Sat, Dec 04, 2010
ATSB Reports More Than A Dozen System Errors After Trent 900
Engine Failed
While the official preliminary report from the Australian
Transportation Safety Bureau reads like a sterile government
document, officials said in a news conference Friday that the
pilots of a Qantas A380 which suffered an uncontained engine
failure over Batam Island after departing from Singapore prevented
a major disaster from occurring.
ATSB Photo Of A380 Engine As It Is Being Removed From The
Aircraft
Reuters reports that in a news conference, ATSB Chief
Commissioner Martin Dolan told a story of a crippled airplane which
stopped with just 450 feet of runway to spare. He said that the
engine failure severed fuel and hydraulic lines which made the
airplane difficult to control, and which caused its center of
gravity to shift. The pilots, he said, were not able to transfer
fuel to re-balance the airplane because they did not know the
extent of the damage to the fuel systems.
ATSB Photo Showing Wing And Engine Damage
After nearly an hour preparing the airplane to land and dealing
with more than a dozen system errors, Dolan said the crew, which
had a combined 72,000 hours of flight experience, determined that
they could land the airplane some 50 tons over its maximum landing
weight, but that it would leave only about 300 feet of runway when
they finally came to a stop. Rather than dump fuel, which could
have further upset the balance of the airplane, they decided to
land heavy, which they did safely. They reportedly had about 450
feet of runway left when they came to a stop. The FDR showed that
the brakes had heated to about 900 degrees celsius as the airplane
was brought to a stop.
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