Qantas Flight 32


The left inboard engine of the A380 showing the effects of the failure

Accident
Date: 4 November 2010
Summary: Uncontained engine failure
Site: Over Batam Island, Indonesia
Coordinates: 1°04'N 104°01'E

Aircraft
Aircraft type: Airbus A380-842
Aircraft name: Nancy-Bird Walton
Operator: Qantas
Registration: VH-OQA
Flight origin: Heathrow Airport, London, United Kingdom
Stopover: Changi Airport, Singapore
Destination: Sydney Airport, Sydney, Australia
Occupants: 469
Passengers: 440
Crew: 29
Fatalities: 0
Injuries: 0
Survivors: 469

Qantas Flight 32 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from London to Sydney via Singapore. On 4 November 2010, the aircraft operating the route, an Airbus A380, suffered an uncontained failure in one of its four Trent 900 engines. The failure occurred over Batam Island, Indonesia, four minutes after takeoff from Singapore Changi Airport. After holding for almost two hours to assess the situation, the aircraft made a successful emergency landing at Changi. There were no injuries to the passengers, crew or people on the ground, despite debris from the aircraft falling onto houses in Batam.

On inspection, it was found that a turbine disc in the aircraft's No. 2 engine (on the port side nearest the fuselage) had disintegrated, causing extensive damage to the nacelle, wing, fuel system, landing gear, flight controls, engine controls, and a fire in a fuel tank that self-extinguished. The subsequent investigation concluded that the failure had been caused by the breaking of a stub oil pipe which had been manufactured improperly.

The failure was the first of its kind for the A380, the world's largest passenger aircraft. At the time of the accident, 39 A380s were operating with five airlines: Qantas, Air France, Emirates, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines. The accident led to the temporary grounding of the rest of the six-plane Qantas A380 fleet. It also led to groundings, inspections and engine replacements on some other Rolls-Royce-powered A380s in service with Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines, but not in the A380 fleets of Air France or Emirates, which were powered by Engine Alliance engines.

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