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+--- Thread: Two Quantas Planes With Engine Problems...the Chances are Astronomical as Chance! (/thread-4775.html)
Two Quantas Planes With Engine Problems...the Chances are Astronomical as Chance! - Peter Lemkin - 05-11-2010
I, as many other thought the Rolls-Royce engine on the first plane simply had a problem of design or maintenance - or a chance event. But today, two days after the first Quantas Rolly-Royce engine failure there was another.....having sat (unpleasantly) through three graduate courses in statistics I know this is a freak event by chance...and something here is by 'design'.....all that remains to know is by whom....the motive...and the means.....
Details when I get them, I'll post. [below the MSM babble...I take not any stock in it for the truth.... GE is as likely as anyone, including chance, to have made this occur!]
Rolls-Royce was today warned it could face a BP-style backlash in the US after an engine design flaw was cited as a potential cause of the explosion that forced the emergency landing of a Qantas-owned A380 in Singapore on Thursday.
The warning came as a second Qantas jet – a Boeing 747-400 also powered by Rolls-Royce technology – returned to Singapore's Changi airport after reporting an engine problem shortly after take-off today .
Qantas said the second incident was not serious – but it was enough to trigger a further sell-off in Rolls-Royce shares, which closed down 5% for the second day running, a 48-hour period that has wiped £1.2bn off the group's value.
Joe Lampel, a professor at Cass Business School in London, said Rolls-Royce was a serious competitor to the US engine makers GE and Pratt & Whitney, forming a rivalry that mirrored the tensions between the US giant Boeing and Europe's Airbus.
"The news [of Thursday's emergency landing] is attracting a lot of attention in North America, where the parallels between BP and Rolls-Royce are not too far from the mind of some observers," said Lampel, speaking before the second incident.
"Both companies are some of the best-known global British brands, and both challenge American competitors.
"In the case of BP, the company took the brunt for general distrust of deep sea oil drilling, arguably in a way that would not have been the case had the same incident happened to a large American oil company.
"In the case of Rolls-Royce, the incident must be seen in the context of long-standing competitive rivalry between Boeing and Airbus, and between Pratt & Whitney/GE and Rolls-Royce."
The comments came as one analyst warned that the US federal aviation administration (FAA) could announce restrictions on A380s by the end of this week unless the manufacturer could allay fears about the engines.
Rolls-Royce is one of the last surviving British titans of industry and prides itself on its global reputation for engineering excellence.
But the latest – and most serious – fault with one of its aircraft engines has rattled the industry and the company's shareholders.
Shares in its biggest rival, General Electric, rose in the wake of the A380 incident as investors bet that the US company would take more lucrative engine orders for the A380.
The Qantas chief executive, Alan Joyce, increased the pressure on the engineering group when he said the explosion of one of the Airbus superjumbo's four engines above Indonesia was "an engine issue" and was not linked to the airworthiness of the aviation industry's most modern passenger plane.
"We believe this is most likely some kind of material failure or a design issue," he added.
The A380, fitted with Trent 900 engines, was carrying 466 passengers and crew when the incident occurred over western Indonesia. The plane made an emergency landing at Changi airport. No one was injured.
According to reports, the Boeing jet involved in the second incident was equipped with Rolls-Royce engines, but they were not from the Trent family.
Joyce made his comments as one City analyst said Rolls-Royce "must be praying" that the fault is limited to an individual engine and not the whole Trent 900 class.
Julian Tolley, the head of research at HB Markets, said any link to the failure in August of a Trent 1000 engine that was being tested as part of the Boeing Dreamliner programme could heighten doubts about the technology behind the engines.
"Rolls-Royce must be praying that it's a fault linked to that engine ... if they cannot, then an in-depth investigation will be costly for future sales," he said.
"Should it be linked to the Trent 100 problems as well, then people may start worrying regarding the advanced technology and design used for these technically advanced engines."
Tolley added that the FAA might announce restrictions on A380s by the end of this week unless Rolls-Royce could ease fears about its engines. The Trent and RB211 engines account for nearly two-thirds of the £4.5bn in annual revenues generated by Rolls-Royce's aerospace division.
In a statement today , Airbus said it had asked all owners of the aircraft with Rolls-Royce turbines, including Singapore Airlines and Germany's Lufthansa, to conduct engine checks "to ensure continuous safe operations of the fleet".
The Qantas incident also reignited an industrial dispute between the airline and the Australian aircraft engineering union, which has been campaigning against the outsourcing of maintenance work.
Joyce said the A380 involved in the engine blowout recently underwent a maintenance check by Lufthansa Technik in Germany, while the Rolls-Royce engines had been scrutinised at Rolls-Royce facilities.
"To suggest that Lufthansa and Rolls-Royce do not have the expertise and experience to undertake the highest quality checks is ludicrous," he added.
Rolls-Royce said it would be "inappropriate" at such a "very early stage" to draw any conclusions from the incident.
Two Quantas Planes With Engine Problems...the Chances are Astronomical as Chance! - Mark Stapleton - 06-11-2010
Don't know whether its the RR engines or the fact that Qantas has been farming out their maintenance but a lower dividend for avaricious shareholders is a greater disaster that a plane crash, apparently.
Qantas is surely the flukiest airline in aviation history. I think they've had half a dozen mid flight emegencies in the last few years but still not a single fatality recorded against their name.
That's a proud boast but I wouldn't fly Qantas right now. The laws of probability would make me too uncomfortable.
Two Quantas Planes With Engine Problems...the Chances are Astronomical as Chance! - Peter Lemkin - 06-11-2010
Mark Stapleton Wrote:Don't know whether its the RR engines or the fact that Qantas has been farming out their maintenance but a lower dividend for avaricious shareholders is a greater disaster that a plane crash, apparently.
Qantas is surely the flukiest airline in aviation history. I think they've had half a dozen mid flight emegencies in the last few years but still not a single fatality recorded against their name.
That's a proud boast but I wouldn't fly Qantas right now. The laws of probability would make me too uncomfortable.
Even given your statement that they've had other engine problems, the odds of that happening on consecutive days [or with one day in between] are just too high to be chance....someone or something happened - I don't claim to know what. The only non-conspiratorial thing that comes to mind is just horrible maintenance, gone especially bad this week...but even that seems unlikely to me. The first engine explosion could have killed all aboard. The second event seems to have been much less serious....at least as reported thus far. Rolls-Royce engines are considered as top notch.
Two Quantas Planes With Engine Problems...the Chances are Astronomical as Chance! - Magda Hassan - 06-11-2010
There has been much back lash locally of Qantas taking most of the maintenance overseas as a cost cutting measure. There have been other incedents which also bring into doubt the no longer high standards of maintenance and things are certainly bot what they used to be. However, the age of these engines precludes that in this case. They are almost brand new engines and have not yet had the miles to be serviced. It seems to be a RR problem or possible a material problem of the engine covering.
But I'm with Mark that the laws of probability are not on Qantas' side.
Two Quantas Planes With Engine Problems...the Chances are Astronomical as Chance! - David Guyatt - 06-11-2010
Looks to me like there going to be a lot of "blame-storming" going on over this.
Two Quantas Planes With Engine Problems...the Chances are Astronomical as Chance! - Mark Stapleton - 06-11-2010
David Guyatt Wrote:Looks to me like there going to be a lot of "blame-storming" going on over this.
Of course.
I think Qantas will lose revenue and market share because of all these close shaves and cost cutting is most likely to blame, which is quite ironic.
Two Quantas Planes With Engine Problems...the Chances are Astronomical as Chance! - David Guyatt - 09-11-2010
The cynic might begin to wonder if the breaking news that Rolls Royce have just won an engine and servicing contract, worth $750 million, with an unnamed Chinese airline was behind the foregoing affair?
Because such contracts take months to conclude and because it was concluded during the Prime Minister's official state visit to China, then the chance of a dirty news story being run to ruin this contract should be considered.
If not RR who would benefit from a renegotiated contract?
Boeing anyone?
Two Quantas Planes With Engine Problems...the Chances are Astronomical as Chance! - Carsten Wiethoff - 09-11-2010
The competitors of Rolls Royce in the engine business are more like General Electric and Pratt & Whitney (as well as their joint venture, the Engine Alliance for the A380).
Edit: Oops, I forgot the French SNECMA, now part of SAFRAN, which collaborated with GE on engines for the Airbus 320, among others. Their main product is the CFM-56 engine.
Two Quantas Planes With Engine Problems...the Chances are Astronomical as Chance! - David Guyatt - 09-11-2010
Thanks Carsten.