Seems the Airbus 330 with General Electric engines have a tendency to flame out (or stop working ) in very bad weather. The autostart kicks in and the engines relight automatically . Qatar airways had a similar incident recently with a brand new A330 with GE engines as well. I sure hope they fix this problem. If the restart was somehow unsuccessful, well there goes another plane !!
wierd, both happened during descent and both were around 6500 meters at the time and in heavy rain . and both were DOUBLE FLAMEOUTS , meaning both engines stopped !! And thats not good on a twin engined plane !!
Double flame-outs are a very rare occurrence, but it seems CF6-80’s have been subject to some discussion regarding flame-outs and other failures for some time.
Seems that on both times, the Qatar and China Airlines planes were both committed to a descent at the time, meaning that the engines were on low spool. I would imagine that the causes in these cases was due to icing to some degree, but then I’m no engineer.
Not very good publicity for GE anyway; and certainly very bad publicity for China Airlines although at least in this case, the pilots got their drills right.
Google GE and you will find that, among US military contractors, it has the highest amount of fines against it in enforcement cases, and is the only major player to be suspended by the govt (albeit for 30 days)
GE has some serious problems in its aircraft division. Google the time when GE bribed a Israeli general. That said, GE is a great company in other ways.
I read that some GE engineers attitude was “whats the big deal, both engines automatically restarted on their own, like they are supposed to , even without pilot input so that means the system is working properly” . But having your engines flameout is totally unacceptable to me. Its like having your heart stop. NOT GOOD (even if you have defillibrators permanently attached to ya).
GE is the worlds biggest commercial jet engine maker. But they got to get their s.h.i.t together on this or I for one am not gonna feel too comfy flyin on em, and neither should YOU be.
The CAL pilots only noticed an abnormality but before they woke up to what was happening the engines restarted automatically. But the “hiccup” was reported as was the correct action. The engine management computers wouldve recorded the anomaly as well.
Yes seems it happens during descent when the engines are at near idle and ice on the blades breaking off during the descent from 40 below zero cruise temps and being ingested into the engine , along with rainwater have been suggested as contributing factors.
any EVA or CAL engineers out there care to explain what has been done to solve this?
[quote]GE is the worlds biggest commercial jet engine maker. But they got to get their s.h.i.t together on this or I for one am not gonna feel too comfy flyin on em, and neither should YOU be.
[/quote]
I heard RollsRoyce is having a private chuckle and “i told you so moment” because they were just steps away from clinching that contract to supply the CAL A330 engines, but due to “political pressure” lost a deal worth bout a billion bucks. Tony Blair called it preposterous at the time because the RR deal was “superior”, apparently.
[quote=“jdsmith”][quote]GE is the worlds biggest commercial jet engine maker. But they got to get their s.h.i.t together on this or I for one am not gonna feel too comfy flyin on em, and neither should YOU be.
[/quote]
Flying on what? GE engines?
I fly on airplanes, inside actually. [/quote]
uh, I meant with the plane attached to the engines of course , and of course INSIDE rather then OUTSIDE is preferred (maybe airlines coming out with new low cost seating arranged outside the aircraft? )
[quote=“ac_dropout”]You know some adventurer would probably pay good money to fly on the outside of an airplane.
Not like those freeloaders that fly in the landing gear housing…[/quote]
Lets see…cruise at 500mph at 35,000 feet. That means sustained winds of 500 miles per hour. And seeing that worldwide, irregardless of whether you are in the tropics or over the poles, above twenty thousand feet its basically that many degrees below zero (according to this US Air Force pilot I knew). So that means the air temperature is roughly 35 degrees centigrade below zero. Not to mention not much oxygen to breath.
I see no one is mentioning the quality of Airbus maintenance as part of this episode.
Once the engine leaves the plant and gets stuck on the wing its up to whoever is doing the MRO to deal with things like this.
MRO = Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul.
And as mentioned, the engine did exactly as it was designed to do in a situation such as this. Pretty darn good system IMO.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]I see no one is mentioning the quality of Airbus maintenance as part of this episode.
Once the engine leaves the plant and gets stuck on the wing its up to whoever is doing the MRO to deal with things like this.
MRO = Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul.
And as mentioned, the engine did exactly as it was designed to do in a situation such as this. Pretty darn good system IMO.[/quote]
surely you mean “the quality of CAL maintenance” TC?.. To use your own argument, once the plane leaves the Airbus plant it’s up to whoever is doing the MRO to deal with things like this, ie. CAL… besides nothing went wrong with the Airbus made bit, only the GM engines…
Plas -
Not sure what you’re saying, but as I said…“And as mentioned, the engine did exactly as it was designed to do in a situation such as this. Pretty darn good system IMO.”
I don’t know if CAL does their own engine maintenance. Many Operators contract it out now. Lufthansa is a major player in this service, as are a few other groups. So if its CAL or if its another MRO contractor, I’m sure they’ve taken this unit off the wing and are going over it with FAA folks watching.
I’m glad things worked as intended and folks walked off the a/c safe at the end of their flight.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Plas -
Not sure what you’re saying, […][/quote]
Quite obvious: He pointed out the contradiction in your statement. You implied maintenance is responsibility of Airbus but then you said it’s the responsibility of the MRO contractor. Remember the part before ‘but as I said’? Here it is (bold by me):
Airbus is definitely not doing any maintenance service … they are manufacturers.
Most maintenance companies are independant or affiliated with, subsidiary of an airline company …
The only thing Airbus is doing is follow-up when they deliver a plane, during a time span of how many hours the buyer is credited for.
Airbus will probably advice on how to proceed on any unkown problem maintenance companies face.
One of my in-laws works on the airport and he told me a story that his kind of engines have a known error in an IC somewhere and that they are actually all changed one after each other (the IC’s that is). Usually that would happen “over there” (he didnt went into details where “there” is) but as Taiwan has quite a number of this jets based here GE will send some technician crew with some IC’s in their bags and do the whole thing here on the island.
Heard that story from another side too, no idea if it is 100% bullet proof.
I guess the good point was, that the engines did exactly what they should do after the incident happend but the problem is that it shouldn’t have come to that in first place.
Than again, I am no aviation engineer or anything like this and there are always nice stories going around anyway.
This sentence should have read -
“I see no one is mentioning the quality of the Airbus [b](as in the Airbus a/c in question here)[/b] maintenance as part of this episode.”
As this has caused some question, I apologize for the dropping of the “the” from the sentence. editted by mod Play nice TC.
Mingshah -
The a/c OEMS continually have reps here with bags full of replacement goodies for their a/c components. Pretty much the same world-wide. The tech doc’s used by the MRO people are continually updated with new “fixes & solutions” on an almost daily basis. These things, a/c and their components are continually evolving and being upgraded.
Safety measure or not, the engine seems to have a design flaw. So you can defend GE all you want and point your finger at the aircraft manufacturer, the MRO or whoever - doesn’t change a thing.
Please point out where I am doing either of these points? Off-topic comment removed by moderator.
Also, please show me a source for your statement that this engine has a “design flaw”?
Personal attack removed by moderator. The engines were/are the CF6-80E1. Show me the OEMs call-outs on a found “design flaw.”
There is one NTSB ‘Safety Recommendation’ from Aug 2000, and it has nothing to do with this problem. Need the ASB?
Here ya go…cryptome.org/ge-failures.htm…got anything relevant?
Now if you want to discuss the problems with RR engines on this a/c…well, there might be a documented point or 3 there.
Iv never been on an A330. And when I was planning on flying one I was at HK airport awaiting my flight. But then they announced that the plane (an A330) would not be flying and that all Cathay A330s were grounded.
And that was the problem they had with the RR engines. Later found to be a part from HISpano Suiza. That was an embarashing episode for RR engines for sure.
, and of course INSIDE rather then OUTSIDE is preferred (maybe airlines coming out with new low cost seating arranged outside the aircraft? 
)
