biztravelr From Australia, joined Sep 2010, 15 posts, RR: 0 Posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 4 days 5 hours ago) and read 21119 times:
Singapore Airlines has confirmed with Australian Business Traveller that it has cancelled an A380 flight to London and is grounding three A380s in the wake of continued concerns with the superjumbo's Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines.
The airline, which had previously given the all-clear to its fleet of eleven A380s, now says it has found unexpected oil leaks in some of the engines.
Similar oil leaks have been found on the engines of several Qantas A380 aircraft, which also use the same Rolls-Royce powerplant and have been blamed for last Thursday's emergency landing of a Qantas A380 flight following a mid-air explosion of one of the engines.
That explosion caused significant structural damage to the aircraft including tearing holes in the wing and fuel tank.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce disclosed yesterday that the Trent 900 used on Qantas planes were operated at a higher thrust power than those used on Singapore or Lufthansa A380s, and that the airline was investigating whether this could have contributed to the engine explosion.
However, with Singapore Airlines now finding oil leaks in their A380 engines, broader questions will now be asked about the reliability of the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine platform.
Other airlines with the same engine on their A380s are now likely to be closely examining their own fleet for signs of similar oil leaks.
Threepoint From Canada, joined Oct 2005, 2093 posts, RR: 8 Reply 1, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 4 days 5 hours ago) and read 21000 times:
Did you write this or paraphrase an article? If these are your words, I would contest your assertion of a "catastrophic mid-air explosion". Mid-air: granted. Explosion: not really. Catastrophic: no way. Except maybe for RR profits.
The nice thing about a mistake is the pleasure it gives others.
JBirdAV8r From United States of America, joined Jun 2001, 4459 posts, RR: 22 Reply 3, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 4 days 5 hours ago) and read 20886 times:
"Catastrophic engine failure" and "uncontained engine failure" are used interchangeably. That is a perfectly acceptable description. Must we nitpick everything?
PanAm_DC10 From Australia, joined Aug 2000, 3998 posts, RR: 93 Reply 4, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 20844 times:
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Here is another report stating that Singapore Airlines have grounded 3 of their A380s for "precautionary engine changes" over concerns raised during inspections, an airline spokeswoman said today.
CBPhoto From United States of America, joined Dec 2003, 1512 posts, RR: 6 Reply 5, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 20798 times:
Curious to know what LH are thinking at this point? Inspect their engines again, or follow suit with the other operators?
QFA787380 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 6, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 20588 times:
Quoting PanAm_DC10 (Reply 4): Here is another report stating that Singapore Airlines have grounded 3 of their A380s for "precautionary engine changes" over concerns raised during inspections, an airline spokeswoman said today.
Hard to work out if all engines are being changed on these 380s, or only the affected ones. Certainly appears to be very concerning for RR and their T900 operators.
PanAm_DC10 From Australia, joined Aug 2000, 3998 posts, RR: 93 Reply 7, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 20337 times:
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Quoting QFA787380 (Reply 6): Hard to work out if all engines are being changed on these 380s, or only the affected ones.
I agree - best we wait for an official statement from Singapore Airlines for clarification.
Update - According to a Bloomberg report it is 1 engine on each airplane
One engine on each plane will be changed as a “precautionary” measure, spokesman Nicholas Ionides said by phone today. The aircraft, which are in London, Melbourne and Sydney, probably will fly to Singapore without any passengers onboard for the engine swaps, he said.
KFlyer From Sri Lanka, joined Mar 2007, 1211 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 4 days 3 hours ago) and read 19812 times:
ronerone, did it fly again or does it remain grounded ?
Indeed interesting to see how this turns out. RR will have some hard times ahead if the engines are found to be faulty.
I've written to SIA PR, let's see if they will respond.
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web500sjc From United States of America, joined Sep 2009, 589 posts, RR: 0 Reply 12, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 4 days 3 hours ago) and read 19513 times:
Just a question, how similar is the t900 to other RR power plants?
DocLightning From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 16932 posts, RR: 57 Reply 13, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 4 days 2 hours ago) and read 19203 times:
Quoting JBirdAV8r (Reply 3):
"Catastrophic engine failure" and "uncontained engine failure" are used interchangeably.
I think of "uncontained" as a subset of "catastrophic."
A blade-off is pretty catastrophic, but should be contained. But all uncontained failures are necessarily catastrophic.
Just something I'm wondering now.. Will SQ, QF and LH change their engines on the A380 from RR to EA?
Probably not. If this is something as simple as an oil leak, then it's probably a fixable design flaw.
If it were something REALLY awful and inept, like (just to be wildly speculative) they made the disk too thin and the entire engine would have to be re-designed to fix it, then they'd probably re-engine. But it's not as if EA has a bunch of extra GP700's sitting around on the off chance that SQ decides to re-engine.
kiwimex From Mexico, joined Nov 2009, 140 posts, RR: 0 Reply 17, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 4 days 1 hour ago) and read 18269 times:
If SQ have the same "pay per hour" deal as QF, I guess once the planes arrive in SIN, RR could take the 2 good engines off OQA, downgrade the software and stick 'em on the SQ's
bioyuki From United States of America, joined Nov 2009, 109 posts, RR: 0 Reply 18, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 4 days 1 hour ago) and read 18240 times:
Threadstarter should change the title of this thread to reflect that SQ is not only grounding, but also changing engines on those three frames:
EK413 From Australia, joined Nov 2003, 3981 posts, RR: 4 Reply 21, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 4 days ago) and read 17347 times:
Quoting VH-BZF (Reply 2): They have A380's sitting in both Melbourne and Sydney that are grounded until further notice.
Quoting stealthz (Reply 15): SQ222 departed SYD approx 15:20 bound for SIN, this is about 1.5 hours earlier than sched. so am assuming it is as mentioned earlier a pax free ferry.
Great to see SQ ferry an aircraft pax free and taking safety into consideration...
EK413
Qantas and Emirates, connecting the globe 1 stop to 65 destinations
7673mech From United States of America, joined Mar 2004, 634 posts, RR: 0 Reply 22, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 4 days ago) and read 17239 times:
Quoting Aesma (Reply 19): Is grounded the good term, considering they're in fact flying back home ?
Yes as they are not cleared to carry passengers. At times a grounded fleet will be permitted to return to home base.
Upon return to SIN they are grounded.
25 GBan: Question regarding the image subtitle in the article you provided - "A visitor looking at a Rolls Royce Trent jet engine at the Farnborough Air Show"
26 heavy747: looks like a small explosion.. http://www.airlineindustryreview.com...r-and-airbus-what-really-happened/
27 LH452: Where are all the spare engines coming from?
28 slz396: I think they are taking them from one of the grounded planes... Remember it's only 1 engine on each of the 3 planes grounded which has been found to
29 FlySSC: Will they also ground RR powered B744 following the QF similar incident at SIN ? It would be logical "as a precaution" ... Just wonder ....
30 vivekman2006: How many spare engines do airlines normally have in their inventory - to take care of replacements in case of emergencies? Is there a number like x pe
31 LAX888: so which routes will NOT see the A388 during the next few days/weeks when they are replacing the engines? SYD? Do they have spare planes to fly these
32 art: If not just one or two but quite a few Trent 900's have unexpected oil leaks, how come RR did not spot this failure while developing and testing the e
33 Asiaflyer: SQ should not have any problems replacing the A380s with other planes. New A330's has been delivered in faster pace than SQ has been able to get rid
34 LH452: I agree this should have been picked up on the fleet leader, which may indicate that the oil leak is not the root cause. LH452
35 Lumberton: I'm impressed that there are that many spares in the system for all the change outs.
36 dubliftment: I just gathered from german radio broadcast Deutschlandradio (news at 2 pm CET) that Lufthansa is going to change one engine on one of their A380. Spo
37 Lumberton: Here's the news report. http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news...-a380/story-e6frfku0-1225951475684 The timing does leave something to be desired....[E
38 clipper747: 0 if they have RR TotalCare agreement. RR will provide spare availability, typically within 24 hours or they pay a penalty to the airline. For airlin
39 spacecadet: Classic example of false logic. The A380's are grounded because they have found problems with the engines on these planes that could cause a failure.
40 Aesma: I'm thinking the PR guy just want to imply that their engine wasn't on the brink of exploding. But if they're changing it, it must be because of the
41 NZ001: anyone know how long this is likely to be for ? Meant to be flying on one soon :S
42 qf744fan: I don't wish to go off topic, but everytime a QF incident comes up the Australian press and their increasing "tabloid tendencies" also comes up. I won
43 SolarFlyer22: Hypothetically speaking, how hard would it be for the existing frames QF and SQ have to change engine type to the Engine Alliance alternate? I assume
44 tayser: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-week/story-fn3dxity-1225951699083 Singapore grounds A380s until next week * From: AAP * November 11, 2010 9:12
45 mham001: So they replace one engine on each of 3 planes. What will they do if the rest continue to go bad one at a time. This could drag on for quite some time
46 Aesma: It's feasible, Airbus already did it once. But I'm guessing you have to change some more things, like some electronics. However, that would cost more
47 YLWbased: I'm now sitting in Changi, waiting to board A380 to HKG. so NO, they are not grounded. YLWbased
48 lightsaber: It is expensive and time consuming. 1. Some of the wire harnesses must be changed all the way back to the computers. 2. New Pylon/Nacelle. This is ab
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