Crew saved crippled Qantas A380 from disaster

The Weekend Australian ^ | 4th December 2010 | Steve Creedy

[naturalman1975]

THE crew of a crippled Qantas airliner averted disaster last month.

As the crew of Flight QF32 began to reconfigure the damaged A380 aircraft for landing in Singapore, they were bringing in the superjumbo without many of the systems they took for granted and with only one engine functioning normally.

Only the No 3 engine had reverse thrust, no leading edge slats were available, there was limited aileron and spoiler control and anti-skid braking was restricted, an Australian Transport Safety Bureau report said yesterday.

The nose wheel steering was limited and the pilots knew the nose was likely to pitch up on landing. A message from the airliner's central monitoring system indicated they could not apply maximum braking until the nose wheel was on the runway.

The pilots had already conducted tests to reassure themselves they could control the aircraft. But the captain knew he had to get the speed exactly right to avoid an aerodynamic stall that would rob the plane of lift or see it career off the end of the runway.

Calculations were that they would have just 100m of runway left when the A380 came to a halt and computer messages indicated two more of the four engines had been affected by the disintegration of the No 2 engine.

This left the captain using the No 1 and 4 engines to provide symmetric thrust while controlling the aircraft's speed using the unaffected No 3 engine.

The five crew -- there were two extra captains on board -- had already spent almost an hour dealing with a flurry of error messages that began as shrapnel from the No 2 engine tore through the wing, cutting wiring, hydraulic and fuel systems.

[naturalman1975]

They had more than 72,000 hours flying time between them

That is eight solid years flying planes. Good Lord.

[El Sordo]

And Quantas never crashed...

[J Edgar]

These should get some kind of Award, and a monetary reward as well!

[Republic of Texas]

Quantas may have an unblemished record, but Airbus seems to have some issues.

[Aroostook25]

But after all that damage, it landed safely.

That is robust airframe engineering.

[21twelve]

Sounds like that old movie (Space Cowboys??) where the old astronaughts are learning to fly the shuttle, and the guy keeps throwing everything that could possible go wrong at them, all at once, on the simulator.

Pretty amazing. I can’t imagine. It would be hard enough to deal with a flat tire as you’re driving down the highway. Combine it with no brakes, then your lights go out and the clutch fails.....

[Republic of Texas]

Indeed it is.

[naturalman1975]

I, for one, have nominated the crew for the Order of Australia.

[JRandomFreeper]

. Combine it with no brakes, then your lights go out and the clutch fails.....

Tuck, duck, and roll. Then pray. But fly it until it quits flying.

Yep, that aircrew did great work.

/johnny

[ErnBatavia]

I love QANTAS....a few years ago I was hanging around the Sydney airport waiting for my 747 to continue on to Perth; the delay was getting aggravating but we finally boarded.

Captain Alan Murgatroyd (how can you forget a name like that??) went on the intercom in his best Ocker and told us that he'd seen some 'unpleasant hydraulic fluid' weeping during his walkabout - hence the delay.

Gotta hand it to Captain Alan, though....once we got aloft (This was Australia Day, so maybe he had plans) he ripped it across Oz at an altitude of only 20,000 feet or so --- and made up a surprising amount of the lost time. I made it to the Duxton in time to see the air show on the Swan River.....unforgettable.

[Yo-Yo]

I wouldn't want to be Rolls-Royce right now...

Problems in manufacturing process led to Trent 900 failure: ATSB

By Siva Govindasamy

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) says that a problem in the "manufacturing process" led to the 4 November uncontained engine failure on a Rolls-Royce Trent 900 powering a Qantas Airways A380.

Investigations at Rolls-Royce facilities in Derby revealed an "area of fatigue cracking" within a stub pipe that feeds oil to the High Pressure (HP)/Intermediate Pressure (IP) bearing structure.

That was associated with a misaligned region of counter-boring within the stub pipe outlet, producing a localised thinning of one side of the pipe wall. That led to an uncontained failure of the IP turbine.

[Excerpt]

[StormEye]

"... rob the plane of lift or see it career off the end of the runway."

Do journalist writing in the English language take classes in English during their student years?
(I'm sure the writer meant to say "careen.")

[doc1019]

And robust pilot training. ;-)

[BfloGuy]

(I'm sure the writer meant to say "careen.")

Where did you learn English?

Per Merriam-Webster

career - to go at top speed especially in a headlong manner *a car careered off the road

Just sayin'

[M. Thatcher]

Do journalist writing in the English language take classes in English during their student years? (I'm sure the writer meant to say "careen.")

Actually, "career" is perfectly correct.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Actually it IS a correct usage of "career" even though it sounds like the author meant "careen." Defn 1: move headlong at high speed; "The cars careered down the road"; "The mob careered through the streets" Defn 2: –verb (used without object) 7. to run or move rapidly along; go at full speed. Origin: 1525–35; < MF carriere < OPr carriera lit., road < LL carrāria ( via ) vehicular (road), equiv. to L carr ( us ) wagon ( see car1 ) + -āria, fem. of -ārius -ary —Can be confused:  careen, career .

[VaRepublican]

doh!!! I thought the same thing, however I would have looked up word prior to posting, MUST KNOW FACTS with this bunch.

[VaRepublican]

So I'm wondering if this is reason for the delay on the Boeing dreamliner, are they trying to get it right or are the just messed up?

[StormEye]

Ok, I stand schooled and corrected.
I'll burn incense to the dictionary gods tomorrow.

[mowowie]

Kind of reminds me of that United flight over Iowa a while back that lost all of their hydraulic systems.