Germanwings aircraft loses part of engine
 

Tuesday 20 October, Euro Wings / Germanwings flight 4U592, an Airbus 330, from Cologne to Palma de Mayorca lost a piece of coverage of the left engine while taking off. Airport closed until debris were cleaned off. Flight continued to Palma.

http://www.20min.ch/dyim/ad13a6/M600...topelement.jpg

20 minutes - Son avion s'effrite, le pilote trace sa route - Monde

Köln-Palma 4U592: Germanwings-Flugzeug verliert Triebwerksabdeckung - DIE WELT

Continued to Palma........wow. This is the third or fourth cowl incident in a week isn't it?

A4

CONTINUED TO PALMA!!!! Please tell me that's not true

Did EU261 sway the commander's decision by any chance. I'm pretty sure engines aren't designed to operate normally with all their pretty bits and pieces showing. Got lucky this time............but the next

Chill out: we don't know yet when the crew became aware of the issue.
First indications (swiss article linked above) suggest Marseille Center was the one that informed the crew, meaning the aircraft was at least above southern France, and perhaps already above mediterranean waters.

Wouldn't the airport at least have advised flights which had departed of the issue with debris on the runway and suggested whatever visual checks were possible?

Who says there was debris on the runway? The photo would indicate that the part fell beyond the runway. Once reported lots goes into motion but it will take time before all crews are advised. This is why said a/c was probably well past the half way mark of a relatively short flight when they were informed.

How quick some people are to criticise a professional pilot without knowing the full facts.

Wonder why the other one never came of??

It's not unknown for an A330 to lose a single cowl door (Canada 3000 in March 2000, for example), whereas the doors on the A320 almost invariably depart in pairs. Don't ask me why.

@Hotel Tango:

The article written in French says that pilots reported debris on the runway and it was closed down for some time.

@Simplythe beast: I'm not blaming the pilots or anyone.

I'm just ointing out that there's something odd about the sequence of events.

Pilots have been informed about the incident by ATC while enroute in southern french airspace. They hadn't noticed anything before and decided to continue to Palma.

Add On
 

May be it helps if some facts become recognized.
At the time of departure it was dark.
RWY 14L is situated to the east of the TWR.
Cowl separation happened on the left side.
With this basics in mind one must consider that ATC had no chance to observe the separation >> darkness >> engine concealed by the fuselage.
Apparently smaller debries were found by succeeding landing or take off.
Then RWY inspection followed by collection of parts and identification.
Only then it was possible and made sense to contact the correct flight.
There are reports that all this took about 45 min., this will take a flight from CGN to PMI into France airspace.
So seen the circumstances: no delay !! Yes may be some amount of luck and yes, someone on the ground might feel not so comfortable anymore.
In genaral it is a shame that every so often one or both of these cowlings start flying by themself!! Looks like the engineering performance on the locking and the lock control mechanism - if available - is not really brilliant !!

Nialler, I find nothing wrong with the sequence of events. We don't know how long after the departure of the affected aircraft the debris was reported. Believe me, as soon as ATC were notified they will have immediately set about gathering the details of all preceding departures and contacting adjacent ATC units. There will have been multiple departures all going in different directions and working different ATC units. It all takes time.

EW/LH internal news:

A bit is lost in translation, but still it seems there was no reason to worry so the flight continued.

@Tango Hotel, thanks.

Annex14 introduced the word "darkness" which would really explain at a stroke the timescales involved in communication.

There appear to separate accounts of when the pilots were told, but this explanation covers things largely.

In the continue, return or divert debate, my considerations following a cowling loss would include lack of knowledge about the extent of other damage and the fact that you have no effective fire protection for the engine concerned.

i wasn't there and will not criticise, but I would be interested to know what the thought processes were and what other factors were in play.

For sure there will have been a discussion between the captain and the company's qualified engineer(s). They will have known a great deal more than we do here and made their decision based on the facts they had at hand.

"Wonder why the other one never came of??"

Maybe it's because the Germanwings engineers are smarter than BA.

Maybe they've noted the risks of working on 2/2 engines on any 1 occasion without extra precautions being taken.

Maybe they've read the accident report to G-OBMM and paid heed to the recommendation regarding simultaneous critical work on both engines not be accomplished on routine basis.

Is this :mad:ing rocket science, or am I the only grumpy old f**t to have read this accident report and marvelled at how quickly the pumped-up young pipsqueaks who run todays airlines forget yesterdays mistakes?!!

:ugh: :ugh: :confused:

I think the OP was asking why only the outboard cowl departed and not the inboard one on the same engine (given that they are latched to each other), rather than why the other engine wasn't affected.

Any suggestions?

A question:

Is it also possible that the loss wasn't visible; that the cowling hadn't been positively identified as belonging to that particular aircraft and it was not possible to verify visually that it was lost?

I ask (as mere-SLF) because surely if it were visible a passenger might have called the loss to the attention of the crew, and because if it were the sort of event to trigger an alert on the deck it would have been spotted early in the flight.

Could it be that the warning to the pilot was that such an event had happened and that there was no indication was present to identify the particular aircraft.

Please forgive any abject ignorance behind the question.