'Unprecedented' number of failures on ill-fated Qantas A380 flight

Another very close "near miss" for Qantas

NEW details have emerged revealing just how close Qantas flight QF32 came to disaster earlier this month.

Turbine fragments flew out of the plane’s engine when it exploded in mid-air, severing cables in the wing, narrowly missing the fuel tank and taking out flight control systems during the November 4 incident, according to a preliminary report by Airbus.

The pilots were forced to deal with an "unprecedented" number of issues during the two-hour ordeal, Vice President of the Australian and International Pilots Association, Richard Woodward, said. "The amount of failures is unprecedented,'' Mr Woodward, a Qantas A380 pilot who has spoken to all five pilots told the Associated Press. “There is probably a one in 100 million chance to have all that go wrong.''

The Federal Secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association, Steve Purvanis, has emphasised just how lucky the passengers were to survive the incident. "Definitely with fuel gushing out of the fuel tank there and some very hot components, certainly one that was hot enough to explode an engine, they were very lucky that fuel inside the wing didn't ignite," he told ABC News. "The passengers and crew on board were probably unaware of how serious the situation was. "I would say from the pictures that I've seen that they're very lucky to be alive today."

The pilots were hit with one problem after another during the ordeal. With the engine on fire, the pilots struggled to deploy the fire suppression system. The wing’s two fuel tanks were punctured and fuel was leaking out, creating a growing imbalance between the left and right sides of the plane. However the pilots were prevented from pumping fuel forward from tanks in the tail due to electrical problems, which saw the plane become tail heavy.

Safety investigators say that this may have been the greatest risk - if the plane had become too unbalanced it could have stalled and crashed.

The pilots were also bombarded with a massive number of computer messages alerting them to the current and future system failures. One message warned that the main power system was about to be lost, leaving them with only enough power for vital systems - “the last thing you need in that kind of situation”.

“I don't think any crew in the world would have been trained to deal with the amount of different issues this crew faced,'' Mr Woodward said.

Luckily, there were five experienced pilots onboard the plane with a total of 100 years of flying experience between them. Among them was Captain Richard De Crespigny, who flew the plane while the other pilots dealt with the computer alarms and made announcements to the passengers.

However even when the runway was in sight the problems were not over, with the wing flaps and landing gear doors inoperable. The pilots were forced to use gravity to lower the gear.

The aircraft suffered several flat tyres during the landing as brake temperatures reached over 900 degrees Celsius.

It is likely that for some of the problems there were no procedures because no airline anticipates so many things going wrong at once, John Goglia, a former National Transportation Safety Board member said.

The airline has kept its entire A380 fleet grounded since the incident. It was announced yesterday that over 40 Rolls-Royce engines on A380 fleets worldwide will need to be replaced following the incidents, with up to 14 Qantas engines needing to be inspected and potentially replaced.

SOURCE