Air Crash Investigation - tonight 9pm

...is the Qantas A380 incident from a year or two back. Could be an interesting insight. (National Geographic HD)

Thanks for the info, just put it on record!

I happened to watch that and given the damage that was caused it is amazing they managed to get the plane down in one piece. Subsequently Rolls Royce were blamed for it and had to pay Qantas £62 million pounds.

I watched it; astonishing how a misaligned counter bore in an oil stub pipe could completely destroy an engine and take out so many other systems.

The professionalism of the crew in managing the event was equally evident; not least in landing without being able to dump fuel, relying on a gravity drop emergency extension of the undercarriage, and keeping the passengers on the metal until the retardant foam had eliminated the risk of fire from the fuel leak, overheated brakes from landing heavy (350 m of a 4000 m runway remained) and shut down the number one engine; that took 3 hours.

The programme didn't mention that four tyres were blown due to the necessary approach speed of around 165 kt, around 35kt over speed due to being around 50 tonnes over the maximum landing weight and with disabled leading-edge slats, and that the ABS had also been disabled by the destruction of the number two engine.

So, well done to Captain Richard Champion de Crespigny, First Officer Matt Hicks, Second Officera Mark Johnson, Supervising Check Captain David Evans and the remainder of the crew.

The flight crew of Qantas QF32 received The International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations' Polaris award recognising the crew's skill, professionalism and composure, as well as their "exceptional airmanship", in dealing with the spectacular turbine disc failure in the aircraft's number 2 engine.

That is spot on. Apparently it cost $139 million dollars to repair the plane before it saw any further action in the air. It is no wonder that Allan Joyce sought to seek compensation from Rolls Royce