Bad day on a A380

[Prosuper]

I'm sure some of you have came across this on the net but for those of you who haven't enjoy. I am glad they had more than 2 guys in the flight deck to keep up on the faults the computer was spitting out. I guess the Aussie term "Flat Out" is task saturated.

Subject: A bad day on the A-380

________________________________

1. From a friend. Lots to things for this crew and their ground support team to think about and work on.

Here are just SOME of the problems the QANTAS guys had in Singapore last week aboard

QF32, in addition to the engine failure....

* massive fuel leak in the left mid fuel tank (the beast has 11 tanks, including in the horizontal stabiliser on the tail)

* massive fuel leak in the left inner fuel tank

* a hole on the flap canoe/fairing that you could fit your upper body through.

* the aft gallery in the fuel system failed, preventing many fuel transfer functions

* fuel jettison had problems due to the previous problem above

* bloody great hole in the upper wing surface

* partial failure of leading edge slats

* partial failure of speed brakes/ground spoilers

* shrapnel damage to the flaps

* TOTAL loss of all hydraulic fluid in the Green System (beast has 2 x 5,000 PSI systems, Green and Yellow)

* manual extension of landing gear

* loss of 1 generator and associated systems

* loss of brake anti-skid system

* unable to shutdown adjacent #1 engine using normal method after landing due to major damage to systems

* unable to shutdown adjacent #1 engine using using the fire switch!!!!!!!!

Therefore, no fire protection was available for that engine after the explosion in #2

* ECAM warnings about major fuel imbalance because of fuel leaks on left side, that were UNABLE to be fixed with cross-feeding

* fuel trapped in Trim Tank (in the tail). Therefore, possible major CofG out-of-balance condition for landing. Yikes!

* and much more to come..........

Richard was in the left seat, (FO in the right), SO in the 2nd obs seat (right rear, also with his own Radio Management Panel, so he probably did most of the coordination with the ground), Capt Dave Evans in the 1st obs seat (middle). He is a Check & Training Captain who was training Harry Wubbin to be one also. Harry was in the 3rd obs seat (left rear). All 5 guys were FLAT OUT, especially the FO who would have been processing complicated 'ECAM' messages and procedures that were seemingly never-ending!

[StoleIt]

Bad 2 week's for Quanta's.

4th flight in two weeks had issues. Smoke in a 747 cockpit.

http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/qantas-aborts-4th-flight-in-less-than-2-weeks/19716572?test=latestnews

[PasserOGas]

So it was basically your average day on a C-5?

[gmwalk]

Saw this on another website:

Qantas A380 Was Heavily Damaged

The Qantas crew whose A380 suffered an uncontained engine failure earlier this month had their hands full in getting the super jumbo back to Singapore. Shrapnel from the engine disabled one of two main hydraulic systems, hampered the fuel transfer system, punched a hole in the forward wing spar and caused a major fuel leak. The cascading nature of such failures meant the pilots couldn't dump enough fuel to bring the aircraft down to its maximum landing weight and the fuel left in the airplane was unbalanced. Flaps, slats and spoilers couldn't be fully deployed and the gear had to be dropped manually. Once it was on the ground, the anti-lock brakes didn't work and, since the damaged engine was an inboard one, there was only one left for reverse thrust (the outboard engines of A380s don't have reversers because they often overhang the grass and might be FOD damaged). The heavy, significantly disabled aircraft needed virtually all of the 13,123 feet of available runway. The whole wing might have to be replaced and the aircraft is expected to be out of commission for months. Meanwhile, the cause of the engine problem has been determined and it's just adding to the PR problems facing manufacturer Rolls-Royce.

[Napoleon_Tanerite]

sounds like a typical SIM

[noodles]

I counted four Qantas A-380s on the ramp at LAX this afternoon...all with the engines cracked open.

A-3 for sure....parts plus who knows. Guessing the crews are in a rolling bravo in case the jets green up.

[VFR800]

Only two hydraulic systems?

[Longhorn15]

Based on a show about the construction of the A380 (no real expertise) it has two electrically powered hydraulic systems for each control surface. Not sure exactly what is meant by "total loss" of one. They said it saved weight to not do all the redundant plumbing on that large an aircraft.

[Prosuper]

Only two hydraulic systems?

Cut and paste

The aircraft's 350 bar (35 MPa or 5,000 psi) hydraulic system is an improvement over the typical 210 bar (21 MPa or 3,000 psi) system found in other commercial aircraft since the 1940s. First used in military aircraft, higher pressure hydraulics reduce the size of pipelines, actuators and other components for overall weight reduction. The 350 bar pressure is generated by eight de-clutchable hydraulic pumps. Pipelines are typically made from titanium and the system features both fuel and air-cooled heat exchangers. The hydraulics system architecture also differs significantly from other airliners. Self-contained electrically powered hydraulic power packs, instead of a secondary hydraulic system, are the backups for the primary systems. This saves weight and reduces maintenance.

[Bergman]

Nice to see that PILOTS finally get some credit for a job well-done. This is a good argument for not having unmanned airliners...

Human ingenuity saved the day for plane in crisis

WASHINGTON – One moment, the super-sized airliner was climbing thousands of feet over Indonesia. The next, the engine exploded, shooting flames and shrapnel through one wing. Computer warnings of impending systems failures throughout the aircraft started flashing on cockpit screens.

That was the position five pilots found themselves in two weeks ago when their Qantas jetliner suffered an extraordinary engine break down that set off a cascade of events. Each one would have represented a serious safety problem on an ordinary day.

The Airbus A380, which was carrying more than 450 passengers and crew, is on the leading edge of a new generation of smarter, more highly automated airliners — planes so sophisticated that they can sometimes even override a pilot to prevent a critical error. But in this crisis, the pilots' quick and creative thinking, not computer programming, landed the plane safely.

"These conditions were a step beyond what the airplane was designed for, and it was the pilots who sorted it out so that it resulted in a safe landing," aviation safety consultant John Cox of St. Petersburg, Fla., said in an interview Thursday.

Richard Woodward, vice president of the Australian and International Pilots Association and a fellow Qantas A380 pilot who has spoken to the pilots, told The Associated Press that the amount of failures faced by the pilots was "unprecedented."

[Rewind: Scary gaffe adds to airline mishaps]

"There is probably a 1 in 100 million chance to have all that go wrong," Woodward said in an interview.

But it did.

Engine pieces sliced electric cables and hydraulic lines in the wing. One of the beams that attaches the wing to the plane was damaged as well. And the wing's two fuel tanks were punctured. The leaking fuel created an imbalance between the left and right sides of the plane, Woodward said.

The electrical problems prevented the pilots from pumping fuel forward from tanks in the tail. The plane became tail heavy, a condition that could have caused the Singapore-to-Sydney jetliner to lose lift, stall and crash.

And then there was that torrent of computer messages, 54 in all, alerting the pilots to system failures or warning of impending failures.

Luckily, two extra pilots, both captains, were aboard the flight on Nov. 4, two of them undergoing evaluation. In all, the crew had more than 100 years of flying experience.

"The computer can only do what it knows how to do," Cox said. "These extreme catastrophic conditions, very rare as they may be, point to the need for very high-quality training and high-caliber individuals flying the plane."

The pilot, Capt. Richard de Crespigny, concentrated on handling the controls, while the others dealt with the computer alarms and made announcements to the passengers, some of whom said they were frantically pointing to flames streaming from the engine. Working flat out, it took 50 minutes for the pilots to address all the messages.

When pilots receive safety warnings, they are supposed to check the airline's operating manual and implement specific procedures. But with so many warnings, the Qantas pilots had to sort through and prioritize the most serious problems first.

It's likely that for some of the problems there were no procedures because no airline anticipates so many things going wrong at once, said John Goglia, a former National Transportation Safety Board member.

Attention since the Nov. 4 incident has focused on the Airbus 380's damaged Rolls Royce engine. As many as half of the 80 engines that power A380s, the world's largest jetliners, may need to be replaced, Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said Thursday. That raises the possibility of shortages that could delay future deliveries of the superjumbo.

Qantas has grounded its fleet of six A380s.

Woodward nonetheless praised the plane, saying it was a testament to its strength that it was able to continue to fly relatively well despite all the problems. But he also said it's likely reconsideration will be given to the design and location of electrical wiring in the wings.

[Related: Passengers protest in diverted plane]

Airplanes are supposed to be designed with redundancy so that if one part or system fails, another can perform the same function. That didn't always happen in this case, safety experts say.

"The circumstances around this accident will certainly cause the regulatory authorities to take a long and hard look at a number of certification issues," said Goglia, the former NTSB member and an expert on aircraft maintenance.

"What we have got to ensure is that systems are separated so that no single point of failure can damage a system completely," Woodward said. "In this situation, the wiring in the leading edge of the wing was cut. That lost multiple systems."

However, Michael Barr, who teaches aviation safety at the University of Southern California, said a commercial plane can't be designed with certainty to withstand a spray of shrapnel, which can inflict damage anywhere. The proper focus, he said, should be on determining what caused the engine to fail and fixing that problem.

All the experts were agreed on one point.

"It must have been an exciting time on that flight deck," Barr said drily. "It's not something you'd ever want to try again."

[flynhigh]

More info on the damage. This PDF contains some more description and photos of the damage to the wing.

Here's another photo;

[Dead Last]

More info on the damage. This PDF contains some more description and photos of the damage to the wing.

Here's another photo;

WOW!! Awesome find...

Love my Lockheed even more now.

Cheers