It all happened on one fine Thursday. On 4th November, Qantas’ A380 Nancy-Bird Walton ( VH-OQA, MSN014 ) had just departed from Singapore ( IATA : SIN ) to embark the final leg of its journey from London to Sydney as QF32.
Just 6 minutes into the flight – the passengers were treated with a loud bang that sure must have horrified some. The #2 engine ( left wing ) had blown out causing debris, including the cowling, to fall down to the nearby Indonesian island of Batam.

Copyrighted photo. Author unknown.

Photo copyright Retuters

The pilots acted calm and professionally, keeping passengers calm, and safely brought the aircraft back to SIN – touching down at 1146 local. Following landing, it was found that the engine debris had harmed a wiring system, making it impossible to shut down #1 engine, requiring it to be shut down by foaming.

Further inspection showed that the aircraft’s left wing had suffered damage from the engine debris. This type of engine error – causing parts of engine to blow out – is what we call an uncontained engine failure.

Just the following day – on 5th November – a Qantas Boeing 747-400 ( VH-OJD/ cn 24481 ) suffered yet another engine issue. This time too, on the climb from SIN and onwards to Sydney – as QF6 from Frankfurt. The issue occured 20 mins into the flight. The pilots decided to turn back and made a safe return to SIN. This engine error however, was not an uncontained error, and in fact could be categorised as minor.
The interesting fact ? Earlier QF32′s pilots too were passengers in this flight.

THE AIRCRAFT

Airbus A380
Type: A380-842
Registration: VH-OQA
Serial number: MSN014
Engines: Rolls Royce Trent 900 ( 972-84 variant )
First flown: 25 Jan 2008
Entered Qantas revenue service on: 20 Oct 2008
In service with Qantas for: 2 years, 1 month plus since 19 Sep 2008
Named Nancy-Bird Walton. Qantas’ first A380.

Boeing 747
Type: 747-438
Registration: VH-OJD
Serial number: 24481/LN765
Engines: Rolls Royce RB-211-524G
First flown: 13 Dec 1989
Entered Qantas revenue service on: 20 Jan 1990
In service with Qantas for: 20 years 9 months plus, since 16 Jan 1990

What do we know ?

- Two Qantas aircraft, operating on the same flight leg, had engine issues on consecutive days.
- Both aircraft had engines made by the British manufacturer Rolls Royce.

Worth noticing

- Although they seem identical – the two events were almost totally unrelated to each other. They involved two very different mechanical issues.
- The Trent 900, and RB-211 – despite being built by the same manufacturer – are very different in their core.
- The A380 and Boeing 747 both are perfectly capable of flying with three working engines. One engine going out is not going to cause it to crash.
- Qantas has operated the Trent 900 for two years, whereas they have operated the RB-211 for over thirty years. This particular RB-211 engine – *believed to be* a “Trent-ified” RB-211-524G- T – is one which Qantas has operated for ten years.

The Trent 900 -
Available exclusively for the Airbus A380 – shares some features with the rest of the Trent lineup. Is used by three airlines – Lufthansa, Qantas and Singapore Airlines.
It is also worth noting that Qantas operates a high power variant of the Trent 900, which has a higher thrust rating than the ones operated by the other two operators.

The RB-211
Perhaps Rolls’ most popular engine type ever – it began it’s life with Lockheed L1011 Tristar in 1972. The RB-211 has since powered many aircraft types with different variants of the engine.
The RB-211-524 model, available for the Boeing 747-400 and Boeing 767-300, is used by a number of operators worldwide and has logged over 65 million flying hours so far.
The model carries on the three-shaft architecture that is found in many RB-211 variants. The Trent-ified RB-211-524G/H-T was upgraded with the Trent 700 technology and is designed to operate at temperatures that are far higher than the normal variant.

What Could Have Happened ?
As individuals with no experience of the actual incident – we have no right to speculate – as it would not be accurate. Hence we cannot exactly determine what caused the A380 incident.
But the word in the aviation circles is that, this could be related to the Trent 900′s IP disc. The Qantas engineers indeed found out today that the IP turbine disc in #2 engine had stopped working – but the exact cause was yet to be found out.
In the meantime, Qantas has decided to change two engines in two A380s in its fleet. One of these, VH-OQC, will have its #3 engine changed due to an oil leak and some other issues. Another frame, currently in Los Angeles, will have one of its engines changed due to unspecified issues. This makes it clear that Qantas’ immediate grounding of the fleet has not been over silly reasons.

Could volcanic ash from Mt. Merapi’s eruption have caused this ? Although there is a very distant probability – this remains very unlikely. Both of these incidents took place in a short time span from departure from SIN, which will not take the aircraft anywhere near the mountain. Someone could argue that although this is true, the ash could have been spread in a far wider area – and the current flight cancellations in the area might serve as a proof -, but this becomes very unlikely given that a number of aircraft have flown between SIN and Sydney on both of these days, without any irregularities. This includes SIA A380s, as well as Qantas aircraft. The fact that Indonesian local airlines still continue to fly despite the eruption, further rules out this as a cause for the Qantas engine issues.

The interesting factor is that, both of these engine issues have taken place during the aircraft’s climb phase. It would be worth finding out if Qantas uses a different power setting for climb than other operators of these aircraft.

There is also no reason for passengers to worry about flying on either the Airbus A380 or the Boeing 747. Both of these aircraft have a very good safety record – and alternative engine choices are available for both types as well. In the A380′s case, the Emirates and Air France aircraft powered by Engine Alliance GP7000 engines are yet to to report any abnormalities while the Trent 900 powered ones flown by Lufthansa and SIA too have been flying with a flawless safety record today.

Perhaps the key reason why this issue was highlighted so much is the fact that both the aircraft and the engine are two relatively new types and may be in fact because the A380 is the largest as well as the newest aircraft in commercial service today.

Whatever the cause of the incident is, we can expect that both the manufacturers and the operators will take their best effort to fix this issue and assure it never takes place again. In the meantime, VH-OQA, Qantas’ first A380, will get some much needed rest inside a hangar in Singapore.
Aircraft data courtesy of AussieAirliners.org

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

I believe that Qantas could have handled the Qantas flight 32 incident a lot better had they used social media.
The key reason is, the speed of spreading the word. The other is, it was the exact medium that many people and media used to spread news about this incident.
This distributed, and still continues to distribute, a large share of false information. Had Qantas been present on social media, they could have instantly presented the accurate info leaving no space for the false information. By turning the wave into their advantage, Qantas could have avoided a PR disaster.

Some very interesting views on this from former SIA VP of Public Affairs, Stephen Foreshaw, here.
The most important line perhaps is,

Fill the information vacuum before others do. Simply, if the media can’ t get you to comment, they ’ ll find someone else, and you will have no control over what that someone else says.

Qantas is still not too late.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

A Qantas Boeing 747-400, registered VH-OJD, operating as QF6 from Singapore, SIN to Sydney had an engine malfunction and returned safely to SIN.
The flight, QF6, was on its way from Frankfurt to Sydney with a scheduled stopover in Singapore with 431 passengers and crew onboard.
The issue had occured in #1 engine and more details were not available at the time of publishing.
The aircraft, VH-OJD, a Boeing 747-438 with serial number 24481 was built in 1990. This aircraft too, was powered by a Rolls Royce engine variant as the recent A380 did. The 747 is powered by RB211, one of Rolls’ oldest and most popular engine variants whereas the A380 was powered by newer Trent 900s.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review

Photo by mattdocampo

FlightGlobal reports that Qantas Airways has cancelled orders for 15 787-9s and deferred the deliveries of 15 787-8s in a bid to reduce capital expenditure.
This is the first major cancellation for the delayed Dreamliner.
Qantas was the biggest customer for the 787 and still has orders for 35 787-9s and 15 787-8s. It had planned to use the first 15 787-8s for JetStar, it’s low cost subsidiary, operations which were slated to arrive from 2010. Now it plans to provide JetStar with the 787-9s which will arrive from 2013 onwards.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has said that the delay was not a reason for the cancellation.
Boeing stock quote went down by 0.66% at the latest change ( 7.59pm ET ) . This is the 50th post in this blog and sadly, I had to post a bad news. This news comes in a week full of bad news with the 6th delay to 787 delivery schedule and Michael Jackson’s death this morning.

Originally posted on Airline Industry Review