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Qantas Airbus A380 engine failure in 2010 (2023)
- gnuplustoejam 1mo agoUnbelievably comprehensive coverage from the Aviation Herald on this incident below, the owner of which was sued recently over a report to the point he sadly lost his home of over 40 years: https://avherald.com/h?article=43309c6d&opt=0 https://avherald.com/h?article=43309c6d&opt=0
- chinathrow 1mo agoContext to the lawsuit brought up by Go2Sky: https://avherald.com/h?article=53c8958a https://avherald.com/h?article=53c8958a
- userbinator 1mo agoThat's disturbing. Ironically, the article in question was published July 4th last year. Note that the bar for defamation is a lot higher in the US than many other countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#United_States
- nolist_policy 1mo agoNot quite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_libel_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_libel_laws
- userbinator 1mo agoWe're not talking about food.
- u1hcw9nx 1mo agoTurbine disk failure is one thing that can down a plane, and you can only reduce the probability so much. Fan blades and turbine blades can be contained by containment cases if they break off, but turbine disks can't. When a disk breaks, it's an uncontained engine failure. A 20 kg disk fragment flying at Mach 1 goes through everything. Airframes are have a 30-degree fragment spread cone around every disk stage. Airframes are designed so that no single fragment can destroy all redundant systems at once in this zone (flight controls, fuel lines, and hydraulic systems). Jet fuel cannot be stored in the wings in this zone.
- polishdude20 1mo agoWhat's a turbine disc?
- gumby 1mo agoIt’s explained in the article
- chasil 1mo agoI admit that I glossed over the section on the machining of the oil pipe, but the facility appears to bear most of the blame. These were pulled and scrapped from the whole A380 fleet. "Investigators also criticized the culture within the Hucknall facility that manufactured the HP/IP bearing hubs, identifying signs of complacency and widespread procedural non-compliance. A paperwork review showed that the required signatures were missing from 131 out of 138 retrospective concessions issued between 2009 and 2011, and a large number of minor non-conformances had not been properly handled through the normal chain of command."
- jacquesm 1mo agoThat's an oversight failure as much as a failure of that plant.
- NetMageSCW 1mo ago
- CursedSilicon 1mo agoOne of my favourite memories of flying Qantas when I was younger was the inflight entertainment. If memory serves, they were celebrating some sort of milestone like "60 years without a fatal accident" or similar. Quite an impressive feat! I'm unclear if it was directly related. But the Qantas inflight entertainment system on our flight from Sydney to Los Angeles meanwhile contained about 12 seasons of the National Geographic series "Air Crash Investigation" (Mayday: Air Disasters for Americans) I will admit that show made an 18 hour slog of a flight significantly more enjoyable
- AdamJacobMuller 1mo agoWatching Mayday on flights is one of my favorite things to do for some odd reason.
- annzabelle 1mo agoThere's a podcast (that's been on "hiatus" for 6 years) that I used to listen to that would do an air crash segment. The show was called Hello Internet, and I would always try to queue up the air crash episodes for any flights I was on. One of the hosts recently started a new podcast called Runway 23 that's mostly about air crashes, and his cohost is actually a Qantas pilot.
- alex1138 1mo agoThat's hilarious. They don't think about "hey, maybe not show this, we might have nervous passengers"?
- Insanity 1mo agoLol, I quite like the show and considered watching it. But then thought other passengers on the plane might see it and become a bit unsettled by it. So last few times I opted for "To Catch A Smuggler". Still flight related but hopefully less unsettling.
- Alien1Being 1mo agoQantas is a troubled airline. Once a Qantas aircraft technician even told me that Singapore Airlines have a far superior maintenance schedule for their aircraft. This person claims that he tells his family to avoid flying on Qantas ( but flies on it himself since he gets free flights) These days Han airlines ( SIA, Cathay,China Eastern) and Middle Eastern airlines (Emirates,Qatar) are far better than Western Airlines ( American, British, Lufthansa, KLM,Qantas).
- tomhow 1mo agoPlease don’t post off-topic hearsay like this here. This article isn’t about maintenance, it’s about a manufacturing fault and the incredible work by the pilots to avert a colossal aviation disaster. Qantas continues to have an unblemished record of safety. Running airlines cost-effectively is a continually growing challenge. There is always a place for scrutiny of airlines’ maintenance and safety practices, but introducing it out of context and based entirely on an unverifiable comment from an unidentified individual is not a helpful contribution to this discussion.
- ginko 1mo agoAh yeah, China Eastern.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Eastern_Airlines_Flight_5735 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Eastern_Airlines_Flight_... Meanwhile Lufthansa had their last fatal crash in 1993. For British it was in 1976.
- ShinyLeftPad 1mo agoThe absolutely insane thing about it is not even the accident itself (most airlines have had accidents) but the way it is handled in their equivalent of FAA and the government. From how they delayed issuing the visas for Boeing and other representatives to how they STILL have not released a report. great example of why I would avoid any PRC airline if I can help it. (Presumably one reason they don't want to release the report is because it would lead many others to do the same and they want to protect their airline profits, but of course it ensures that the problem will not be fixed the longer they delay it)
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- ChrisArchitect 1mo agoTitle is: A Matter of Millimeters: The story of Qantas flight 32 (2023) Some discussion: 2023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38586773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38586773
- bookofjoe 1mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49511213 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49511213
- dnw 1mo agoAlso this documentary is very good: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nZS-mkygGWI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nZS-mkygGWI
- realo 1mo agoCatastrophic failure? Check Plane landed without casualties? Check Plane design so good it helped avoid casualties? Check Hum... Ah! Not an american Boeing but a french Airbus. Of course. The article mentions this story should make everyone a little less afraid of flying. Sure, as long as its not on a Boeing plane.
- ginko 1mo agoAirbus is French, German and British. Not just French.
- bluebarbet 1mo agoThe state-held stakes are mainly French, German and (less) Spanish. The UK taxpayer currently owns 0% of Airbus, though the UK gets the business of building wings and landing gear.
- sam1714 1mo agoLike Boeing, there was organizational dysfunction leading to a direct safety issue. During the development of the A380, the German and French sides were using different versions of the CATIA PLM software (i.e. CAD), which prevented people from looking at a single unified model of the plane. One concrete problem it caused was major problems with the wiring harnesses, which led to a 2 year delay in the program, and 3 early A380's which couldn't be sold. (Airbus kept one for test, the other two got sent to museums) That manifested in this accident because the wing wiring was routed through the engine disk burst axes (a hazard which is explicitly accounted for) with insufficient redundancy. That created the dangerous situation where they couldn't turn off the engine after landing.
- jacquesm 1mo ago> That created the dangerous situation where they couldn't turn off the engine after landing. Which is vastly preferable compared to all of the dangerous situations just prior to that landing.
- seemaze 1mo agoThis remarkable event, along with the an accessible history of the evolution of precision manufacturing is covered in Simon Winchester's excellent book The Perfectionists[0]. The audiobook is narrated by the author, which is quite enjoyable as well. [0]https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-perfectionists-simon-winchester https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-perfectionists-si...
- adaml_623 1mo ago"Even the airplane itself ultimately survived: after a marathon repair that lasted 535 days and cost $139 million, the A380 Nancy-Bird Walton triumphantly returned to the skies in 2012." This quote amazes me. My understanding is that Airbus, Qantas, and probably Rolls Royce were willing to spend this much because it meant that the incident was not a "hull loss" and therefore not as bad a hit to reputation and safety statistics. Does anyone know if that's true?
- shawabawa3 1mo agoThey paid an estimated $300M per aircraft, so even a $139M repair bill is worth it
- ahartmetz 1mo agoA new A380 is more expensive (rule of thumb half of official list price, so about $220 million), and airlines were not talking about retiring A380s yet at the time. So it even made economic sense.
- stephen_g 1mo agoThe plane has since had a cabin upgrade and is still expected to operate at least until 2028. It’s operating SIN-LHR right now as I write this, currently flying over Azerbaijan.
- ygouzerh 1mo agoOne thing that might be taken into account is the delay between ordering a plane, and the delivery (can take up to 10 years), so 1.5 years and 139$ million is worth investing into, to keep revenue flowing earlier.
- crote 1mo agoQantas has never had a hull loss in the jet age. Its last fatal accident was with a 10-passenger propeller plane, back in 1951. It is widely regarded as the world's safest airline. Being able to keep this "never lost a jetliner" / "no accident we couldn't fly away from in 75 years" marketing claim is worth a lot. It's also why Qantas Flight 1 (1999, runway overrun of a 747-400, no significant injuries), despite initially being a write-off, was repaired for over AU$100M and returned to service.
- libraryofbabel 1mo agoI once heard someone describe Admiral Cloudberg's air crash investigation blog as "the best thing on the Internet" and I still think that might be true. She is a great researcher and a superb writer, which stands out all the more these days in these fallen times of load-bearing AI slop. Her blog is beloved of both aviation geeks and, for obvious reasons, SREs (and other engineers). She recently posted what's basically her magnum opus, on the Potomac river midair collision.[0] It's the length of a short book. I'm working my way through it; I'm taking a flight today, and I'll probably read it on the plane tonight. This article, on how an A380 with 469 souls aboard almost crashed, but didn't, is one of her best. I like it because it's a happy ending, and a story of the combined effects of good engineering design (the astonishing degree of redundancy built into the A380 proved just enough to prevent catastrophe), and human troubleshooting under pressure in the cockpit by some smart people with vast experience who remained calm throughout. (Another favorite article of her, on the Air France 447 crash, tells the exact opposite story: poor systems design combined with pilots basically losing the most basic ability to aviate in the heat of the moment. That one is a much darker read.[1]) [0] https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/reaping-the-whirlwind-inside-the-potomac-river-midair-collision-0475416f2b0f https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/reaping-the-whirlwind-in... [1] https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-long-way-down-the-crash-of-air-france-flight-447-8a7678c37982 https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-long-way-down-the-cr...
- trq01758 1mo agoI would also highly recommend checking out Mentour Pilot channel on youtube as she is the writer for some episodes. Accident videos there have interesting technical details.
- wolvoleo 1mo agoI've watched some but I really hate watching videos. And I found that the videos she scripted basically follow the same flow as her corresponding article. So it felt like I'd already watched it. If you like videos I'm sure they're great but if you love the writeup, you're not missing anything by skipping the videos IMO. Ps I hate mentour pilot's clickbaity thumbnails so much. That alone puts me off from watching it too. But lately I use "DeArrow" which desensationalises all the thumbnails and even titles. That helps a lot. Mentour pilot is not alone in this, a lot of youtubers do it, but he sensationalises the severity of an aviation crash by going like "whoa kaboom!". Which is what I object to. Usually people died there and lots of them. It's strange because the actual videos have none of that.
- polishdude20 1mo agoI wonder why the engineers didn't specify a tolerance for thickness of the oil stub pipe?
- NetMageSCW 1mo agoDifficulty in measuring since it was machined after installation?
- okey 1mo agoper the article, because the stub pipe counter bore had to be drilled after that end of the pipe was welded in place, so directly measuring pipe wall thickness wasn't practical
- bahmboo 1mo agoThey did. Through a series of complex interactions it was missed. It’s kind of the whole point of the retrospective in the article.
- corndoge 1mo agoI wonder why you didn't read the article?
- exceptione 1mo ago> The detailed software allowed them to enter various parameters including the weather, runway condition, and any systems failures, and then calculate whether it was possible to land. But when everything had been entered, the program spit out an unhelpful answer: “no result.” > When calculating the landing distance, the software applied a generic “operational coefficient” to account conservatively for variations in pilot techniques that could result in less efficient deceleration. The problem, as investigators would later discover, was that the software applied the coefficient again whenever another system failure was added. With so many system failures on the aircraft, the coefficient was applied a total of 9 times, resulting in a calculated landing distance considerably greater than the length of the available runway. However, Check Captain Evans was able to fix the problem by manually entering their actual landing weight, overriding the program’s assumption of a maximum landing weight. By specifying a landing weight in excess of the maximum, the system logic changed to apply the operational coefficient only once — for unrelated and obscure reasons — and lo and behold, when he ran the numbers this time, the computer said they could just barely land on any of the 4,000-meter runways at Singapore Changi Airport, with only 100 meters to spare. This reeks so much of if-then-else programming as opposed to making a well-typed conceptual model computable.
- likestowatch 1mo agowell airbus does hire in morocco inb4 you are racis Im moroccan I personally know a guy who faked his entire university record (dad is a local politician) and is now working at engine systems at airbus in france he does have a winning smile though europe is not ready to deal with third world achievement dynamics
- gambiting 1mo agoThe "son of a politician takes a high level engineering position" story happens everywhere. If airbus has a strict hiring process I don't see any issue here. It's the same as people saying programmers from India are bad - I have worked with some incredibly skilled Indian programmers, literally top tier people(educated and living in India too, not immigrants educated elsewhere). You have all kinds everywhere, it's just what standard you want to set.
- NetMageSCW 1mo agoRetroactive, but one thing that struck me since they were overweight for landing and their fuel dump was inoperative, why not turn on the leveling pump and pump fuel out the hole in the left tank anyway? It would have lowered weight and improved balance.
- vient 1mo agoI got an impression from the text that pilots were not sure the fuel levelling line does not have a leak itself. Maybe they were afraid the line can leak fuel into fuselage somehow?
- sleepy_keita 1mo agoThey got a warning that the fuel transfer system was damaged, so they decided not to use it, I think.
- dostick 1mo agoThe whole incident was because of 0.2mm offset in a machined part! And the company that made the part ignored the quality compliance process was not fired. I wonder why - did Airbus think it’s their failure not to verify that the subcontractor adhered to procedures?
- quink 1mo agoThis feels more like engine manufacturer QC rather than anything Airbus. Because also, from Wikipedia: On 22 June 2011, Qantas announced that it had agreed to a compensation of AUD$95 million (£62 million/US$100 million) from Rolls-Royce. - skipping Airbus entirely.
- klausa 1mo agoThe whole business of airliners engines is fascinating in its own. AIUI when you're buying a plane from Airbus, it's possible/frequent to own the _airframe_; but not the engines — the engines are often _leased_ (sometimes directly from RR/GE); I've even heard of cases where each engine will be owned by a different entity! https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/12528/jet-engines-are-they-owned-by-the-airline-or-just-rented https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/12528/jet-engin...
- paulmooreparks 1mo agoI flew on this exact same plane, VH-OQA, on November 4, 2019, from Singapore to Melbourne. While I was sitting at the gate, I remembered that line from Rain Main about "Qantas never crashed," and since that flight would be my first time flying on an A380, I wondered if any had crashed or had any other incidents. I looked up "a380 crash" on my phone, and what do you know? The first hit was a Wikipedia article about a Qantas A380 uncontained engine failure, which had occurred four minutes after takeoff... from Changi! Even wilder was the fact that it had happened 9 years earlier. When I looked up the plane's registration number on Flightradar24, I realized that was the same plane I was flying to Melbourne on.
- gregjw 1mo agoyikes, im sure that didnt freak you out at all.
- Insanity 1mo agoI'd be insanely stressed about this. While at the same time realizing that logically it has flown for _years_ without incident afterwards.
- segfaultex 1mo agoI wouldn't, the A380 is designed to fly with just one operational engine.
- thedrbrian 1mo agoThere is no way an a380 is maintaining level flight with only one engine.
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- AaronM 1mo agoI think the person above you is mistaken. The A380 is a quadjet. It is certified under FAR (Federal Aviation Regulations, USA) part 25 and JAR (Joint Aviation Regulations, Europe) part 25. One of the requirements of FAR/JAR 25 is that the directional control can be maintained when two critical engines (that means under the same wing) fail.
- ShinyLeftPad 1mo agodisc fragments didn't kill anyone just by accident. Have they not considered not seating anyone in the plane of the discs...
- wolvoleo 1mo agoThe problem is they can come out at up to a 30 degree angle so that would mean leaving out a lot of seats especially on a wide body quad-engined plane. Even on a narrow twin you'd already lose like 6 rows which makes it basically unviable.
- ShinyLeftPad 1mo agoAhh yeah. I thought they just go on one narrow plane...
- emtel 1mo agoCan anyone explain why on earth you would counter bore a pipe at all, let alone after installation? I read the article but couldn’t understand the explanation. It seems like a totally ludicrous way to make a pipe.
- userbinator 1mo agoThe counterbore accommodates a filter element. Maybe they were worried it could change the interference fit if they drilled them before installation, or wanted the swaging effect.
- scrumper 1mo agoIt's probably significantly easier to machine it this way. The pipe is curved, so work holding isn't straightforward. Once the blank is installed in its place in the bearing chamber face then you can just move that larger part around to machine all the features in it, including the counterbore.
- userbinator 1mo agoPlane engines are extremely highly optimised, and the design margins are basically at the limit of what regulations allow, which is IMHO why the tiniest of errors can have huge consequences. However, in this case it sounds like the manufacturing process was such that it invited misalignment: Finally, working from the inside through the inner hub counter bore, the stub pipe counter bore would be drilled to a specified depth to accommodate the filter. (This was the bore that was later found to be offset by half a millimeter.) Why not machine the stub pipes to their desired dimensions, including the drilling, and then install them? That way, no in-situ drilling, with that accompanying risk of misalignment, would even be necessary. Even if they decided such drilling was unavoidable, a drill with a pilot (no pun intended) would've kept the holes as concentric as needed. (Disclaimer: Not a professional machinist; but have done some lathe and mill work.) The temperature inside this buffer space was likely between 365 and 375˚C, well above the 280-degree auto-ignition temperature of the engine oil, so the spray immediately ignited. It's worth noting that due to fire risk, most planes use non-flammable hydraulic fluid, although it's not without its own dangers, so perhaps non-flammable engine oil was considered but ultimately decided against: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skydrol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skydrol
- 00N8 1mo ago> the in-flight entertainment system, which featured a live view of the aircraft from a tail-mounted camera. The digital stream clearly showed a much more literal stream of fuel pouring from the left wing and into the aircraft’s wake, which was also visible with the naked eye from the lower deck. Johnson proceeded down to check for himself, at which point he also observed for the first time that there were two gaping holes in the top of the left wing, surrounded by jagged metal, where the turbine disk fragments had exited. > According to Check Captain David Evans, the cabin crew were concerned that so many passengers were watching the live feed from the tail camera, but in a collective decision, the pilots elected not to turn it off because, in their view, the feed suddenly cutting out would probably be more alarming than anything that could be seen on it. I appreciate this part. If I were ever in a similar situation, I'd want to be able to see what's going on. Suddenly cutting the feed would send me straight into a panic.
- mrguyorama 1mo agoInfamously, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_191#Accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_191#A... This flight had a new system to allow passengers to see what the pilots saw. There's a chance that the passengers got to see the panic in the cockpit and watch their fates coming. I have seen claims that this caused such systems to be avoided for a while.
- 00N8 1mo agoThat's a nasty crash, but I feel like having one wing stall & the plane roll past 90° from below 500 ft AGL would be equally traumatic whether or not you could see the cockpit view.
- arlattimore 1mo agoVeritasium put out a video recently about the incredible engineering in modern turbo fan jet engines, recommended watch if this thread has your interest :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtxVdC7pBQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtxVdC7pBQM
- farseer 1mo agoThere have been two uncontained engine failures on the A380. The other one was in 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_066 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_066
- ShinyLeftPad 1mo agoBoth with zero injuries.
- paulbjensen 1mo agoI helped do the video recording and the website for the 2013 International Forum on Quality & Safety in healthcare that was held in London at the Excel Center. One of the talks there was from Qantas Senior Check Captain David Evans, "Teamwork Under Duress" there, which was all about that flight and what happened. It was an amazing talk, and I have a huge amount of respect for the job that airline pilots do.
- brcmthrowaway 1mo agoWhat was more serious - this or the Hudson incident?