A380 engine failure (SQ)

[parabellum]

In my opinion, there were other suitable airports before Paris CDG.

As they were on 3 engines landing at the nearest suitable airport was not a requirement, hence the logistical decision to return to Paris.

Yes Hetfield, very well put!!!

[Dairyground]

Perhaps they would have had to dump fuel to "land ASAP" anyway, so why not just turn around,fly back to CDG and land normally rather than dumping fuel all over Europe, and landing at some remote airport where the plane isn't going to get fixed in a hurry....

At the point where the decision not to continue was taken, was the aircraft likely to be still above maximum landing weight, and if so, how long would it take to dump enough fuel to get below MLW? How long to burn enough fuel through three engines?

If you need to spend the time up there, and there are no indications of imminent failure of any of the other engines, then making a straight line for home seems a much better option than circling over the middle of nowhere, or landing landing hundreds of miles from support. And of course in the last 90 minutes or so before Paris, places like Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Brussels would not be far off track if anything else did go wrong.

[englishal]

A lot of you however seem to say that it's okay to continue flying on 3 engines. That in theory might be true, but the real question that any sensible pilot should be thinking at that point is, how well will this aircraft fly on 2 engines?

I often ask myself how my aeroplane would fly with no engines.....doesn't stop me flying it though.

[gengis]

A lot of you however seem to say that it's okay to continue flying on 3 engines. That in theory might be true, but the real question that any sensible pilot should be thinking at that point is, how well will this aircraft fly on 2 engines?

Hence the difference between single engine failure & multiple engine failure. Only one engine fails, a multitude of options & time remain available and a choice of diversion airports - which at this stage does not have to be the nearest one - and re-routing to assure that the airplane is always within a comfortable distance of landing should the situation take a turn for the worse. If/when the 2nd (or 3rd) engine fails that's the time it becomes Land At the Nearest Suitable Airport - not before.

[MTOW]

Does anyone double guessing the SQ captain's (or more to the point, SQ Flt Ops') decision on this diversion actually fly commercially? Or fly anything bigger than a C152?

Reading some of the opinions on this thread is like walking into a crowded aero club bar very late on a Saturday afternoon.

Try for one moment to guess the logistical nightmare (to say nothing of the cost, both in cash and very pissed off passengers) for the company finding 500+ beds in a port where they have no ground staff.

Then give some thought to the technical side of things, like who's going to fix it, with what and how you get the replacement engine to 'your' better diversion port.

One engine out on a four holer is definitely not a land asap situation unless there's some suspicion that the cause of the failure might be affecting (or possibly about to affect) either other critical systems or one or more of the other engines.

[leewan]

Gosh, get it over with !
The a/c is on ground and everyone's safe. Capt did his job. What else do you people want ?
This thread seems to be full of people who are offering illogical suggestions with no grasp of what an emergency in a multi-engine means or no respect to the captain in question or the professionals in SQ who were involved in this diversion by offering these suggestions and thinking they are better than them. They tried to look knowledgable but just failed miserably.

Anyway, based on the ECAM messages, I would say it seems to be bearing failure or shaft failure. And since bearing/shaft failures are isolated to the respective engine, the crew did the right thing by shutting it down and taking up FOCC's suggestion to fly CDG as there was no real danger of the problem spreading as no common factors affecting all engines was involved.(fuel) Thus saving a logistical and financial nightmare.

Hmmmm, Monita
Nice one there, Hetfield. Pretty much sums up this thread.


(Edited by moderator to remove textspeak).

[747passion]

leewan, mind this:

- With good decisions: you always arrive safely

- With bad decisions: you arrive safely most of the time

You can't validate a choice because it had a good results in the past. This has nothing to do with SQ.

[leewan]

747 passion, get this,

- Amateurs under pressure( or armchair) would choose the most simplest and easiest option available but not necessarily the best.

- Professionals under pressure would evaluate all their options available and, having safety as their utmost priority at all times, would choose the option that is the most benefical to as much parties as possible.

Face it, most airlines faced with this scenario would have done the same thing. IFSDs on a quad have occurred from time to time and in most cases after assessing the situation, the crew have diverted to an airport that is the most convenient rather than the nearest airport available. With twins, it's vice versa. This has been a standard practice practiced by most airlines and endorsed by the aircraft manufacturers themselves. So, if you feel unsafe about it, simply fly twins or stick with boats and ships.

With a username like yours, it is ironic that you do not see the biggest advantage a quad has over a twin. Having said that, I can also see what your motives are for posting these posts.

[Rainboe]

I knew this thread would go this way. Idiotic armchair amateurs second guessing the professionals who have worked at this job for years, with thousands of hours of experience, and deciding they know better! Can't some fools understand this is a 4 engine jet, designed to fly happily on 3, and even on 2. On 2, it is in an equivalent situation to a twin on one- in some ways better because it even has the option to end up on one engine- not so happy, but better than being a glider.

I have flown 747s for 18 years, and 4 engine jets for 24. In that time, I lost many engines- mainly during 747 early days. Losing one across the Atlantic did not normally cause a turnback, though sometimes it would. Mainly for maintenance reasons, NOT for the bizarre safety some advocate!

Get over it and stop boring people to death. It was a perfectly safe and sensible decision, and far more practical than any of you geniuses have come up with. You're banging it to death, and this is an airline pilots forum. I don't think most airline pilots can read threads like this for their blood pressure! And the LAX-LHR on 3 was bang on to rights, has been justified and the pilots acknowledged as doing their jobs. Exactly what I would have done. Try and find another cause to champion!

[Desert Dawg]

@Rainboe

Well said Mate...!

Mods - Can you close this thread and let the real pilots talk about this elsewhere? The likes of 747passion are a crashing bore.....

[Taildragger67]

Continuing on 3

If BA can make it (almost) across the pond and to LHR, on 3 donks, why can't an A380 continue across Asia on 3 .... even if it needed a fuel stop en route ?

The BA 744 did make it across the pond; just needed to land earlier in the UK.

And they've been copping a shellacking for it ever since.

Leewan,

IIRC , following earlier issues with the early JT9s, PAA lined up two airframes for their first 747 revenue service, one primary and one reserve.

Primary indeed had a donk problem at start-up so they shifted to the reserve, which fired up fine and they got away safely, albeit a tad late.

Sadly, that airframe which actually operated that first revenue service was the PAA 747 later destroyed at Tenerife.

Rainboe,

[skychef999]

Engine

There was no spare engine in Paris it was flown up fom Singapore (fact)
Rumour was there was a tool found in engine. Reason for shutdown was metal detected in chip detector.

[parabellum]

Rumour was there was a tool found in engine. Reason for shutdown was metal detected in chip detector.

My limited engineering expertise would tell me that these two items are totally unrelated, unless, somehow, a tool had been left within the oil circulation?

The days when spare engines were left scattered around the route network are long gone, on the one hand engines are much more reliable these days and due to increased sector length stops are less frequent, then we have the bean counters who will tell you that it is cheaper to wait for the event and then acquire and position the spare than have it on a shelf somewhere waiting.

Looking at the SQ flight, it departed, turned back, passengers were re-distributed, that flight cancelled with the minimum of disruption. Subsequent flights to have been flown by that aircraft will be replaced by other aircraft, if available, including the use of other A380, the B744, as available and the B777, as available, SIA have considerable flexibility. In operational terms it would have been swallowed without a murmur, everything back to the original plan within ten days, maximum.

I would like to nominate this thread for the annual Gold Global Award for A Storm in a Teacup.

[Rainboe]

Taildragger,

The BA 744 did make it across the pond; just needed to land earlier in the UK.

And they've been copping a shellacking for it ever since.

Like most people in this thread, you don't know what you are talking about!

[anartificialhorizon]

Simple decision.

If you land just ANYWHERE else on that route (apart from the destination) where do you.......

Accomodate the pax?

How much to put up the pax (at your origin a good percentage can go back home if they don't want to try alternatives!)

How do you get a replacementTrent 900 to your diversion airfield?

How do you get the pax off this beast? Stairs /airbridges etc?

How do you get to the terminal (wingspan / weight etc)?

Is there anyone who know ANYTHING about the A380 at your diversion?

Is there any engine change equipment, access equipment, servicing equipment at your diversion?

Security? Staff? Engineers? Engine ground run facilities?

I could go on and on and on and on....

Give us a good reason why the crew didn't make a good decision...? ...silence.....

Now let's get back to why the donk failed, that's the more interesting part of all of this....

[HeathrowGirl]

One engine down

Quick post here as pax who was on the KLM Washington-Amsterdam A330 that lost use of one engine a couple of hours out of Dulles and had to land in Bangor, Maine, last Monday. First time it's ever happened to me. As pax, once you know that's happened, you want to be on the ground. Now. Being told that you can carry on perfectly well on 1 engine, is no comfort at all when you don't know why number 1 has conked out. So whatever decision gets you down fastest (er, other than directly vertical downwards..... is the right one just then.

[BreezyDC]

How are spare engines carried these days for this type of situation? In cargo heavy lift, or do they still use a "5th Engine" mount inboard on the wing of another revenue flight?

[lomapaseo]

Most engines are shipped as freight

[BreezyDC]

Most engines are shipped as freight

Thanks, thought that might be the case in today's tight economy and full flights.

In digging around about this (yeah, should've done so before asking the question ) it looks like freighter size depends on the manufacturer. Emirates ships just the GP hot core, to be attached to the hopefully more robust fan (birds notwithstanding), while Rolls touts it's smaller casing size, allowing the engine to fit in a 747F.

Decades of manufacturer expertise mean that a choice between the two A380 powerplant contenders will depend on the little things
By J.A. Donoghue
Air Transport World, November 2004
((Excerpt)) With the offerings being so close on the technical side, the larger issues of total cost of ownership and maintainability become even more important-if that is possible. One maintainability issue with a clear difference is out-station repair capability. Rolls says its engine can be shipped whole in a 747 freighter. EA acknowledges that a full GP7200 must be shipped in an An-124 but adds that the 747F's capability to ship Trent 900s is marginal, with door clearances of less than 1 in. per side.
Rolls achieved a fan case diameter smaller than that on its 110-in. fan through the use of a titanium-based case, a lighter version of the steel case adopted on the Trent 500, to improve post-blade-loss case structural integrity in an ETOPS-like environment. EA is staying with "an aluminum honeycomb web case for weight and a Kevlar wrap," Saia says, "very consistent with the 4084 architecture, and we've had no problems with the 4084 in service." Rolls has had containment problems in recent years, Thompson notes....

Engine Alliance Ships 1st GP7200 Propulsor

Published on ASDNews: May 27, 2009
(East Hartford, Conn., May 26, 2009) -- The Engine Alliance (EA) shipped the first GP7200 propulsor to Emirates on May 21. The delivery marks the first time the Engine Alliance and member company Pratt & Whitney have delivered a propulsor, rather than a full engine, to any airline.

"Shipping a propulsor is an innovative way to supply spare engines," EA chief engineer Paul Smith explained. "The fan module has a very long life, so it can be reused with a new propulsor to provide a full spare engine. It's a huge cost savings for the customer."

According to EA industrial director Marios Evripidou, delivering spare propulsors in lieu of spare engines also helps minimize an airline's inventory. "They don't have to keep as many unused fans in inventory because they can reuse the ones they already have," he said. Shipping propulsors is easier than shipping a full engine, too, Evripidou said. Because they're smaller, they can be transported on most wide-body freighter aircraft. "It gives the customer great transportation flexibility," he said....

[lomapaseo]

Where an inch clearance counts big time, I always wondered if you couldn't literally squeeze by on those big diameter cases by a little brute force. Those things really go egg-shape in a blade loss event by several inches. It seems like they would probably just deform under their own weight fitting through a door if nothing was bolted to their flanges.