Wing damage
 

I agree with HN39's post #979. I believe the picture 'Section of Front Spar' is taken from within the wingbox (and therefore the tank) looking at the inside face of the front spar and forward through the hole into the leading edge D nose area. The damaged top skin can be seen above and the nuts are those attaching the top flange of the spar to the main skin.

SafferNZ's other picture seems to be taken looking through the exit hole in the top skin down into the wingbox. The fuel pipe inside the tank has been fractured in an 'upwards' direction, i.e. towards the camera POV. The yellow cord appears to indicate the trajectory of the engine part passing through the wing.

What I thought was interesting was the probing of the links between the Trent 1000 and 900. Although RR says this problem is confined to the 900 it doesn't ring true given the similarities betwen the events. There is also the while issue of how much RR knew about this beforehand. :E

My understanding is that the fuel shutoff valves require power to close. Which ensures that an electrical failure won't give you an accidental (multiple) engine failure.

I've been tracking what RR knew about the bearing box. If RR say there's no link between the 1000 and 900 failures, who's going to argue? This sort of info won't be available in the public domain unless a RR employee spills the beans. And security at Derby will be VERY tight at the moment.

It would again be nice to know when the bearing box design change was made and approved by EASA (I've seen one report that EASA hasn't approved any bearing box changes!). The fact that current RR 900 prod. line engines HAVE the h/w mod (don't know about any s/w mod) says that the design decision happened a while ago. Again, we'll only hear anything about this if a RR employee leaks something or EASA says something.

I would like to think that the bearing box mod was made as a natural design/development improvement. It was believed to be X% reliable and the new one is believed to be >X% reliable. Whatever "X" is we will never know unfortunately.

@Gretchenfrage

Didn't it happen 6 minutes after take-off?
Which altitude does this mean:ouch:?

DearSKS777FLYER

Very balanced post, I must say.
Simply reread my statement and you will see that I didn’t shoot down anyone.

Maybe you’re upset that I pretended that they MUST have been lucky. So be it, but that is not a shooting down of a colleague.
If you’re pointing at me saying that I’d RATHER be a little less book bound, again, so be it, but that did not imply any insult to others.

If you point at someone, then three fingers point back at you.

picture of 4in vent pipe, not fuel feed pipe

Mrdeux...your understanding is correct...thats why the airplane I am familiar with, the B737NG, has separate small battery packs to power these important shutoff valves in the case of a complete power failure.

Islandjumper...my guess is that they were referring to the speed brakes (or spoilers), since the loss of one of the hydraulic systems caused the loss of half the spoiler capability...as demonstrated in the video out the window during the landing.

Cheers,
EW73 ;)

Why are many of you so critical of Gretschenfrage's posts? He is not being at all critical of the QF32 crew, but is merely asking a question. Given how severe the damage turned out to be, I can understand that getting down asap could be desirable.

Does anyone know if the cabin crew reported to the flight deck that fuel was gushing out of the wing? And that the wing appeared to be damage? As the eyes and ears down the back, I think it would be pretty important to convey something like this to the flight deck.

Does anyone know if the cabin crew reported to the flight deck that fuel was gushing out of the wing? And that the wing appeared to be damage? As the eyes and ears down the back, I think it would be pretty important to convey something like this to the flight deck.

Mention was made in the media that a flightdeck member came down the back and looked out . Not 100% certain this was factual though.

Maybe because "getting down asap" was what they actually did? The aeroplane was getting lighter by the minute and they were holding very close to the airfield, should the need for an *immediate* approach have materialised. If they had attempted to land much earlier, they'd have been odds-on for a significant overrun which could have turned an incident into an major accident, possibly with extensive loss of life. In the end they DID decide to cut short preparations and go for an approach, which shows they were monitoring the situation and made a final decision based on that.

I don't think this is the same class of mishap as the Swissair, as they were faced with an uncontrollable rapid development of smoke and/or fire inside the aircraft. Here there was a set of multiple failures and problems, many subtly interlinked, which required a lot of problem solving and intelligent use of checklists to get to the stage where a safe landing was reasonably assured.

Yes, there are times when you've just got to get the damn thing on the ground but in this circumstance, I'm grateful that cool heads prevailed.

"Does anyone know if the cabin crew reported to the flight deck that fuel was gushing out of the wing? And that the wing appeared to be damage?"

It was reported that one of the training pilots went back into the cabin and reported the wing damage... Close to Disaster: Qantas A380 Sustained Worse Damage than First Thought - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Thanks for your response FullWings. A calm, informative response like that is what I expect. Some of the responses to Gretchenfrage's posts were very childish and ugly.

I believe it's the media, not fully understanding how an aircraft works, translating what they are told into something they do understand.

ie: Company spokesperson says something along the lines of: 'The flaps were damaged ..... the flaps are used to slow the aircraft down for landing.' The Journo (thinking in terms of the car in which they drove to work) makes the connection: flaps are used to slow down, therefore flaps must be some sort of fancy brakes, thus 'Brake Flaps'.

On the day, Captain Richard de Crespigny and his crew were faced with an unprecedented failure, and consequent set of circumstances. From being an A380 Captain, our gallant Captain was, all of a sudden, a Test Pilot. With only the ECAM, his knowledge, his experience and his ability to guide him, he controlled that errant aircraft and flew it to a successful and safe landing. Bravo Zulu in Spades.

Anybody who criticises Captain de Crespigny's myriad decisions on the day, or says that he should have landed sooner, quite simply has no knowledge, no understanding nor experience of handling Very Large Aircraft.

Go back to your armchairs.

Not to take anything away from Captain R de C, but lets not forget that he was fortunate enough to have 2 other experienced A380 Captains on the flightdeck to assist him. eg The PA that was recorded by one of the pax and passed onto the media, was made by one of the supernumery Captains.

It's a pity that some on here are critical of the flight crews delay in landing. The delay was part of their decision processes. They could very easily have done a 180 and banged it into Changi. They chose not to - and the outcome speaks for itself.

Rectifying the wing
 

Newbie non-techo warning:

Firstly kudos to the QANTAS crew. Now that SafferNZ has posted the wing pics can anyone take a punt on if it is patchable to get back to Toulouse if the engines #1 & #2 were replaced?

If it isn't repairable then would the new wing need to come by sea (Toulouse not known for its beaches) or could it be airlifted?

Skillsy

How do you think the wings get from the UK (where they are made) to TLS? Answer: they go by ship as far as they can and then truck.

Wing damage
 

referring to my earlier picture on wing damage as a passenger on QF32, here my observations, which are not based on speculation

1-the hole in the wing had exactly the same size from right after the explosion to landing. It never "grew bigger".

2-fuel leak: after the explosion a flame came out of the circular hole. Flame height appx. the diameter of the hole (min. 70-80cm, maybe even larger). Until gradually dying down, after about 6 minutes it was for another 5 minutes visibly burning IN the wing. I am sure, the investigation will shed light on the source of that fire.

3-SO was on the upper deck for a view, but only after the fire had died down - at least on the wing surface