Flight Safety Information November 4, 2010 - No. 226 In This Issue Qantas grounds Airbus fleet after mid-flight engine scare A look at jet engine failures CL&A Training Courses Qantas grounds Airbus fleet after mid-flight engine scare The airline has six A380s in its fleet of 191 planes The Airbus A380 are the largest planes in the world The Qantas fleet will remain grounded indefinitely, CEO says (CNN) -- Qantas, Australia's national airline, grounded its Airbus A380 fleet indefinitely after part of a plane's engine cover fell off mid-flight on Thursday. The airline said flights of the twin-deck planes -- the world's largest airliners -- will remain suspended until an investigation into Thursday's incident is complete. "As long as it takes," said airline CEO Alan Joyce, when a reporter asked him how long the suspension will last. "We are being very cautious until we know exactly what caused this." On Thursday, a Qantas airliner had one of its four engines shut down six minutes after takeoff from Singapore's Changi Airport, Joyce said. The plane -- with 440 passengers and 26 crew members -- was headed to Sydney, Australia, but was forced to return to Changi. While in the air above the western Indonesian island of Batam, part of the engine's covering, or cowling, tore off and fell. "I am not sure what actually happened with the debris and why parts of the engine left the aircraft and fell into the ground," Joyce said. "We're still looking at what exactly was the cause of that." Local television stations in Indonesia showed debris parts with red-white markings. Pictures of the Airbus A380 after it landed showed the cowling torn off in the back half. Trifuadi, a security officer at an engineering firm in Batam, said he heard a loud explosion and saw smoke coming out of the engine of a plane flying overhead. Shortly afterward, debris fell from the plane to the ground, said Trifuadi, who like many Indonesians go by one name. The flight -- QF32 -- landed in Singapore safely, without injury to passenger or crew. Passenger Meg Graham said she heard a loud bang within minutes of the plane taking off. "And then another bang," she said. Ulf Waschbusch, who was on his way to Australia for the first time, said the crew kept passengers apprised of what was happening. "We all stayed pretty calm," he told CNN. "It was an almost eerie calm." The airline said it will work with the plane's manufacturer as well as Rolls- Royce, the maker of the engine, to determine what went wrong. A spokesman for the Rolls-Royce told CNN that "safety is always our highest priority. We are currently analyzing the available information and working with our customers to support their operations." Qantas now has six A380s in its fleet of 191 planes. Airbus will at some point deliver another 14, the airline said. Lufthansa, which operates three Airbus A380s, said its operations currently are "normal." "We are on standby to go further but no decisions have been taken. We are checking with Rolls Royce and Airbus to see if they think there is a broader view, do they think we need to make special checks," a spokesman for the company said. "We do a lot of engine monitoring. We have a lots of information to see if there is anything abnormal and we do not have anything at the moment." Back to Top A look at jet engine failures (AP)-- A look at serious jet engine failures following the Qantas A380 emergency landing in Singapore. Analysts speculated that an "uncontained engine failure" caused the power plant's housing to disintegrate and damage the wing structure. -According to international safety statistics, there are about 25 incidents a year involving a jet engine failing either in flight or on the ground. That translates into less than one for every million flights worldwide. -The overwhelming majority of such occurrences ends without incident because crews are trained on simulators to handle the loss of an engine. -One of the best-known incidents of uncontained engine failure occurred in 1989, when 111 people were killed when a United Air Lines DC-10 crashed while making an emergency landing at Sioux City, Iowa. There were 185 survivors. -More recent incidents include a Saudi Arabian Airlines 747 after takeoff from Jeddah in July 2008; a Jett8 Cargo Boeing 747 freighter after takeoff from Singapore last December; and an ACT Cargo Airbus A300 at takeoff from Bahrain in April. All ended without injury. -The most frequent causes of engines breaking up are the ingestion of objects on the runway or birds trikes. Also, mechanical problems such as rotor imbalances can cause microscopic cracks to form on the turbine blades, leading to their failure. -In May, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board recommended more frequent engine inspections to deal with the problem. Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC