Qantas A380 uncontained #2 engine failure

[Locked door]

Halloween Jack,

Engine failures caused by ingestion of foreign objects do not necessarily happen immediately. My airline has had two incidents with N1 fanblades being significantly damaged on takeoff by FOD, one had a hole right through a blade, one had three bent blades. In both cases the crews were unaware and the engines ran normally within vibration limits to shutdown at the end of the sector when the damage was found. One wonders what would have happened if the flight crew had selected TOGA at any point?

So as in the Thompson video the failure can be and often is immediate, but it could occur at a later point too.

LD

[Less Hair]

That advice must have gone to all A380-Trent operators. Is anybody else (except Qantas and SIA) inspecting/grounding theirs?

[MungoP]

Well.. interesting to see that QANTAS are following SOPs and ensuring that debris fell on a school... no mention yet of an orphanage or hospital taking any hits.

[Rengineer]

lomapaseo

This failure condition is severe
It must not be allowed to occur again
Investigation will determine its causes
Corrective actions will follow immediately.

That's the obvious bit.

Design issues take up a lot of discussion, but are useless to discuss at the non-expert level.

Of course. But they're much more interesting than just waiting for the results of the expert investigation. Isn't that the point of a rumours forum?

[Squawk7777]

[TopBunk]

My mail says Eng#2 on that A/C has been carrying a Cat A Turbine Overspeed MEL since Tuesday.

Ok, from the MEL of a B747-400 albeit with RR RB211 engines:

71-21-3 Turbine Overspeed System

Rectification Interval = C [10 days]
Number Installed = 4 [1 per engine]
Number Required for despatch = 0
Remarks or Exceptions = May be inoperative
EICAS Status message = TURB OVSP SYS _ [where _ is replaced by the engine number]

Placard = as appropriate
Maintenance Actions = Nil
Operations Actions = Nil

I would expect the RR Trent as fitted to the A380 to have a very similar MEL entry. If so, it would suggest that it is not a Cat A defect. Remember that it is the overspeed detection system and not a turbine fault we are talking about here.

[framer]

Also note in this case I highly doubt any of the CC would have used any of the LHS exits, as evidenced by the photos of No 1 still running.

I agree it looks like a 'precautionary disembarkation'. Also, from memory, the captain nominates the exits for a precautionary as part of the PA that initiates it but if it is upgraded to a evacuation then the CC just do their normal thing, ie look out their assigned exit and make their own assesment of whether or not it is safe to use.Also from memory,historically 6% of pax sustain 'serious injuries requiring hospitalisation' during an evacuation, how many on this aircraft? 500 and something? Great call for the precautionary IMO.

[OPENDOOR]

Is there an engine that could potentially replace the RR Trent 900 on the A380?

[Wirbelsturm]

Is there an engine that could potentially replace the RR Trent 900 on the A380?

Trent 1000?

[AvWRup]

Aviation Week's Max Kingsley-Jones discusses the Rolls-Royce trent 900 in this video: VIDEO: Analysis of Qantas A380 incident

[Boomerang_Butt]

Yes Framer, that's correct. Captain nominates the exits to be used, and whether it's steps or slides.

If it's upgraded to full evac, CC are to assess and as soon as a door becomes usable (or unusable) proceed accordingly.

I still recall the example Precautionary PAs from the simulator and the cockpit crew also include a reminder of the door mode to be used, just in case

[patrickal]

As serious as this engine failure appears to be, is it not the bigger issue that partial or complete control of the outboard engine also occurred as a result of the first failure? Was the control failure complete, or just the inability to shut the engine down? Did the crew have any thrust control of the outboard engine after the failure occurred?

There was a comment made earlier about the damage to the leading edge of the wing probably taking out control wiring to the engine. If all communication routes with the engine are routed through the leading edge, it appears to me that this is a design issue which would need to be addressed. Where is the redundancy?

Patrick

[J52]

Todays failure cause will take some time to determine and provide an engineering/reengineering fix. I was involved with investigating a turbojet compressor disc failure problem many years ago. We had 4 failures in a 21 engine fleet, thankfully all during takeoff roll. Other engine types on wing around the world at that time numbered about 3,000 and no one else had experienced the same failure. Planes were grounded while everyone scrambled to find the cause(s) which were found to be caused by unique operating profile of the engine and the design of the compressor disc.

Until RR can check all A380 engines and Airbus/RR rule out Qantas doing something different to all other operators, then I think the FAA might be drafting up the AD right at this moment. Qantas have been (once again) very lucky. They are to be congratulated for the airmanship displayed by their pilots and applauded for the correct decision to ground the fleet until the cause is better understood.

[Dak Man]

J52

Using the TR to reverse the A/C off the stand....????

Yes, it's happened

[The Old Fat One]

Patrick makes the point that has been bothering me all morning and has led to about three hours of useless internet research on the FADEC and Trent 900.

Simple question (and feel free to flame me out of existence if I have got this all wrong).

If a computer is the boss of the engine and all the feeds to the computer are cut (because they run through a common structural point) and the computers program says: "continue to carry out your last instruction" (eg thrust on full power) until you run out fuel....is that not a potential cluster**** of biblical proportions?

OK, not so simple by wording, but surely someone out there is going to tell me and Patrick to stop worrying because there is a big red override knob or something which tells the FADEC to **** *** and shuts the engine down.

[Buster Hyman]

Well.. interesting to see that QANTAS are following SOPs and ensuring that debris fell on a school... no mention yet of an orphanage or hospital taking any hits.

The golf course was closed.

[x_feed]

I'm really curious about this incident..
a 2yrs old aircraft suffer this kind of failure.

A photo shown taken from a passenger shows some debris has shot through the wing less than twelve inches in front of the wing front spar. Behind the front spar is the fuel tank! I'm tipping that if a piece of hot turbine had gone though the wing tank it would have made the Air France Concorde disaster look like a fairly small accident.
The aircraft has just undergone it's first heavy maintenance check at lufthansa tech. in Germany

the A380 has undergone "C" check..

so during the time of the check, i'm sure this aircraft perform some run-up check.

before and after the run-up check, the cowling must be opened for inspection[leaks, cracks, dent, etc]

if necessary must be examined by the Borescope. [blade imbalance]

i got some info about the A330-300[RR trent 700] incident happened
here in our hangar..

during high power run-up not mistaken [1.58EPR] a loud bang occurred,
then flame out, due to a engine surge..

after the surged happened, the engine cowling was opened immediately ..
8 inches of crack found in the thrust reverser cowling.

when i see the first picture of the A380..i thought it was a cowling failure
but i saw some turbine disc,wing holes, it was a different story.


how could this kind of engine failure happened?

unable to shut down No.1 engine'
The first photo in reply 27 shows the Fire Dept trying to shut down #1 eng by drowning it, you can see at the aft end the spray coming out of a running eng.
When the control signal is lost from the flight deck the eng will continue to run as stated in a previous post at what ever its last commanded setting was from the flight deck.

I've seen the picture..and the ENG1 is still running..
but it's good enough that ENG1 is running during flight,

i'm not familiar to the A380 system if those color codes of the hydraulic
[ENG 1&4 GREEN, ENG 2-BLUE, ENG 3-YELLOW] are the same as A340 hydraulic system..


and i notice that RAT is not deployed
for emergeny shut-down of the engine if the fuel-cutoff switch at off position and the engine still running..

just armed the "Fire Protection" like for APU emergency shutdown...



correct me if i'm wrong..

[Prada]

There was a comment made earlier about the damage to the leading edge of the wing probably taking out control wiring to the engine. If all communication routes with the engine are routed through the leading edge, it appears to me that this is a design issue which would need to be addressed. Where is the redundancy?

----------------

This is now littlebit theoretical, but for me it seems that wifi like wireless systems could be a real alternative to cables that first have weight and can be damaged in such a huge plane like A380. Has any aircraft manufacturer considered radio as an backup alternative for data cables? Any engineer here?

[eharding]

Originally Posted by The Old Fat One

Patrick makes the point that has been bothering me all morning and has led to about three hours of useless internet research on the FADEC and Trent 900.

Simple question (and feel free to flame me out of existence if I have got this all wrong).

If a computer is the boss of the engine and all the feeds to the computer are cut (because they run through a common structural point) and the computers program says: "continue to carry out your last instruction" (eg thrust on full power) until you run out fuel....is that not a potential cluster**** of biblical proportions?

OK, not so simple by wording, but surely someone out there is going to tell me and Patrick to stop worrying because there is a big red override knob or something which tells the FADEC to **** *** and shuts the engine down.

As I recall, didn't they also have to drown at least one engine on the Etihad A340 than ran into a blast-wall pre-delivery, that then kept running?

[Neptunus Rex]

There was a time when Qantas Engineering, together with its Apprenticeship programme, was acknowledged to be the best in the world. When they became available, second-hand Qantas aircraft commanded the highest prices on the international market. The recent spate of incidents, unprecedented for Qantas, seems to have occurred since the beancounters got involved and started 'outsourcing' too much of the engineering to cheaper, overseas competitors.

Coincidence? I think not.