A380 Engine failure

[dvm]

I just watched a video of the Engine failure on A380 a few years back and was surprised to hear of this latest incident. It appears that this failure was not in the same area of the engine based on the photo in this article. The first incident was in the hot section of the engine and caused damage to the wing and system failures. Glad they made a safe landing. There is a better documentary on the 2010 incident but I can't find it.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... -in-canada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWi_Ilg_fEY

[dvm]

I found this article on the earlier A380 incident that I thought my be of interest.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-air ... bus-hughes

[AKar]

This is a different engine model. Qantas one was an RR Trent 900, whereas this was a GP7200 by GE and P&W. They are structurally rather different.

The failure mode is also necessarily different, even if not uncounting a similar fundamental cause: In the QF32, it was an IP turbine disc that was broken loose, because of an internal oil-fed fire in turn due to fatigue cracking caused by missed counter-boring in an oil pass line, and thereafter the disc itself accelerating to disintegration. A manufacturing defect, albeit noted somewhat systematic, and rather promptly dealt with.

In this case, the structural failure was obviously at the front end. Actually, the #2 bearing appears to be the foremost intact part of the shaft assembly. Also, see the shaft at where it broke: viewing about its axis, about a one third of a relatively clean, circumferential fracture, whereas the rest is unregularly ripped off. Likewise, quite intact stator blades, where visible, lowering the odds for a simple fan failure. Waiting for better pics, but not discounting that the fan actually departed mostly intact. That makes up some theory, for a potentially partly-fractured fan shaft was still supported by the #1 bearing, and the actual vibration numbers interpreted for the flight crew would not rise that much, perhaps allowing the shaft structure to fail by fatigue undetected. If the fan itself was to fail, the #1 bearing should be able to handle the asymmetric rotational loads, and I'd expect further "shrapnel damage" downstream anyway.

Interesting.

-Esa

[dvm]

Thanks for the info AKar. I assumed it was the same engine as in the first incident. I found this link that gives general info of the GP7200 for us layman. It will be interesting to see the cause of the failure. While no engineer I love machines and their details. It sounds like the engine has a good record of reliability (at least up until now) .

http://www.pw.utc.com/GP7200_Engine

[Lewis - A2A]

It was quite a story when it popped up on my news feed the other day. The images are quite shocking but I think fair to say designed to destroy themselves in such a way to stay as intact and flyable as possible, similar to cars and what not.

cheers,
Lewis

[dvm]

It was quite a story when it popped up on my news feed the other day. The images are quite shocking but I think fair to say designed to destroy themselves in such a way to stay as intact and flyable as possible, similar to cars and what not.

cheers,
Lewis

This incident was not as precarious as the Quantus deal in 2010. If you have time read the article that I have linked. There were so many problems with systems and potentials for loss of the airplane it is an amazing story of teamwork and professionalism. Flying commercial this week and I sure hope I get crews half as good as those guys.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-air ... bus-hughes