A380 Flies 5,000 Miles On Three Engines

This thread reminds me of a joke:

On board a jet flying to Europe, two passengers hear the announcement:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We have had some minor trouble with the #1 engine and had to shut it down. This will make us about 40 minutes late landing at Heathrow"

A while later, the Pilot comes on the PA again:

"I am afraid we have lost our #3 engine, and our arrival will now be about 90 minutes late. We are very sorry for the inconvenience"

Another hour goes by, and the plane gets even quieter. The Pilot announces:

"We are really very sorry, but now we have lost the #2 engine. We regret to inform our very patient passengers that we will be over 2 hours late landing at Heathrow".

One passenger turns to the other and says:

"I sure hope we don't lose #4, we'll be up here all day!"

So a qualified crew, in conjunction with maintenance made a decision and it turned out as planned? The horror. They elected to land short of Dubai because of the increased fuel burn and had plenty of divert points over Europe. Just like with BA 268, it was recognized that the crew and company did nothing wrong per CAA rules and no enforcement action was taken. To this day, neither BA or the CAA has amended policy because of the incident. The FAA dropped its proposed enforcement action as well.

One last comment. I'm sure the company has an operations manual. It basically will say loss of engine requires divert to nearest suitable or continue and monitor. I know that's simplified. But the pilots may not have had a choice without going against SOP. I doubt the manual says do whatever you want. So we can guess what Emirates manual says, or doesn't say.

Many moons ago, I was on a CO 727 out of MSY to DEN and we lost the right engine about 30 minutes out of MSY. Continued on to DEN at FL 240 and were about an hour late arriving--but the central USA is not quite like the North Altanic. The Captain told us all about the problem and what the plan was.

There was no risk, that is what you are permitted to do it. If there was a risk, the Flight Manual would specify "land at nearest suitable airport". The aircraft is certified for 3 engine flight. BTW I base my input on over 20,000 hours in 3 & 4 engine aircraft cockpits. The decision is based upon several factors, safety being primary obviously, the practicality of continuing Vs turning back to JFK. The Atlantic ocean is not that wide, I would question a Qantas crew doing the same out of LAX and continuing to SYD. Once across the Atlantic there are dozens of suitable airports. The BA flight ex LAX that continued towards the UK was probably not the wisest decision with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. One major carrier I flew with provided us with a list of airports that actually had a spare engine onsite, this was aimed on assisting the crew in selecting the destination in the event of loss of an engine. My guess is that there is not a lot of A380 engines sitting around. Rolls Royce used to provide engines at logistically sensible airports, e.g. Singapore even though no local carrier used RR engines.

Hey Phil , is this something a US airline would do with say a 747?

Good grief. It had 4 engines at start. It is approved for 3-engine flight. The crew consulted with each other and the company and maintenance and decided to continue. It COULD have lost an engine more.....It could have lost 2.........anything "could" happen. But like numerous people have pointed out, it HAD 3 perfectly good engines, there was no indication of damage and so they continued on. No one seems to have mentioned the (to me) obvious reason for not landing at the nearest "suitable airport," which some seem to think is anything with tarmac would have been the overweight landing due to having so much fuel. Fantasy conversation on board--So let´s continue as it seems to be isolated. Anything at all seem out of place, we turn to a Canadian airport, if it is past Prins Christians, we go to KEF, when we get to the other side, anything at all, we go to XXX and if everything is working as normal, we have range to get to Kuwait and so we will continue. Any further comments or questions? Not a "crippled bird," or a car with a wonky battery, just an engine out of 4 available. As pointed out......there are plenty of 2-engined aircraft making the trip, having "only" 3 is not a big deal! That´s why there is redundancy, doesn´t mean you freak out when the system you are backing up fails.

If it was an ETOPS the Pilot would have landed in St. Johns or Gander I suspect. Always nice to have 4 huh?

In cruise, this shouldn't be an issue for a 4-engine aircraft.. Right after take-off like the BA case, and all the circling around to make up their minds, was foolish.

Engine shutdown is an alternate checklist, Engine Fire is an Emergency. Loss of 1 engine out of four is not an emergency, it does not say land at nearest, most practical or any other airport. Consult 3 engine fuel burn charts and if possible continue to destination or a suitable "engineering" airport.
The possibility of losing another engine is about the same as on a twin, zero....

Remind me never to fly with folks who ignore safety. What made them think pump failure would not occur in other three engines? Do we know why the the pumps failed? Ken

The luxury of 4 vs 2. Ahhhh!

I guarantee you won't fly a Dreamliner 5,000 miles on three engines. :)

Clearly most of you have not heard of ETOPS? If a B777 can be certified to fly for three or four hours on a single engine, then the same length of time on three is a breeze. The difference between the BA was that it elected to fly ACROSS the US with three engines, rather than land. presumably the A380 could have landed at various points, but elected to fly to a hub where Emirates has ground support. No big deal.

As we all know,the engine is the heartbeat of the aircraft.I agree with Phil.You definitely want to get back on the ground ASAP. My first real life emergency was a failed engine on climb-out out of PHL.I was piloting a 73-4. There were no warnings or alarms.Shortly after positive rate was established,the right engine just shut down.We were able to return to the airport without further incident,and we elected for a change of equipment. We never found the cause. We were told it might have been a mechanical glitch.

Really, you're clearly not familiar with Qantas recent woes!!

Hmmm...the engine had TWO fuel pumps and they BOTH failed?

I think I would have diverted to Gander. Long runways, and they are used to dealing with that kind of problem.
At the time you just don't know why the engine failed. And what about the next one? Did the same mechanic work on all the engines?

Many years ago an Eastern Airlines L1011 departed for a very short flight between Miami and Nassau (don't remember which direction) and in succession two of the engines failed due to oil starvation. Turned out the mechanic didn't use a required o-ring when he changed the oil. So… why did the A380 engine fail? Would another? From Emirate's standpoint can you imagine how much fuel they'd have to dump to get down to landing weight? (Assuming A380's can dump fuel… otherwise a massively overweight land back at JFK).

So what! Decisions were made by competent individuals within the framework of the regulations! Move on, guys, nothing to see here!

I'm confident that the pilots had a lot more information than we have from the the blurb in the article. The pilots must have been fairly confident of the reasons behind the shutdown. November last year, an Emirates A380 lost an engine departing SYD. They turned around and landed back in SYD. Emirates also diverted an A380 flying from DXB to JFK into CDG last year due to engine problems.

As others have pointed out, the jumbos are perfectly capable of flying safely on 3 engines. It's been done in the A380 several times and by other airlines as well. The question of losing another engine is certainly there, but most of the North Atlantic tracks are covered by ETOPS 120, so as long as the weather is suitable at the diversion airports, you're not too far from a suitable runway. Just how long does it take to dump that much fuel anyway and prepare the aircraft for a safe landing?

I think Emirate's history with the A380 shows that when the situation warrants, they'll take on the costs of a diversion over taking risks with their passenger's lives.

On water in the fuel: I couldn't find anything specific to the A380, but the A340s/A330s have pumps that circulate water that collects at sumps back into the fuel, so that it's burned up. That only works up to certain concentration of water, but the 777 has a water detection system. Surely the A380 being a newer plane must have a system like that as well.

On the subject of water in the fuel. The A380, like most commercial aircraft, is equipped with a capacitive fuel gauging system. Because of the differance in dielectric between water and fuel, if there is one thing capacitive fuel gauging systems detect better than fuel, it's water. If they had contaminated fuel they would have had plenty of warning something was wrong. All four engines are fed fuel from collector cells, which are also gauged, water in there would have been easily detected. So there's not much chance of a surprise. All the, "bells and whistles" would have been going off long before they had ever pushed back from the gate.

Interesting and educational. Thank you for the good post.

One hour out of JFK....why not proceed/turn back to Logan? I am more familiar with the 747 family than this aircraft; but why take a chance when there are so many possibilities.





.

strange

Pilots need to remember one thing when talking to maintenance on the ground, The PIC has the final authority, the maintenance person is going to go home regardless of the outcome of the flight and if something goes wrong the crew will be at fault for continuing the flight

Bad PIC decision, he could have diverted to any number of airports to have it checked out. Would give me cause for concern if I had to fly Emirates?

Maybe the ATP guys can tell the rest of us what the impact in decision making of losing an engine and then losing a second on the same side. Gander and St John's were within half hour whereas Iceland was another 1200 miles.

I ain't no pilot but logic tell me that if the plane was designed with four engines then all four should be working on along trip, especially having people on board. If it had crashed and the pilot survived, then he would be in big trouble.

Thats why they have four Pan Am used to strap one out board to ferry it to another airport

Well now, it may be that there were no 380 engines available in Canada, and I'm sure the Captain called the "boss" for recommendations. I am certainly not going to armchair quarterback.

Comment from experience here. I am not a pilot, but I was a pax on an AF flight JFK-CDG years ago on a B747 that lost an engine in flight. First we pax heard about it was when the flight deck announced we would be late into CDG due to "an engine problem." No information that they had shut down one of them and we were on 3. I pretty much figured that out on my own. Still, NO BIG DEAL then or now.

Run

Can anyone explain why the crippled a/c had to fly at a reduced rate of speed and at a lower altitude?

Why not transfer fuel from one of the good tanks to restart the flameout. I am sure this must be possible in a civil aircraft, the military plans are able to transfer fuel to other engines. Just wondering.

A DC-10, MD-11, and L-1011 sound like they should be here these days. Wish Boeing or airbus would design a trijet again

Why risk it. Over land for a couple of hours with lots of options, fine. Over the North Atlantic, some of the most unforgiving airspace in the world, I don't think so. The reason they have 4 engines on a 380 is because they need 4 engines. Had to be a long, uncomfortable flight for the crew.

L1011's and DC10'S flew long distances quite happily on 3 engines.

This had nothing to do with safety. It had to do with cost. They took a risk and continued on. As it happens they and 3 or 400 passengers lucked out.

Another reason I will only fly US/UK/Aussie flagged carriers. It's one thing to continue when you are overland and going to your hub, but over the Atlantic????? Stupid!