Qantas Flight 32
Encyclopedia
Qantas Flight 32 was a Qantas
passenger flight that on 4 November 2010 suffered an uncontained engine failure
and was forced to make an emergency landing
at Singapore Changi Airport
. The failure was the first of its kind for the four-engined Airbus A380
, the world's largest passenger aircraft. On inspection, it was found that the aircraft's No.2 engine
(on the port side nearest the fuselage), a Rolls-Royce Trent 900
, had a missing turbine disc. The aircraft had also suffered damage to the nacelle
, wing, fuel system, landing gear
, flight controls, and to the controls for engine No.1.
The involved aircraft's tail number was VH-OQA, Nancy Bird Walton, Qantas' first A380, delivered in September 2008. The failure occurred over Batam Island, Indonesia
on Flight 32 from London Heathrow Airport
to Sydney Airport
, four minutes after taking off from Changi for the second leg of the flight. After holding to determine aircraft status, the aircraft returned to Changi nearly two hours after take-off. There were no injuries to the passengers, crew or people on the ground; debris
from the accident fell onto the Indonesian island of Batam
.
The A380 first entered commercial service in October 2007, and at the time of the accident, a total of 39 A380s were operating with five airlines, Air France
, Emirates, Lufthansa
, Singapore Airlines
(SIA) and Qantas. The accident
led to the temporary grounding of the rest of the five-plane Qantas A380 fleet, and groundings, inspections and engine replacements on some other Rolls-Royce powered A380s in service with Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines, but not in the A380 fleets of Air France or Emirates, which are powered by Engine Alliance
engines.
engines manufactured by Rolls-Royce
. The aircraft (named Nancy Bird Walton in honour of the Australian aviation pioneer) was the first A380 delivered to Qantas. Qantas expects repairs on the aircraft to be completed by February 2012 and plans to return it to service in the first half of 2012.
, at 10:01 am Singapore Standard Time (02:01 UTC), was caused by an uncontained failure of the port
inboard (Number 2
) engine, while en route over Batam Island, Indonesia
.
Shrapnel from the exploding engine punctured part of the wing and damaged the fuel system, causing leaks which disabled one hydraulic system and the anti-lock brakes and caused No.1 and No.4 engines to go into a ‘degraded’ mode, damaged landing flaps and the controls for the outer left No.1 engine.
The crew, after finding the plane controllable, decided to fly a racetrack holding pattern
close to Changi airport while assessing the status of the aircraft. It took 50 minutes to complete this initial assessment. The First Officer (FO) and Supervising Check Captain (SCC) then input the plane's status to the landing distance performance application (LDPA) for a landing 50 tonnes over maximum landing weight at Changi. Based on these inputs the LDPA could not calculate a landing distance. After discussion the crew elected to remove inputs related to a wet runway, in the knowledge that the runway was dry. The LDPA then returned the information that the landing was feasible with 100 metres of runway remaining. The flight then returned to Singapore Changi Airport
, landing safely after the crew extended the landing gear by a gravity drop emergency extension system, at 11:45 am Singapore time. As a result of the aircraft landing 35 knots faster than normal, four tyres were blown.
Upon landing, the crew were unable to shut down the No.1 engine, which had to be doused by emergency crews 3 hours after landing until flameout
. The pilots considered whether to evacuate the plane immediately after landing as fuel was leaking from the left wing onto the brakes, which were extremely hot from maximum braking. The SCC pilot, David Evans, noted in an interview, "We’ve got a situation where there is fuel, hot brakes and an engine that we can’t shut down. And really the safest place was on-board the aircraft until such time as things changed. So we had the cabin crew with an alert phase the whole time through ready to evacuate, open doors, inflate slides at any moment. As time went by, that danger abated and, thankfully, we were lucky enough to get everybody off very calmly and very methodically through one set of stairs." The plane was on battery power and had to contend with only one VHF radio to coordinate emergency procedure with the local fire crew.
There were no injuries reported among the 440 passengers and 29 crew on board the plane. Debris also fell on a school and houses, causing structural damage, and on a car.
Richard Champion de Crespigny, has been credited in the media as "having guided a heavily damaged double-decker jet to the safety of Singapore Airport
and averting what could have been a catastrophe". He has 35 years of flying experience and was the first Qantas "line" pilot to fly the Airbus A380.
On 18 November Richard Woodward, a vice president of the Australian and International Pilots Association reported that there were five pilots on the cockpit of this flight. In addition to the normal crew of Captain, First and Second Officer, there were two additional check captains. The captain who was being trained as a Check Captain (CC) and the Supervising Check Captain (SCC) who was training the CC. Captain de Crespigny concentrated on flying and managing the aircraft and monitoring the (57 ECAM) checklists being actioned by the First Officer. The supernumerary pilots monitored all actions and assisted where necessary.
indicated that "fatigue
cracking" in a stub pipe within the engine resulted in oil leakage followed by an oil fire in the engine. The fire led to the release of the Intermediate Pressure Turbine (IPT) disc. It also said the issue is specific to the Trent 900.
Rolls Royce determined that the direct cause of the oil fire and resulting engine failure was a misaligned counter bore within a stub oil pipe leading to a fatigue fracture. The ATSB's preliminary investigation report confirmed that Rolls Royce determination.
Airbus determined that the IPT disc released three different high energy fragments, resulting in structural and systems damage. It also concluded that segregated wiring routes were cut by two out of the three individual pieces of disc debris and as a result, engine one could not be shut down after landing.
On 10 November, the European Aviation Safety Agency issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive, ordering airlines using the Trent 900 engine to conduct frequent and stringent tests, including extended ground idle runs, Low Pressure Turbine (LPT) stage one blade and case drain inspections and High Pressure/Intermediate Pressure (HP/IP) structure air buffer cavity and oil service tube inspections. However, on 22 November, the EASA eased its inspection guidelines, citing progress in the investigation. It dropped requirements for extended ground idle runs and requirements for repetitive inspections of the LPT stage one blades and case drain.
On 2 December, the ATSB ordered a one-off inspection of the "relevant" Trent 900 engines within two flight cycles.
On 3 December, the ATSB issued a preliminary report which contained a key finding of a manufacturing flaw: An area of fatigue cracking was found within a stub pipe, that feeds oil to the engine HP/IP bearing structure. Bearing lubricating oil leaked from that crack, causing the subsequent engine fire and failure of the IP turbine disc. The fatigue fracture was a result of the misalignment of that stub pipe, during the counter-boring process. That inaccurate alignment resulted in one side of the same stub pipe becoming too thin to resist fatigue fracturing. This "could lead to an elevated risk of fatigue crack initiation and growth, oil leakage and potential catastrophic engine failure from a resulting oil fire," according to the agency.
The findings were determined to be a "critical safety issue," and the ATSB recommended immediate inspections of in-service Trent 900 engines. On 8 December the ATSB reported that 45 Trent 900 engines had been inspected, and 3 of these engines had failed inspection and had been removed from service. On 18 May 2011, the ATSB released an interim factual report which states that 53 Trent 900 engines were removed from service - 11 due to out-of-tolerance oil-feed stub pipes and 42 due to lack of measurement records relating to the oil-feed stub pipe.
listed Rolls-Royce plc
, fell 5.5% to 618.5 pence, their sharpest fall in 18 months. This was the lowest price since mid September 2010. The fall in the share price was directly attributed to this accident. Shares in the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company
(EADS), which owns Airbus, also fell.
By mid-morning on 8 November 2010, Rolls-Royce shares had fallen by more than 10% since the accident on the previous Thursday.
Investigation of all four other operational Qantas A380s revealed concerns with two engines. Those engines were to be replaced, after which operation was expected to be resumed. The problems with one of these engines "could have potentially led to a repeat of Thursday's incident on QF32". On 8 November 2010 the CEO of Qantas, Alan Joyce
, stated that the A380 fleet would remain grounded because new issues in the engines appeared, including oil leaks within the engines, something Joyce said was "beyond normal tolerances". Singapore Airlines, which initially stated it "did not find any issues of concern" after inspecting the engines of its A380s, announced on November 10 it planned to replace three engines on three separate planes, grounding the aircraft in question until the issues were resolved. The airline allowed the planes to return to Singapore after discovery of the anomaly. On November 10, Lufthansa
announced the replacement of an engine on its first A380 which it termed "precautionary". On 3 December, Qantas announced that a total of 16 Trent 900 engines needed to have repairs made or be replaced entirely; at the time of the announcement, the airline said five had already been replaced.
On 23 November, Qantas announced that it would begin to partially return its fleet of A380s to service, beginning on 27 November. Initially two of its six A380s were taken into use while the rest of the fleet stayed grounded pending inspections and engine changes. The two aircraft entered service on the Sydney–Singapore–London route, where the engines use less than maximum thrust. Qantas initially said it planned to refrain from using the aircraft on routes between Los Angeles and Australia, the longest routes globally served by the A380, where highest engine performance was required on take-off. However, on 11 January 2011, Qantas announced it would resume using the A380 on the Los Angeles routes after talks with the manufacturers and regulators indicated the aircraft was safe to use. By the end of January, Qantas operated all but one of its A380s, but did not have a timeframe for returning VH-OQA, the aircraft damaged in the accident, to service.
The damage, described in the Sydney Morning Herald as "potentially life-threatening and extremely rare", caused aircraft engineer Peter Marosszeky, from the University of New South Wales
to state that "I rarely ever see a failure like this on any engine", while Paul Cousins, the federal president of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association stated that "fewer than 5% of engine failures involved debris leaving the casing of the engine", as was the case in this accident.
flight in August 2010 had engine trouble which resulted in one engine being shut down due to low oil pressure. No such incidents have been reported for the Airbus A380s that are powered by Engine Alliance
engines (made by GE Aircraft Engines and Pratt & Whitney
as a joint venture) and operated by Emirates and Air France
.
An airworthiness directive was issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency
on 4 August 2010 that required inspection of certain aspects of the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine.
100 million. Repairs to the A380 involved will cost around $135 million and is covered by insurance, with the aircraft expected to return to service in February 2012.
Qantas
Qantas Airways Limited is the flag carrier of Australia. The name was originally "QANTAS", an initialism for "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services". Nicknamed "The Flying Kangaroo", the airline is based in Sydney, with its main hub at Sydney Airport...
passenger flight that on 4 November 2010 suffered an uncontained engine failure
Turbine engine failure
A turbine engine failure refers to an incident wherein a turbine engine in an aircraft unexpectedly stops producing power because of a part malfunction, in the absence of circumstances such as fuel exhaustion.-Nature of failures:...
and was forced to make an emergency landing
Emergency landing
An emergency landing is a landing made by an aircraft in response to a crisis which either interferes with the operation of the aircraft or involves sudden medical emergencies necessitating diversion to the nearest airport.-Types of emergency landings:...
at Singapore Changi Airport
Singapore Changi Airport
Singapore Changi Airport , Changi International Airport, or simply Changi Airport, is the main airport in Singapore. A major aviation hub in Southeast Asia, it is about north-east from the commercial centre in Changi, on a site....
. The failure was the first of its kind for the four-engined Airbus A380
Airbus A380
The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine jet airliner manufactured by the European corporation Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS. It is the largest passenger airliner in the world. Due to its size, many airports had to modify and improve facilities to accommodate it...
, the world's largest passenger aircraft. On inspection, it was found that the aircraft's No.2 engine
Aircraft engine position number
Aircraft engine position number is a method to identify the location of engines on multi-engined aircraft. Aircraft engines are numbered from left to right from the view of the pilot looking forward.-Twin-engined aircraft:* #1 - port - on the left...
(on the port side nearest the fuselage), a Rolls-Royce Trent 900
Rolls-Royce Trent 900
The Rolls-Royce Trent 900 is a series of turbofan engines, developed from the RB211 and is one of the family of Trent engines.-Design and development:...
, had a missing turbine disc. The aircraft had also suffered damage to the nacelle
Nacelle
The nacelle is a cover housing that holds engines, fuel, or equipment on an aircraft. In some cases—for instance in the typical "Farman" type "pusher" aircraft, or the World War II-era P-38 Lightning—an aircraft's cockpit may also be housed in a nacelle, which essentially fills the...
, wing, fuel system, landing gear
Undercarriage
The undercarriage or landing gear in aviation, is the structure that supports an aircraft on the ground and allows it to taxi, takeoff and land...
, flight controls, and to the controls for engine No.1.
The involved aircraft's tail number was VH-OQA, Nancy Bird Walton, Qantas' first A380, delivered in September 2008. The failure occurred over Batam Island, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
on Flight 32 from London Heathrow Airport
London Heathrow Airport
London Heathrow Airport or Heathrow , in the London Borough of Hillingdon, is the busiest airport in the United Kingdom and the third busiest airport in the world in terms of total passenger traffic, handling more international passengers than any other airport around the globe...
to Sydney Airport
Sydney Airport
Sydney Airport may refer to:* Sydney Airport, also known as Kingsford Smith International Airport, in Sydney, Australia* Sydney/J.A. Douglas McCurdy Airport, in Nova Scotia, Canada...
, four minutes after taking off from Changi for the second leg of the flight. After holding to determine aircraft status, the aircraft returned to Changi nearly two hours after take-off. There were no injuries to the passengers, crew or people on the ground; debris
Debris
Debris is rubble, wreckage, ruins, litter and discarded garbage/refuse/trash, scattered remains of something destroyed, or, in geology, large rock fragments left by a melting glacier etc. The singular form of debris is debris...
from the accident fell onto the Indonesian island of Batam
Batam
Batam is an island and city in Riau Islands Province of Indonesia, known for its free trade zone area as part of the Sijori Growth Triangle, is located off Singapore's south coast...
.
The A380 first entered commercial service in October 2007, and at the time of the accident, a total of 39 A380s were operating with five airlines, Air France
Air France
Air France , stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the French flag carrier headquartered in Tremblay-en-France, , and is one of the world's largest airlines. It is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance...
, Emirates, Lufthansa
Lufthansa
Deutsche Lufthansa AG is the flag carrier of Germany and the largest airline in Europe in terms of overall passengers carried. The name of the company is derived from Luft , and Hansa .The airline is the world's fourth-largest airline in terms of overall passengers carried, operating...
, Singapore Airlines
Singapore Airlines
Singapore Airlines Limited is the flag carrier airline of Singapore. Singapore Airlines operates a hub at Changi Airport and has a strong presence in the Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia, and "Kangaroo Route" markets...
(SIA) and Qantas. The accident
Aviation accidents and incidents
An aviation accident is defined in the Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex 13 as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, in which a...
led to the temporary grounding of the rest of the five-plane Qantas A380 fleet, and groundings, inspections and engine replacements on some other Rolls-Royce powered A380s in service with Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines, but not in the A380 fleets of Air France or Emirates, which are powered by Engine Alliance
Engine Alliance
The Engine Alliance is a 50/50 joint venture between General Electric and Pratt & Whitney formed in August 1996 to develop, manufacture, sell, and support a family of modern technology aircraft engines for new high-capacity, long-range aircraft.The main application for such an engine, the GP7200,...
engines.
Aircraft
The aircraft involved was an Airbus A380-842, registration number VH-OQA, serial number 014. Delivered in September 2008, the aircraft had four Trent 972Rolls-Royce Trent 900
The Rolls-Royce Trent 900 is a series of turbofan engines, developed from the RB211 and is one of the family of Trent engines.-Design and development:...
engines manufactured by Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce plc
Rolls-Royce Group plc is a global power systems company headquartered in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s second-largest maker of aircraft engines , and also has major businesses in the marine propulsion and energy sectors. Through its defence-related activities...
. The aircraft (named Nancy Bird Walton in honour of the Australian aviation pioneer) was the first A380 delivered to Qantas. Qantas expects repairs on the aircraft to be completed by February 2012 and plans to return it to service in the first half of 2012.
Accident
The accidentAviation accidents and incidents
An aviation accident is defined in the Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex 13 as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, in which a...
, at 10:01 am Singapore Standard Time (02:01 UTC), was caused by an uncontained failure of the port
Port and starboard
Port and starboard are nautical terms which refer to the left and right sides, respectively, of a ship or aircraft as perceived by a person on board facing the bow . At night, the port side of a vessel is indicated with a red navigation light and the starboard side with a green one.The starboard...
inboard (Number 2
Aircraft engine position number
Aircraft engine position number is a method to identify the location of engines on multi-engined aircraft. Aircraft engines are numbered from left to right from the view of the pilot looking forward.-Twin-engined aircraft:* #1 - port - on the left...
) engine, while en route over Batam Island, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
.
Shrapnel from the exploding engine punctured part of the wing and damaged the fuel system, causing leaks which disabled one hydraulic system and the anti-lock brakes and caused No.1 and No.4 engines to go into a ‘degraded’ mode, damaged landing flaps and the controls for the outer left No.1 engine.
The crew, after finding the plane controllable, decided to fly a racetrack holding pattern
Holding (aviation)
In aviation, holding is a maneuver designed to delay an aircraft already in flight while keeping it within a specified airspace.-Implementation:...
close to Changi airport while assessing the status of the aircraft. It took 50 minutes to complete this initial assessment. The First Officer (FO) and Supervising Check Captain (SCC) then input the plane's status to the landing distance performance application (LDPA) for a landing 50 tonnes over maximum landing weight at Changi. Based on these inputs the LDPA could not calculate a landing distance. After discussion the crew elected to remove inputs related to a wet runway, in the knowledge that the runway was dry. The LDPA then returned the information that the landing was feasible with 100 metres of runway remaining. The flight then returned to Singapore Changi Airport
Singapore Changi Airport
Singapore Changi Airport , Changi International Airport, or simply Changi Airport, is the main airport in Singapore. A major aviation hub in Southeast Asia, it is about north-east from the commercial centre in Changi, on a site....
, landing safely after the crew extended the landing gear by a gravity drop emergency extension system, at 11:45 am Singapore time. As a result of the aircraft landing 35 knots faster than normal, four tyres were blown.
Upon landing, the crew were unable to shut down the No.1 engine, which had to be doused by emergency crews 3 hours after landing until flameout
Flameout
A flameout refers to the failure of a jet engine caused by the extinction of the flame in the combustion chamber. It can be caused by a number of factors, including fuel exhaustion; compressor stall; insufficient oxygen supply; foreign object damage ; severe inclement weather; and mechanical...
. The pilots considered whether to evacuate the plane immediately after landing as fuel was leaking from the left wing onto the brakes, which were extremely hot from maximum braking. The SCC pilot, David Evans, noted in an interview, "We’ve got a situation where there is fuel, hot brakes and an engine that we can’t shut down. And really the safest place was on-board the aircraft until such time as things changed. So we had the cabin crew with an alert phase the whole time through ready to evacuate, open doors, inflate slides at any moment. As time went by, that danger abated and, thankfully, we were lucky enough to get everybody off very calmly and very methodically through one set of stairs." The plane was on battery power and had to contend with only one VHF radio to coordinate emergency procedure with the local fire crew.
There were no injuries reported among the 440 passengers and 29 crew on board the plane. Debris also fell on a school and houses, causing structural damage, and on a car.
Pilot and crew
The pilot of the plane, CaptainPilot in command
The pilot in command of an aircraft is the person aboard the aircraft who is ultimately responsible for its operation and safety during flight. This would be the "captain" in a typical two- or three-pilot flight crew, or "pilot" if there is only one certified and qualified pilot at the controls of...
Richard Champion de Crespigny, has been credited in the media as "having guided a heavily damaged double-decker jet to the safety of Singapore Airport
Singapore Changi Airport
Singapore Changi Airport , Changi International Airport, or simply Changi Airport, is the main airport in Singapore. A major aviation hub in Southeast Asia, it is about north-east from the commercial centre in Changi, on a site....
and averting what could have been a catastrophe". He has 35 years of flying experience and was the first Qantas "line" pilot to fly the Airbus A380.
On 18 November Richard Woodward, a vice president of the Australian and International Pilots Association reported that there were five pilots on the cockpit of this flight. In addition to the normal crew of Captain, First and Second Officer, there were two additional check captains. The captain who was being trained as a Check Captain (CC) and the Supervising Check Captain (SCC) who was training the CC. Captain de Crespigny concentrated on flying and managing the aircraft and monitoring the (57 ECAM) checklists being actioned by the First Officer. The supernumerary pilots monitored all actions and assisted where necessary.
Cause
The ongoing investigation by the Australian Transport Safety BureauAustralian Transport Safety Bureau
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is Australia’s national transport safety investigator. The ATSB is the federal government body responsible for investigating transport-related accidents and incidents within Australia. It covers air, sea and rail travel. The Australian Transport Safety...
indicated that "fatigue
Fatigue (material)
'In materials science, fatigue is the progressive and localized structural damage that occurs when a material is subjected to cyclic loading. The nominal maximum stress values are less than the ultimate tensile stress limit, and may be below the yield stress limit of the material.Fatigue occurs...
cracking" in a stub pipe within the engine resulted in oil leakage followed by an oil fire in the engine. The fire led to the release of the Intermediate Pressure Turbine (IPT) disc. It also said the issue is specific to the Trent 900.
Rolls Royce determined that the direct cause of the oil fire and resulting engine failure was a misaligned counter bore within a stub oil pipe leading to a fatigue fracture. The ATSB's preliminary investigation report confirmed that Rolls Royce determination.
Airbus determined that the IPT disc released three different high energy fragments, resulting in structural and systems damage. It also concluded that segregated wiring routes were cut by two out of the three individual pieces of disc debris and as a result, engine one could not be shut down after landing.
On 10 November, the European Aviation Safety Agency issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive, ordering airlines using the Trent 900 engine to conduct frequent and stringent tests, including extended ground idle runs, Low Pressure Turbine (LPT) stage one blade and case drain inspections and High Pressure/Intermediate Pressure (HP/IP) structure air buffer cavity and oil service tube inspections. However, on 22 November, the EASA eased its inspection guidelines, citing progress in the investigation. It dropped requirements for extended ground idle runs and requirements for repetitive inspections of the LPT stage one blades and case drain.
On 2 December, the ATSB ordered a one-off inspection of the "relevant" Trent 900 engines within two flight cycles.
On 3 December, the ATSB issued a preliminary report which contained a key finding of a manufacturing flaw: An area of fatigue cracking was found within a stub pipe, that feeds oil to the engine HP/IP bearing structure. Bearing lubricating oil leaked from that crack, causing the subsequent engine fire and failure of the IP turbine disc. The fatigue fracture was a result of the misalignment of that stub pipe, during the counter-boring process. That inaccurate alignment resulted in one side of the same stub pipe becoming too thin to resist fatigue fracturing. This "could lead to an elevated risk of fatigue crack initiation and growth, oil leakage and potential catastrophic engine failure from a resulting oil fire," according to the agency.
The findings were determined to be a "critical safety issue," and the ATSB recommended immediate inspections of in-service Trent 900 engines. On 8 December the ATSB reported that 45 Trent 900 engines had been inspected, and 3 of these engines had failed inspection and had been removed from service. On 18 May 2011, the ATSB released an interim factual report which states that 53 Trent 900 engines were removed from service - 11 due to out-of-tolerance oil-feed stub pipes and 42 due to lack of measurement records relating to the oil-feed stub pipe.
Stock markets
Immediately after the accident, shares in the engine's manufacturer, London Stock ExchangeLondon Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
listed Rolls-Royce plc
Rolls-Royce plc
Rolls-Royce Group plc is a global power systems company headquartered in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s second-largest maker of aircraft engines , and also has major businesses in the marine propulsion and energy sectors. Through its defence-related activities...
, fell 5.5% to 618.5 pence, their sharpest fall in 18 months. This was the lowest price since mid September 2010. The fall in the share price was directly attributed to this accident. Shares in the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company
EADS
The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company N.V. is a global pan-European aerospace and defence corporation and a leading defence and military contractor worldwide...
(EADS), which owns Airbus, also fell.
By mid-morning on 8 November 2010, Rolls-Royce shares had fallen by more than 10% since the accident on the previous Thursday.
Grounding of aircraft and replacement of engines
Both Qantas and SIA, which uses the same Rolls Royce engine in its A380 aircraft, temporarily grounded their A380 fleets after the accident and performed further inspections. Singapore Airlines resumed operations the following day.Investigation of all four other operational Qantas A380s revealed concerns with two engines. Those engines were to be replaced, after which operation was expected to be resumed. The problems with one of these engines "could have potentially led to a repeat of Thursday's incident on QF32". On 8 November 2010 the CEO of Qantas, Alan Joyce
Alan Joyce (executive)
Alan Joseph Joyce is an Irish-born Australian businessman. He is the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian airline Qantas Airways Limited.-Personal life:...
, stated that the A380 fleet would remain grounded because new issues in the engines appeared, including oil leaks within the engines, something Joyce said was "beyond normal tolerances". Singapore Airlines, which initially stated it "did not find any issues of concern" after inspecting the engines of its A380s, announced on November 10 it planned to replace three engines on three separate planes, grounding the aircraft in question until the issues were resolved. The airline allowed the planes to return to Singapore after discovery of the anomaly. On November 10, Lufthansa
Lufthansa
Deutsche Lufthansa AG is the flag carrier of Germany and the largest airline in Europe in terms of overall passengers carried. The name of the company is derived from Luft , and Hansa .The airline is the world's fourth-largest airline in terms of overall passengers carried, operating...
announced the replacement of an engine on its first A380 which it termed "precautionary". On 3 December, Qantas announced that a total of 16 Trent 900 engines needed to have repairs made or be replaced entirely; at the time of the announcement, the airline said five had already been replaced.
On 23 November, Qantas announced that it would begin to partially return its fleet of A380s to service, beginning on 27 November. Initially two of its six A380s were taken into use while the rest of the fleet stayed grounded pending inspections and engine changes. The two aircraft entered service on the Sydney–Singapore–London route, where the engines use less than maximum thrust. Qantas initially said it planned to refrain from using the aircraft on routes between Los Angeles and Australia, the longest routes globally served by the A380, where highest engine performance was required on take-off. However, on 11 January 2011, Qantas announced it would resume using the A380 on the Los Angeles routes after talks with the manufacturers and regulators indicated the aircraft was safe to use. By the end of January, Qantas operated all but one of its A380s, but did not have a timeframe for returning VH-OQA, the aircraft damaged in the accident, to service.
Reactions regarding significance
Tom Ballantyne, a writer on Orient Aviation Magazine, described the accident as "certainly the most serious incident that the A380 has experienced since it entered operations", and concerns have been voiced that this accident may be due to a "major problem", rather than being maintenance-related. Qantas CEO Alan Joyce stated on 5 November that Qantas considered the likely cause "some kind of material failure or a design issue".The damage, described in the Sydney Morning Herald as "potentially life-threatening and extremely rare", caused aircraft engineer Peter Marosszeky, from the University of New South Wales
University of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
to state that "I rarely ever see a failure like this on any engine", while Paul Cousins, the federal president of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association stated that "fewer than 5% of engine failures involved debris leaving the casing of the engine", as was the case in this accident.
Operational history
This Airbus A380 accident followed two previous incidents involving Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines. In September 2009, an engine malfunctioned on a Singapore Airlines flight from Paris to the Far East, and a Tokyo-Frankfurt LufthansaLufthansa
Deutsche Lufthansa AG is the flag carrier of Germany and the largest airline in Europe in terms of overall passengers carried. The name of the company is derived from Luft , and Hansa .The airline is the world's fourth-largest airline in terms of overall passengers carried, operating...
flight in August 2010 had engine trouble which resulted in one engine being shut down due to low oil pressure. No such incidents have been reported for the Airbus A380s that are powered by Engine Alliance
Engine Alliance
The Engine Alliance is a 50/50 joint venture between General Electric and Pratt & Whitney formed in August 1996 to develop, manufacture, sell, and support a family of modern technology aircraft engines for new high-capacity, long-range aircraft.The main application for such an engine, the GP7200,...
engines (made by GE Aircraft Engines and Pratt & Whitney
Pratt & Whitney
Pratt & Whitney is a U.S.-based aerospace manufacturer with global service operations. It is a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation . Pratt & Whitney's aircraft engines are widely used in both civil aviation and military aviation. Its headquarters are in East Hartford, Connecticut, USA...
as a joint venture) and operated by Emirates and Air France
Air France
Air France , stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the French flag carrier headquartered in Tremblay-en-France, , and is one of the world's largest airlines. It is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance...
.
An airworthiness directive was issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency
European Aviation Safety Agency
The European Aviation Safety Agency is an agency of the European Union with offices in Cologne, Germany, which has been given regulatory and executive tasks in the field of civilian aviation safety. It was created on 15 July 2002, and it reached full functionality in 2008, taking over functions...
on 4 August 2010 that required inspection of certain aspects of the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine.
Compensation and Repairs
On 22 June 2011 Qantas announced that it had agreed to compensation from Rolls-Royce to a figure of approximately US$United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
100 million. Repairs to the A380 involved will cost around $135 million and is covered by insurance, with the aircraft expected to return to service in February 2012.
External links
- Extensive and detailed technical interview with David Evans, Supervising Check Captain, QF32 -- "Qantas QF32 flight from the cockpit"
- ATSB Preliminary Investigation Report, AO-2010-089 -- In-flight uncontained engine failure overhead Batam Island, Indonesia 4 November 2010 VH-OQA Airbus A380-842
- The Anatomy of the Airbus A380 QF32 near disaster
- Major Disruptions Qantas Update and Frequently Asked Questions on QF32 and Qantas A380 Operations - QantasQantasQantas Airways Limited is the flag carrier of Australia. The name was originally "QANTAS", an initialism for "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services". Nicknamed "The Flying Kangaroo", the airline is based in Sydney, with its main hub at Sydney Airport...
- Flight QF 32 on 4 November 2010 Airbus A380, registered VH-OQA - Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation CivileBureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la sécurité de l'Aviation CivileThe Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile is an agency of the French government, responsible for investigating aviation accidents and making safety recommendations based on what is learned from those investigations. It is headquartered in Building 153 on the grounds...
- Qantas Flight QF32 Engine Failure / Inflight turnback to Singapore - AirbusAirbusAirbus SAS is an aircraft manufacturing subsidiary of EADS, a European aerospace company. Based in Blagnac, France, surburb of Toulouse, and with significant activity across Europe, the company produces around half of the world's jet airliners....
- Qantas Airbus A380 - Inflight engine failure, Indonesia - Australian Transport Safety BureauAustralian Transport Safety BureauThe Australian Transport Safety Bureau is Australia’s national transport safety investigator. The ATSB is the federal government body responsible for investigating transport-related accidents and incidents within Australia. It covers air, sea and rail travel. The Australian Transport Safety...
- "Statement Re: Qantas QF32." - Rolls-RoyceRolls-Royce plcRolls-Royce Group plc is a global power systems company headquartered in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s second-largest maker of aircraft engines , and also has major businesses in the marine propulsion and energy sectors. Through its defence-related activities...
- Daily Mail article with many photographs, including of debris on the ground