clevelandbrown

Today's Washington Post reported an investigation of the Airbus 380 that recently lost an engine. I seem to recall that after the incident, the media seemed to say is was almost a minor event; this report indicates the extent of damage, and the skill of the pilots that saved the plane, including landing very near the end of the runway.

The article is at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...src=nl_cuzhead

I'm a subscriber (its free) and I don't know if you have to subscribe to see the article.

rkkwan

The Australian safety board came out with a preliminary findings, and it was widely reported in many media.

It was definitely a HUGE event, and it was very fortunate that there were 5 highly experienced and competent pilots in the cockpit. Results could have been very different.

northie

Qantas suspended all its 380 flights after this and the 1st flight of one was Nov 27th to London. They are still not flying on the LA run.The cost to Qantas has been incredible.

simpsonc510

DS saw 3 A380s parked at LAX just after the incident. He had never seen ONE, let alone THREE at once! Hopefully Qantas overcomes this ASAP. The revenue loss has to have been huge, I would think??

Why not the LAX routes, I wonder?

wally34949

http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airl...lobal/en#jump0

It appears that Qantas has a lot of planes that they can use in the meantime but they don't want to cross the Pacific Ocean with the A380 right now.

Geordie

<<Why not the LAX routes, I wonder?>>

Supposedly the SYD - LAX route requires additional thrust on take-off (no jokes about about fat Americans) than the flights to Europe, and therefore as a precaution they want to keep an eye on the engines performance without "maxing it out"

northie

yes it is about the thrust on the flight LAX to SYD/MEL-a bit too technical for me to understand.

wally34949

Correct me if I'm wrong (did I really need to write that) but LAX to Sydney is a good 15 hour flight against the wind. The plane needs to be full of fuel to make the trip. Sydney to London has to make a stop somewhere (usually Singapore or Bangkok) so the flights are 8 hours and 10 hours, which means not filling the plane full of fuel. So one can't blame this one on the "fat Americans."

I see now that Qantas wants to fly from LAX to Melbourne, which is a little longer.

One of the good things about the flight is when the plane leaves the gate, they are pretty much Number One for take-off. If they were number 20 for take-off, they might not have enought fuel for the flight.

Geordie

Wally I think you're right, the plane has to be heavier on take-off due to the additional fuel, I read recently that based on Rolls Royce's recommendations they could only carry 80 passengers rather than the normal 450 from SYD to LAX, therefore economically unfeasible.

They have a lot of 747's in their fleet to help out, otherwise the alternative would be to stop in Honolulu for refueling, which they had to do in years gone by.

rkkwan

wally wrote:

<i>One of the good things about the flight is when the plane leaves the gate, they are pretty much Number One for take-off. If they were number 20 for take-off, they might not have enought fuel for the flight.</i>

I don't know if that's you heard 3rd hand or where you learn from, but that's not how aviation works. The tanks are not the limiting factor in how much fuel an aircraft carry, but it is based on maximum takeoff weight, load, estimated taxiing time, runway length, etc.

All those will be put into calculation for the flight, and how much fuel will be loaded onto the plane. If they need to take off at maximum takeoff weight and there's an expected line before takeoff, then they will load a little more fuel to compensate for that.

rkkwan

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...rent-900s.html

Unless R-R can address their problem quickly, QF may have to revert to all 744 on LAX routes.

wally34949

Interesting reading. Maybe Qantas should get some 777's for this route. In the meantime, are the A380's still parked at LAX? I will be there on Saturday.

If they are still parked there, why doesn't Qantas fly them to Europe and start using them on those routes from Europe to Asia and Australia? or they could refuel them in Hawaii and get them back to Australia where they can be used.

AnthonyGA

Uncontained engine failures are extremely serious problems, no matter what the press says (I usually just throw dice rather than read the news, as dice are more accurate). An uncontained failure can toss shrapnel throughout the airplane and its passengers, and can kill people and destroy aircraft systems needed to land safely. So this is no small event, and it's going to haunt Rolls-Royce for a long time.

My guess is that most people at RR didn't know about this, but a few did and decided to hide it rather than fix it. This latter group is probably scrambling to save itself right now—if the responsible parties didn't care about safety before, they still won't now.

This is also a huge expense for Qantas, although not necessarily a PR problem, at least for people who realize that it wasn't Qantas' fault (nor was it Airbus' fault, since they didn't design the engines).

Geordie

FYI - According to SMH.com.au newspaper the problem with extra thrust is not due to extra weight but a shorter runway at LAX

AnthonyGA

Either way, if Rolls-Royce can't allow the engines to be used at thrusts high enough for these long-haul flights, Qantas won't be able to operate their A380s on the routes. If I were Qantas, I'd be livid.