Uncontained engine failure
 

"Uncontained Engine Failure"
Has anyone heard any details of an uncontained engine failure at Miami airport yesterday (A330 European carrier):\

Word on the street is Edelweiss, the Swiss Low-Cost operator. Turbine blade release on climb. Watch this space

Engine explodes on charter plane, forcing flight to turn back to Miami

An engine exploded on a Swiss charter airline Sunday morning shortly after
it took off from Miami International Airport with 175 people aboard.

Edelweiss Air Flight No. 565 en route to Zurich returned to the airport and
no injuries were reported, said Lauren Peduzzi, spokeswoman for the National
Transportation Security Board, which is investigating the incident.

However, the explosion of the Rolls-Royce engine damaged the Airbus A330's
wing, and pieces of the engine could have penetrated the passenger cabin.

''Anytime you have an uncontained engine failure and have engine parts
exiting the engine, it's a dangerous situation,'' Peduzzi said. ``There is a
danger that engine parts will damage the aircraft or they could injure
people.''

The twin-engine Airbus A330 departed Miami at 1:28 a.m. and returned at 2:11
a.m., said Marc Henderson, Miami International Airport spokesman. The
plane's left engine failed no more than 40 miles outside the airport, he
said.

Passengers were flown later that day on Lufthansa and American Airlines
flights, Henderson said.

Edelweiss' charter flight has flown nonstop to Zurich on Sunday mornings
since July 5.

Peduzzi said the aircraft is still in Miami, and Rolls-Royce is making
arrangements to remove the engine and ferry it to Derby, England, to analyze
it.

Engine explosions are unusual, and the flying metal can kill passengers. In
1996, a Pratt & Whitney JT8D-219 engine on a Delta MD-88 failed as the plane
took off from Pensacola. Debris tore into the plane's cabin, killing a
Michigan woman and her 12-year-old son.

In November 1973, a passenger was killed when an engine exploded on a
National Airlines flight from Houston to Las Vegas.

I am presently attending the 10th annual Airbus Flight Safety Meeting in Barcelona, and they made a very short presentation about this.

Needless to say at this stage they are not making any comments. Showed some photographs of the engine and the wing damage.

The aircraft has apparently been released by the NTSB for repair and return to service. The engine as mentioned has been sent to Derby.

sorry to be off the immediate topic, but does anyone know what exactly happened to the BA 747 out of sydney a couple of months ago, it also had an uncontained engine failure and threw a blade straight at the fuselage, luckily hitting the skin behind which a heavy duty production frame lay. They repaired it at Sydney, but it got home and we did the permanent repair. Scariest thing i've ever seen in the hangar.

I think that shore guy is trying to get a job for a Tabloid Newspaper, by the way that he has written


"Engine explodes on charter plane, forcing flight to turn back to Miami

An engine exploded on a Swiss charter airline Sunday morning shortly after
it took off from Miami International Airport with 175 people aboard.

Edelweiss Air Flight No. 565 en route to Zurich returned to the airport and
no injuries were reported, said Lauren Peduzzi, spokeswoman for the National
Transportation Security Board, which is investigating the incident.

However, the explosion of the Rolls-Royce engine damaged the Airbus A330's
wing, and pieces of the engine could have penetrated the passenger cabin. "

Just had a talk with an Edelweiss FCM. They don't know too much at this stage, but Rolls apparently released the information to them that it's a high-pressure turbine blade which failed, and originated the complete failure...

Interestingly enough, all the "live" tests, supposed to prove that a blade failure will NOT lead to an uncontained disruption are done the same for all manufacturers: they throw stuff into the front of the running engine, after which a low-pressure compressor blade fails, and the engine parts then exit the via the rear outlet, leaving the nacelle whole...

This incident should start not only RR, but also the other manufacturers thinking about how to build nacelles to withstand blade failures in the high-pressure area... I wonder what this incident (first major incident for the RR engine in 8 years) will do for the ETOPS certification?

As for ETOPS "affects", they are typically based on reliability per flight which would be unaffected by a single "one-off" failure such as this.

Regulated containment is for common blade failures caused by the release of a single blade intentionally released in its attachment.

It has little to do with throwing bits into the engine and seeing where they go, once you get beyond the fan.

I would certainly not expect the subject event to be the result of a single blade release, although numerous blades may have been involved.

In cases of this magnitude the corrective action is more likely to be one of minimizing the cause of a multiple blade release.

If I am not mistaking...tests are carried out for blade containment are for the low pressure stages by wrapping advanced carbon shielding within the cowling. (OR what ever they use now at Airbus) High pressure compressor and turbine blades are not tested for containment, but the engine is tested to verify it's integrity in case it losses one of these blades.

Not being a bus driver equiped with RR engines please forgive errors in technical detail.

When AI mentioned the failure at the Airbus Safety Conference they said that all the blades from the second stage LP turbine had seperated (I think they also said the third stage). The slides clearly showed that all the blades from these stages were missing. The turbine discs were however intact. The "C" sections on both sides of the engine were missing.

Damage was done to the leading edge of the wing and slat, as well as some damage to the underside of the wing.

I think that you will find it very rare for a specific containment test to be carried out on anything other than the highest energy blade which is the fan blade.

Typically all other blade stages are validated by experience. Also only the fan stages have used anything other than metal casings in the big iron and for the newer fan, typically Kevlar not carbon fiber.

The engine can not rely for containment from the cowl since that is a piece specfic to the arcraft installation.

The report above of completely missing baldes from several disks might imply a significant stretching of the disks to release them from their slot grooves if indeed the complete blade is missing from an open slot.

At any rate I would rather see blades liberated compared to disks so mitigation worked!

One might consider this a good validation if it turns out to be only a one-off event.

What?????
 

To: Lomapaseo

Spoken like a tru FAAer. If what you said is true then the next uncontained failure will not happen before the engine type has flown one Billion hours (10 9 hours). Do you want to start the countdown now?

:E

Edited to correct for Dislexia.

Most "billions" are either 10 to the 9th or 10 to the 12th. Or does Canada now have a 10 to the 6th "billion"?

SC

Leaving no nit unpicked.

So the engine is going back to Derby then-guess there are worse places in the world to have to go back to.:rolleyes:
My dad worked for Rolls for years.Sadly these days they cannot even stop a hole in their workers pension fund let alone stop a hole in the side of their Trent engines.
Hope the engine faliure was just a one off!!!!!