Qantas pilot to passengers: 'We have a technical issue'

[coxmaster]

I do believe in that case, the pilot just about had his discretion chewed off for that stunt.
Back to the fuel dumping:
It is all about reducing the weight to the aircraft's certified landing weight.

Came in here to post this..
Its a pretty common practice.. Had a plane divert back to Orlando about a week or 2 ago that had to dump fuel out over some lake.

 

[sdifox]

Gotta dump fuel. With only one engine, they're getting more MPG!!

A380 has 4 no?

 

[coxmaster]

A380 has 4 no?

Yep, usually at least..

 

[NFS4]

First thing I thought of when I saw this on the news this morning was Rain Man

 

[Eli]

Not true. Pilots just use the rudder to compensate for asymmetrical thrust.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811

United 811 lost both of its right-side engines (and had a big honking hole in the fuselage!) and landed safely.

NTSB reports found human remains in the fan blades of Number 3 engine

What a way to go....

 

[Terzo]

Also, this guy has nothing on the pilot of British Airways flight 9, that lost all of its engines in volcanic ash. His announcement:

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress."

LOL. This was his announcement as the plane was plummeting to the ground. He did manage to restart the engines though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9

To turn to a bit of a cliche...
The plane wasn't loosing altitude due to loss of engines, it was losing altitude due to the massive weight of his cojones.

 

[LTC8K6]

This A380 had major engine damage and serious wing damage including a fuel tank punched through. This was most likely an Intermediate disc failure, which cannot be contained.

http://twitpic.com/33spxm/full

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201011/r667581_4831331.jpg

It also had no control of the engine next to the damaged one. That engine was disconnected by the damage and went into it's default mode which provides continuous thrust.

It was still providing this thrust when the plane landed and had to be shut down on the ground.

 

[Jeff7]

Also, this guy has nothing on the pilot of British Airways flight 9, that lost all of its engines in volcanic ash. His announcement:

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress."

LOL. This was his announcement as the plane was plummeting to the ground. He did manage to restart the engines though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9

"No, we weren't in distress a few goddamn seconds ago, but we sure as hell are NOW!"

 

[CZroe]

Ha! I was reading the wikipedia page for the A380 and spotted this line as the last sentence on the "Engines" sections:

Engines
A Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine on the wing of an Airbus A380

The A380 can be fitted with two types of engines: A380-841, A380-842 and A380-843F with Rolls-Royce Trent 900, and the A380-861 and A380-863F with Engine Alliance GP7000 turbofans. The Trent 900 is a derivative of the Trent 800, and the GP7000 has roots from the GE90 and PW4000. The Trent 900 core is a scaled version of the Trent 500, but incorporates the swept fan technology of the stillborn Trent 8104.[101] The GP7200 has a GE90-derived core and PW4090-derived fan and low-pressure turbo-machinery.[102] Only two of the four engines are fitted with thrust reversers.[103]

Noise reduction was an important requirement in the A380's design, and particularly affects engine design.[104][105] Both engine types allow the aircraft to achieve QC/2 departure and QC/0.5 arrival noise limits under the Quota Count system set by London Heathrow Airport,[106] which is a key destination for the A380.[14]

The A380 was used to demonstrate the viability of a synthetic fuel comprising standard jet fuel with a natural-gas-derived component. On 1 February 2008, a three hour test flight operated between Britain and France, with one of the A380's four engines using a mix of 60 percent standard jet kerosene and 40 percent gas to liquids (GTL) fuel supplied by Shell.[107] The aircraft needed no modification to use the GTL fuel, which was designed to be mixed with normal jet fuel. Sebastien Remy, head of Airbus SAS's alternative fuel programme, said the GTL used was no cleaner in CO2 terms than standard fuel but it had local air quality benefits because it contains no sulphur.[108]

An engine on a Qantas Airways A380 en route to Sydney, Australia from Singapore fucking blew up mid-air. [109]

That last line has already been removed.

Anyway, all the idiots acting like a plane should continue just because it can continue are obviously too stupid to realize that an exploding engine very likely damages something else and doesn't simply stop working. It would have been insanely stupid to continue.

This A380 had major engine damage and serious wing damage including a fuel tank punched through. This was most likely an Intermediate disc failure, which cannot be contained.

http://twitpic.com/33spxm/full

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201011/r667581_4831331.jpg

It also had no control of the engine next to the damaged one. That engine was disconnected by the damage and went into it's default mode which provides continuous thrust.

It was still providing this thrust when the plane landed and had to be shut down on the ground.

See?

 

[Ns1]

http://twitpic.com/33spxm/full

I think I would've shit bricks right there.

 

[chusteczka]

The fuel evaporates before reaching the ground.

I live near O'Hare airport just outside of Chicago, Illinois. Every now and then, everyone's car will get covered with dry poop looking water stains overnight when it did not rain.

 

[Ns1]

I live near O'Hare airport just outside of Chicago, Illinois. Every now and then, everyone's car will get covered with dry poop looking water stains overnight when it did not rain.

hhaha wow that sucks

 

[LTC8K6]

I live near O'Hare airport just outside of Chicago, Illinois. Every now and then, everyone's car will get covered with dry poop looking water stains overnight when it did not rain.

Well, they aren't allowed to dump fuel below 5,000 feet, I believe, and they don't normally dump any waste, so I don't know what that would be.

 

[thepd7]

Also, this guy has nothing on the pilot of British Airways flight 9, that lost all of its engines in volcanic ash. His announcement:

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress."

LOL. This was his announcement as the plane was plummeting to the ground. He did manage to restart the engines though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9

Ha that pilot is a badass.

From wiki:
"He then called out how high they should be at each DME step along the final track to the runway, creating a virtual glide slope for them to follow. It was, in Moody's words, "a bit like negotiating one's way up a badger's arse""

 

[skyking]

I think I would've shit bricks right there.

LOL, no kidding.

"do not walk outside this area"

Please, tear big holes in the skin instead.

 

[PhoKingGuy]

If it aint Boeing, I aint going.

 

[LTC8K6]

If it aint Boeing, I aint going.

Boeing uses Rollers, too.

Alternatively, if you have to fly on an A380, look for one with the GE/Pratt Engine Alliance GP7200's. :biggrin:

http://www.enginealliance.com/gpintro.html

 

[chusteczka]

Well, they aren't allowed to dump fuel below 5,000 feet, I believe, and they don't normally dump any waste, so I don't know what that would be.

My first reaction was similar to yours. It does not happen often and I live too close to the airport, just outside the landing gear zone. If they were to dump waste, I would expect it would occur farther away and at higher altitudes. Maybe wind patterns are involved? I do not know, but something is happening.

 

[jpeyton]

If it aint Boeing, I aint going.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft

Boeing is listed 248 times on that page. Airbus is listed 43 times.

 

[LTC8K6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft

Boeing is listed 248 times on that page. Airbus is listed 43 times.

Boeing built over 6,000 737 series airliners...

 

[LTC8K6]

My first reaction was similar to yours. It does not happen often and I live too close to the airport, just outside the landing gear zone. If they were to dump waste, I would expect it would occur farther away and at higher altitudes. Maybe wind patterns are involved? I do not know, but something is happening.

They cannot dump waste, actually. Such would only happen with a defect or a failure. There is no physical way to dump waste.

 

[skyking]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft

Boeing is listed 248 times on that page. Airbus is listed 43 times.

wow. I guess that's what happens when you have a 50 year head start as a pioneer in the industry.

 

[KillerCharlie]

This would affect the total fuel burn for the trip. On a long flight over the pacific, they may end up with dry tanks. And regulations require them to turn back unless again they are over somewhere like the pacific and are more than halfway through the trip.

Actually an engine going out doesn't usually increase the drag that much (it depends on a few things, such as if the engine is windmilling or locked). The main problem is just the extreme inefficiency of running an engine at twice the normal cruise thrust and drag caused by trimming an asymmetric airplane. In this Qantas case half the nacelle blew off - that'll mess up the drag.

The pictures are pretty interesting. The damage on the wing is pretty bad. The debris completely blew right through the wing box!

 

[coxmaster]

The pictures are pretty interesting. There is damage on the upper surface of the wing - it looks like part of the engine blew through the wing! I can't tell if it made it past the front spar. It looks pretty bad to begin with, but going through the front spar is pretty crazy.

The damage is definitely quite severe, likely affecting the structure of the wing. Obviously until the airbus team finishes investigating it'll be tough to say for sure. Looks like pretty normal damage for an uncontained engine failure

 

[KillerCharlie]

The damage is definitely quite severe, likely affecting the structure of the wing. Obviously until the airbus team finishes investigating it'll be tough to say for sure. Looks like pretty normal damage for an uncontained engine failure

Likely? The engine punched huge holes in the wing box. The wing box IS the wing structure. That is some bad damage.