Air France Flight 66 engine failure

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Mar 3, 2016
Messages
989
Location
Cincinnati, OH and Port Charlotte, FL
Yikes...if I looked out the window and saw that it would surely make me pucker. Glad everyone got on the ground safely, although there are reports that some passengers were stuck on the plane for 23 hours waiting for other planes to arrive.
 
Originally Posted By: CincyDavid
there are reports that some passengers were stuck on the plane for 23 hours waiting for other planes to arrive.

They would not land a damaged plane, then not let the passengers deboard.

Stuck at the airport? Sure. Stuck on the plane? No way.
 
A-380 can safely land with 3 engines, they just dump fuel and immediately head to closet airport that has a long runway for such a big aircraft.

Luckily they didn't have an engine failure on take off when plane was at its heaviest weight.
 
They were indeed stuck on the plane as the airport claimed they did not have facilities for that many passengers. They had to await the arrival of two other aircraft before they could leave and complete their journey!!
 
It's always nice to know a fully fueled jet is 40-45% by weight fuel! Gives new meaning to
the old phrase "flying gas can". LOL
 
Looks like the engines Air France speced on their A380s are Engine Alliance GP7200s, a GE/PW joint venture. Anyone know how these engines perform in revenue service? CNBC article shows the fan case(and the associated control gear/accessory gearbox and pumps/generator) is gone.

Rolls-Royce had something similar happen to a Trent 900 on a QF A380. Compressor/turbine disc failure?
 
The front is the compressor . That is first thing I thought when I saw the pics.
 
Originally Posted By: Boomer
They were indeed stuck on the plane as the airport claimed they did not have facilities for that many passengers. They had to await the arrival of two other aircraft before they could leave and complete their journey!!


That is a crock and should never be allowed. Anything over a few hours and everyone should be taken off the plane. If someone had a DVT as a result of sitting for so long there would be a law suit. Unacceptable.
 
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
A-380 can safely land with 3 engines, they just dump fuel and immediately head to closet airport that has a long runway for such a big aircraft.

Luckily they didn't have an engine failure on take off when plane was at its heaviest weight.


That plane can take off fully loaded with only two engines!
smile.gif
 
I suspect (from looking at the pictures) one of the fan blades developed a crack at its root and hit the containment ring.
 
There can be many people on board the A380 did the airport have the capability to handle the crowd??
 
Originally Posted By: sasilverbullet
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
A-380 can safely land with 3 engines, they just dump fuel and immediately head to closet airport that has a long runway for such a big aircraft.

Luckily they didn't have an engine failure on take off when plane was at its heaviest weight.


That plane can take off fully loaded with only two engines!
smile.gif



No. It can't.

It can take off on three.

It can fly on two, but not far and not high...

It's an overweight pig. Despite all the Airbus fanboy opinion.

The A-320 series is a great airplane, but this one isn't.
 
Originally Posted By: 2010Civic
People were stuck on the plane for 23 hours after an engine failure...??


Yes. The airport did not have the equipment to reach the height of the passenger door.

Goose Bay is an airport that is used for emergencies often, but it's not equipped for this airplane.

The A-380 can fly a long, long way on three engines. But they really needed to land at the nearest airport in this case because the engine failed catastrophically. The crew can't determine the other damage that it may have caused. So, land as soon as possible.

The only suitability requirement in a land as soon as possible scenario is runway length and strength.

Generally, passenger accommodation is a consideration in diverting a flight, but with unknown damage, you've got to get the beast on the ground as soon as possible.
 
Originally Posted By: CT8
The front is the compressor . That is first thing I thought when I saw the pics.


In a turbofan engine as used on the A380 the sequence from front to back is fan, compressor and turbine. This incident seems to involve disintegration of the fan.
 
Last edited:
I don't think that the A380 is any more an overweight pig than the B747, especially the early JT9D equipped 747 aircraft, assuming that you could keep all four running long enough to operate a flight, which was a real concern with early examples of this engine.
The A380 trumps every other aircraft out there on CASM.
Problem is that you have to be able to either fill a bunch of seats or sell a bunch of premium ones twelve months out of each year to make it work in practice.
That there aren't many such operators with many such routes is exemplified by the thin order book that's heavily concentrated in a single carrier that in turn has de facto veto power in dictating future development of the type.
The 747 pax aircraft may be leaving service in large numbers but the A380 will most likely never achieve the build volume Boeing got with the 747 program.
The 747 was also a profitable program for Boeing while the A380 seems unlikely to be profitable for Airbus.
 
It missed its design weight goal by 100,000 pounds...I'd call that overweight...and if it's similar to the JT-9 747, well, the congratulations, Airbus, your new flagship has matched a fifty year old design with archaic power plants.

And it's built for a market that is rapidly dying.

AB can't give them away now...
 
Last edited:
You bring up a good point on CASM, which is true if, and only if, your market allows you to fill the airplane at reasonable ticket prices.

As the market trends towards long range point to point service, the -380 is dying because its size forces it to serve only on trunk routes, while the 787 is making sales records because it can expand into all the long range point to point service, e.g. Denver - Tokyo, in addition to flying regular routes.

Finally, while the A-380 claims to beat the 747 CASM by 15-20%, the 787 claims to beat the 777 by about 20%, making it even better than the -380...I've not seen a head to head comparison of 787 vs. 380, but all of the technology on the 787, including ancillary systems architecture, that saves fuel, is absent from the 380.

Now, the 350 looks to be a great airplane, with many enhancements to put it on a par with the 787 for efficiency, but while serving a 777 size market.

Also, the 350 met design goals, production dates, and performance specs. Initial reports are that it's an impressive airplane.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top