Sri Lanka A340 Engine Failure ZRH
 

A Sri Lankan A340 on the take-off run at ZRH Rwy 16 suffered an engine failure at V1!!! I believe either #3 or#4 engine

I was holding short on taxiway B, taxying towards Rwy 10 for departure back to LCA, the incident happened just infront of us.

We have all gone through the routine in the Sim every six months....Engine failure or Fire at V1, continue and take the probelm into the air..what are the real statistic of this event happening?

I was very supprised at the POOR Climb performance of a heavly laden A340, especially with the 'GEAR DOWN' at 300ft agl.

Air Traffic kept prompting the Crew they were flying BELOW Radar Minima during the inital climb and clean-up.

They then had vectors towards ZUE East dumped fuel for 35 mins and I presume returned S/E without further incident.

Interesting day for all...



Low Energy...Low Profile....If in Doubt...Green Dot Speed....

How do you know that it was "at V1"?

Just interested.

A340 V1
 

Should have really said ROUND ABOUT V1....


Rotation occured at around 3 seconds after the smoke we observed.

Usual balanced field take-off out of ZRH Rwy 16 usually occurs round about were were at the runway holding point.

We were at an intersection 70 deg to the incident rwy at approx. 900 mtrs before the end.

A320 SFO:

FYI: It was engine #4.
And tower thanks you for your information about the smoke you saw, too, and your information about it on the frequency.

Talk to you again,
OE-LAU.

OE-LAU:
 

Welcome....

It did look frightening!!

See you at ZRH next week again...

A320

340s are climbing poorly in general, a pain in the arse for ATCOs.
We call them "transport gliders"... :}

What are these pictures supposed to show??

A 340 taking-off!

Well done to the crew. It's never easy coping with a donkey going at "round about V1" and 16 is difficult with the emergency turn and doubtlessly ATC prattling on about minimum altitudes when you're very aware that you are rather low & slow & would dearly like to alter that. Glad the weather was good but they seem to have done a text-book recovery.

:ok: 4HP

This is really strange as I lost an engine in an Air Lanka TriStar at slightly below V1 in Zurich many years ago.

The incident in question. You can see that the no. 4 engine is not producing any thrust.

>You can see that the no. 4 engine is not producing any >thrust.

And hefty amounts of left rudder too. Well done to all concerned.

OE-LAU
A strange name to call yourself, did you fly this particular B767 for Niki?

A320 SFO - FYI, engine-out on a heavy 340-300 doesn't give sparkling performance:{ That's why there are emergency turns:rolleyes:
Also, green dot speed ONLy comes into the equation once the aircraft is CLEAN!!! If in doubt stick to the recognised engine fail on take-off procedure:ok:

Well done to the UL crew:cool:

Thanks, now I see.

I guess that I was looking for fire and sparks and failed to see the lack of normal combustion products vapor trail and I agree that was a very visible rudder deflection.

Any idea why the gear was down at 300'?

Cheers.

My initial assumption - because it had not been retracted at that point.

Empty

Re the earlier comments about poor climb performance:

I don't understand these comments, after looking at the hyperlinked pictures. If those pictures were of the incident (and clearly #4 is the only engine not producing some smoke), then the climb angle shown appears quite acceptable to me. At a guess, climb angle exceeded 5 degrees.

Given the sky in the background and lack of cumulogranite in the pictures, I would suspect that ATC warnings of low altitude were quadrant based, not departure alley based.

FARs/JARs do not require huge climb angles in the event of engine failure. The performance shown in the pics would have been good for all engines performance for some previous generations (including early 747s at max gross on hot days).

From much earlier days, my recollection of climb performance on three Wright R3350s was that one had to average VSI readings to be sure one was in fact climbing.

Looks like a well handled incident with relatively low resultant risk.

Eng out SID
 

What is your proceedure in case of eng out at ZRH,do have a set up for it in the FMS .

Looking at the pictures, why did it take so long to put the gear up. A question to all the bus boys....losing one engine, is the climb performance that degraded that it can hardly climb as claimed by a few on this topic.

Good one G4G5.

You ladies got nothing better to do?

Of all the airports in Europe, ZRH is one of the ones I always hope I'll never get an engine failure.
Well done by the UL Crew!

Those of you who brief "clean up and request vectors back to land" should note the warnings from ATC. How can they vector you when you are below minimum safe altitude?

Rudder input?

Our (2-engine) A-320 pilots say that there is not much rudder input needed in the sim. with a failure at V1, compared to a B-737, B-757 or DC-9.

On a 4-engine A-340, would there be even less pushing required on the rudder pedal? Would there not be less force required?

The SOP for engine fire/power loss is to rotate normally at Vr to 12.5deg pitch then follow the command bars (SRS), retract the gear once a positive rate of climb is established and engage the autopilot above 100' once everything is nominal. Above 400', the ECAM actions are called for. I suspect the slightly delayed gear retraction may simply have to do with the crew ensuring that everything was under control, establishing the engine loss and climb-out drills in their minds and proceeding with same deliberately. Just a guess of course. Although we practise this exact failure in the sim it's an initial surprise when it actually happens and so slowing things down to ensure accuracy would be a good strategy.

From the photos I thought the climb performance of the aircraft was actually quite good...nothing like Hong Kong on a hot afternoon...

Ignition Override

The rudder input required for an engine failure at rotation is substantial depending upon speed. This is true for the A320 as well as the A340 & A330. Perhaps what is being referred to is the fact that, academically speaking, one can engage the autopilot without using rudder or trimming the aircraft and the autopilot will do the work, trimming and eventually straightening the gentle turn towards the dead engine. I've seen it demonstrated in the simulator and its impressive though not SOP. Rudder trim required is usually around 12 to 15deg, naturally easing off as speed reaches green dot.

Gear & rudder
 

On the gear being down longer than expected - is it not possible the aircraft may have had a heavy landing, or long landing on the last leg, and needed to cool the brakes down, especially given the now pressing need to land pretty heavy, pretty soon. Brake fade is not something you'd want to add to the situation?
Regarding rudder correction, surely by basic physics losing #1 or #4 on a four engine ship is the "worst case" scenario because you now have unbalanced thrust further from the centerline? Torque=Force*Distance and all that.
I'd guess "Distance" is bigger for the outer engines in a four engine plane than it is on a 2 engine ship, so if the thrust per engine is of a similar magnitude for each, the A340 will need more compensation from rudder than would a 2 engine plane.

How can you derive a climb angle from a picture? I can see a pitch angle only.

performance
 

plane in photos achieved better than Jarops subparts F and G or CFR14 part 25 certified minimum 2nd segment performance if it was at or near balanced field conditions for environment/weight or flex thrust conditions.:D Looks like a nicely managed rotate at around the right speed and trim condition. :)

Perhaps a return back to basics might be required here!...

" Failure/fire after V1, no calls until the gear has been selected up "...

that ring a bell with anyone?

And don't prattle on about reasons for leaving the gear down...

go and revisit 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th segment requirements!

What do they teach you guys these days? :(

Scuse my German but the pictures seem to be dated from 5.9.2004

"heute Mittag (5.9.2004) hatte der A340-311 4R-ADC der SriLankan Airlines"

Yeah that's exactly the date where this thread starts;)

Yes, and this thread was started in September 2004. It was ressurected because someone was having a stroll through the archives and posted a question about it.

Sorry, no conspiracy here.

Ooops, sorry guys, reaching for my coat.....:confused:

I check this event is an old one...the discussion however, is still worth having for those who weren't in on the first one.

4potflyer;

The Airbus family (A320, A340 etc), require that the takeoff configuration be tested as one of the last items in the Before Takeoff checklist. One of the configuration checks is the brake temps which all must be at/below 300C or the warning will trigger. The SOP is, the takeoff cannot be started until the configuration check is successful.

Such would preclude the requirement to leave the gear down. The only other logical cause to leave the gear down (without guessing what the crew was confronted with), would be an MEL'd unserviceable brake on one of the mains requiring the wheels to spin down before retraction. I rather doubt this was the case here however.

We are taught to get the gear up at a positive rate of climb while establishing the correct pitch attitude to accomplish 1rst, then immediately thereafter, 2nd segment climb performance. That would be especially critical at ZRH of course.

Not many transition courses these days teach or even touch upon 1rst, 2nd, 3rd and 4th segment climb certification standards and engine-out performance requirements.

What is emphasized in training however are the numbers...V2+10, correct pitch attitude - initially 12.5deg then SRS commands, getting the gear up with positive rate and then doing the ECAM actions followed by 3rd segment clean-up and, once the aircraft is secured, managing the decision (depending upon departure weather) to continue or return.

One may assume that by doing these first items, the aircraft performance is meeting or exceeding 2nd segment certification requirements.

For better or worse, those seem to be "the basics" these days.

I think we might agree that it is 2nd segment climb performance that would be the most critical for 4-engine transport category aircraft, twins normally exceeding these requirements by a comfortable margin.

Avoid surprises
 

The Question is do you discuss eng out performance and routing before departure out of this special airport (terrain wise)?.

Johnman;

Re, "The Question is do you discuss eng out performance and routing before departure out of this special airport (terrain wise)?."

Absolutely. Where such special procedures are present, they are a part of our standard departure briefing.

To be sure, ZRH isn't the only airport with engine out routing either - Hong Kong is another and so, I understand, is Bogota to cite a couple.

In designated mountainous terminals it is SOP to ensure that at least one ND has "Terrain" displayed.

Rudder input is not about force; it's about moment.