Question is, would the M3L door have even been opened at LHR?

How do you 'properly' INSPECT a suspect door in this position ? Only fully correct method is in a hangar with docking installed . How many destinations have that available ? This doesnt just apply to A380 for an overwing exit. So do you ferry somewhere unpressurised or employ very tall LAE's at all outstations. Only answer is for manufacturer to meet the design requirements where it should survive safely until the next scheduled inspection !

Most cherry picker and all deicing trucks are useful to perform this job...

http://photolibrary.heathrow.com/preview/CHE02675.jpg

A passenger's tale.
 

Spoke yesterday to a young English lady passenger. Apart from general terror and a swift descent she complimented the crew given mountainous terrain and a calm fix for the problem. It was explained that Azer. was the "way to go" given a potentially hostile reaction from the folk to the south. The runway in use was 800 m. short for a 380 and the time spent on the ground was OK except for the mum's with babes in arms who had a hard time.

Small is a relative term. A380 wing loading is 575t per 845m² or 6.67 kPa or 0.97 psi. This is the average pressure over the wing surface, peak pressure is well above twice this value. Max g is 2.5, so peak upper wing surface "suction" is around 5psi, more than 50% of the cabin pressure differential. 50% more loading at much higher frequency means quite something in fatigue ! 15-20% more constant pressure load every flight cycle means something as well.

pianokeys
 

I know a passenger who was on this flight and sitting close to this Door. On departure London and once airborne the air noise coming from the door was such that passengers could not hear the PA also they could not hear the video with headset on the crew gave them better headsets obviously from first or business class, over France the plastic cover broke and the Captain sent the first officer down to check the door he did not look at it just walked by.overhead Afghanistan the Aircraft made an emergency descent. The rest is HISTORY
Question. Why didn't the Aircraft return or divert over France.
Question. Why did the First Officer not physically check the door.
I suggest commercial pressures. Crew contact Singapore Operations and Maintenance, is there any indication of pressure loss NO keep going then it all happens over AFGHANISTAN.
This aircraft should never have left London.
On leaving London after the Passenger complaints and the plastic over broke the Aircraft should have diverted or returned to London.
I know that the Passengers where not given the correct information and this incident could have been handled a lot better by Singapore Airlines, right from start.

pianokeys

Diverting an airliner, esp a large one, is not a trivial matter. Overweight landings have their own safety hazards. A380 multiplies these issues.

A "door failure" as seems to have happened here is pretty rare, and certainly not foreseen or trained for in my experience.

I think very few crews would have diverted pre-emptively. In retrospect, yes, there was an issue. But nobody on board in a position to know.

It seems safety wise a non issue - who knows whether there really was a significant "decompression"? Divert land, no further damage. I am afraid it is a fact of life that from time to time passengers will find themselves where they do not want to be for a day or 2 - that's air travel. LHR can organise that for you with a few snowflakes ;)

Floor pressurization overloads
 

Many of us will recall Turkish Airlines Flight 981 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (and American Airlines Flight 96 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia which preceded it). In each case a door failure produced a static pressure overload on the floor, deforming it to the point that control cables were compromised.

Now it appears the A380, with its two floors, faces a more complex design issue; if a lower-deck door fails, the upper floor sees a downward overload while the lower floor sees an upward overload. Not a pretty picture.

As a result of the DC-10 accidents, floor vents were retrofitted on all the widebodies of the time. I'm not sure what modern design practice is used to address the situation; anybody "in the know"?

It's the usual dado panels.

pianokeys
 

Isn't hindsight wonderful? :ugh:
The 380 has a long history of noisy doors due to a particular design feature. Would you expect, in these circumstances, to have a full NDT inspection after every noisy door report?


Rest assured, all airliners now have blow out panels fitted at floor level to equalise cabin/hold pressure in the event of a failure.

I know that making a decision to divert a large airliner at a high weight is not a decision taken lightly.
However when a door makes so much noise that the Passengers cannot hear the PA even with head sets on and the the plastic cover distorts in flight there is some thing really wrong.
I have travelled many times on aircraft with leaking doors but at least I could hear the PA and listen to the music through the head set.
I have not travelled on the A380 but understand that in the cabin it has the lowest noise levels of any aircraft.
You can burn of or dump fuel to divert any aircraft.
This aircraft had a serious door problem which was identified early on in the flight which granted may not have blown out who knows.
As an airline who prides itself on customer comfort and safety I believe they let the customer down badly I also take on board that hindsight is a great thing.
Many passengers complained early on in the flight and where very frightend by n the noise then to have an emergency descent and once on the ground an 18 hour ordeal at an Airport not set up to handle the Aircraft.
The airline did get them a hotel but by the time all the Passengers where processed and had to return they had 2 hours at the hotel and many passengers did not even get to the hotel.
I stick by my comments today commercial pressures override safety and customer service in our industry.
Had the decission been been made when it should have to divert then the outcome would have cost the airline less. The big one safety and customer service.

Does anyone know how the passengers flew out of that airport... Was it on another A380, or maybe a couple of smaller jets.?

Another A380 flew up from Changi to take passengers n spare crew back to Singapore. 9V-SKE was the damaged a/c; 9V-SKD the replacement.
It would be fair to assume that 9V-SKD flying up to Baku carried a contingent of SIA engineering!'

Can we get over this second guessing thing now...if all noisy doors were a reason to turn around immediately, a lot of a/c should be grounded forever :hmm: and of course the a380 is pot ugly which explains why it shouldn't fly. It's also too big. Duh. Problem solved. Forgive me, but I'd much rather learn what happened to the door.

Baku Airport runway 18/36 is 3200 metres

Not so pianokeys, the crew are just as concerned for their safety as they are for yours, any doubt and they would have dumped fuel and landed. The FO may well have, "just walked" by, he could hear for himself and any detailed inspection would have told him nothing useful that wasn't already evident on the flight deck.
From my personal experience, where safety is concerned, SIA company policy does not allow for any corner cutting or commercial pressure to be applied to crews, they are a very big and very solvent company with millions, if not billions in reserves. What Nigel said earlier about every so often one in several million flights will go wrong is very true, one tiny drawback to air travel and considering the alternatives an acceptable one.


awblaine - It isn't called the Dugong for nothing!


https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/i...HLevUQZM5DK7IA

How much can you go on on the same topic? And the issues here are not between Boeing and Airbus. The topic led to the safety of the a380, so the discussions further led to the comparisons of safety standards between different aircrafts. Nothing wrong with that...

Add in the global recession that struck in 2008 ish......

The doors primary structure is cast I believe. It's quite shocking that one should deform in such a way, having seen them on transport stands prior to fitment the term brick outhouse comes to mind..
If it's the door that has been id'd then this is a "good thing" as, has been stated, they apparently don't get used in normal operations [??] so wear and tear, for want of a better term can be discounted which throws it back at the manufacturer with less wriggle room.

If you go back to post #70 [assuming these are the subject aircraft] compare the top of the door frame in the two pictures :confused:

Whatever, this is a serious issue and it needs addressing pronto.

It needs to be investigated- this could be an isolated incident and more than anything we need to be certain of what we're dealing with here. I must point out that a fairly rigid door may not behave well when coupled with a flexing airframe, but it still might be the best we've got, Nothing, even well-designed door seals, lasts forever-especially when humans are involved.

A380 is still a new plane. Some more problems are likely to appear and Airbus will update and do the work to fix them. Its a normal and an ongoing process with a new plane. And if you add to the ecuation new plane, the biggest plane in the world its obvious that many challanges are to be overcome due to the amount of engineering put together to build this aircraft.
As the plane is exposed to more hours and fatigue we will learn new things about it.
Again, we have to wait and see what failed, if something failed with the door in this incident.