Final report on QF32 - A380 engine explosion over Bantam Island

[WR269 360]

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has released its final report on the incident this morning.

 

Download the report via this link:

 

http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/4148371/ao-2010-089_final.pdf

[jtwhite 31]

Interesting read. Thanks for posting it.

I particularly loved the part of the report which read ...

 

"Following the separation of the disc, the engine behaved in a manner different to that anticipated by the manufacturer during engine design and testing"

 

I don't know... I think catastrophic engine failure would have been the first thing anticipated.

[japascoe 97]

Interesting read. Thanks for posting it.

I particularly loved the part of the report which read ...

"Following the separation of the disc, the engine behaved in a manner different to that anticipated by the manufacturer during engine design and testing"

I don't know... I think catastrophic engine failure would have been the first thing anticipated.

I'm not sure of the exact rules, but engines are certainly designed to cope with a variety of failure scenarios. To design an engine for that you need to assume (or find out by testing and calculation) how the engine will behave in those cases. If it turns out the engine behaves differently in reality that means your design was wrong and that future engines should be designed and tested differently.

[mgh 89]

 

Interesting read. Thanks for posting it.

I particularly loved the part of the report which read ...

 

"Following the separation of the disc, the engine behaved in a manner different to that anticipated by the manufacturer during engine design and testing"

 

I don't know... I think catastrophic engine failure would have been the first thing anticipated.

 

 

The report goes on to explain what was different:

 

The data showed that when the drive arm failed at the R850 holes, the engine surged as expected. However, the air pressure in the engine did not decay to the level predicted from the manufacturer’s modelling...

 

The engine manufacturer determined that the higher than expected pressure recorded during the failure was due to a partial recovery of the HP compressor. That recovery was unexpected, and according to the engine manufacturer had not been previously observed. The additional pressure provided by the HP system following the surge (indicated by the blue shaded area in Figure 49), accelerated the now unloaded IP turbine beyond the predicted terminal and burst speeds.  

 

 

Pages 66 & 67