It was disappointing to hear of the rather dramatic engine failure on the QANTAS A380 yesterday morning but it also caused me to ponder what the real implications are.

First, QANTAS’ grounding of this aircraft is likely unnecessary and way premature in light of the service history of the aircraft so far.  At least with respect to technical reasons for doing so.  However, QANTAS’ grounding is probably a wise choice with respect to public relations.  This company has a long standing reputation for no lives lost in a jet aircraft incident and rightly so.  Preserving this image is particularly important to an airline that by definition is frequently traveling over oceans to reach their destinations.  In other words, don’t presume the grounding as an indictment against the aircraft or even the aircraft engines.

Second, after viewing a number of pictures of this incident, it is striking in that it was an uncontained failure.  However, it also shows just how robust and just how much safer jet airliners of today are versus those of the 1960’s and 1970’s.  An uncontained failure shouldn’t happen but even when it did, things were fairly non-eventful with respect to keeping the aircraft under control and getting it back on the ground.

Third, an uncontained failure in this Rolls Royce Trent engine is somewhat distressing.  Even an engine with modest design mistakes typically will not reveal these problems for a long, long time.  The pictures are dramatic and the amount of debris from this engine is also a bit impressive.  This engine deserves rigorous investigation at this point.

The bottom line is that the aircraft remains safe.  In fact, more Airbus A380s are actually flying with a different engine, the Engine Alliance engine from GE and Pratt & Whitney.  Take the media drama and even the QANTAS dramatic reaction with a large grain of salt for now.  One event does not make a trend.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax
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