This article about the Airbus A380 flown by Qantas that had an engine explode above Indonesia recently from The New York Times is scary. Here's a video of the emergency.
"The amount of failures is unprecedented," said Richard Woodward, a fellow Qantas A380 pilot who has spoken to all five pilots. "There is probably a one in 100 million chance to have all that go wrong."
But it did.
Engine pieces sliced electric cables and hydraulic lines in the wing. Would the pilots still be able to fly the seven-story-tall plane?
The wing's forward spar — one of the beams that attaches it to the plane — was damaged as well. And the wing's two fuel tanks were punctured. As fuel leaked out, a growing imbalance was created between the left and right sides of the plane, Woodward said.
The electrical power problems prevented the pilots from pumping fuel forward from tanks in the tail. The plane became tail heavy.
That may have posed the greatest risk, safety experts said. If the plane got too far out of balance, the Singapore-to-Sydney jetliner would lose lift, stall and crash.
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The drama two weeks ago still wasn't over when the pilots finally got the plane back to Singapore and the runway was in sight.
Wing flaps that are used to slow the plane were inoperable. So were the landing gear doors. The pilots used gravity to lower the gear.
Brake temperatures reached over 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit during the landing, causing several flat tires. If fuel leaking from the damaged wing had hit the brakes, it could have caused a fire. The pilots allowed the plane to roll almost to the end of the runway so it would be close to fire trucks that could put foam on the brakes and undercarriage.
Among the other issues Woodward said the pilots faced:
— When the engine failed it caught fire, but the fire suppression system was difficult to deploy.
— An electrical bus — a connection between electrical devices — on the left wing failed. The plane was designed so that a second bus on the same wing or the two buses on the opposite wing would pick up the load. That didn't happen.
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And from Yahoo News
Rolls-Royce modified a problematic section on new models of its engine for the world's largest jetliner months before one caught fire and blew apart over Indonesia, a Lufthansa spokesman said Thursday.
The chief executive of Qantas, meanwhile, said Rolls-Royce had made modifications to the Trent 900 engine without telling the airline or Airbus, which makes the A380 superjumbo.
The officials' remarks were the strongest indication yet that Rolls-Royce had addressed a defect in new models of the engine while allowing Airbus A380 superjumbos to continue flying with unmodified older models.
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Who will hold Rolls-Royce Corporation responsible? If they knew about a problem with their engines, but hid the problems from the airlines that fly the airplanes with Rolls-Royce engines, Rolls-Royce should be held accountable. No one has died yet, thanks to the incredible skill and experience of the Qantas pilots. However, as both articles explain, there are many airplanes flying today with faulty Rolls-Royce engines. Hopefully no one dies before the repairs can be made.
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