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SWA1380 - diversion to KPHL after engine event

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SWA1380 - diversion to KPHL after engine event

Old 18th Apr 2018, 23:42
  #221 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by Gegenbeispiel
tdracer: >"I've seen no evidence that the fan blade was uncontained"

The NTSB has stated that fan blade 13 is missing. That's not simply missing from the hub, it's gone and they cannot find it. To me, that's uncontained.

Did you mean "no evidence of high kinetic energy blade departure"?
Highway1 beat me to it, but the definition of 'uncontained' is engine parts exciting tangentially out of the engine nacelle. Bits that come out the nozzle are, by definition, not 'uncontained'. Furthermore, bits of engine that make it through the engine case or fan containment ring but don't penetrate the nacelle are still considered 'contained' (e.g. engine parts that come tumbling out when they open up the nacelle are considered contained).
So, a turbine blade coming out the side of the engine is an uncontained failure, a broken turbine blade that exits out the tailpipe isn't.
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Old 18th Apr 2018, 23:56
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Originally Posted by Gegenbeispiel
tdracer: >"I've seen no evidence that the fan blade was uncontained"

The NTSB has stated that fan blade 13 is missing. That's not simply missing from the hub, it's gone and they cannot find it. To me, that's uncontained.

Did you mean "no evidence of high kinetic energy blade departure"?
During the NTSB briefing that I watched a little while ago, the Chairman stated that they had the lower 1/3 of the blade. After the blade was liberated it fractured again and the outer 2/3 rds is missing.

"Fan blade separated in 2 places.
5 p.m.: There was a fatigue fracture where the #13 fan blade would have gone into the engine. That was the initiating event that caused a secondary failure of the jet engine."

News media is concentrating on the fact the plane landed at higher than normal speeds and the entire briefing isn't on youtube yet.
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 00:05
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Originally Posted by hunbet
During the NTSB briefing that I watched a little while ago, the Chairman stated that they had the lower 1/3 of the blade. After the blade was liberated it fractured again and the outer 2/3 rds is missing.

"Fan blade separated in 2 places.
5 p.m.: There was a fatigue fracture where the #13 fan blade would have gone into the engine. That was the initiating event that caused a secondary failure of the jet engine."

News media is concentrating on the fact the plane landed at higher than normal speeds and the entire briefing isn't on youtube yet.

The NYTimes is quoting Sumwalt in today's briefing as saying that a fan blade was missing from the No. 2 engine as well.


...and that statement has since disappeared from the on-line edition of the Times.

Last edited by chucko; 19th Apr 2018 at 02:11.
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 00:06
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Matt48, well said.
For us, this would be similar to studying the escape routes of the hotels we stay at on overnights. One day it might save your life.

As for the mystery blade, looking at the remaining fan, my guess is it went out the front or through the inlet cowl. There seems to be very little damage to the remaining fan. One adjacent blade bent? The previous incident showed massive damage. Either the blade went forward or it slid cleanly between the remaining blades and out the back of the engine.
Something caused the cowl to self destruct. Blade, vibration, what ever, hopefully the investigators can learn what so it can be prevented in future.
As for the window, something hit it. Once again, I'll leave it to the investigators.

Finally, great job by the crew on a really bad day.
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 00:16
  #225 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by clark y
Matt48, well said.
For us, this would be similar to studying the escape routes of the hotels we stay at on overnights. One day it might save your life.

As for the mystery blade, looking at the remaining fan, my guess is it went out the front or through the inlet cowl. There seems to be very little damage to the remaining fan. One adjacent blade bent? The previous incident showed massive damage. Either the blade went forward or it slid cleanly between the remaining blades and out the back of the engine.
Something caused the cowl to self destruct. Blade, vibration, what ever, hopefully the investigators can learn what so it can be prevented in future.
As for the window, something hit it. Once again, I'll leave it to the investigators.

Finally, great job by the crew on a really bad day.
Been wondering if the damage to the forward part of the cowl could be a result of some damage to it from the departing blade, magnified by a severe shaking from the immediate imbalance at near redline N1 speed plus aerodynamic loads at 4-500kts. Any takers ?
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 00:29
  #226 (permalink)  
 
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Many years ago during my commercial training i was shown a blade off video of a test engine where the impact of the blade against the fan case cause a small but dense component mounted on the outside of the engine to fly off at high speed much like a cueball hitting an 8ball. Slomo video shows the outside of the engine case flexing significantly durng the bladeoff test. Could this be a possibility?
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 00:44
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Originally Posted by Matt48
Been wondering if the damage to the forward part of the cowl could be a result of some damage to it from the departing blade, magnified by a severe shaking from the immediate imbalance at near redline N1 speed plus aerodynamic loads at 4-500kts. Any takers ?
I think we've beaten this dead horse enough. A fan blade departed and bad things happened. The NTSB will tell us exactly what happened, and why.
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 00:50
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While some passengers sobbed and screamed, others took off their oxygen masks and proceeded to rescue and apply first aid to the injured woman, that is my definition of 'hero'.
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 00:56
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+1 Matt48.........
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 05:37
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Disc failure ?

An earlier post mentioned that while engines are designed to contain blade separation, engines are not designed to contain disc failure. As a SLF i would be grateful if someone will explain what are discs in an engine. A link to a diagram would be great. I googled it and could not find a diagram showing engine discs. I know this must be a very basic question for those in the know, but it would help us , SLF , to follow things. Thank you.
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 06:02
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Originally Posted by freshgasflow
An earlier post mentioned that while engines are designed to contain blade separation, engines are not designed to contain disc failure. As a SLF i would be grateful if someone will explain what are discs in an engine. A link to a diagram would be great. I googled it and could not find a diagram showing engine discs. I know this must be a very basic question for those in the know, but it would help us , SLF , to follow things. Thank you.
At a very basic level, the 'discs' are what hold the fan, compressor, and turbine blades - the 'hub' of the wheel if you will. The fan disc is massive - several feet in diameter on most turbofan engines - and needs to be heavy duty enough to not only restrain the centrifugal force of the (relatively) large and heavy fan blades spinning at several thousand RPM, but also the thrust loads since the fan produces the majority of the thrust on modern engines. A fan disc failing is seriously bad news - a piece several feet across with massive rotational energy. We have a saying 'where does 1/3rd of a fan disc go? Anywhere it wants to" Google 'Sioux City DC-10' to see what can happen when a fan disc lets go.
The compressor and turbine discs are similar but smaller (some newer engines use a compressor 'spool' - a cylindrical piece that holds the compressor blades for multiple compressor stages, replacing several individual compressor discs). Since they are smaller, compressor/turbine discs have less mass than a fan disc, however the high pressure section of the engine spins far faster than the fan (upwards of 10,000 rpm - sometimes higher than 20,000 rpm depending on the engine) so they also have massive rotational energy.

A burst disc - with all it's energy - will go almost perfectly tangential to the axis of rotation (cert requirements give a +/- 10 degree cone for burst disc debris, vs. +/- 30 degrees for 'lower' energy debris such as blades.

Does that help? Teaching isn't my forte
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 06:35
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Radio Procedures

Whilst the crew did a very good job just as they and all of us are trained to do I do think their R/T procedures were very lacking.
There were quite a few queries as to the status of the flight from ATC.
Why did the Capt. not simply give a mayday call as it was most appropriate. Maybe not initially but when she found what had happened there was still confusion with ATC as to the aircraft's status.
After listening to a lot of " Live ATC " on you tube it seems that in the USA the terms Pan or Mayday are hardly ever used and because of that there is a lot of verbal with ATC as to aircraft's status.
Is it not an International Standard to use Pan or Mayday?
Apparently not in the USA.

Anyway the crew , cabin crew and some pax did a very fine job so well done to them!
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 06:51
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Originally Posted by RodH
Whilst the crew did a very good job just as they and all of us are trained to do I do think their R/T procedures were very lacking.
Yes, it's almost as if they had given more priority to Aviating and Navigating ...
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 07:07
  #234 (permalink)  
 
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Mayday ?

M'aidez - Help me.

Yes, they certainly needed help, nearest available, ground support once down, ATC giving them an interrupted approach, but ... they achieved that anyway, and ..... we weren't there.

DaveReidUK has put it in perspective, they got their priorities right, or when in doubt ....Fly The Aeroplane.
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 07:26
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Originally Posted by DaveReidUK
Yes, it's almost as if they had given more priority to Aviating and Navigating ...
Sure they did that but there was a lot of conversation as to their status so why not a May Day call which puts it all in a better perspective!
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 07:53
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I think it's more of a culture difference. In the US you "declare an emergency", in the rest of the world it is a mayday. Like rcsa said in their (US) mindset mayday is the final chapter, ie you're going down.
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 07:54
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Originally Posted by freshgasflow
An earlier post mentioned that while engines are designed to contain blade separation, engines are not designed to contain disc failure. As a SLF i would be grateful if someone will explain what are discs in an engine. A link to a diagram would be great. I googled it and could not find a diagram showing engine discs. I know this must be a very basic question for those in the know, but it would help us , SLF , to follow things. Thank you.
Also SLF - flew more in Helicopters than airliners, and experience working with aero engines driving compressors and power turbines. Couple of links below that may help you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Components_of_jet_engines


The blades in the video are much smaller than the ones used on the large fan which failed on this flight. (scroll down to major components in wikipedia page to see this)

Echo other thoughts - incident handled extremely well by crew and PAX who went to assist. Thoughts with the family of the deceased lady. Terrible time for them.
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 08:03
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Originally Posted by rcsa
Because 'Mayday!' means "I'm going down, right here, right now, and there's nothing I can do about it'. Which this a/c wasn't - it was going to Philly, under controlled flight.

And because aircrew are trained to not make a drama out of a crisis.
In the USA we "declare an emergency". "Emergency" is a correct, official radiotelephony term used in both the ATC handbook and AIM. This gives us priority handling. It does not necessarily (though in practice does usually) automatically give you ARFF response. Note she also asked them specifically to "roll the trucks" which while most definitely incorrect per ICAO, would not be misunderstood by any ATCO in the country. An ATC controller will never ask you "if you are MAYDAY" but will ask you "are you declaring an emergency?" if you have not said so but request priority for whatever reason. If you say "I am single-engine" or any of a number of similarly severe scenarios, they will not burden you by asking but simply understand the implications, give you assistance, and "declare an emergency" to their supervisors on your behalf.

Yes MAYDAY would be the technically correct ICAO term (and yes it is also recommended in the AIM right after it describes the normal, more direct and informal way to communicate in a distress condition) but as mentioned it would be understood in the USA to imply that your situation is, to some degree, out of control. It is commonly understood that if a non-US carrier uses the term "MAYDAY" that they are saying the same thing that we mean by "declaring an emergency". It is also understood that "emergency" declaration means nothing outside of the USA, and that if we need priority handling elsewhere "MAYDAY" is the word to use.

However if lack of use of the word "MAYDAY" is the only criticism we can throw at this American domestic crew operating in American domestic airspace, let's just shut up and say good job.

Weren't there some people on here saying the same thing a couple days after the Miracle on the Hudson? Bet they were shocked when the CVR recording came out and Sully's "MAYDAY" was there after all!
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 08:08
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Question from a non-pilot, feel free to move if it's the wrong forum.
I know there is a maximum single-engine height but assume that if an engine is lost, descent to this height would be a (relatively) gentle business, whereas an emergency descent due to loss of cabin pressure would be a much more rapid affair.
Would it be normal to tell ATC you were depressurised and descending rapidly, rather than simply that you were single-engined and descending?
No criticism intended - I've dealt with a few "holy sh#t" moments myself and after listening to the recording am reassured by the calm professionalism of crew, ATC and the emergency responders.
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Old 19th Apr 2018, 08:22
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but assume that if an engine is lost, descent to this height would be a (relatively) gentle business, whereas an emergency descent due to loss of cabin pressure would be a much more rapid affair.
Might be, might not be..if you have lost cabin pressure and structural integrity is in doubt you might contemplate a relatively gentle descent, rather than diving height off at high speed.

As for comments about R/T calls ... having had a quick listen to the archived feeds provided by others earlier in the thread I personally had ended up assuming some of the early calls that one would perhaps have expected to have been made when this all unravelled approaching top of climb were missing from the record. Certainly some of the exchanges you can hear are remarkably low key and will be interesting to see the transcripts.

Last edited by wiggy; 19th Apr 2018 at 08:36.
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