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Air France A380 uncontained engine failure in flight.

That's a quite amazing lack of secondary damage to the wing. Total fan failure, obviously.

In a previous A380 incident, Qantas flight 32 had an uncontained turbine failure. That one was a Rolls Royce engine and did a lot more damage because of the location of the turbine. No real relation to this incident obviously, just jogged my memory.

Systems separation for engine failures is something I spent rather a lot of time on when I worked at Boeing.
 
Trebuchet said:
That's a quite amazing lack of secondary damage to the wing. Total fan failure, obviously.

In a previous A380 incident, Qantas flight 32 had an uncontained turbine failure. That one was a Rolls Royce engine and did a lot more damage because of the location of the turbine. No real relation to this incident obviously, just jogged my memory.

Systems separation for engine failures is something I spent rather a lot of time on when I worked at Boeing.
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Christ! I too can hardly believe how little damage there was to the wing! You can see a few dents on the inside end of the outboard slat, and some paint off the outer end on the inboard slat, but that is bugger-all under the circumstances.
 
The thing that gets me is how calm the Pilot and Tower seem to be about the entire thing....

 
The pilots can't see the engines, and other than having an engine out, the lack of other damage meant there would be relatively little, if any, effect on flying the airplane.
 
Trebuchet said:
That's a quite amazing lack of secondary damage to the wing. Total fan failure, obviously.
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The leading edge outboard of the engine looked like it had been chewed on like a second-grader's pencil eraser, in the photos I've seen.
 
Will be interesting to see what they do to get the plane repaired. Do they repair it in place? Do they do a partial repair and then a 3 engine ferry?

I would bet on the partial repair and then 3 engine ferry back to Airbus.
 
Believe it or not, there is this thing called a "Repair Manual " which engineering generates on conjunction with design, and prior to certification. It describes in detail what damage is allowable, the required inspection, and the repair methods required, both permanent and temporary, as well as the allowable flight hours/cycles between reinspection and/or before a permanent repair or replacement is required

After permanent repair, tje.time between inspections is reduced, too

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 
rwguinn said:
Believe it or not, there is this thing called a "Repair Manual " which engineering generates on conjunction with design, and prior to certification. It describes in detail what damage is allowable, the required inspection, and the repair methods required, both permanent and temporary, as well as the allowable flight hours/cycles between reinspection and/or before a permanent repair or replacement is required

After permanent repair, tje.time between inspections is reduced, too

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
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Sure, but you could ship a new engine and parts in and repair it on site, or you could patch it up for a ferry flight and repair it back at home base.
 
Boeing has what are called "AOG Teams", for "Aircraft On the Ground". Highly skilled technicians sent out to help airlines fix disabled airplanes and get them back in service. I'm sure Airbus has the equivalent. They're no doubt already there evaluating the airplane to see if it can be repaired there or needs to go back to Toulouse. It'll be an economic decision as well as technical, of course.

Note that while the wing looks pretty good, the engine pylon looks like it's sustained some significant damage.
 
LTC8K6 said:
Sure, but you could ship a new engine and parts in and repair it on site, or you could patch it up for a ferry flight and repair it back at home base.
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Depends on the nature of the damage and where. The LE of the wing has a lot of plastic, and there's a lot of graphite epoxy lay-ups in the wing. You can't just slap a patch on those. A lot of tension load exists in the lower wing surface. If that is compromised, it can put the upper surface in compression--not a good thing.
There are scenarios run for turbine burst damage, and bird strike, but I don't recall ever seeing a criterion for fan burst damage. Bird strike should cover it pretty well, however.
Do the temp repairs, slap a new engine in, put a new cowl on, and put it back in service until it gets back to home repair center. No problems
 
Dr.Sid said:
Isn't the type supposed to be grounded, even for a while ? I know that would be costly in case of A380s .. but still ..
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I don't see why. Engine failures are a known phenomenon. Rare, but they happen. Airplanes are required to be designed and built to survive them. It did.

Evidence of a systemic problem with the GE engine could change that, of course, but still wouldn't affect 380's with RR engines.
 
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