A380 navigated probe with flying colours, says Airbus

[Gerald A]

LAST YEAR'S spectacular Qantas A380 engine explosion has not hurt the superjumbo's image, according to Airbus head of A380 product marketing Richard Carcaillet.
Mr Carcaillet said Airbus, which had been working closely with Qantas on a technical level and supporting the aviation investigation, had not seen an impact in the marketplace.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/busi...-1226068181129

[Philip Argy]

Whilst I agree that Rolls-Royce has to shoulder the blame for the incident, I don't agree that the A380 survived totally unscathed.

The damage it suffered did reveal what in my view were a few design flaws in terms of the adjacent routing or co-location of supposedly backup/redundant systems, making both vulnerable to the same shrapnel/impact source.

Also, I think the avionics in most Airbus a/c needs some rethinking in terms of how alarms and problems are communicated and displayed. Again, just my personal view, but I've seen in a number of incidents over recent years flight crews being bombarded with mixed severity error messages, alarms, buzzers and anunciations that cease or scroll off the screen before their import can be absorbed and acted upon. I'd like to see more simulator testing of alternative ways to present warnings, alerts and important information to determine what will optimally assist a busy crew in an emergency to fly the damn plane instead of being distracted by a myriad of conflicting and lengthy checklists! And in my view this area needs to be the subject of more rigorous requirements during a/c certification.

[Laurent Sanhard]

I don't think that every aircraft should be designed to cope with an uncontained engine failure , If you look at the extra costs invloved in making every part of the aircraft ( mainly the wing ) bullet proof , then airliners are going to have to pay a lot more for aircraft , take the Concorde for example , it flew for decades without major incident , and crashes in Paris in 2000 , due to a freak series of events before leaving CDG , the engine expolsion ( uncontained ) on QF32 last November was also a freak event , and I think you have to give credit to the QF 32 Pilots and Airbus for having systems in place to cope with such incidents ...

[Philip Argy]

An uncontained engine failure is not so remote and unlikely an event that an aircraft design doesn't need to take it into account. I'm not saying every remote possibility needs to be designed for but I am saying, in the context of this thread, that a few things came to notice in the case of OQA that in my personal view didn't reflect the best design principles of the aircraft systems or the avionics.

[Laurent Sanhard]

I agree , as I read it in the report by the Australian , Airbus is also looking to learn from what happened to VH OQA last November to improve A380 system survivability in the future ( with regards to Avionics on board and back up systems and engine shutdown) , as bad as it was what happened to QF32 last year, at least it was a test of the Aircraft , and a chance to improve in the future ..

[A McLaughlin]

The aircraft's systems prioritised all of the faults it was experiencing thus allowing the crew to make informed decisions as to its health or otherwise, and it subsequently landed safely with no injuries or loss of life.

I'd say the A380 passed its first major test with flying colours!