.

[Going Boeing]

Offending plane was OJS built in 1991

Sorry 1A Sound Asleep, but OJS is one of the three "newer" RR powered B744s - it was built in 1999. As engines are removed from aircraft for maintenance, they are normally refitted to the next aircraft that requires an overhauled engine so it's possible that the engines currently fitted to OJS were delivered with the original batch of (18) B744's. Normal maintenance procedures would mean that there would be no difference in performance/reliability but since the engine overhaul went O/S there is certainly a distinct difference in reliability.

[Ero-plano]

The Media will only be happy when they have brought QF to their knees, Ansett style. Hammer the company until it reaches breaking point then try and find who was to blame for its closure. The Media are lying maggots we all know that and I think most of the general public are comming to understand this point. Is there any "genuine", "truthful" reporters left or have we gone down the American path?

[Skystar320]

This is why!

The Lazy Journalists Plane Story Generator