Qantas latest engine out
"The aircraft has four engines and can safely fly on three engines," a Qantas spokesman said.
"There was no issue with safety and media reports that there was an explosion are incorrect."
The Springboks were meant to have landed in Sydney, aboard flight QF64, shortly after 2pm (AEST) today but they are now staying at a hotel in Johannesburg as Qantas decides whether to put them on a new aircraft
Read more: Qantas engine failure sends rugby's Springboks back home | News.com.au
Got to ask how much these failures are costing with hotels, disruptions to scheduling.? Should sue somebody over this? Why have these RB211s become so nasty in the last few years? Lets blame Dixon and cronies
"There was no issue with safety and media reports that there was an explosion are incorrect."
The Springboks were meant to have landed in Sydney, aboard flight QF64, shortly after 2pm (AEST) today but they are now staying at a hotel in Johannesburg as Qantas decides whether to put them on a new aircraft
Read more: Qantas engine failure sends rugby's Springboks back home | News.com.au
Got to ask how much these failures are costing with hotels, disruptions to scheduling.? Should sue somebody over this? Why have these RB211s become so nasty in the last few years? Lets blame Dixon and cronies
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The formula here is simple guys.
Blades from the High Pressure Compressor stage 6 keep failing at the root. Once they let go, massive damage is caused as the part flies through the rest of the compressor and then the turbine hence all the sparks and heat. Qantas keep refering to this as an overheated engine that is shut down as a "precautionary measure". Of course they also say it is not a safety issue.
This aircraft, OJL had a similar failure on Eng 4 in BKK a month ago. The good news is that there is a known fix to this problem by way of modification. The bad news (for Qantas) is that they can't carry out the modification becasue they closed their Roller engine shop last year. The Asian shops they use now are all booked out so the mod is not being done until an engine comes off for routine service.
I'd be expecting a few more of these failures. I think this is about the 10th one.
Blades from the High Pressure Compressor stage 6 keep failing at the root. Once they let go, massive damage is caused as the part flies through the rest of the compressor and then the turbine hence all the sparks and heat. Qantas keep refering to this as an overheated engine that is shut down as a "precautionary measure". Of course they also say it is not a safety issue.
This aircraft, OJL had a similar failure on Eng 4 in BKK a month ago. The good news is that there is a known fix to this problem by way of modification. The bad news (for Qantas) is that they can't carry out the modification becasue they closed their Roller engine shop last year. The Asian shops they use now are all booked out so the mod is not being done until an engine comes off for routine service.
I'd be expecting a few more of these failures. I think this is about the 10th one.
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This is a known issue with this engines as SP states.
Why are the media not onto the fact that the B747 is flying with engines not modified to a safe standard, apparently we are averaging an engine failure a week. Is this true?
This is disgraceful and management should be held accountable.
Why are the media not onto the fact that the B747 is flying with engines not modified to a safe standard, apparently we are averaging an engine failure a week. Is this true?
This is disgraceful and management should be held accountable.
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Well don't expect certain aviation journos to be onto it any time soon.
Such a negative report on QF's management allowing systemic problems to affect the engine reliability of the RR 747-400 fleet might cost 3 business class tickets and 6 months' worth of nice lunches.
Such a negative report on QF's management allowing systemic problems to affect the engine reliability of the RR 747-400 fleet might cost 3 business class tickets and 6 months' worth of nice lunches.
Maybe (just maybe) the reason why some real leadership all those years ago set up an engine overhaul shop was because when you're sending these machines to as far away as they can go in a single hop, you don't want to be stranded out there with one of your engines in bits. Having control over the process, not just accepting someone elses word for it.
But worlds best practice is to not have one of those so I suppose Qantas was doing it wrong for all those years until recently.
But worlds best practice is to not have one of those so I suppose Qantas was doing it wrong for all those years until recently.
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So a known safety problem with a known fix.
I cant believe this is not picked up the newpapers and the board are allowing it to slide.
So what happens when two engines let go on the same flight?
Will Olivia's reply be "it's a four engine plane and can fly on two engines"
So what happens when three engines let go on the same flight?
Will Olivia's reply be "it's a four engine plane and can... fly on one engine"
I cant believe this is not picked up the newpapers and the board are allowing it to slide.
So what happens when two engines let go on the same flight?
Will Olivia's reply be "it's a four engine plane and can fly on two engines"
So what happens when three engines let go on the same flight?
Will Olivia's reply be "it's a four engine plane and can... fly on one engine"
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On 5 November 2010, a Boeing Company 747-438 aircraft, registered VH-OJD departed Changi Airport, Singapore on a scheduled flight to Sydney, New South Wales. When the aircraft was climbing through 2,000 ft, a loud bang was heard accompanied with aircraft yaw and vibration. The crew shut down the number one engine, declared a PAN and received approval from air traffic control for a return to Singapore. The crew then jettisoned fuel for about forty minutes. Emergency services were in attendance when the aircraft landed safely a short time later.
A subsequent examination confirmed that the engine had sustained serious damage as the result of a compressor blade release from the stage 1 high pressure compressor (HPC 1). The engine was replaced and the aircraft returned to service.
The aircraft operator is continuing to bring their RB211-524G engines to the latest modification status at engine shop visits. However, should the rate of engine failures increase significantly a review of current modification policy will be undertaken.
Investigation: AO-2010-090 - Total power loss - Boeing 747, VH-OJD, near Changi Airport, Singapore, 5 November 2010
A subsequent examination confirmed that the engine had sustained serious damage as the result of a compressor blade release from the stage 1 high pressure compressor (HPC 1). The engine was replaced and the aircraft returned to service.
The aircraft operator is continuing to bring their RB211-524G engines to the latest modification status at engine shop visits. However, should the rate of engine failures increase significantly a review of current modification policy will be undertaken.
Investigation: AO-2010-090 - Total power loss - Boeing 747, VH-OJD, near Changi Airport, Singapore, 5 November 2010
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Have we a spare engine to send over there ? The rate we are losing them it makes you wonder, we (the company) seem to be on a downward spiral going from one calamity to another, at least it wasn't a safety issue not like the left handed screwdrivers!
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A mate of mine who is on the crew of this aircraft-sent me a text this morning saying that there are 2xPlatinum FF's who will NOT be getting back on board.
They handed in their card to the CSM -as they were getting off and said they were going home to Oz via SIN on SQ.
They were "lucky" enough to be on the QF32 Nancy ex SIN, then they were on the 744 with smoke detected on the flight deck (turn back) now this one ex JNB.
You know what they say about luck running in 3's
Roll on redundancy... I'm counting down the days.
This outfit is becoming (oooppss HAS BECOME) the laughing stock of world aviation.
Virgin Australia........The (new) Spirit of Australia.
They handed in their card to the CSM -as they were getting off and said they were going home to Oz via SIN on SQ.
They were "lucky" enough to be on the QF32 Nancy ex SIN, then they were on the 744 with smoke detected on the flight deck (turn back) now this one ex JNB.
You know what they say about luck running in 3's
Roll on redundancy... I'm counting down the days.
This outfit is becoming (oooppss HAS BECOME) the laughing stock of world aviation.
Virgin Australia........The (new) Spirit of Australia.
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Interesting article about this from Ben Sandilands, wonder if CASA is going to pounce again?
Should Qantas ground its Rolls-Royce engined 744s? | Plane Talking
Should Qantas ground its Rolls-Royce engined 744s?
Should Qantas ground its Rolls-Royce engined 744s? | Plane Talking
Should Qantas ground its Rolls-Royce engined 744s?
Another Rolls-Royce RB211 engine has failed on a Qantas 747-400 putting the airline in a difficult position if it decides to continue operating those jets across long oceanic routes to South Africa and the US before they can be modified.
The latest incident involved last night’s Johannesburg-Sydney flight carrying the Springbok Rugby team to the Tri Nation series in which they will play Australia in the opening match in a week’s time.
After abnormal vibrations and temperatures became apparent in its number 3 engine the flight turned back to Johannesburg about an hour into its long journey across the southern Indian Ocean, and Qantas is making arrangements for a replacement flight.
The safety issue is that there is a known fault in this engine type’s high pressure compressor units in which turbine blades can break free and cause severe damage both inside and outside of the engine. In one of a recent series of at least nine such failures in the Rolls-Royce RB211 version used on Qantas Boeing 747-400s one of them ruptured the engine casing on a flight that had just left San Francisco for Sydney last year.
Another well publicised and destructive RB 211 engine failure occurred on a Qantas 747-400 on leaving Singapore last November carrying passengers stranded by the failure of a different Rolls-Royce engine type, a Trent 900, mounted on the wing of the airline’s first A380, when it had taken off as QF32 bound for Sydney.
That A380 is still on the ground at Changi Airport, undergoing extensive rebuilding, and the control crisis caused by the Trent 900′s disintegration was so severe that Qantas grounded its entire A380 fleet until the causes were understood and the remedies applied.
In the case of the much older RB211 design as used on 747s Rolls-Royce has devised a modification that prevents this type of turbine blade break away occurring. However the problem for Qantas is that its dedicated RB211 engine shop at Sydney was closed last year to save money, and its work outsourced to a Rolls-Royce facility in Hong Kong.
Other airlines using RB211s were much faster than Qantas to book their engines in for the modification work, meaning it has to stick to its original money saving strategy of not having the modifications made until each of these engine are due for a visit to the Hong Kong facility anyhow.
According to the Qantas engineers union, the ALAEA, whose members used to perform RB211 work in Sydney, this is the second failure of one of these engines on this same 747-400 in a month.
Although a Qantas spokesperson is alleged to have said that a 747 would fly safely on three engines and thus safety wasn’t an issue, that is a somewhat facile position to take in that once an engine fails on any type of jet the immediate concern of the pilots is to plan a response to a further engine failure, and the range, speed and altitude of the jet all diminish from that moment, and especially so for twin engined jets, but that is another story altogether.
In its report into the Singapore RB211 incident the ATSB says:
On 5 November 2010, a Boeing Company 747-438 aircraft, registered VH-OJD departed Changi Airport, Singapore on a scheduled flight to Sydney, New South Wales. When the aircraft was climbing through 2,000 ft, a loud bang was heard accompanied with aircraft yaw and vibration. The crew shut down the number one engine, declared a PAN and received approval from air traffic control for a return to Singapore. The crew then jettisoned fuel for about forty minutes. Emergency services were in attendance when the aircraft landed safely a short time later.
A subsequent examination confirmed that the engine had sustained serious damage as the result of a compressor blade release from the stage 1 high pressure compressor (HPC 1). The engine was replaced and the aircraft returned to service.
The aircraft operator is continuing to bring their RB211-524G engines to the latest modification status at engine shop visits. However, should the rate of engine failures increase significantly a review of current modification policy will be undertaken.
In the interests of plain english, that last paragraph means Qantas is prepared to take the risk of further failures in these engines rather than have them modified as quickly as possible.
It continues to fly them across two of the remotest oceanic routes in the world, between the US west coast and Australia, and between Australia and South Africa, as well as on some kangaroo route services to London via Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok.
Of course it may change its mind. Or CASA may change it for it. It seems odd that an airline that so commendably made safety its absolute priority in the case of the A380 incident, and the volcanic ash threat from Chile (yet not from the Indonesian volcanoes it regularly flies around) should have been so reluctant at least until today to speed up its RB211 modifications.
The decision to shut the RB211 engineering facility was wrong given that its stated intention is to keep some of the affected 747-400s flying until late this decade. It took out of the control of Qantas two of the critical comp0nents of its brand, namely safety and reliability. Whatever it might have saved has been lost. It is as big a disconnection from technical excellence as Jetstar deciding to make undocumented changes to its go around procedures for A320s, only to nearly lose one in a missed approach to Melbourne Airport in 2007, or the foolish decision to ban full reverse thrust landings in 747-400s to save pennies on fuel and brake maintenance, which preceded the crash landing of another 747 at Bangkok in 1999 in which the pilots made no attempt to engage reverse thrust before ploughing off the end of a runway into a golf course.
There is a need for Qantas to think about more than penny pinching and re-engage its management mind with safety first considerations. There is an urgent need for this to be done in relation to the RB211s, no matter how long or short they are going to remain in service after the August 24 restructuring is revealed.
CASA could not be contacted earlier today, and a message was left for Qantas hours ago.
The latest incident involved last night’s Johannesburg-Sydney flight carrying the Springbok Rugby team to the Tri Nation series in which they will play Australia in the opening match in a week’s time.
After abnormal vibrations and temperatures became apparent in its number 3 engine the flight turned back to Johannesburg about an hour into its long journey across the southern Indian Ocean, and Qantas is making arrangements for a replacement flight.
The safety issue is that there is a known fault in this engine type’s high pressure compressor units in which turbine blades can break free and cause severe damage both inside and outside of the engine. In one of a recent series of at least nine such failures in the Rolls-Royce RB211 version used on Qantas Boeing 747-400s one of them ruptured the engine casing on a flight that had just left San Francisco for Sydney last year.
Another well publicised and destructive RB 211 engine failure occurred on a Qantas 747-400 on leaving Singapore last November carrying passengers stranded by the failure of a different Rolls-Royce engine type, a Trent 900, mounted on the wing of the airline’s first A380, when it had taken off as QF32 bound for Sydney.
That A380 is still on the ground at Changi Airport, undergoing extensive rebuilding, and the control crisis caused by the Trent 900′s disintegration was so severe that Qantas grounded its entire A380 fleet until the causes were understood and the remedies applied.
In the case of the much older RB211 design as used on 747s Rolls-Royce has devised a modification that prevents this type of turbine blade break away occurring. However the problem for Qantas is that its dedicated RB211 engine shop at Sydney was closed last year to save money, and its work outsourced to a Rolls-Royce facility in Hong Kong.
Other airlines using RB211s were much faster than Qantas to book their engines in for the modification work, meaning it has to stick to its original money saving strategy of not having the modifications made until each of these engine are due for a visit to the Hong Kong facility anyhow.
According to the Qantas engineers union, the ALAEA, whose members used to perform RB211 work in Sydney, this is the second failure of one of these engines on this same 747-400 in a month.
Although a Qantas spokesperson is alleged to have said that a 747 would fly safely on three engines and thus safety wasn’t an issue, that is a somewhat facile position to take in that once an engine fails on any type of jet the immediate concern of the pilots is to plan a response to a further engine failure, and the range, speed and altitude of the jet all diminish from that moment, and especially so for twin engined jets, but that is another story altogether.
In its report into the Singapore RB211 incident the ATSB says:
On 5 November 2010, a Boeing Company 747-438 aircraft, registered VH-OJD departed Changi Airport, Singapore on a scheduled flight to Sydney, New South Wales. When the aircraft was climbing through 2,000 ft, a loud bang was heard accompanied with aircraft yaw and vibration. The crew shut down the number one engine, declared a PAN and received approval from air traffic control for a return to Singapore. The crew then jettisoned fuel for about forty minutes. Emergency services were in attendance when the aircraft landed safely a short time later.
A subsequent examination confirmed that the engine had sustained serious damage as the result of a compressor blade release from the stage 1 high pressure compressor (HPC 1). The engine was replaced and the aircraft returned to service.
The aircraft operator is continuing to bring their RB211-524G engines to the latest modification status at engine shop visits. However, should the rate of engine failures increase significantly a review of current modification policy will be undertaken.
In the interests of plain english, that last paragraph means Qantas is prepared to take the risk of further failures in these engines rather than have them modified as quickly as possible.
It continues to fly them across two of the remotest oceanic routes in the world, between the US west coast and Australia, and between Australia and South Africa, as well as on some kangaroo route services to London via Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok.
Of course it may change its mind. Or CASA may change it for it. It seems odd that an airline that so commendably made safety its absolute priority in the case of the A380 incident, and the volcanic ash threat from Chile (yet not from the Indonesian volcanoes it regularly flies around) should have been so reluctant at least until today to speed up its RB211 modifications.
The decision to shut the RB211 engineering facility was wrong given that its stated intention is to keep some of the affected 747-400s flying until late this decade. It took out of the control of Qantas two of the critical comp0nents of its brand, namely safety and reliability. Whatever it might have saved has been lost. It is as big a disconnection from technical excellence as Jetstar deciding to make undocumented changes to its go around procedures for A320s, only to nearly lose one in a missed approach to Melbourne Airport in 2007, or the foolish decision to ban full reverse thrust landings in 747-400s to save pennies on fuel and brake maintenance, which preceded the crash landing of another 747 at Bangkok in 1999 in which the pilots made no attempt to engage reverse thrust before ploughing off the end of a runway into a golf course.
There is a need for Qantas to think about more than penny pinching and re-engage its management mind with safety first considerations. There is an urgent need for this to be done in relation to the RB211s, no matter how long or short they are going to remain in service after the August 24 restructuring is revealed.
CASA could not be contacted earlier today, and a message was left for Qantas hours ago.
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Ozbiggles said. "I think its just a great ploy to help the Wallabies.
Now we just need to get the All Blacks on Jetstar...."
grasping at straws there Mate
..... they will be DC3ing under ash etc
http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/C...ObVoM0QIxl.jpg
Pete
How the heck does one do quotes in here, I scoured the FAQ
Now we just need to get the All Blacks on Jetstar...."
grasping at straws there Mate
..... they will be DC3ing under ash etc
http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/C...ObVoM0QIxl.jpg
Pete
How the heck does one do quotes in here, I scoured the FAQ