Keith T 2 Report post Posted January 8, 2008 (edited) http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...3-23349,00.html Qantas jumbo jet in near-disaster Steve Creedy and Michael West | January 09, 2008 QANTAS faced a potential disaster on Monday when a jumbo jet en route from London lost all main electrical power and was forced to land on battery back-up. Flight QF2 with 344 passengers on board was about 15 minutes from Bangkok when the highly unusual failure took place and a back-up system kicked in. With the batteries providing power for up to an hour, aviation sources said the failure would have been a disaster if it had occurred further out to sea. "If this had happened over the ocean in the middle of the night, it would probably have crashed," an experienced 747 pilot told The Australian last night. The near-disaster came nine years after a Qantas 747 aquaplaned off the end of the runway at Bangkok airport, crashing through navigational equipment and finishing up across a perimeter road 220m away. The crash, Qantas's worst in 40 years, caused about $100million in damage. Qantas chief pilot Chris Manning and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau yesterday confirmed the incident took place as the plane returned from London. "The back-up system was activated and the aircraft landed safely," Captain Manning said. "Qantas reported the incident to Boeing, the ATSB and Civil Aviation Safety Authority and is also conducting its own thorough investigation. "The aircraft is currently being repaired and assessed." ATSB deputy director of aviation safety investigation Julian Walsh said investigators had been advised of the failure and had asked for flight data and cockpit voice recorders to be quarantined. He said the ATSB was liaising with Thai authorities about who should lead the investigation. It was too early to say what had happened, he said, but he agreed the failure was "unusual". "Obviously Qantas, Boeing and ourselves are keen to get to the bottom of it," he said. "The information I have at the moment is that it was a total power failure." Mr Walsh said he understood the aircraft's systems went into a degraded mode under standby power to reduce the drain on the batteries. The 747-400 has four generators, one on each engine, plus two generators on the auxiliary power unit that sources said could be linked to the main system in an emergency. A Qantas engineer familiar with the the 747-400's electrical systems said the failure was unheard of. He said the battery back-up and standby inverter would supply power for up to an hour. "It's pretty dramatic if they've lost all generation systems," hesaid. The engineer agreed the APU generators could be used in an emergency but noted that would depend on the fault that had led to the loss of power. Another 747-400 pilot said he was aware of two other instances when the electrical systems had failed and the aircraft went to the battery back-up. "It has happened before and the aeroplane can quite comfortably cope with it for a limited period of time," he said. Australian and International Pilots Association president Ian Woods was also surprised that the plane had lost all power. "The pilots have done a good job in dealing with a highly unusual event," he said. Edited January 8, 2008 by Keith T Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
S V Choong 4 Report post Posted January 9, 2008 Hope it wasn't one of the ex MAS 747-4H6 involved in the incident. Otherwise QF might find someone to blame with Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kandiah k 0 Report post Posted January 9, 2008 Hope it wasn't one of the ex MAS 747-4H6 involved in the incident. Otherwise QF might find someone to blame with Yeah especially after QF has selected MH as their MRO agent !! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keith T 2 Report post Posted January 9, 2008 Imagine if this happened in the middle of a SYD/MEL-LAX... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kandiah k 0 Report post Posted January 9, 2008 Imagine if this happened in the middle of a SYD/MEL-LAX... And I thought QF was the safest airline at present... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keith T 2 Report post Posted January 9, 2008 (edited) And I thought QF was the safest airline at present... That's still true statistically - no fatal jet crash and they'd not lost a jet... tick tock. But plenty of 'incidents.' *touches wood... 3 upcoming QF long hauls, and 1 is a transpacific* Edited January 9, 2008 by Keith T Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keith T 2 Report post Posted January 9, 2008 Eeek! http://www.theage.com.au/news/travel/passe...9554696122.html Readers have told Fairfax Online about two further possible instances of problems in the power generators of other Qantas planes. Andrew Valentine said his Qantas flight was delayed at Changi Airport in Singapore on Saturday after the pilot told passengers the power had failed. "The auxiliary power came on, there were lights were on the walkway and the exit lights came on," Mr Valentine said. "We could see but the air-conditioning went off. It was eerily quiet. "The pilot then came over the intercom, he stated that the power had failed, they were going to restart the system and if that didn't restart we would be towed back to the gates." "Everyone was pretty calm, I've taken a couple of hundred flights and that's never happened." He said that the 747-400 flight, QF 10 from Singapore to Melbourne, was towed back to the gate and departed ten minutes late. "The pilot told us that they'd try and restart," he said. "Which after about 10 minutes worked OK and we continued onto Melbourne OK without any further incident." Another Qantas customer, Dave D'Astoli, said a pilot on a Canberra to Melbourne flight yesterday told passengers that the auxiliary power unit had broken down. "When we boarded the aircraft the tempreture was 40 degrees Celsius due to the fact that the APU was broken down," Mr D'Astoli said. Hmm how common are such incidents in the industry? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jerry Ang 0 Report post Posted January 9, 2008 (edited) Very uncommon thing! I also never come across such incidents. Every generator supply has their own independent supply line, if one fails, it wont affect the other. Also, a 744 has two seperate main power distribution, left & right. If one fail, it shouldn't have affect the other... Unless of coz.,..both fail, extremely rare tho... Wait...are the engines running? It says here the cabin was eerie silent. Sounds as is the engines has stopped either. And APU broke down as well??!! Dont tell me another volcanic activity which choke up the engines! Hmmm....that would be an interesting troubleshooting to do...! Edited January 9, 2008 by Jerry Ang Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kevin Teh 0 Report post Posted January 9, 2008 Very uncommon thing! I also never come across such incidents. Every generator supply has their own independent supply line, if one fails, it wont affect the other. Also, a 744 has two seperate main power distribution, left & right. If one fail, it shouldn't have affect the other... Unless of coz.,..both fail, extremely rare tho... Wait...are the engines running? It says here the cabin was eerie silent. Sounds as is the engines has stopped either. And APU broke down as well??!! Dont tell me another volcanic activity which choke up the engines! Hmmm....that would be an interesting troubleshooting to do...! apperently they are two individual incident.... one lost power in the air near bangkok and one on the ground in Singapore Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keith T 2 Report post Posted January 9, 2008 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...4-23349,00.html QANTAS has revealed that water was responsible for a rare incident that robbed a flight from London to Bangkok of its main electrical power and forced it to land on Monday using a battery back-up. Qantas executive general manager John Borghetti said the water entered a generator control unit, causing a loss of power and prompting the aircraft to automatically revert to standby power. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LeeCH 0 Report post Posted January 9, 2008 Lost APU power on the ground is very common la. I was once stranded while positioning from ICN back to SIN on company B744 and it failed. Due to extreme cold conditions outside. Emergency escape lighting all came up and plane was silent you can hear pin drop. Come to think of it, Triple Seven is quite safe operationaly so far. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karlm 0 Report post Posted January 10, 2008 Lost APU power on the ground is very common la. Yeh NIL APU power is quite common. Happen a few times when I was working with freighters. Aircraft would taxi in to bay and have one or two of it engines running until a ground power unit (GPU) was connected. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
S V Choong 4 Report post Posted January 11, 2008 Aircraft involved in the incident was VH-OJM, an RR powered 744. http://www.jetphotos.net/news/index.php?bl...p;tb=1&pb=1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KK Lee 5 Report post Posted January 12, 2008 Eeek! http://www.theage.com.au/news/travel/passe...9554696122.html Hmm how common are such incidents in the industry? APU is a non-critical equipment, non-operational APU is pretty common especially if aircraft schedule don’t permit maintenance work. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KK Lee 5 Report post Posted January 12, 2008 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...4-23349,00.html It is a common sense to avoid placing any electrical bay under any water sink, pipes, etc. Guess Boeing didn’t expect the drip tray to crack and defeated multiple redundancies or failed safe built-in the electrical system. Murphy law prevailed again, what can go wrong will go wrong. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Radzi 2 Report post Posted January 12, 2008 Design fault? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KK Lee 5 Report post Posted January 12, 2008 Design fault? Or maintenance? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
