Qantas grounds A380 fleet after incident over Indonesia

[sn26567]

Qantas to resume flying Airbus A380s from Nov 27

Qantas will resume flying its Airbus 380 fleet after engine inspections concluded the airplane was safe to fly. Qantas will put two of its six A380s in the air from Saturday but the others will take "some time" to return. First Qantas A380 to return will be VH-OQF, followed by VH-OQE

Rolls-Royce concluded the incident was caused by an oil fire but said the issue was confined to a specific component and it has since been scrambling to find a fix and replace faulty engines with new turbines.

Rolls-Royce may have to replace as many as 40 engines globally, or about half the engines currently in service on the A380.

Details from Reuters

QANTAS Airbus A380 Service Update as of 19NOV10

As per 19NOV10 GDS timetable display, QANTAS is further postponing planned Airbus A380 service into December 2010.

Latest resumption dates as follows, note that further postponement is possible as the airline is unsure when its A380 fleet will be able to re-enter service, according to latest article by Reuters filed

Melbourne – Los Angeles eff 05DEC10
Melbourne – Singapore – London Heathrow eff 05DEC10 (LHR eff 04DEC10)
Sydney – Los Angeles QF011/012 eff 04DEC10
Sydney – Singapore – London Heathrow eff 27NOV10, service operates 4 times a week in its first week of service resumption

Source: airlineroute.net

[sn26567]

Qantas resumes A380 flightsN

Australia's Qantas Airways resumed flights of its Airbus A380 superjumbos on Saturday, after a mid-flight engine failure grounded all six of the planes earlier this month.

Chief Executive Alan Joyce joined the first resumed flight to show that he was confident the aircraft was safe. Flight QF31 from Sydney to London took off late on Saturday afternoon, with Joyce joining the flight as far as Singapore.

Two of Qantas' six A380s have been cleared to resume flying since the November 4 incident. Further repairs will be required before the remaining four planes can resume flying.

Full story from Reuters

[andorra-airport]

Qantas to conduct further inspections of A380 Rolls Royce engines after safety alert.


QANTAS will conduct more detailed inspections of its A380 Rolls-Royce engines after Australian air safety investigators issued a new safety alert.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) issued the alert today after identifying a potential manufacturing defect concerning an oil tube connection to the bearing structure of the Trent 900 engines installed in some A380 aircraft.
The problem relates to the potential for misaligned oil pipe counter-boring, which could lead to fatigue cracking, oil leakage and potential engine failure from an oil fire.
The issue has been found in the first series of the Rolls Royce Trent 900 engines and airlines which use these parts will be required to undergo further examination.
It is believed to be the cause of the dramatic engine failure onboard QF32 on November 4.
Qantas grounded its entire A380 fleet after the incident but has since returned two planes to the skies.

One-off inspections will be conducted on both of the airline's A380 aircraft in Sydney this afternoon.
The inspections are not expected to impact on international services, however Qantas says it has contingency arrangements in place if needed.
“After discussions with the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau (ATSB) and Rolls-Royce, it was decided it was prudent to conduct further inspections of engine components, although there is no immediate risk to flight safety,” Qantas said.
“This is in line with Qantas’ conservative, safety first approach.”
Turbine fragments flew out of the QF32’s engine when it exploded in mid-air last month, severing cables in the wing, narrowly missing the fuel tank and taking out flight control systems, a preliminary report by Airbus found.
The pilots were forced to deal with an "unprecedented" number of issues during the two-hour ordeal, Vice President of the Australian and International Pilots Association, Richard Woodward, said.
The ATSB will release its preliminary factual investigation report into the QF32 incident tomorrow.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/qant ... 5964546271

[Airbus330lover]

And where is the plane now?
Back to TLS or written-of ?

[Bralo20]

And where is the plane now?
Back to TLS or written-of ?

Still in SIN and it will probably stay there for some time... All investigations have to be finished, an agreement with the insurance has to be made wetter to repair or to write off, etc...

So it will take time... Loads of time...

[Airbus330lover]

Ferried to SYD ? Are you sure ?
QF32 flies back to SIN

[Bralo20]

Ferried to SYD ? Are you sure ?
QF32 flies back to SIN

My mistake, she's still in SIN offcourse and she'll stay there (at least for now).

I think the bird will be repaired, QF doesn't want a hull loss if they can avoid it. If QF may decide they'll repair here whatever the costs are... But I don't think it will be an easy job, it's not just 2 (or 4) engines that needs to be replaced, from what is known at this point there is a very strong possibility that also the wing needs to be replaced and probably also (part of) the wingbox... And to make it even more pleasant, they cannot just take another wing from the production line since the wings have been changed recently so it will have to be custom made for the plane...

If the bird will be repaired I'll think that it will take at least till the end of 2011 before she'll fly again... And that's optimistic I think, we'll have still a couple of months to go before a final conclusion will be drawn, then the discussions will start to repair it or simply write it off. And that can probably take a long time (I think that the insurance company will likely to propose to write it off while QF will like to have it "fixed"). After the final discission is made and they opt for repair then they need to build the new wing, ship it to SIN (only possible by a barge so that alone takes weeks), and mount it to the bird. New wirering, new engines and then followed by lots of tests... Unless they reveice a single ferry permit to fly to TLS which can speed things up (but unfortunately due the amount of damage I'm not sure that the insurance will agree with that)...

So to conclude: it's staying at SIN and probably for a (very) long time

[Desert Rat]

http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/inv ... 0-089.aspx

Check the photo's as well.

[regi]

Very strange is that after such a long time, it is still yet not determined precisely what was the cause of the engine failure.
We are now at the point of a high pressure oil tube that was attached on a bearing housing in a way that is not right according general engineering specifications. But the reason why just some tubes - or their attachment point - leaked/cracked is not known.
It is not normal that metal pressure tubes burst. Fatigue in these steel tubes means that they moved, which is an absolute no no in engineering. Normally such a tubes are well supported along their path to avoid movement.
So despite that RR informed us that the tubes were wrongly engineered/attached/machined it stil is no answer where the movement came from.
Imagine that those engines show a vibration just at some point during use, this is very difficult to find out on a test bench.( the parameters are not the same as on a aircraft during take off, different air, different angle etcetera )
Question:
has anybody already a picture of the malfunctioning part?

[earthman]

Regi: what's the deal with the misaligned counter-bore?

[regi]

Regi: what's the deal with the misaligned counter-bore?

I read that too, but that is not the root cause as long as the tubes are well fixed. ( so no vibration occurs ) And the tube rupture should have appeared on all engines with that particular wrong machining operation. ( which leaves open the question how such wrong machining could happen as it is all CNC and passed inspection and was not seen during assembly )
We have to be very careful when a supplier confesses openly about a technical default. Sometimes it is to hide a more serious problem.
Example: "well, dear customer, please replace all the tubes with the new tubes we send you free of charge and send us the extra work bill."
But maybe the tubes were made of inferior material. Or the design of attaching the tubes was wrong . To assemble steel tubes, they are sometimes rolled at the extremities to create a flange. But some materials ( certainly some special aviation materials ) are difficult to deform and get micro cracks by cold forming.
But here I go too far. I really would like to see a picture of the parts which RR says were default.

[smokejumper]

Regarding CNC milling equipment - was it programmed correctly or did incorrectly data points in the program mis-machine the parts? But his begs the point - where was quality control?

[andorra-airport]

Flight cam captured A380 drama

A PASSENGER on troubled QF32 alerted flight crew to fluid leaking from the plane's wing after spotting it on the in-flight entertainment unit, air safety investigators have revealed.

The Sydney-bound flight was travelling over Indonesia on November 4 when it was forced to return to Singapore after the failure of one of its Rolls-Royce-built Trent 900 engines.

The passenger, a pilot for the operator, brought a crew member’s attention to the issue, which was captured by a camera mounted on the plane.

The crew member then went down to the lower deck on the left side of the aircraft and saw fluid leaking from the damaged wing.

He noted that the fluid trail was about half a metre wide and proceeded to alert other members of the flight crew as they dealt with multiple system warnings.

Some of the warnings that sounded:

* Landing gear control and indicator warnings
* Multiple brake system messages
* Wing slats inoperative
* Multiple fuel system messages, including a fuel jettison fault
* Left wing pneumatic bleed leaks
* Avionics system overheat
* Centre of gravity messages
* Flight controls – ailerons partial control only
* Flight controls – reduced spoiler control
* Autothrust and autoland inoperative
* Engines No 1 and 4 operating in a degraded mode
* Flight controls operating in alternate law
* Hydraulic system – low system pressure and low fluid level
* Hydraulic system – engine No 4 pump errors
* Failure of the alternating current (AC) electrical No 1 and 2 bus systems8
* Engine anti-ice and air data sensor messages
* No 1 engine generator drive disconnected

The revelations are in the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's initial report into the November 4 incident.

The incident was found to be the result of "an uncontained engine failure'', which saw a loose disc shear through the left wing and other parts of the aircraft, resulting in structural and systems damage.

"The initial assessment was that the most likely cause of the engine failure was problems with the release of oil into a particular part of the engine, leading to an oil fire and consequences finally in the liberation of the disc elements,'' Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Martin Dolan said.

"That was initially responded to by ensuring there were regular inspections for oil leakages in the ... engine in the Airbus 380.

"And on that basis with caution continued operations were seen as acceptable.''

The report also outlines a number of areas for further investigation including additional examination of the turbine disc and other engine components, onboard recorded information, damage to the aircraft and its systems, and of the response by flight, cabin and emergency services crews.

[andorra-airport]

Question:
has anybody already a picture of the malfunctioning part?

Comes from this website: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking ... 0-engines/

[regi]

Thank you very much for that picture which shows an unexcusable manufacturing mistake. Unexcusable because you can see it with the naked eye, without any measuring equipment.
I have quite some similar pictures of other machinery where that boring machining went wrong because of...whatever reason.
I think we see here a casting, probably a lost wax casting . So no seamless (bended) tube.
Such a part is put into a fixture to be machined.
If there is some dirt on your ficture, the pipe end is out of line. And you mill out too much material at one side.
Still...fatigue stress because of a wrong drilling operation? Hmhm, questionable.
if the wall thickness would have been too thin, we could have seen a blow out by high pressure oil. But fatigue stress because of low wall thickness, I still doubt. Fatigue stress because of vibration, yes, and it will break sooner on the thinner part, that is true.
So, a vibration problem. The part would have broken anyway, just a bit later.
Still another question: which material? Aluminium, magnesium?

[smokejumper]

Story on ABC News - "Qantas Pilots Saved Crippled Airbus, Investigator Says" see: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStor ... 570&page=2

[andorra-airport]

QANTAS is alleging in a multi-million-dollar damages claim against Rolls-Royce that it could now carry only 80 (!) passengers across the Pacific in its Airbus 380s, under new operating rules for their troubled engines.

The airline states in Federal Court papers that it bought the Airbus superjumbos because they would carry 450 passengers and a payload of 60,900kg from Australia to Los Angeles.

But the new rules imposed by Rolls-Royce since one of its Trent 900 engines exploded on a Qantas A380 near Singapore last month mean that the world's biggest passenger jet is not a commercial proposition on the airline's Australia-US route.

Qantas, which has suspended the route, has asked for damages and costs.

The national carrier is also seeking a declaration from the court ordering the UK engine maker to fund a $1 million credit note relating to a guarantee against "uncontained engine failure" - to stop engine parts perforating the outer shield of an engine.

Rolls-Royce is accused of negligence and breach of contract.

Qantas says in its statement of claim that Rolls-Royce continued to modify the Trent 900 engine, but left 23 engines on its big jets unmodified. At the time of the Singapore incident only one engine had been modified.

heraldsun.com.au

[sn26567]

I missed one Airbus press release on 3 December:

Interim report on incident involving Rolls-Royce Trent 900-powered A380

Media Information (Issue 3)

3rd December 2010

Airbus has received a copy of the interim report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) into the incident caused by the uncontained failure of a Trent 900 engine on a Qantas A380 on 4 November. Airbus has taken note of the details contained in the report and will continue to provide every assistance to the ATSB as it proceeds with its investigation.

Airbus has also taken note of the progress made by Rolls-Royce to identify the cause of the uncontained failure and to provide a permanent solution to the issue. In the meantime, Airbus is satisfied that the programme of precautionary engine inspections developed by Rolls-Royce, and mandated by the authorities, allows for the ongoing safe operation of the Trent 900-powered A380 fleet.

Airbus will continue to offer assistance to Rolls-Royce and affected airline customers to minimise any disruption to services at this time.

[dna]

Australian media report that Qantas is getting ready to re-introduce the A380 on its routes to LA. Qantas hasn't resumed A380 flights to the US because of concerns about operating the aircraft at high thrust levels. Qantas' 5 A380s currently in operation fly routes between London and Australia. Services to LA could resume from January 17.

[andorra-airport]

Australian media report that Qantas is getting ready to re-introduce the A380 on its routes to LA. Qantas hasn't resumed A380 flights to the US because of concerns about operating the aircraft at high thrust levels. Qantas' 5 A380s currently in operation fly routes between London and Australia. Services to LA could resume from January 17.

16th January 2011 - A380 to USA resumes.
A380 operation to Los Angeles resumed today with VH-OQD operating QF93 Melbourne - Los Angeles. This will return as QF12 to Sydney with a Boeing 747-438ER operating the return QF94. As of tomorrow A380 operations on the QF11/12 Sydney - Los Angeles will resume every other day.

No further Melbourne operations are scheduled until 9th February, when QF93 will commence A380 operations every Wednesday. Again these aircraft will return on flights to Sydney. No A380 operations are yet scheduled for QF94 Los Angeles - Melbourne. As the longest flight taking off from Los Angeles’ short runways this is the flight that would require the most thrust and indicates that there may still be limitations on maximum thrust on the A380 fleet. (http://www.theqantassource.com/)


In the meantime there's been another engine failure on a Qantas (747) aircraft, this time as it was preparing to take off at Sydney Airport. Flight QF11 to Los Angeles, carrying 344 passengers, was on the runway preparing to take off on Saturday when its number one engine suffered a complete failure. Passengers on the 747 described hearing 'a loud bang' and then watching as black smoke poured out of the crippled engine.

The captain then reportedly announced over the intercom that the engine had 'cooked itself'.

Media are crucifying Qantas again, but it was most likely a compressor stall / backfire.