The damaged engine of Qantas flight in Singapore
A Qantas A380 Super Jumbo Jet flying from Singapore to Sydney developed engine problems 15 minutes into the flight, while flying over Indonesia's Batam Island yesterday, Nov 4th, 2010. The engine nearest to the fuselage developed serious problems and exploded, ejecting a portion of the cowl midair which fell on a residential area down below. Even though the plane could operate with the remaining three engines, the pilot decided to go back to Singapore's Changi Airport as a safety measure. After the plane touched down in Singapore, the engine closest to the fuselage on the left wing had visible burn marks and was missing a section of plate that would have been painted with the red kangaroo logo of the airline. The upper part of the left wing also appeared to have suffered some damage. No one among the 440 passengers and 26 crew suffered any injury. The issue gathered so much international attention mostly because the plane was A380 which is the latest wide-bodied passenger jet. Just an year back, on Sep 29, 2009 a A380 of Singapore Airlines flying from Paris to Singapore developed a fault on one engine after two-and-a-half hours into the flight forcing a return to Paris.
Qantas has landed its entire fleet of six A380s pending detailed enquiry. This is a significant number, as there are only 37 planes of this class operating worldwide. The A380 comes with a choice of engine by the client, with the options being Trent 900 of Rolls Royce and GP7200 of General Electric - Pratt & Whitney joint venture company, with most of the customers opting for Rolls Royce. A similar engine, the Trent 1000 which was being tested on Boeing's DreamLiner 787 jet exploded earlier this year, raising fears about the airworthiness of the superbly modern and technically advanced Trent series engines. Rolls Royce need to address these issues in right earnest and allay the fears. The Federal Aviation Administration in the U.S. has declared that it could announce restrictions on flying A380 if Airbus can't allay fears on its turbines. The bad press for its star model is spelling trouble for the beleaguered European aircraft manufacturer, owing to the huge developmental cost of this doubledecker aircraft, which has run into 12 billion Euros (Rs. 75,000 crores!). The order book is also not scintillating by any means. The total orders fell from 85 in 2001 to just 4 in 2009, though it has jumped to 32 in 2010, all of them from Emirates Airlines. The sale is dismal in USA and Japan, probably due to severe pressure from Boeing.
A380 makes its debut landing at Hong Kong
With a take off weight of 544 tons and a wing area of 845 sq.m, this engineering marvel can carry 853 passengers in its all economy class (or 525 persons in three-class structure) double decker fuselage powered by four engines. Its cabin has an area of 478.1 sq.m, 49% more space than the next largest airliner, Boeing's 747-400. Its design range is 15,200 km and a maximum cruising speed of 900 kmph (Mach 0.85). It will be disheartening to all people rooting for human progress in the skies. More than Airbus or Rolls Royce (whose share prices dipped due to the incident), any setback on the flights of these dream jet would be a blow to global engineering itself. This does not mean that we should push the issues under the carpet. On the contrary, all safety issues should be promptly sorted out and the airliner be put in service without any hitch. Any knee-jerk reaction, like Qantas' grounding all its A380 fleet would help only to spread panic which is unwarranted. Let reason prevail!
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