3 Questions: John Hansman on the Qantas A380 engine blowout
Last week, a Qantas Airbus 380 superjumbo jetliner made an emergency landing in Singapore following the mid-flight explosion of one of its engines that is manufactured by Rolls-Royce. All flights of Qantas’s A380 aircraft, which is the world’s newest and largest airliner, remain suspended as investigators pinpoint the cause of the explosion. Experts have speculated that the blowout was caused by an “uncontained” engine failure that occurred when a turbine disc inside one of the plane’s four engines disintegrated and ejected large metal chunks that damaged the engine and a wing. In a statement released today, Rolls-Royce confirmed that the failure was confined to a “specific component” in the engine’s turbine area that caused an oil fire that led to the release of the turbine disc. The company is working to replace the faulty part for 20 A380s that have this particular engine. Aviation expert John Hansman, the T. Wilson...