Pre-flight cracks in 787 engine
ntsb.gov
ntsb.gov
This is a new engine, without figuring what causes those fractures, NTBS should ground them. I bet they already know what it is.
My father (37 year of flying) always tell me stories where engines in the industry had vibration resonance problems that caused fractures in the whole airplane those engines never ended up flying.
(this is serious because - as far as i can tell - this engine has a 330 minute ETOPS rating http://www.geaviation.com/press/genx/genx_20120308.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS which means that a twin engine plane (like the dreamliner) can fly 5.5 hours (the number in the report above) from "safety" (eg over the atlantic), so if one engine fails the other must continue working for that time. if the problem is common then that is not so reasonable an assumption...)
(not all dreamliners are affected; rolls royce also provide engines)
There are two parts to ETOPS (tongue in cheek "Engines Turn or Or People Swim")..The first is the certification to design standards, including flight testing. The second, and perhaps more crucial element, is the operations/procedures certifications. In the first stage, the entire system (engines, airframe, fuel system and everything else) is evaluated as a comprehensive whole. Essentially, you're looking to eliminate single points of failure.
The second part is arguably more important as it deals with the statistical failure rates. The assumption is that a modern jet (turbofan) engine is highly reliable. As the basis of such procedures, multiple, similar failures are worrisome. An airline must have approved ETOPS operations to fly routes requiring ETOPS (a certified airplane is necessary but not sufficient). Common operational procedures include not replacing both engines at the same time, servicing similar fuel system components together, etc. Basically, avoid the possibility of introducing a single point of failure into otherwise redundant systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_38
(By sheer good luck and good piloting skills the crew were able to make it over the runway threshold after both engines lost power during final approach: injuries and a hull loss, but no deaths. Problem was a design flaw in the fuel oil heat exchangers, only triggered by unusual meteorological conditions on a long flight. Both engines had the same design issue and were drinking the same fuel ...)
Sadly I can't find the article any more but did read one about how each new generation of commercial aircraft is increasingly aerodynamically efficient. The side effect of that is how much further they can glide from the same starting point (less drag). Its hard to find numbers that aren't speculation but it seems like 1980s era designs (eg 767) are around 15:1 and current generation are around 20:1.
Wikipedia even has a page about flights that required gliding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airline_flights_that_re...
I was really surprised to find how true this was. One of my first jobs was working in a manufacturing plant for a company remanufacturing various parts of various jet engines (rebuilding blades, putting new airfoils into damaged vanes etc). The joke on the floor for new employees was that once you saw how badly damaged the engines were by the time they got to us you'd never want to fly again. It was also very interesting to see how much FAA regulation was involved in the manufacturing/remanufacturing process and how often people tried to skirt those rules to save parts due to how expensive they are.
All three engines on the L-1011 failed due to an incorrect maintenance procedure.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with the maintenance procedure. It was simply not executed properly.
""The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of the accident was "the omission of all the O-ring seals on the master chip detector assemblies leading to the loss of lubrication and damage to the airplane's three engines as a result of the failure of mechanics to follow the established and proper procedures for the installation of master chip detectors in the engine lubrication system, the repeated failure of supervisory personnel to require mechanics to comply strictly with the prescribed installation procedures, and the failure of Eastern Air Lines management to assess adequately the significance of similar previous occurrences and to act effectively to institute corrective action. Contributing to the cause of the accident was the failure of Federal Aviation Administration maintenance inspectors to assess the significance of the incidents involving master chip detectors and to take effective surveillance and enforcement measures to prevent the recurrence of the incidents.""
A faulty procedure means that every plane of this make and model would have this defect. A faulty execution of a correct procedure would only affect those aircraft that were handled by the people executing the procedure incorrectly.
It is the difference between a bug in the software (the procedure) or a computer with a faulty ram chip. Both will cause your program to crash, but the first will cause every instance of that program to crash, the second only affects the specific instance run on that hardware.
There is a huge difference when it comes to root causes. If perfect procedures are executed sloppily then it doesn't matter how good the procedures are. And that is why there was a huge flap over this particular incident because if there is one thing that the whole airline industry revolves around then it is adherence to procedures.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with the maintenance procedure. It was simply not executed properly.
But the text you cite says:
"as a result of the failure of mechanics to follow the established and proper procedures" and "repeated failure of supervisory personnel to require mechanics to comply strictly with the prescribed installation procedures"
I'm pointing out that there were, in fact, multiple procedures involved here. Some were well-defined and supported the reliable operation of the engine, some procedures were probably poorly defined and led to rapid failures.
But the mechanics do appear to have been following a repeatable process as evidenced by the fact that all the engines failed simultaneously. This is a procedure in the general usage of the term, even if a bad one and different from the one prescribed by the regulatory authorities.
When Bridgestone makes bad tires that fall apart while driving, the headlines are not "tires on Ford car explode, kill family", it's "Bridgestone tires burst into flame, kill busload of orphans".
And, as andrewcooke points out, not every 787 flies with GE engines, since Rolls Royce is also a vendor.
The key is integration - Boeing is responsible for the testing and when problems are discovered, they need to be brought to the attention of GE.
The GEnx 1B (787) failed in July this year and kicked off an investigation that is trying to determine if there is an engineering or manufacturing problem in the parts that connect two shaft pieces together to form the main shaft in the engine.
The GEnx 2B (747-8) failed in early September this year and the initial investigation is not complete.
This memo confirms that the 747-8 and the 787 failures are NOT related.
That being said, the NTSB wants to pull the ETOPS certificate from the -1B engines which would effectively ground the majority of the 787 fleet (the 787 is optimized for long flights which would be majority over water/out of gliding range and the GEnx has the widest install base on the 787).
The FAA has indicated that they will take a watching brief for the time being.
EDIT: ...and not all 787s use these engines.