Retroactive, but one thing that struck me since they were overweight for landing and their fuel dump was inoperative, why not turn on the leveling pump and pump fuel out the hole in the left tank anyway? It would have lowered weight and improved balance.
Qantas Airbus A380 engine failure in 2010 (2023)
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Re: Qantas Airbus A380 engine failure in 2010 (2023)
#42Retroactive, but one thing that struck me since they were overweight for landing and their fuel dump was inoperative, why not turn on the leveling pump and pump fuel out the hole in the left tank anyway? It would have lowered weight and improved balance.
I got an impression from the text that pilots were not sure the fuel levelling line does not have a leak itself. Maybe they were afraid the line can leak fuel into fuselage somehow?
Re: Qantas Airbus A380 engine failure in 2010 (2023)
#43Catastrophic failure? Check Plane landed without casualties? Check Plane design so good it helped avoid casualties? Check Hum... Ah! Not an american Boeing but a french Airbus. Of course. The article mentions this story should make everyone a little less afraid of flying. Sure, as long as its not on a Boeing plane.
The plane was a significant factor but you really shouldn't look past the calibre of expertise in the cabin on this particular flight.
> 5 pilots were in the cockpit of this flight. In addition to the normal crew of pilot-in-command and co-pilot, there was an experienced relief pilot and two additional check captains; one was being trained as a check captain (CC) and the supervising CC, who was training the CC.
Captain Richard Champion de Crespigny had 35 years of flying experience at the time of the incident.
That is an insane amount of flight experience in the cockpit and all of the reports state this was a very significant factor. i.e by allowing distribution of the task load, plenty of time for one of the pilots to compute landing calculations manually etc.
THe A380 is a flying tank no doubt, but it wasn't the sole factor here - I think most people would agree this one was a shared victory.
Re: Qantas Airbus A380 engine failure in 2010 (2023)
#44The whole incident was because of 0.2mm offset in a machined part!
And the company that made the part ignored the quality compliance process was not fired. I wonder why - did Airbus think it’s their failure not to verify that the subcontractor adhered to procedures?
Re: Qantas Airbus A380 engine failure in 2010 (2023)
#45"Even the airplane itself ultimately survived: after a marathon repair that lasted 535 days and cost $139 million, the A380 Nancy-Bird Walton triumphantly returned to the skies in 2012." This quote amazes me. My understanding is that Airbus, Qantas, and probably Rolls Royce were willing to spend this much because it meant that the incident was not a "hull loss" and therefore not as bad a hit to reputation and safety…
A new A380 is more expensive (rule of thumb half of official list price, so about $220 million), and airlines were not talking about retiring A380s yet at the time. So it even made economic sense.
The plane has since had a cabin upgrade and is still expected to operate at least until 2028. It’s operating SIN-LHR right now as I write this, currently flying over Azerbaijan.
Re: Qantas Airbus A380 engine failure in 2010 (2023)
#46Turbine disk failure is one thing that can down a plane, and you can only reduce the probability so much. Fan blades and turbine blades can be contained by containment cases if they break off, but turbine disks can't. When a disk breaks, it's an uncontained engine failure. A 20 kg disk fragment flying at Mach 1 goes through everything. Airframes are have a 30-degree fragment spread cone around every disk stage. Airfr…
It is worse than even that:
> Within the space of four seconds, the energy from the annulus gas flow accelerated the IP turbine past its critical speed, until centrifugal forces exceeded the ultimate strength of the nickel alloy disk. The red-hot, wildly spinning disk instantly fractured into several sections, which rocketed outward in multiple directions at incomprehensible speed.
Re: Qantas Airbus A380 engine failure in 2010 (2023)
#47One of my favourite memories of flying Qantas when I was younger was the inflight entertainment. If memory serves, they were celebrating some sort of milestone like "60 years without a fatal accident" or similar. Quite an impressive feat! I'm unclear if it was directly related. But the Qantas inflight entertainment system on our flight from Sydney to Los Angeles meanwhile contained about 12 seasons of the National Ge…
Watching Mayday on flights is one of my favorite things to do for some odd reason.
Re: Qantas Airbus A380 engine failure in 2010 (2023)
#48I wonder why the engineers didn't specify a tolerance for thickness of the oil stub pipe?
per the article, because the stub pipe counter bore had to be drilled after that end of the pipe was welded in place, so directly measuring pipe wall thickness wasn't practical
Re: Qantas Airbus A380 engine failure in 2010 (2023)
#49Retroactive, but one thing that struck me since they were overweight for landing and their fuel dump was inoperative, why not turn on the leveling pump and pump fuel out the hole in the left tank anyway? It would have lowered weight and improved balance.
I got an impression from the text that pilots were not sure the fuel levelling line does not have a leak itself. Maybe they were afraid the line can leak fuel into fuselage somehow?
They got a warning that the fuel transfer system was damaged, so they decided not to use it, I think.