ANZ B744 at Auckland on Sep 18th 2011, engine shut down in flight
Last Update: September 5, 2013 / 14:29:36 GMT/Zulu time
Incident Facts
Date of incident
Sep 18, 2011
Classification
Incident
Aircraft Type
Boeing 747-400
ICAO Type Designator
B744
During the investigation the TAIC widened the investigation into a number of other engine shutdowns that had occurred within the ANZ fleet on three different engine types, see Incident: ANZ B733 near Hamilton on May 8th 2011, engine shut down in flight and Incident: ANZ B763 at Auckland on Jun 9th 2011, engine failure.
The TAIC released following findings into the investigation of these engine shut downs:
Engine surges, while potentially alarming for passengers and possibly requiring an engine to be shut down, are not critical flight safety hazards.
- Prior to the surge, the RB211 engine had been operating within its design performance limits and there had been no indication that a stall or surge could occur at either San Francisco or Auckland.
- With the information available to him at the time, the San Francisco engineer made an appropriate decision to release the aeroplane to service.
- The spate of engine shutdown events between May and September 2011 involved 3 different engine types. There were no related circumstances and no evidence that the operator's maintenance practices contributed to any of the events.
The investigation reported, that the actual cause of the surges at San Francisco and Auckland could not be determined.
The TAIC reported that the engineer at San Francisco went beyond the requirements of the maintenance procedures when he reviewed weather conditions at the time of the occurrence as well as scheduled a high power ground run of the engine after finding no damage or anomaly at the engine. The ground run was completely without any anomaly, and the engineer released the aircraft back to service. The aircraft completed two uneventful flights afterwards, on approach to Auckland on its third flight after the San Francisco surge the engine surged again.
The TAIC analysed that the surge at Auckland while descending through 500 feet was more severe, during the surge the EGT exceeded the maximum limit forcing the engine to be shut down. The crew continued for a safe landing on three engines. Following landing the engine was removed from the aircraft and underwent examination, the stage 1 high pressure compressor blades were found bent and 6 tips of the stage 2 high pressure compressor blades were curled. Sections of the high pressure compressor case liner were missing. Due to the more severe nature of the surge at Auckland all damage found after removal of the engine was attributed to the a significant surge event and it was considered reasonable that that event occurred at Auckland.
The investigation raised the question whether the number of engine shutdowns between May and September 2011 could have been the result of maintenance activities but found no link between the events and no anomaly with the maintenance and maintenance procedures at the operator.
Incident Facts
Date of incident
Sep 18, 2011
Classification
Incident
Aircraft Type
Boeing 747-400
ICAO Type Designator
B744
This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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