Qantas A380 emergency landing in SIN

[el]

A Qantas A380 superjumbo made a dramatic emergency landing in Singapore Thursday after experiencing engine trouble over Indonesia, in the first mid-air emergency involving the giant Airbus plane.
The double-decker plane, which had taken off from Singapore bound for Sydney carrying 433 passengers, dumped fuel over Indonesia before returning to the city-state's Changi Airport trailing smoke.

Six fire engines swarmed the A380 on landing, spraying liquid on it, according to an AFP reporter.

One of the engines on the left wing looked to be missing, and the area around it was black, the reporter said.

Plane debris including what appeared to be part of the tail of a Qantas jet was found in the Indonesian town of Batam, after a mid-air explosion was heard on the ground.
"I didn't see a plane crash but I heard a loud explosion in the air. There were metal shards coming down from the sky into an industrial area in Batam," witness Noor Kanwa told AFP.
A spokesman for Australia's Qantas Airways sid the plane was carrying 433 passengers and 26 crew and there were no immediate reports of injuries.

Qantas, which has never suffered a fatal crash in its 90-year history, said earlier there had "definitely" not been a crash involving one of its planes over Indonesia.
"We're just waiting on a report," a spokeswoman told AFP. "At this stage there's definitely been no crash."

The A380's very first commercial flight operated by Singapore Airlines was on the same Singapore-Sydney route in October 2007.

Since then, fuel and computer glitches have grounded several A380s and at least one Air France flight was forced to turn around and land in New York after problems with its navigation system in November 2009

.

[el]

Qantas has suspended all A380 flights after a dramatic engine failure today.

The double-decker plane, flight QF32 bound for Sydney from Singapore, was carrying 433 passengers and 26 crew when it ran into trouble shortly after take-off and had to return to the city-state’s Changi Airport leaving a trail of smoke. Noone was injured.

Qantas said the Airbus A380 plane’s second engine had ‘‘shut down’’.

Speaking in Sydney late this afternoon, Qanta's chief executive officer, Alan Joyce, said the aircraft and its engine were new.

''We have decided that we will suspend all A380 takeoffs until we are fully comfortable that sufficient information has been obtained about QF32,'' he told media in Sydney today.

''We will suspend those A380 services until we are completely confident that Qantas safety requirements have been met.''

He said the suspensions were a precaution until Qantas was understood the reasons for today's incident.

He stressed today's incident was the first ''issue'' that had occurred ''with this engine failure''.

''We take our safety standards very seriously,'' he said.

Mr Joyce said that engine failures occurred on aircraft around the world everyday, but Qantas needed to ensure the safe operation of its planes.

He conceded that some passengers would experience flight delays after the latest incident, including flights to Perth and Los Angeles.

Mr Joyce said the passengers on the affected aircraft would spend the night in hotel accommodation in Singapore.

‘‘Qantas will be operating a replacement aircraft that will fly to Singapore tonight and will depart tomorrow with all the passengers on board,’’ he added.

To be fair... the missing engine was some missing engine cowling which most probably accounted for parts of the tail as well.

[Procede]

Qantas suspends A380 flights after emergency landing

Qantas Airways is suspending all Airbus A380 flights after an engine failure forced one of the aircraft to make an emergency landing in Singapore.

Source Flightglobal, including small picture
Fliglobal: more pictures
Aviation Herald, with pictures

It looks like most of the turbine decided to start its own airline. I'm guessing people at RR aren't having a very good morning.

[Sickbag]

I can't understand why they didn't carry on to London with the three(count them: 1-2-3) good engines!
If this was a proper airline like British Airways heads would roll for electing to turn around and inconvenience passengers, and more importantly, managment.

[Procede]

I can't understand why they didn't carry on to London with the three(count them: 1-2-3) good engines!

Because they were heading to Sydney to begin with?

Seriously: A photo shows a punctured forward wing. Word is it caused problem with hydraulics (nose wheel door stuck open) and control of engine number 1. Apparently the fire trucks on the photos are there trying to shut engine number one down, not extinguish the damaged number two.

[Ed]

...and nobody cares about the environmental impact of those billions of gallons of fuel dumped all over the place.....

[B77W-QOTS]

...and nobody cares about the environmental impact of those billions of gallons of fuel dumped all over the place.....

Jet A1 dumped from a certain height evaporates in the air, zero effect, if their was an effect airlines would never be allowed to do it, the greenies would kick up a stink.

[Ed]

...and nobody cares about the environmental impact of those billions of gallons of fuel dumped all over the place.....

Jet A1 dumped from a certain height evaporates in the air, zero effect, if their was an effect airlines would never be allowed to do it, the greenies would kick up a stink.

Sure, I can buy that when you are at altitude (1k-2k feet) you have evaporation. Does this mean that the fuel molecules dissociate and form environmental friendly chemical bonds? When something evaporates you don't have an atomic disintegration. There is still environmental impact. My allusion was serious, not as a tree-hugger, but just out of interest. Example: if I were to take the equivalent number of atoms (compared to fuel) of a soluble radioactive material (for example CsCl, with the Cs being Cs-137) and released it as a liquid at 1000 ft AGL, would anyone be concerned?

[Ed]

Further research yields the following:

Drop Formation and Evaporation of JP-4 Fuel Jettisoned from Aircraft
R. Earl Good Air Force Geophysics Laboratory, Hanscom AFB, Mass. and Harvey J.Clewell IIIt Air Force Engineering and Services Center, TyndallAFB, Fla.
The occasional jettison of unburned fuel from aircraft has raised the concern of environmentalists as to
possible change in atmospheric composition or damage to crops. To address this concern, it is necessary to know
under what conditions unburned fuel will reach the ground and what fraction of the fuel is vaporized. This
information can be calculated once the initial drop size created during the fuel venting is known. To determine
the actual drop sizes formed, an experimental program was conducted. It consisted of flying a sampling aircraft
directly through a fuel dump at selected altitudes to measure fuel drop size and number distributions. The
measurement results of the sampling, fuel dump wake size, and hydrocarbon vapor content are presented. A
multicomponent fuel drop model is used to correct the observed drop size distribution. For the KC-135 aircraft
fuel venting procedures, the median drop diameter formed is 270 /im. It is determined that for surface temperatures above 0°C, more than 98% of the fuel jettisoned 1500 m or higher will evaporate before reaching the ground. Ground contamination can be avoided, eliminating any potential environmental damage.

Ref: R. Earl Good and Harvey J. Clewell III, "Drop Formation and Evaporation of JP-4 Fuel Jettisoned from Aircraft," Journal of Aircraft, 17(7), pp.450-456 (1980)

The above is a good start (albeit somewhat dated), but there are some problems: what about atmospheric scavenging processing and wash/rain out? The droplet size seems a tad big to me (270 micron) to ignore gravitational settling. Also, even of the estimate is correct, 2% of fuel may not be insignificant.

Just sayin....

[Sickbag]

Example: if I were to take the equivalent number of atoms (compared to fuel) of a soluble radioactive material (for example CsCl, with the Cs being Cs-137) and released it as a liquid at 1000 ft AGL, would anyone be concerned?

If it also involved toilet paper, then yes.

[Giles]

[Verbal]

These photos show that shrapnel punctured the wing front spar and upper panel. Presumably those areas of the wing box are dry bays. If they aren't and they hold fuel, then we just came very, very, very close to having a few hundred very, very, very dead people. Seriously.

Qantas A380 was seriously lucky
November 4, 2010 – 10:09 pm, by Ben Sandilands

Dousing the No 1 engine to stop it at Changi

The seriousness of the Qantas A380 incident at Singapore and over Batam Island earlier today is made apparent by photos of the damage placed on the public domain by some of the passengers.

An image, shared by passenger 'ulfw', locates the wing punctures

They show that what has been identified as a part of a turbine blade passed through the wing above the No 2 engine (shown above) and lodged a short distance behind the leading edge but in front of a major fuel tank, where there is indirect evidence that it severed some of the wiring that relays instructions to the outermost No 1 engine.

That evidence is seen in images of the fire tenders being used to douse the No 1 engine (top of page) after the giant jet came to a standstill, as it could not otherwise be shut down while fuel remained accessible to it.

The photos also show that at least part of the hydraulic functions of the A380 had been rendered inoperative, with visual clues that the nose wheel may have relied on a gravity drop rather than hydraulics to power into the locked down position, and that the slats on the wing had not been deployed before landing resulting in a faster and longer landing roll.

A closer look at secondary wing 'punctures'

The sources spoken to differed on whether small fragments of the disintegrated No 2 engine that punctured the wing further aft (detail above), in the area containing fuel tanks, were really responsible for reports of fuel leaking from the back of the wing as the jet finally landed back at Changi almost two hours after the incident began with that engine failing explosively about six minutes after takeoff for Sydney.

The cautious assessments given to Plane Talking refer to details that can only be resolved by the accident investigation despite the clues in the passenger and news report images.

But the problems that beset the pilots when the No 2 engine blew help explain two things, the length of time taken to return to Singapore Airport, and the conviction shown by Alan Joyce when he grounded the Qantas A380 fleet.

The pilots clearly took their time dumping and consuming fuel while they assessed the situation and discussed it with Qantas operations and most likely Airbus and Rolls-Royce, dealing as best they could with control issues affecting the No 1 engine, and working with the airport authorities on the plan for shutting it down after touchdown.

There would have been careful consideration of everything else that could have gone wrong in an abnormal landing. Joyce and a response team would learned very quickly how potentially catastrophic the engine failure had been, and arrangements to rebook literally thousands of Qantas A380 travellers for an indefinite period would have begun well before he announced the grounding of its the giant jets.

One of certification standards for passenger jet engines is the ‘containment’ of component failures. This was a severe uncontained failure by the Rolls-Royce engine. The cause must be found and corrected, whether it is a flaw in a component, an error in assembly or overhaul, or a hitherto undetected design failing.

Whatever it was, it has to be found and fixed. Joyce had no choice in the actions he took.

The rear section of Engine No 2.

The other users of the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 on A380s are Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa. The German flag carrier has only recently started its A380 operations, while Singapore Airlines has 11 A380s in service, compared to six with Qantas, and has been flying the type longer.

However the history of engine issues in airliners in general is not linear. Long established designs have sometimes exhibited faults in recent builds because of production or materials imperfections. Or maintenance issues. There is no reason to assume that anything that happens in service to Qantas will happen to another airline, or vice versa.

Qantas, the ATSB, its Singaporean and Indonesian counterparts, and Rolls-Royce, all have a serious puzzle to solve.

[Ed]

On the bright side, this incident created new housing for quite a few families in Singapore...

[Verbal]

SIA transfers A380 passengers to Boeing 777
By Timothy Ouyang | Posted: 04 November 2010 2229 hrs

SINGAPORE: Singapore Airlines said it is transferring its passengers on Sydney-bound A380 flight SQ221 onto a Boeing 777 aircraft.

SQ221 was initially to be operated on one of SIA's A380 aircraft - and was scheduled to depart at 2035hrs.

The flight is now scheduled to depart at 2300hrs.

Earlier, SIA said it is delaying all flights operated on its Airbus A380 aircraft.

Its engine manufacturer Rolls Royce and aircraft manufacturer Airbus has advised the carrier to conduct precautionary technical checks on its 10 A380 aircraft.

The move follows the emergency landing involving a Qantas A380 superjumbo earlier this morning.

[Giles]

These photos show that shrapnel punctured the wing front spar and upper panel. Presumably those areas of the wing box are dry bays. If they aren't and they hold fuel, then we just came very, very, very close to having a few hundred very, very, very dead people. Seriously.

what would be the ignition source?

Qantas A380 was seriously lucky
November 4, 2010 – 10:09 pm, by Ben Sandilands
The photos also show that at least part of the hydraulic functions of the A380 had been rendered inoperative, with visual clues that the nose wheel may have relied on a gravity drop rather than hydraulics to power into the locked down position, and that the slats on the wing had not been deployed before landing resulting in a faster and longer landing roll.

and that only half the spoilers deployed.

[Verbal]

what would be the ignition source?

Sparks generated by metal impacting metal at high speed.

[Gabriel]

what would be the ignition source?

Sparks generated by metal impacting metal at high speed.

Are Al sparks hot enough to ignite jet fuel? Does Al make sparks at all?

[IntheShade]

Gabriel,

Did you know that on JPnet this was reported as an A380 crash?

And that Andy Irons was reported to have died in a plane crash?

All in the last 48 hours?

Pretty high standards.

[Marc 1]

Gabriel,

Did you know that on JPnet this was reported as an A380 crash?

And that Andy Irons was reported to have died in a plane crash?

All in the last 48 hours?

Pretty high standards.

Worse was 'uncle' at his best: http://forums.jetphotos.net/showthread. ... 562&page=2

If part of their objection is that these prima donna pilots don’t want to be searched in uniform, then have them strip naked in public. Whether or not these prima donna pilots object to be searched in uniform or not; if they object to the electronic body scan, then perhaps they should find the security guard that has the largest hands; and have security do a full cavity search wearing studded gloves with spikes. Then after the search is over the prima donna pilots should be fired.He just had to let his fantasies out of the bag....

[GlennAB1]

On the bright side, this incident created new housing for quite a few families in Singapore...

And, a few more pilots branded as heros.....

[GlennAB1]

what would be the ignition source?

Sparks generated by metal impacting metal at high speed.

Are Al sparks hot enough to ignite jet fuel? Does Al make sparks at all?

Are there any fasteners (nuts, bolts and the like) that are other metals in that area? How about damaged wiring? Why could't #1 engine be shut down?

[Procede]

Flightblogger hase some interesting stuff one the hydraulic system: http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/fligh ... s-hyd.html

It does look like the green system failed.

[Giles]

There is a picture floating around that was taken from the ground as the accident aircraft passed above- trailing behind the middle of the left wing was a mist / fluid. Fuel leak?

(edit to add);

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asia/austra ... s-says.htm

Passengers said after landing they had been warned of the dangers of using any electronic device, as fire fighters sprayed the aircraft which was leaking fuel from a hole in the wing.

[OldSowBreath]

Ultimately, a cell phone will be blamed.

[AndyToop]

And now a QANTAS 747 SIN-SYD turns around with an Engine failure.
If any of the PAX were fugees from the A380, I would advise staying well away from them on future flights!