golfyankeesierra: Apologies to the majority who don't deserve the 'arrogant' paint-brush. I probably should have specifically acknowledged that my comment was intended to describe a small minority.

But I hold to my view that those few are not my favorite drivers because 'arrogance' and 'cooperative decisions' are sometimes tragically at odds, as anyone with a keen memory of accidents will be hard-pressed to deny.

In my own defense, although I've never flown anything bigger than a twin Commander, I've been a obsessed fan of flying machines since a relative who ran an FBO gave me a ride in a Navion, probably some 60 years ago. Since then I've had ample opportunity to see things from your side, minus the pilot in the other seat, spare engines, FBW electronics, or a friendly dispatcher or maintence tech on the line. And I am, probably insignificant to the discussion, a physicist and 'rocket scientist', by virtue of work on Apollo.

And, btw, I did develop an enormous respect for the many in your profession who contributed such vast amounts of knowledge to the AF447 threads - the likes of PJ2 and dozens of others far outshine the few at the other end of the scale.

Reality check from an SLF
 

.

Sorry, but I can't let this pass. I have to agree with sax_r54's comments about what I would expect an aircrew to do in the circumstances as reported, i.e. *loud* bang, followed later by STATUS messages.

I would agree that if you JUST had some status messages you would be "alert but not alarmed". However, the loud bang makes a world of difference. I think it's a little cute to take the two in isolation. I'm a graduate electrical engineer, and if a comparable situation occurred in my line of work I wouldn't hesitate to shut down plant/stop production/whatever until the cause of the noise had been established.

Like sax_r54 I'm pretty disappointed at the apparent attitude of some posters on this forum, who seem to be saying that it's OK to ignore a loud bang AND some subsequent status messages. Here's another SLF who doesn't like that attitude.

If the circumstances were indeed different in this particular case then that's another matter, but my comments on the event as reported here stand.

status
 

From Boeing FCOM (744, not 777):
They are nice to know but have NOTHING to do with inflight failures and have NO effect on decision making.

FYI The concept of Status message (AFAIK) was introduced with the B747-400.
As I said before the status messages aren't even displayed to the pilots (directly).
There is only a blue Cue indicating the presence after which the STS info can be called up.
With the introduction of the B744 the cue could be displayed right after take-off, causing some inadvertent inflight returns because the old school classic 747 pilots thought they were actual failures (like several posters here).
Boeing responded with inhibiting the STS cue until 30 minutes after T/O.

Still don't get it?

A bit late, but the taxi analogy does not work, unless it is a twin engine taxi.

Maybe the cyclical nature of this thread should now be locked by the MOD's, in deference to the more important news items on the rest of the Forum. To sqwk7777 and 629bus I stand behind your views and hope that on any given roll of the dice, that you would be the pilots at the sharp end, using superior judgement in order to avoid having to demonstrate your superior skill. All other times our trust will be in the hands of fault tolerance, triple-redundancy and prayer.

opinions, opinions opinions

anonymous posters from all walks of life interested in aviation.

commenting on news.

Nothing unexpected about that except the name of this forum doesn't match the overall quality of the message to the reader.

What we need is a sticky thread to capture the discussion messages to these news clips

What Would You Have Done ..... if

I think I do get it. But I also understand the cause of some perplexed head scratching on this thread. The content of these mere status messages seems to go beyond what may be deemed 'of minor academic interest'.

Thrust asymmetry? Overheat and Fire sensor problems? All after a loud bang? That sounds like a big deal.

I defer to those that understand these things properly but I understand the confusion.

Nice to know? Sometimes you have to use some common sense and see the bigger picture. A group of status messages relatively co-located in an a single engine nacelle makes it pretty bloody obvious something is highly unusual and unquantifiable has happened. Something that takes out several components simultaneously is not likely to be trivial and is possibly quite dangerous with unknown damage to annunciated areas of the aircraft.

When you add the audible 'bang' into the picture, the situation seem pretty clearer still!

The decision to continue is what they chose. On the face of it, it I does seem a very strange decision. What they took into consideration is unknown by all of us and one can only assume they made the correct decision at the time and under the circumstances. However, that does not detract from the obvious gravity of the situation.

As one poster put it with sat phones and data link the crew have access to a lot of information on which to base a decision. I doubt the crew would have continued if they thought that they had a crippled aircraft.

I do have to question though some of the assertions that just because its a STATUS msge then all is well. The 777 QRH is a very thin document compared to a lot of other Boeing QRHs. Thats due to most abnormals consisting of STATUS msges that don'e require any crew action. My understanding of the reason for this is that Boeing tried to make the 777 that automated even with non-normals that no crew action was required. As an example of this the 777 did not have an unreliable airspeed checklist because the FT-ADIRU was considered so good that in the event of a single failure of an accelerometer or gyro then the "box" would take care of the problem without the crew having to do any switching. After the MAS 777 incident in 2005, Boeing have now put an Unreliable Airspeed checklist into the 777 QRH.

Witness amazing powers of deduction...
 

First, not a T7, just a B744. A lot of similarities though..

It is easy to "second guess" or Armchair Quarterback the decisions of others. Comfy in the confines of our snug room, out of the stress of being in the "pointy end". So, although I wasn't there. I am going to subject you to my thoughts on the matter ( lucky you ).:)

First, as was pointed out ( often ), the crew does not act on Status messages, as per Boeing. Only Warnings or Cautions ( and maybe non < carroted advisories ). I understand Boeings logic, and the necessity of delaying even their presence on the lower EICAS screen. However, they are there. They are information, a tool to be used by the crew in understanding the state of the aircraft. I mean, if we were not meant to view them, wouldn't Boeing, in their infinate wisdom, not even display them until after we were to land?. A single Status message is of limited concern, nesessating only the time it takes me to enter it into the MX log. Multiple messages, all concerning a "system", are another story. Common sense would tell me that something is wrong with the system. In this case the system is the engine. This information, comming on the heels of a loud "Bang" would further inspire me to conclude that all is not well with the engine. Aren't we ( as fellow PIC's ), obligated to use our system knowledge?. There are times when the checklist says, "land at the nearest suitable airport". But, do we really need to wait for a catastrophic event, and the cascading EICAS warnings to take the "safest" course of action?.
There are instances of having multiple deferred items ( all legally deferred ), where the PIC has the right to refuse to take the aircraft, if he feels that the combined effects of those multiple deferred items pose a safety hazard. Again, it's judgement. We have an obligation to ensure the safety of the flight, regardless of the financial of operational implications.
Years ago, I had an ADC fail. The jet didn't know the ADC failed ( no EICAS ), but it sure poured out a lot of EICAS messages related to the outputs of the erroneous ADC. We had to use out system knowledge, or our "common sense" to deduce the cause of our erroneous messages. My point is, although Boeing designed a great airplane, the notification system in place ( EICAS ), can't be relied on to tell the whole story. Sure, act on the EICAS according to your AFM. But, do you believe you will get accurate EICAS messages ( or in this case ANY EICAS massages ) when catastrophic events destroy wires, sensors, or when pieces go missing?.
So, as a commander ( and semi-professional armchair quaterback ), deducing that all is not well with one of my two engines, and being responsible for the lives of all on board, would take the safest course of action by putting the plane back on the ground.
Wait, there's more.....

As far as "calling" the Company is concerned. I've had instances where those on the other end didn't know ****. You may even say there were times we were led down the wrong path. There is often a different set of priorities exhibited by those on the other end. Coersion is not beyond them. So, when safety is concerned, I have learned to make my decision, then call the company to tell them what MY decision is. Of course, operational issues are a different matter.:ok:

I've witnessed enough on PPRUNE to know there will be those that disagree with a lot of what I said, yet, I have the utmost confidence that all will be perfect gentlemen in their responces and will not stoop to criticism or remarks that will hurt my feelings.:O

@FirstStep.

Yours is an analysis that I can comprehend. Ultimately an investigation will be the final arbiter of the known facts. One fact that does seem clear at this stage, is that neither EICAS, the real time engine monitoring back at base nor the pilots, were aware of the large section of fan duct and thrust reverser that was missing. It would be interesting to hear the thoughts of the EK pilots, juxtaposed between what they understood whilst in the air and what they finally saw when positioned on the ramp.

Well said FirstStep..... all common sense.....

Considerations:
Loud bang <-> twin engine
Multiple status messages <-> computer unreliability/ faults
Company decision making <-> crew decision making

-> Land the thing, discuss after.

Known ,extremely infrequent occurrence with RR engine.
Problem with the T/R inner wall lining due long term exposure to elevated temperatures.
Typically occurs during takeoff or shortly after rotation. Loud bang or jolt and EICAS messages + increased fuel flow on affected engine.

Service bulletins 777-78-0071 and 777-75A0002 deals.
Release of parts of engine primary nozzle,aft cowl and portions of the inner wall can lead to minor airplane damage to tires,stab,flaperons,wing control surfaces and wing lower surface.
Continued flight after the T/R failure increases the risk of continued parts liberation from the affected engine....Flight crews should be aware of fuel management given the potential increased fuel consumption resulting from the T/R failure. Thrust reverser should not be selected on subsequent landing if damage is suspected.

A turnback would be understandable, given the prudent nature of most crews, but it is a crew decision, taken in conjunction with maintenance control.:ok:

First Step,

Well said.

What no one seems to have mentioned in the last seven pages is, were the crew confident that they would be able to achieve go-around thrust on the damaged engine. If I'd been in the same situation, given the same info then I would have been very unsure. If you can't get go around power then you have to treat the situation as single engine (even with the damaged engine running) and therefore on a twin engined aircraft land at the nearest suitable airport.

Two issues here:

It happened on take off so the engine was at high thrust and it DIDN'T fail. No reason so far to assume it wouldn't provide high thrust.

A bang by itself doesn't mean a damaged engine. The Status messages that followed would have indicated that there may be a problem, but co-ordination with engineering, lack of pax reports, ground reports etc AND a NORMALLY functioning engine (parameters/thrust response) could reasonably be deduced by the crew as a continue decision.

Surely this thread has died a slow death by now :bored:

but ...
 

A bang itself doesn't mean that it is safe to continue. Just because engineering says it is safe to continue, doesn't mean it is safe to continue. The fact that the engine is running fine right now, doesn't mean it will be running smoothly in 30 mins. It appears to me that some pilots are just too much by the book, forget to think and put themselves and their pax into unnecessary risk.

Look at the picture of the damaged engine, was it safe to continue?

Engineering don't tell you it's safe to continue, they will tell you what the data they have says.

The engine may not run smoothly in 30 mins.. and the sun may not rise in the East.

Pilots don't have internal photos to look at in the air.

Landed safely after the crew made a decision.

GET OVER IT.

Now have the final say and then lets get on with our lives :ugh:

Well, I think there's a whole bunch of you who should offer... no, DEMAND that Emirates take you on as (obviously highly paid) consultants - the lot of you - to advise Emirates' obviously hapless, totally inexperienced crews on how they SHOULD operate their aircraft.

Then again, you could all probably save yourselves the journey to Dubai, as, from the posts I've read here, your collective advice would seem to be, in every case where everything isn't 101% hunky dory: "Land immediately!!!! Just... in... case."

Helen,

So you have a loud bang on take off, various engine related status messages and the local ATC unit report engine debris on the runway and your are happy you are going to achieve GA thrust. Amazing foresight.

ATC did not report debris on the runway. The inference from the report quote is that it was discovered later.

I have no doubt the crew would have responded differently if there was a report of debris shortly after T/O.

Amazing indeed!

It doesn't really matter what ATC reported. What really matters after looking at the engine is that it was not a wise decision to continue.

Speaking of engineering and data, they can never see the big picture just by looking at their data on their screen. Do you need engineering now to make the decision for you? I have been in two incidents where engineering had no indication whatsoever, but I used my common sense. If I would have been too much by the book, I probably wouldn't be typing this right now!

maybe Fortuna was with them this time. To continue into a 5 hour flight is not safety conscious!

Squawk7777

Great hindsight, but absolutely of no relevance to pilot discision making.

If the decision was wrong enough to significantly affected safety of flight, than it's up to the manufacturer to provide, sound, sight and action cues to the pilots while flying, rather than leaving them to be critized by hindsight after the plane has safely landed.

Squawk,

If you think the decision was bad, you must think it may have led to a bad outcome.

What do you think was the worst that could have happened, and why do you think it?

hindsight...
 

having had a stall on the B777 big engine at TOC on a short regional non ETOPS flight, and then been through the decision making process of evaluating the safety and operational aspects IAW warm fuzzy CRM processes.... I can say that for the operator I was with the following position resulted in flight:

1. I was aware that the engine had stalled, but had returned to normal operations immediately.
2. visual inspection of the engine front and rear indicated no damage.
3. as the flight was an out and back operation, and the nearest spare engine was at point of departure, I recommended that an RTP would be best outcome form an engineering perspective.
4. The engine parameters were identifiable and both recorded the stall, and the return to normal operations.
5. Company ops requested proceed to destination.
6. I had no safety of fight concerns with proceeding and did so.
7. On arrival at destination the engine was bore scoped and found normal, and the return flight was conducted.
8. On departure, with a full derate, the EGT went to limit. The rest of the operation was normal.
9. on arrrival at base, the engine was found to be junk. No parameters were identifiable on the AIMS as significantly changed in flight, but the engine went directly to shop and needed a full overhaul.

so what....

The crew get the info they get, and make a decision, either in the absence of other info, or not. The additional information may or may not be beneficial, ie pathological management behaviour does not mix well with decision making.

The big twins fly nicely on one engine, and the conditions on the day very much determine what the crews position may be in respect to safety. Acceptable safety is a moving target, and notwithstanding the rather odd position of FAR 91.07 and 91.13, where applicable, and where applied to a minor event of an engine on a type certified for CAT III single engine landings.... I would suspect that the EK crew made a determination that they were relatively happy with at the time. Tomorrow, their decision may be different, or not; it is conditional on the circumstances.

Be aware that the engine manufacturers spent a fair bit of effort trying to stop crews of the big twins shutting down engines just for the sake of competing a checklist. This is not something I agree with, I think that a checklist is reasonable to follow until the expected outcome diverges from reality, or a greater and contradicting safety risk exists.

In the example case I offer, the company was less conservative in their evaluation than I was, but both positions were based on safety of flight and operational considerations...

These failures are not black or white, they enter the region of grey where the decisions are conditional on many additional factors, most of which are not provided in the rumour network's quarterbacking.

ease up on the stoning

Very surprised a deferred boroscope was allowed after a stall in flight. Some engine manufacturers are more lax than others with their requirements though. What engine type was this?

I am somewhat surprised.

There you have a 380 with an audible explosion, a very visible hole in the wing, one engine in shambles, two othesr no longer respond, no fuel dumping possible, the CG slowly running aft out of limits. The crew did an extensive assessment, worked on 52 ECAMs, and continued to fly the deadly wounded beast for another 2 1/2 hours to do the never ending ECAMs and ......... come out as heroes, lauded for their professionalism.

Then you have a T7 with an audible bang, no visible damage, only status messages, the engine running and responding smoothly. The crew did an extensive assessment and decided to continue for about 4 hours, to land successfully and .......... the crew gets mostly bashed for not doing a quickie back.

Both decisions may be defendable or questionable, but, believe me, I 'd rather be SLF on the EK flight than on the Qantas one!

Decisions...
 

I apologise if my previous post left the impression that I felt the EK crew did somethong "wrong".
I consider these forums to be great for "news" ( always taken with a grain of salt or two ), as well as an almost graduate course in CRM. Where else can you get such insight into decision making ( good and bad ), on current events. Inflight smoke/fires, engine damage, loss of instrumentation, runway overruns. These are all events we have faced, or might face in our occupation. Tomorrow maybe?. "What would I do?'. I often don't even have to ask myself that question, as my mind seems to automatically begin that "process" of putting myself into the situation. And suprise-suprise, how the event parameters seem to unfold and change more often than a "married woman" as more people in the know seem to chime in.
Someone asked if, after "seeing" the damage after landing, would the EK crew have still felt they made the "right" decision.... Good question. It's often pointed out by some that "if a safe landing is made", then it was obviously the right decision. I have issues with that rationale.
I once has a two loud stalls in sucession on climb out. Did a "Sever Eng damage" checklist, as opposed to "Surge-Eng Stall". Dumped fuel, landed. Then I proceeded to "sweat" my decision. Should I have just tried "throttling back, ect", and maybe continued to destination?. ( Luxury of 4 engines :) ). Boroscope revealed a trashed engine. I give thanks to the powers that be for the damage. What I'm trying to say, is that we are often "shaped" by events in our past, both good and bad. If no damage was found, I would most likely have been "called into the office", ect. Then maybe I might make a different decision if the same events were to unfold again.
With the grace of hindsight, and being in the comfy of my room, not under stress or duress, in reference to the EK crew continuing..... I stated "I" would have landed. Too many people take that as a condemnation of the EK crew for continuing. Sort of misses the value of discussing these events in my humble opinion.

Gretchenfrage

Didn't the pilot of the Qantas A380 say why he couldn't land ?

From memory, I thought it was they needed to burn fuel off to get the weight down so that they could still pull up before the end of the runway.

Contacted
"With EK, Qantas (and the like), passengers should have great confidence.
They have a high calibre of pilots."

That's why I prefer to fly Qantas, at least you know you have a crew with some experience and as has been shown, can handle major emergencies when they occur.

There is a major difference.


The QF A380 still had three operating engines !

You want to pull up with one donkey exploded and two others running, but not responding to commands?? Good luck!

That's the difference to the EK case:

Both engines were running normally and thus promised a normal approach and eventual pull up. Therefore the decision to continue is quite acceptable.

The 380 was definitely not in a normal state, so a rapid emergency landing was, at least to my belief, indicated. If you can take off balanced on a runway, you will always be able to put the same aircraft down for an emergency landing.
-- V1 cut and remaining distance at MTOW vs. banging the dying animal right on the 300m mark and then give it all the brakes, revs you still have --

A B747/777 engineer's viewpoint:

1. Loud bang on take off.

2. Multiple status messages (the jet is trying to tell you something here).

3. External integrity of twin-engined aircraft unknown.

If I am on board this flight, I would like to land asap please.

In my 40yrs in this business, I have seen major bits departing airframes/engines. If you are lucky, they will miss the Horizontal Stab which is following close behind you; maybe not..........

Not long ago, I was doing a post-flight inspection on a JT9-70 powered B747 Classic. I noticed something different about the #4 engine; the entire Exhaust Nozzle had gone, broken away at the Turbine rear face flange. This is a 'kin big bit on a -70 motor. Lucky it was the #4, & not the #3, for Horiz Stab reasons.

Why do we not have effective external camera coverage on aircraft? I can festoon my motorcycle & even my crash hat with dinky little cameras; what is the problem......at least the crew would have more info to work with.

Rant off.

deferred.
 

Fargoo: there was no deferral, the borescope was done on arrival at the destination, ie landing at end of the sector.

The type provides a message in the AIMS maintenance pages on detection of the "Engine Stall".

Curiously, the engineering in this case was telling me that there was no problem of note whilst in flight, without being aware that the crew had reviewed the AIMS maintenance pages onboard and were quite aware that the maintenance dept were not telling the whole truth. Nevertheless, the issue is what constitutes a safety fo flight condition vs one of inconvenience to engineering... sort of like the Columbia decision making process in the background after the foam strike; Linda Ham: "so this is a scheduling issue..., not safety of flight...". Making a black and white, concrete resolution of "action in the event of..." neglects the environment that aircraft are operated in.

Legally, there is a background issue, that there are no maintenance approvals anywhere in the world I am aware of to conduct maintenance actions in flight, and from the manufacturers, the data monitoring of systems provided to ground engineering is not certified for the purposes of intervention in approved procedures. Might seem a small thing, but when the management gets to the point of getting crews to disregard checklists such as cargo fires etc... in flight then there is a bit of a problem. Where "CRM principles" and company decision making devolves to the extent that everything needs to go through the engineering dept before actioning, then everything between the covers of the QRH becomes negotiable.

Decision making under conditions of uncertainty makes the job interesting. The wash up does not always add much to the future quality of decision making, I suspect that management frequently reinforce bad habits in their response to events. A substantial percentage of management personnel are not trained in risk management, CRM or associated aspects of how their interaction with operations may affect adversely outcomes. Forums such as this have the luxury to opine without responsibility about the decisions made by crew post event, and with the benefit of knowing the outcome of the actual event. The rest of the operators out there every day deal with out of family events that have no specific checklist that covers all the procedures required to be followed. I for one would prefer to generally arrive at an acceptable course of actions that minimises the impact to the operation, rather then refine a response by employing limited resources to the problem at hand, which interferes with the normal operations (EA401, UAL173 like... even arguably AS261).

aviate
navigate
communicate

checklist.... complete
problem resolved? Y/N
Y...... have coffee
N...... apply adequate effort to result in a safe and adequate outcome.

or whatever else floats your boat, after all, as is often stated post event, by management: "...thats what you get paid the big bucks for.." With the heady race to the bottom, the reference to big bucks is probably false advertising now... :)

Operational safety is the outcome of signals that are effectively stochastic in nature, and quite often the result of unknown interactions of factors. Hollnagel's resonance theory gives a perspective of the non linearity of systems. Bottom line is that almost all events are unique in their nature, (but may have similarities to prior events). The target of acceptable safety is effectively a moving target, as are the risks to operational safety. The general unwashed crews around the world actually do a fairly credible job in balancing the issues, even if the customers fuelling the race to the bottom complain about far too many runway overruns, LOC etc. Checklists will invariably deal with generic issues and will frequently leave the PIC with a requirement to determine appropriate course of actions and the disposition of the aircraft. Please refrain from throwing stones.

all of the above:}

Loud Bang
 

First time I experienced a loud bang (from somewhere under my seat) my military flight commander told me not to eat onions for breakfast! More seriously, STATUS messages are just that (qv) and the reason why they are inhibited for 30 mins is so that too hasty a judgement is not reached. Two things here must be considered. One – airmanship, two – I was there and you weren’t (not on this particular incident).

Any idea of an EK incident of a similar nature on 22 Sept. Sister in law was on a MCT-DXB flight, not sure a/c type (she told me it was big). Heard a bang on approach resulting in some sort of dust/smoke in economy. She was seated by the wing but did not look out. Greeted by emergency services on landing.

Any idea what this could have been?

It might be worth mentioning that the bypass duct is the airframe not the engine. The engine hours are irrelevant, it is the the duct life that counts. The bypass duct is also supplied by Boeing not Rolls-Royce

Since this thread seems to decaying, maybe inject something back into it :hmm: A similar BA problem AAIB Report Link

The messages, actions and decisions of the crew all discussed. I'm not trawling through this thread to see the similarities / differences to the EK situation, but I am sure others will :rolleyes:

Just for sake of doubt, I can see little I would comment on, apart from one action raised my eyebrows a little. Will keep to myself for now ;)

Of course this comment caused me to read the whole report trying to find this "one action" :E

The report appeared to confirm my suspicions of the symptoms as reported.

I recall several other similar events over the years of jet service where the turbine exhaust duct hardware has gone missing at takeoff but other than performance issues with the engine wasn't detected until subsequent landing.

These new glass cockpits do provide a lot more information but even with consultation with the home base tech guys don't make the decisions of go-no-go obvious for you.

That's because law and accountability are funny things...

interesting AAIB report , crew accessing MAT in flight ?