TERRIFYING - Airbus A380 engine explodes after Takeoff! Qantas 32

on the morning of november 4th 2010 440 passengers and 29 crew boarded a qantas airways airbus a380 at singapore's shanghi airport the flight had originated in london and was stopping over at singapore for two hours to refuel its final destination was sydney in australia the journey to sydney was due to take about seven and a half hours but on this day the massive airliner and its nearly 500 occupants would barely make it past singapore the aircraft being used for this flight was just two years old in fact it was the first of six a380s to be delivered to qantas the a380 is the largest passenger aircraft ever built at this time it was the most technologically advanced airliner in the skies and its onboard systems had a tremendous level of redundancy banks of computers were connected to thousands of sensors all over the aircraft which fed the pilots real-time information about the plane's condition though still new in 2010 the aircraft was beginning to prove itself as a highly safe and reliable passenger carrier but the events which were about to unfold on this day would cast serious doubts on one crucial aspect of the plane's construction in the flight deck on this morning was a rather unusual constellation of pilots the a380 is normally flown by a crew of two a captain and a first officer but on this day there were five pilots in the cockpit as well as the captain and first officer there was a second officer who was due to take over during the flight to let the other pilots rest there was also a check captain under training and supervising him was a supervising check captain the role of a czech captain is to periodically assess the performance of the flight crew members to ensure that they are up to standard today the captain was being assessed that captain was richard de crepney who was sitting in the left-hand seat at 53 years old he was highly experienced having accumulated over 15 000 hours of flying time he had started his career with the australian air force where he served for 11 years he left the air force in the mid-1980s started a computer software company while the airline industry wasn't hiring and then joined qantas in the late 80s where he spent much of his time flying 747s and a330s he then trained to fly the a380 in 2008. at this time he was still rather new to the aircraft however given that the aircraft itself was quite new second in command was first officer matt hicks hicks was also highly experienced and actually had over twice as many hours flying the a380 as the captain with over 1200 hours on the type he had over 11 000 flying hours in total in a wide variety of aircraft including the boeing 747 767 and the airbus a330 and a340 while it might seem that having more pilots on board should improve safety this is not necessarily the case both the czech captain in training and the supervising check captain had logged more flying time than the captain himself in these situations it is not uncommon for confusion to emerge over who is actually in charge especially in an emergency to mitigate this risk the captain made it clear at the outset of the flight that the chain of command would be the same as if this were any other flight with the captain in charge the first officer a second in command and the other crew members third given what was about to happen on this day this kind of crew resource management would end up being crucial at around a quarter to 10 that morning having been filled with 106 tons of fuel the massive aircraft pushed back from the gate at singapore and the 440 passengers settled in for the flight to sydney at 9 56 a.m the captain lined the aircraft up on runway 2-0 center and pushed the four rolls-royce engines to take off power for a few short minutes after takeoff everything went to plan the crew retracted the landing gear and the flaps as the aircraft climbed out of the singapore strait during this time it accelerated to 250 knots or about 460 kilometers per hour however as the plane passed through 7000 feet it was shook by two loud bangs engine number two the inboard engine on the plane's left hand side had exploded metallic shrapnel was catapulted faster than the speed of sound out through the engine casing it then shot directly through the left wing and fuselage immediately jet fuel began gushing out from under that wing right beside the red-hot engine if it caught fire it would spell disaster for everyone on board straight away the captain pressed the altitude hold button on the autopilot which stopped the plane's climb at this point all the pilots knew was that something had happened engine number two they had no idea yet of the extent of the damage which the engine had caused to the rest of the aircraft what the crew didn't know was that when the searing hot shards of metal had exploded out from the engine they penetrated the aircraft's fuselage in one of the worst places possible as they traveled through the fuselage at supersonic speeds they severed bundles of electrical wiring which fed a number of aircraft systems including the flight controls electrical power fire protection hydraulic power and more in all about 650 wires had been cut the captain assured his colleagues that he had the aircraft under control and instructed the first officer to begin working through the checklists which we're now displaying on the ecamm or electronic centralized aircraft monitor which is the central display in front of the pilots the atmosphere in the cockpit was calm but focused but the crew quickly realized this was no ordinary engine failure the ecam had started to display warning messages for systems which had nothing to do with the engines something had clearly gone badly wrong unlike the pilots the passengers sitting on the left-hand side of the aircraft had a row seat to what had gone wrong they could see holes in the wing which had been punched by the engine trapnel they could also see fuel gushing out from underneath the wing and streaming back from the aircraft back in the cockpit the signs of this damage were beginning to emerge the first burst of warnings the crew got related to the engine itself the ecam displayed messages saying that the engine 2 turbine was overheating and that the engine had stalled along with a number of other related messages in reality the engine turbine was all but obliterated these warnings merely hinted at the damage that had been done the crew shot down the engine and alerted air traffic control to their predicament concerned that the engine may have caught fire the pilots discharged one of the engine's two fire extinguisher bottles however worryingly they received no confirmation that the bottle had been discharged they repeated the procedure but again no confirmation came the crew discussed this and decided that it would be best to try the second bottle they fired it and again there was no sign that anything had happened unbeknownst to them one of the systems which had been cut off by the engine explosion was the engine's fire suppression system with gallons of jet fuel streaming out from a hole in the wing beside the engine the last thing they needed was an engine fire their situation was now critical meanwhile on the island of batam just south of singapore large pieces of engine debris had started raining down from the sky one piece crashed through the roof of a school while others damaged houses and cars the qantas logo was visible on some of the wreckage and some baton residents began tweeting that a qantas aircraft had crashed news stations began showing footage of the engine debris all while the crippled aircraft circled overhead the qantas share price started to collapse as fear spread that one of their planes had crashed back in the aircraft the pilots knew none of this they were too busy dealing with a very real threat that they may not make it back to singapore the cockpit was filled with alarm bells and warning messages the first officer continued to cancel these warnings using the push button in front of him as he methodically worked his way through the checklist items this was an unprecedented emergency never had an airbus a380 experience such a complex and grave set of failures all the way over in sydney at qantas headquarters the warning messages experienced by the pilots were being automatically relayed to the airline however nobody there could contact the crew the engine shrapnel had cut off the plane's satellite communication system the pilots were on their own even with all of his experience the first officer was at his limit as he worked through the dozens of warning messages which had appeared on the screen in front of him with the help of his colleagues he had to decide which warnings to prioritize and which to ignore worryingly it appeared that engine 2 was not the only one which had been damaged in fact none of the three remaining engines were operating normally engine number one and four the two outboard engines had reverted to what's known as a degraded mode meaning that some engine parameters were not available to the pilots engine number three meanwhile was in what is known as an alternate mode although it appeared to be in better condition than the other two engines this uncertainty created unease among the pilots without knowing how the remaining engines were working there was a chance they had been damaged by the explosion but that this was simply not being detected by the computers the last thing the crew wanted was for another engine to fail or for multiple engines to fail before they could make it back to singapore they still had dozens of warning messages to get through and many more procedures to carry out this meant that the pilots were now faced with a tough decision to make an immediate return to singapore or to spend more time troubleshooting their problems out over the ocean neither choice was without significant risk the five crew members had to carefully weigh up their options [Music] if they spent more time trying to assess the damage in the air they risked further damage being done to the plane either by loss of fuel hydraulic fluid or electrical systems in other words the aircraft was controllable now but how long would it remain that way would it be foolish to spend precious minutes up in the air when they could bring it into land right now on the other hand if they decided to land now there was no telling how the aircraft would behave as it got lower and slower during the approach the pilots were still working their way through the over 100 messages that had appeared in the cockpit they were still assessing the damage which systems were available to them and which were not were the flaps working were the brakes working would the landing gear extend when they wanted it to these were vital questions to answer and the pilots would have to answer them before they landed in the end the captain decided that the risks of returning immediately were greater than the risks of troubleshooting for longer at least for now the plane was controllable and there was plenty of fuel on board he wanted to hold off on returning to singapore until he had a better idea of what he was dealing with the crew advised air traffic control that they would need about 30 minutes to go through the ecam messages and associated procedures and asked to enter a holding pattern somewhere to do this the captain was eager to stay within gliding distance of singapore in case more engines failed so the crew relayed this request to the controller the controller at singapore cleared them to hold out over the ocean to the east of singapore within a few miles of the airport he then informed the flight crew that a number of aircraft components had been found by residents of the island of bataam in indonesia this came as a shock to the pilots it was the first time their mines were brought outside the aircraft since the emergency began nonetheless they couldn't concern themselves with this yet the captain entered a holding pattern at 7 400 feet out over the sea and the crew got to work diagnosing the aircraft's problems by building up an accurate picture of the damage done to the aircraft they would give themselves the best possible chance of a safe return to singapore the captain and czech captain made a number of announcements to the passengers informing them of this plan and of their intention to return to singapore once they had figured out what was wrong with the aircraft they also reassured the passengers that they had been trained to handle such emergencies but the truth was that this scenario had not been trained for the shrapnel which tore through the plane caused substantial and complex damage to critical systems which the pilots were only beginning to grapple with after dealing with a series of warnings about the engines the next avalanche of messages the crew were faced with regarded the aircraft's hydraulic systems the flight controls of the airbus a380 are powered by a combination of electrical motors and hydraulic actuators while the landing gear and the brakes are hydraulically powered the pilots received indications that one of the plane's two hydraulic systems known as the green system was losing all of its fluid this was a clue to the pilots that they were dealing with something a lot more serious than a normal engine failure without a functioning green hydraulic system the flight controls would be sluggish and as they got close to landing the pilots would have to let the landing gear extend by the force of gravity alone as well as powering the gear the green hydraulic system also powers the slats at the front of the wing the slats are extended as the plane comes into land in order to provide additional lift so that the plane can fly slower without functioning slats the pilots would have to land a lot faster than normal and with reduced braking power as a result of the inoperative engine and the falling hydraulic pressure it was beginning to look uncertain whether the plane would even be able to stop on the runway the pilots were dealing with a crippled aircraft which apparently could neither stay in the air for very long nor stop once it reached the ground to make matters worse engine number three the only trusty engine left was the only one providing hydraulic power to the only working hydraulic system the yellow hydraulic system if this failed too the pilots would truly be in dire straits however even in an aircraft as advanced as the a380 there is only so much that the instruments can tell the pilots they decided that to get a better idea of what was really happening they should take a look at the damage for themselves the second officer left the cockpit and went into the passenger cabin to inspect the damage as he made his way through the cabin's upper deck a passenger who is also a pilot for qantas brought his attention to the screen in the seat back in front of him the a380 has a cctv camera mounted on its tail which passengers can tune into on their screens there on the screen in front of him was a view of the plane from the tail camera which showed gallons of what looked like fuel streaming from the left wing at this point it wasn't clear whether the fluid was hydraulic fluid or jet fuel the second officer then went downstairs to the lower deck of the aircraft to get a closer look at the damage to the wing as he got closer he could see that the trail of fluid was massive it was about a half a meter thick and it was coming from the underside of the wing in the area of the number two engine he also noted that the turbine area at the back of the number two engine appeared to have been completely blown off he returned to the cockpit to report his findings back to the other pilots in light of the sheer volume of fuel the second officer saw leaking from the wing the pilots decided not to transfer any fuel into the leaking tank the ecam was telling them to transfer fuel but the combined experience of the pilots on this flight allowed them to see that this would not be a safe option there were many similar warnings they received where they had to use their experience to decide either to follow the ecam or to reject it this was the ultimate test of their skills and given the stakes of their ability to work under stress behind them the 440 passengers could do nothing but wait and hope that the crew were making the right decisions under normal circumstances the pilots would have wanted to dump fuel at this point given the weight of their aircraft and the degraded flight controls and braking performance they wanted to be as light as possible for landing however the explosion had damaged the aircraft's fuel management system which meant that they were unable to dump fuel as a result they would be 50 tons overweight for landing and what's more the plane was now becoming lopsided the significant fuel loss from the left-hand wing had meant that the wing was now almost 10 tons lighter than the hand wing and this imbalance was increasing with every passing minute the longer the crew spent in the air troubleshooting the worse this imbalance would get after spending over an hour working through the dozens of ecam messages the crew had finally gotten to the end of their list in this time they had built up a shared mental picture of the damage to their aircraft all that was left to do now was to land their crippled plane but there was a problem they were 50 tons overweight even if everything else about the plane was normal this would be a problem but the plane was in anything but a normal state its braking ability had been seriously hindered by the explosion the pilots needed a way to calculate whether they could stop on the runway to do this they used a feature of the aircraft's onboard information system known as the landing performance application to calculate their landing distance they gave the computer information such as the aircraft's weight the condition of the runway at singapore and they told it which aircraft systems and flight controls were inoperative the idea was that by telling the computer exactly the condition of their aircraft it would be able to accurately calculate its stopping distance but there was another problem when the pilots entered these variables into the computer it was unable to calculate the landing distance it simply wasn't designed to deal with the sheer number of malfunctions the plane was experiencing but the pilots needed to get some estimate of the landing distance so they had no choice but to improvise they experimented with the computer taking out one failure at a time starting with the least important ones here teamwork known in the industry as crew resource management was essential each pilot provided input based on his experience and together the crew tried to find a combination of variables which they believed accurately reflected the state of the aircraft they ran the landing calculation a few times taking out a new problem each time until finally the computer gave them an answer according to the computer they would need to carry out their approach 35 knots faster than normal because they were overweight and because the leading edge slats were not working this would further increase their landing distance however they would be able to stop on the runway the margin for error was razor thin in fact on the 4000 meter long runway the computer said they would stop with just 130 meters to spare anything but the most precise flying by the captain would result in a runway overrun which would not bode well for the passengers and even if the crew got everything right there was still a chance that they would go off the end of the runway the computer only provided an estimate of their landing distance and it was an estimate based on an incomplete picture of the damage to the aircraft given the very real risk that the aircraft would go off the end of the runway the captain called the lead flight attendant and told them to prepare the cabin for a runway overrun and subsequent evacuation the pilots also informed air traffic control that they would need emergency services on landing and that they had fuel leaking from the left wing before turning the aircraft back towards the airport the pilots wanted to check whether it was controllable if there were serious issues affecting how the aircraft flew it would be better to know this now rather than to find out on final approach the captain lowered the flaps in increments and tested the controllability of the plane in each configuration down to flaps 3 which they would be using for landing he found that the plane was controllable but very sluggish the loss of some of the wing spoilers had made the aircraft much slower to bank left and right the crew would need to line up with the runway very far out in order to make a stable approach they asked air traffic control for this and they were vectored out for a 20-mile final for runway 2-0 center at singapore the pilots then used the gravity extension handle to lower the gear after a tense wait the gear appeared to have extended correctly the captain then carried out some control ability checks on the aircraft again to ensure that the plane was still flyable with both the flaps and the gear extended again the plane was sluggish but flyable however with engine number two shut down and with engines one and four in a degraded mode it was far from certain whether the speed of the plane would be controllable as it came into land frequent changes to engine thrust are a part of every approach but the captain was reluctant to move the thrust levers for engines 1 and 4 as it wasn't clear whether they would respond correctly his compromise was to keep engines 1 and 4 at the same thrust setting and to use engine 3 to control the speed of the plane as this was the only engine that appeared undamaged they were now set up for landing and lined up with the runway for the passengers this was a nerve-wracking approach out over the sea for the pilots it would be the moment of truth were their landing distance calculations correct would the plane be controllable on the ground would they be able to stop in time the safety of the nearly 500 people on board depend on the captain's ability to touch down at the right spot and to bring the crippled aircraft to a stop before the end of the runway the aircraft touched down fast the captain slammed on the brakes and put engine number three the only working engine into reverse thrust as the plane continued barreling down the runway the first officer urged the captain to use maximum manual braking the captain replied that he was using maximum braking so the first officer checked this with his own pedals which were linked to the captains and found that they were indeed pushed to their stops the end of the runway was fast approaching gradually the massive plane began to slow down by the time it had reached about 60 knots the crew were confident that it would stop in time but when it finally came to rest just 150 meters from the runway's end there was a new problem in fact the passengers and crew were in more danger now than they were at any point during the flight the left wing was still spewing fuel which was starting to pool beneath the aircraft and as it spread out on the ground it started to get close to the wheels the pilots could see on their displays that the temperature of the brakes had exceeded 900 degrees celsius and was rising if the fuel came into contact with the white hot brakes a fire could break out on top of this the fire brigade had radioed the crew and warned them that engine number one the outboard engine on the left-hand side was still running the crew tried everything they could to shut it down including moving the lever to cut off the engine's fuel supply but nothing worked the engine was stuck on high power all while three tons of jet fuel spread out across the runway the captain was faced with a critical decision should he order the passengers to evacuate now or should he keep them on board even with the risk of a massive fuel explosion the flight crew weighed up their options and decided that at that moment the safest place for the passengers was on the plane outside the aircraft laid thousands of kilograms of fuel and a running jet engine however in case of fire erupted the cabin would need to be evacuated immediately the captain made a coded announcement on the pa system telling the cabin crew to prepare for an imminent evacuation the fire crews began spraying the fuel underneath the aircraft with fire retardant and finally 13 minutes after the aircraft had touched down the flight crew decided that the safest course of action would be to have the passengers disembark via an air stairs on the right hand side of the aircraft but because the explosion had destroyed all but one of their radios which they were using to talk to the fire brigade they had to use their mobile phones to contact the company to bring their air stairs to the plane after another 20 or so minutes this stairs arrived along with some buses to shuttle the 440 passengers to the terminal the passengers disembarked and were brought back to the airport terminal the number one engine stayed running until three hours after landing when fire crews finally managed to stop it by drowning it with fire retardant foam incredibly after the entire ordeal not a single passenger or crew member was injured the flight crew's incredible teamwork and decision-making had led to what has been described by former royal air force helicopter pilot and human factors expert kerry edwards as quote one of the finest examples of airmanship in the history of aviation the captain richard de crepney was awarded the order of australia for his incredible flying and professionalism in an emergency but what had caused this catastrophic engine failure in the first place how could a new aircraft with such a spotless record come so close to disaster the answer investigators found was that over time a pipe in the engine had developed a small crack as this grew larger oil had started to leak through it and onto the engine turbine on flight 32 when this oil was exposed to the high temperatures inside the turbine it ignited the resulting fire caused heat damage to one of the turbine disks and as this disk spawn as normal the damage to it meant that it could no longer withstand the rotational forces and it burst the sheer speed of this bursting caused the turbine disc fragments to exit the engine casing in what is known as an uncontained engine failure this is a rare event as the engine housing is specifically built to prevent this from happening it was incredibly fortunate that none of the engine fragments penetrated the passenger cabin as this could very well have led to loss of life the root cause of this fault in the oil pipe was a manufacturing defect at rolls-royce the engine's manufacturer as a result inspections were carried out on all a380s which had this type of engine known as the trent 900 engine after these inspections 53 of these engines were removed from service as a result of this safety improvement there has not been another incident of this type on the airbus a380 the aircraft involved in this incident was repaired at a cost of million us dollars and is still flying with qantas today finally as an interesting piece of trivia when the captain of this flight took a flight home to sydney a few days after the incident the engine on that plane failed shortly after takeoff as well and the flight ended up returning to singapore too he ended up being stranded in singapore for a few more days before finally making his way back to australia i'd like to thank the patreon and youtube members for helping to make this video possible if you enjoyed this video please consider supporting the channel for as little as 3 euro per month i've put the links for that on the screen here i'd especially like to thank snowdoggo joey and steve wilcox for their very generous support green dot aviation now has a discord server so if you'd like to join a growing community of people discussing all things aviation just tap on the link in the video description and i'll see you there thanks again for watching and i'll see you soon for the next episode

Channel: Green Dot Aviation

Views: 1,798,911

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Id: DS9rYWfdC9w

Length: 29min 59sec (1799 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 31 2022