[Potakas]

Breaking News: Singapore Airlines temporarily halts flights of its fleet of 11 Airbus A380s to carry out precautionary checks.

From CNN

[Age_of_Reason]

Good to see that good business sense and professional approach to risk management is prevailing.

I for one cannot imagine that Airbus was anything but supportive of the ‘Irish CEO in Sydney’ ‘s prompt action to preserve QANTAS and the A380’s zer0-fatality record.

In the face of scare-mongering by CNN in the small hours for the eternity while QANTAS got their plane down, and the mad hour which followed with passengers posting wing-damage on U-Tube and i-report, and astounded Indonesians displaying jagged metal which came out of the sky, this Irishman made a very appropriate live public broadcast.

Don’t we just wish that a Pan-Am exec had been in a position to make such a speech to astounded residents of Lockerbie?

The parochial PR machine was in full swing also pointing out that both RR and GE make engines for the A380, and the incidents so far seem to be unique to RR. Maybe just British open-ness (naivety), but don’t miss the reality that the US aviation oligopoly never misses an opportunity to bad-mouth the europaeans.

[AMcWhirter]

According to departure info posted on heathrow.com, SIA’s morning A380 service to SIN (which should have left at 1055) is delayed until 1800.

The webcam at ZRH shows SIA’s A380 1055 departure for SIN still on the ground and under inspection:

http://cam4.unique.ch/cam.cgi?x=31.00&y=-6.00&z=2&l=1&i=1288882021

[Binman62]

Age-of-Reason. I cannot see neither the business sense nor the professionalism that you refer to in any CEO making such a decision with almost no information beyond that a serious incident occurred.
In doing so he gave the Americans the very publicity that Airbus would almost certainly wish to avoid and he almost certainly did so without input from RR. That he has not been followed or supported in his decision by SQ (they appear to have delayed flights rather than ground the fleet with SQ317 for example at LHR delayed 4.5 hrs at the moment.) suggests that this might be his “Ratner” moment, in that effectively he doubted the safety of his own product and said so publicly. As a result I think Qantas have snatched a PR disaster from the jaws of a PR victory.

Clearly these are my personal views and based on nothing more than what I have seen and read on the news, as such they are speculative but in the absence of public comment from Airbus or Rolls Royce surely not unreasonable.

[Potakas]

Binman i agree in all you said about the PR outcome, but i think it is the proper decision to do, as unfortunately he has no clue why the engine ”exploded” , i don’t think that they should fly planes that maybe their engines could explode without a reason, when they will understand what happened then they could decide if the RR engines remain safe.

Regards

Potakas

[Age_of_Reason]

Oh dear, gents! You really are a naive bunch and i hope none of you are in positions with responsibility for my safety as a passenger.

Get real – if a loaded A380 falls out of the sky due to a manufactured part failing it’s the end of Airbus, and the affected airline. And rightly so.

And given the news stories of the 2nd and 3rd Nov2010 then suffering a bomb-initiated crash would be little better.

Did you understand my words about Pan-Am?

I’m surprised nobody has conjectured that a speck of dirt from Krakatoa caused the engine-failure ….

[metheman]

This look very similar to the BA 777 which ( I think ) landed in Amsterdam a couple of months ago, after suffering a “damaged” engine that they were unaware of ,which they only realised after landing, due to excessive fuel usage. I cannot remember all the facts but think it was coming from Singapore, and as they noticed an increased fuel usage, diverted to Amsterdam..There they found the engine had been damaged…Will try and find the article

[pomerol]

Age-of-Reason

Well said, a welcome return to common sense.

Binman62

I dispair at some of your assertions, how on earth could you possibly know what information or not, that the CEO was basing any of his decisions on?

[Age_of_Reason]

Interesting scenario, Martin, whether hypothetical or real. So a different Irish CEO was faced with one of his planes running on empty over NW europe having to decide whether to divert to AMS thus avoiding the risk of dropping the plane in the North Sea, or on Central London (no Lufthanswaffe jokes please) or on the LHR perimeter fence (one was unfortunate, two would be distinctly careless).

That would be a no-brainer (no irish jokes please).

But so, IMHO, was Mr Joyce’s good decision.

[Binman62]

age-of-reason. Aircraft crash, people are killed every year, sometimes it is pilot error, sometimes it is mechanical, sometimes both. It is thankfully rarely terrorism.

Flying is risky but driving is inherently riskier yet I do not see Toyota going out of business because their cars had a bad brakes!.

PanAm went bust because they failed to adapt to the market not simply because they crashed as a result of an act of terrorism and then handled it badly.

SQ had a horrible accident in Taiwan. BA had Manchester, pilots being sucked out of windows and a 777 losing power on final approach. The latter did not result in BA grounding the entire 777 fleet and I would speculate that this was a more serious event than today’s engine failure.

I did not stop flying BA or 777s as a result, nor Qantas after the hole appeared in one of their aircraft or after one slid off a BKK runway because I never doubted that the incidents themselves were part and parcel of the risk of flying and today’s event was no different. Far from being naive I think that is the only rational approach to take.

Today Qantas suffered a incident which despite its undoubted seriousness, has become headline news globally not because of the incident per se, but because of the actions of the CEO following it.

Pomerol. Please read my posting, I am happy for people to disagree with me and to engage in debate but I did make clear that my comments were personal, speculative and based on the absence of news or information from either RR or Airbus.

SQ have delayed flights not grounded a fleet and have acted in compliance with a request from RR. This to my mind was the right and proper course of action.

You are of course right that we will only know the full story in time but it is entirely reasonable to speculate in the absence of other information.

[PaulJennings]

Qantas have done exactly the right thing. They have grounded the fleet as a precaution in the absence of useful information.

This is being risk averse and as a passenger I am more than happy with this approach.

This time tomorrow we may find the Qantas fleet back in operation along with that of SQ and LH. I really don’t think their reputation will suffer as a result of this.

[Tom Otley]

Some video shot inflight on the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11692478

[Deleted User]

Binman – I dont think it was the grounding of the 380 that casued the headlines – it was the fact that this was the first serious incident to the newest commercial jet in service, that just also happens to carry the alrgest number of souls on board.

Whether grounding the fleet was right or wrong is really irelevant. Qantas had no choice other than to ground the fleet!

[Potakas]

Just more info about the flight SQ317 from London to Singapore, has extended its delay for another one hour until 19.00

[pomerol]

Some interesting info on the link below, relating to the A380 Engine Failure.

http://www.flightglobal.com

Also of possible interest, President Hu Jintao of China signed a deal today in Paris for 102 Airbus aircraft.

[Author]

Posts