QF A380's Grounded by fungus in fuel
 

I just saw this story on Ten News tonight. It sounds a little phoney to me. Can anyone verify?

If it's true, it'll be a huge pain in the butt for QF.

Big deal.... change some filters and give the fuel tanks a treatment....
Nothing new here.....

Anyone know where the contaminated fuel came from? Mascot??? Or over in the US?

Aussie

Its may not be contaminated fuel. I imagine that Jet Fuel may have some bug killing additives, but maybe not! Its been a long known problem, mainly in the marine environment where you get condensation in tanks.

When the H2O settles into a nice dark corner and not disturbed too often these little bugs have a very comfy home and breed faster than rabbits!:ooh: Diesel suffers far more than petrol and I would say Jet fuel also, as its not that much different!

Over time the water may be disturbed and the fungus has grown, then it gets killed off by the fuel, the fungud falls off the wall like a ... well a bit of a mushroom corossed with silicone, and makes a great fuel line and filter blocker. Albeit you need a lot of it. You would swear someone had gone mad with a silicone tube, but its not at all.

Now exactly what you get in the wing of an airliner, I can not say first hand but it would be quite likely its very similar.

J

It would be a problem if you had an aircraft designed to run on the new environmentally friendly fuel made from fromage......:E

This mornings news ( if you can believe them ) said that three QF A-380's are grounded with a fuel problem....

I wonder if this might mean....des compensations financières substantielles

Is this the stuff?
 

Is there a camera approved for use in a fuel tank?:eek:

Does'nt the A380 have a procedure to carry out fuel drains frequently?

Flying again
 

ABC Radio News has just reported that after grounding, all three A380 are now back in the air, having been "fixed". There was a grab from an official of the LAME's union congratulating the Company for having reacted so positively. There was not however any mention of flying pigs!!

As Richie would say..."Henri, What le fungus?"

In the late 60's the wing tanks on the C 130 A models all had clostridium (sic) growing in them which ate its way through the Alloy tank structure causing major repairs to be taken by the whole fleet.

Microbiological ( sometimes called fungal ) contamination is not to be laughed about.

Press reports A380's grounded due fuel leaks.

When Australian Airlines kicked off in Cairns a while back they had a similar problem perhaps as a result of the humid conditions. At a meeting at the time a senior person from up that way described it as a dose of "tank clap" :cool:

"QF DRIVE Press reports A380's grounded due fuel leaks."

Yes QFD, from all reports it looks like a fuel leakage issue...the fungus might have been from the fun gas the reporter was on!:confused:

Nice to see Qantas has grown a little culture....:E

Good one Buster! :ok: :D :D ....... I thought it would have taken much longer for culture to return to Qantas after Darth left :E

:}Never buy the A model of anything.......................................

Well its hardly the "A" model. First flew nearly 4 years ago and been in service for well over a year.

And of all the types that have been introduced in modern times I would have thought that a fuel fungus was fairly low down the list of gremlins (and worse!)

• Comets managed a number of accidents til they were rebuilt.
  
• Electras had to be ferried back to the US to have the wings reskinned after a few wing separations
  
• Boeing 727s had several accidents due inability to handle high sink rates on approach
  
• First -100 series 747 rarely got across the Atlantic with all engines running
  
• Douglas test pilots broke an MD-80 in half during the landing tests

In fact I think the 777 was probably the closest we've yet seen to a flawless EIS and even that wasn't perfect.

This A380 will be a great machine for QF and this is simply a hiccup on that road. Nothing more.

Not for the first time
 

QF has cultural form.

My dodgy memory has a 747 classic flying Bahrain-Heathrow long, long ago, and starving one engine of fuel at top Of Descent and a second (same side) on long finals.

Ultimate source deemed to be sea water in Bahrain fuel causing goo formation.

(What was the old joke as engines failed one by one - "At this rate we'll be up here forever")

Hopefully someone with more confidence in their memory will correct me if I'm wrong.

:D:ok: Hahaha

So QF has managed to catch the aircraft STD?:}

On a serious note,

So far what has been the issues on the A380 since entering service?

Steering Problems, Fuel, and I heard something on a cargo door on a few of them? :confused: anything else so far?