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Qatar Airways grounds 13 Airbus A350s as fuselage degrading
- naturalauction 5y agoGiven that the Qatari regulator ordered the grounding and that Qatar Airways is state owned that seems like a pretty big conflict of interest. Especially with Qatar Airways refusing delivery of any more a350s until the problem is fixed (in a time of extremely low levels of international air travel).
- baybal2 5y agoWell, a good time to say Bravo to their regulator then. Imagine if the regulator, and the state airline was ran by people half of whom shared the same surname, and it happened, say, in USA.
- dathinab 5y agoExcept that imagine the issue is non-safety related and the regulator which happens to be related to the Airline company grounded them on requests of the Airline during low traffic times to put more pressure on the manufacturer and maybe profit from higher damage payments.... (Purely speculative to give a point for the next argument.) I.e. we can't say if the regulator acted correct with safety concern or corrupt until we know what is actually going one. Just because something seems to be "proper safety orientated acting" on the first sight doesn't mean it is and neither mean it's not corrupt...
- bdjddd77 5y agoI'd say this is correct. Qataris have one rule for them and another for everyone visiting or working ( the flippas, Nepalese etc), a friend is quite well connected as part of chemical supplies to oil industry, more like store at origin and broker nowadays, they live by different laws than the mere mortal (like me) passing through. You can live it large if you have the right connections - connection to above - one form of corruption doesn't exists it's systematic so yeah making the regulator act to protect a private contract condition is very plausible in qatar
- Corinthian 5y agoI live in Qatar, and the Qataris are notorious for finding ways to avoid paying their bills, delaying payment for extremely long periods, or asking for unreasonable reductions. Claiming something is wrong or faulty is a common tactic, another one is to substantially expand the scope of a project, and then refuse to pay when the project inevitably runs over the original deadline. Akbar Al Baker pulled similar cons with the construction of Doha airport, demanding the project be accelerated but refusing to pay for the extra work that would be involved. Bechtel and Lindner/ Depa Interiors are two companies that spring to mind. They also suffered due to the erratic and insanely inefficient bureaucracy that is endemic in Qatar - 60-70% of Qataris "Work" in government jobs. Similar stories can be heard of tower construction in Qatar. Empty and unfinished towers littler the country due the Qataris failing to pay their dues to construction companies. This article superficially covers it: https://www.constructionweekonline.com/business/article-37759-late-payments-challenge-qatar-construction-sector https://www.constructionweekonline.com/business/article-3775...
- bdjddd77 5y agoWill be interesting to see if the pill the world cup off next year with this style of bullshit.
- bdjddd77 5y agoThe pill -> they pull. Hard enough with alcohol in the shithole never mind pills ;)
- Corinthian 5y agoYou don't know the half of it. When they held the Asian cup, they were so concerned with the stadiums looking empty, they forced laborers to go and fill the seats. Problem is that many legitimate ticket holders were then denied entry! Of course people got angry about that, so the police saw fit to start administering beatings to people. Now image that scenario with drunken football hooligans instead!
- akiselev 5y agoQatar has a population of over 2.5 million but only about 300,000 of those are native Qataris. Even if they have different last names, chances are they're somehow related.
- bdjddd77 5y agoThis is true, briefly thought I was in manila when doing a hotel stop over, only the hotel manager seems to be a native. Horrible country, but I'll do the gov subsided stopover frequently when travelling back and forth.
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- InTheArena 5y agoQatar is bringing A330s out of storage and up-gauging some routes to 77Ws, which have significantly higher fuel-burn (due to more seats, and a older airframe). I doubt this is just a negotiating position.
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- EMM_386 5y agoThis was first reported back in January when a Qatar Airways Airbus A350 was in Shannon for a repaint. When the paint was stripped they found surface coating irregularities. This is apparently cosmetic and not structural. This was one of the first A350s to be repainted. Qatar has 53 Airbus A350 aircraft, so why these particular 13 is the question now.
- jacquesm 5y agoAre they in a particular sequence or randomly distributed across the 53 hull numbers? If the former it might be a process change somewhere in the paint or resin/polymer formulation.
- InTheArena 5y agoThe rumor is that some combination of paint, stripper and CFRP led to the actual mesh being exposed. If so, that goes considerably further then cosmetic.
- jacquesm 5y agoIs there a link or some other substantiation to the rumor? I'm quite interested in this (but for an entirely unrelated field).
- InTheArena 5y agoIt's being talked about on the airline forums (PPRUNE and airliners.net), but no definitive source from what I can see yet.
- jacquesm 5y agoOk. This combination is also used in windturbine blades of some manufacturers, it may have substantial impact if it is something structural involving the base material, less so if it is just a rare combination of process/chemicals.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
- JKCalhoun 5y agoI've been a long time carbon-fiber skeptic. Only an armchair materials enthusiast but carbon fiber construction seems to lack the margin for fatigue that aluminum has. It seems to me that when carbon fails it fails catastrophically, while aluminum allows some "give". Now it seems carbon fiber doesn't have the longevity either? I am aware the aluminum can "work harden" over time and become more brittle as well. No material appears to be perfect but carbon has always felt to me to not be going in the right direction.
- EMM_386 5y agoKeep in mind we have 30-year old A320s flying around using carbon-fiber, so we would seem to be out of the trial-period phase. This issue appears to be a cosmetic one with regards to the paint layers, not structural (see my other comment).
- numpad0 5y agoApparently A350 are built with Teijin Tenax thermoplastic carbon. Brochures say it cures in one minute, eliminating autoclave. Could be different from normal resin based carbons.
- jacquesm 5y agoYes, and quite possibly they did not factor in the long term differences between interaction of paint and materials.
- avs733 5y agoWhy would you think that? You think these aerospace engineers are a bunch of goof offs?
- jacquesm 5y agoBecause sometimes process optimizations have complex downstream effects. Aerospace engineers are anything but a bunch of goof offs, which is why flying is as safe as it is. And that's why they pulled the aircraft from service even though it is 'just a surface issue' they want to make sure that it really is just that before releasing them - freshly painted - back into service again. The history of aerospace quality control is written in blood, not because they are goof offs but because materials science is complex and sometimes the only warning you get that something is wrong is a crash. Avoiding those is what this sort of action is all about, in any other industry they would have slapped some new paint on it and kept going.
- belter 5y ago"How safe are modern aircraft with carbon fiber composite fuselages in a survivable crash?" https://www.materialstoday.com/carbon-fiber/features/how-safe-are-modern-aircraft-/ https://www.materialstoday.com/carbon-fiber/features/how-saf... PDF direct link: https://www.materialstoday.com/download/127653/ https://www.materialstoday.com/download/127653/ In Space, but relevant: "Thermomechanical Fatigue of Unidirectional Carbon Fiber/Epoxy Composite in Space" https://www.hindawi.com/journals/je/2020/9702957/ https://www.hindawi.com/journals/je/2020/9702957/
- InTheArena 5y agoThe 320s have had composite parts forever. So have virtually every plane since then, The 787, for all it's other faults, hasn't had this issue, and uses a more radical design for it's 787, versus the A350 which still uses stringers and panels, rather then put more load on the CFRP. But that said, given that Lufthansa is also apparently pulling and repainting it's A350s, there may be some reaction here.
- jacquesm 5y agoThis has no bearing on this article, it is not about fatigue but about surface defects, not structural defects.
- belter 5y agoSee comment above from InTheArena.
- belter 5y agoThe mention of cracks was coming from this post: "A QR A350, A7-ALL MSN 036, a 4 year A350, was being prepped for paint removal from the standard QR livery and repaint into the Qatari World Cup 2022 livery at SNN when IAC engineering discovered that the airframe had premature cracks in the composite fuselage..." https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1456315&fbclid=IwAR1NDqj9XibFjuUuUROftXW0GuRCGcyfjRcySw4MUIKF3vbbSUa5BNoUuAk https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1456315&... I am aware of Airbus statement that is only surface related. It is surprising they took the airplane back to Toulouse. So its certainly something more than just a paint issue.
- jacquesm 5y agoThis could well be interaction between the paint or primer used and the resin/polymer used to make the carbon fiber hull parts.
- danuker 5y ago> Qatar Could it be the Qatar weather, typically over 40°C (100°F)? How much time do planes spend parked there? I would assume more, since the pandemic. Keeping them in the sun would make them even hotter than the air temperature (which is measured in the shade).
- NonEUCitizen 5y agoEven if so, for such an expensive product, the customer would expect it to withstand local weather conditions.