Merged: Qantas A380 finishes London flight on three engines
 

Ben Sandilands writes...

Qantas A380 finishes London flight on three engines – Plane Talking

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.

Investigation: AO-2011-026 - Partial power loss - Airbus, VH-OQC, near New Delhi International Airport, 15 February 2011

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?

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

AT

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

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/sr...lies/smile.gif) happening when QF had the shop at Mascot looking after the RB211's in the late 80's to early 90's?

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

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.

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


o wait a minute that was similar to some other airline

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:

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:

Maintenance
 

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.

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:

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.

Yep!

The buck stops with the Pilot In Command.

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

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?

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

Highly trained army on the ground?
 

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?

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.

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.

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.