Qantas grounds A380s after QF32 engine failure

“In line with procedure, the pilot sought priority clearance for its return to Singapore.

The aircraft landed safely at 11. 45am local time,” Qantas said in a preliminary statement.

“Changi Airport Group’s Airport Emergency Service (AES) responded with six fire vehicles, in accordance with standard operating procedure for such incidents,” said a Changi Airport Group spokesperson. “In response to the pilot’s request, checks were conducted on the aircraft by AES. Once the checks were completed, passengers and crew began disembarking from the aircraft at Runway 2.

Buses were arranged to ferry them to the airport terminal.

Disembarkation of all 466 passengers and crew on board was completed by 1340 hours. ” Reports suggest a failure of the engine’s intermediate pressure turbine (IPT) disk had occurred, and images of engine debris found on Batam showed a significant section of the IPT disk. Indonesian TV also showed footage of large pieces of composite nacelle and other engine debris featuring the Qantas logo, while images of the aircraft on the ground at Changi airport showed extensive damage to the number two engine as a result of the engine failure.

Footage taken onboard the aircraft by passengers showed only half of the aircraft’s lift spoilers on the left wing deployed on landing, while photographs and footage taken of the aircraft on the runway showed the leading edge flaps were not extended but the undercarriage doors were open, suggesting the engine failure may have triggered a hydraulic issue.

The outboard number 1 engine was still running well after the aircraft had come to a halt in Singapore, and fire services doused that engine with high volumes of water, indicating control to that engine had also been affected by the failure of the number 2 engine. Other damage was sustained to the aircraft’s upper wing surface above the engine pylon, suggesting turbine blades thrown off by the failure had penetrated the wing structure.

In a brief media conference a couple of hours after the incident, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said the airline would immediately suspend all A380 operations until investigations could shed light on the cause of the incident. “We will suspend those A380 services until we are fully confident that Qantas safety standards have been met,” he said.

“We’re not going to take any risks with passenger safety. ” Joyce added that the safety of the type was to be determined following an investigation involving Rolls-Royce and Airbus. As a result of the grounding, three A380s were stranded in Los Angeles and one in Sydney, while a fifth was undergoing maintenance with Lufthansa Technik in Germany.

The airline dispatched several of its aircraft the evening after the incident to collect passengers in Singapore and other ports, and also chartered in aircraft from British Airways.

On the ABC’s AM program on November 8, Joyce confirmed that “anomalies” had been found in three of the engines of the grounded fleet.

“Checks involved eight hours of checks on each engine. On three of the engines we did find some issues that we’re investigating further, and that has involved changes on aircraft.

What we’ve found is anomalies such as oil where oil shouldn’t be. We will leave them on the ground as long it takes to ensure the operation is safe. ” Joyce also addressed claims by the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) that linked the outsourcing of maintenance by the airline with the incident.

“It’s not a matter of maintenance,” he told the ABC. “It’s too early for us to identify what components could have been at issue. But given that these engines are new and have been maintained by Rolls-Royce [under a ‘TotalCare’ agreement] since and looking at what we’ve seen… it could have been a materials issue on the engine or a design issue on the engine. [Lufthansa Technik in] Germany and Rolls-Royce are not low cost alternatives – they are high quality operators, world renowned, and they are experts at maintaining these aircraft and these engines. ” The Australian Transportation Safety Bureau (ATSB) dispatched four investigators including two structural engineers to Singapore on the evening of the incident to commence its investigations.

Indonesian authorities, involved because of the debris from the engine which fell on their territory, have delegated responsibility for the investigation to the ATSB.

Meanwhile, to add insult to injury, six minutes after takeoff from Singapore on November 5, passengers and crew on Qantas 747-400 VH-OJD operating QF6 bound for Sydney heard a bang and saw sparks emit from that aircraft’s number 1 RB211-524 engine.

The aircraft dumped fuel before landing back at Singapore.

Coincidentally, among the 19 crew and 412 passengers onboard were the flight and cabin crew from QF32! n