Operators of Rolls-Royce-powered Airbus A380s are set to be ordered to inspect the type’s engines for cracking of spacers between intermediate-pressure compressor discs. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency says examination of a Trent 900 rotor shaft revealed a crack in an interstage spacer between the stage two and stage three discs, and that a similar crack was subsequently found – in the same location – on another rotor shaft. “Investigation is ongoing to identify the cause of these cracks,” it states. “It has been determined that more engines could be affected by this cracking phenomenon.” EASA warns that the condition could potentially lead to failure of the intermediate pressure compressor rotor shaft and release of high-energy debris. Rolls-Royce has published inspection instructions and EASA is proposing to mandate the checks through an airworthiness directive. It will require on-wing borescope inspections – for certain engines – within 200 cycles, but will also order repetitive in-shop inspections of the rotor shaft. EASA is also proposing inspection of certain shafts prior to installation. Engines found to have cracks would have to be withdrawn from service before the aircraft’s next flight. Emirates and Singapore Airlines are the largest operators of Trent-powered A380s, with Lufthansa, British Airways and Qantas among other major customers.

Source: Cirium

South Africa’s ruling political party insists that embattled South African Airways should be restructured and retained as the country’s flag-carrier. The African National Congress made the declaration following strategy meetings of its national executive council over 17-20 January. It states that SAA should be “retained as a national airline” but that this will require “substantial restructuring” of the company. “Cabinet should take the operational decisions needed to achieve that aim,” it adds. The ANC states that it received details of the situation at SAA – as well as another state enterprise, electricity firm Eskom – along with “specific proposals” to improve the companies’ performance. It refers to the negative impact of historical agreements on SAA, including aircraft leases and evergreen contracts. Broadly, it says government oversight of public enterprises should be “streamlined” in order for the government to respond “more rapidly and rigorously” when problems arise. “Appropriate forms of partnership with private companies, investors and workers will be considered where it will enable the public enterprises better to fulfil their developmental role,” the ANC adds. Government support is needed to maintain the capabilities of the public enterprises, it states, but this must be contingent on their acting more efficiently. Such support, it says, “cannot be a blank cheque” that allows continuation of wasteful, inefficient and – in some cases – corrupt practices.

Source: Cirium

French investigators have disclosed that an Air France Airbus A319 was forced to make a single-engine landing at Paris Charles de Gaulle after an undetected indicator fault resulted in partial fuel exhaustion. Investigation authority BEA – which analysed the 12 March 2014 event – says pilots operating a series of Marseille-Nantes services performed a routine discrepancy check on the theoretical and actual fuel usage, and found the difference to be just 20kg. BEA says the aircraft had been experiencing intermittent failure of its fuel quantity indicator, and the actual difference was 880kg. Analysis of refuelling documents and technical log entries for the aircraft (F-GRHT) revealed several calculation errors by crews – sometimes as much as 1t – which, says BEA, suggests verifications of the calculations by the first officer was “not systematically carried out”. This could explain, it says, why the indicator failure was not previously identified and resolved. When a subsequent crew prepared the A319 for a Marseille-Paris flight, the jet indicated 3,780kg of fuel on board, and the pilots opted to uplift 1,200kg of fuel to bring the total to about 5,000kg. BEA found, however, that the actual fuel on board when the engines were started was about 3,800kg and that the fuel indicator was overestimating the quantity by 1,270kg. Just 15 minutes after take-off an automated alert warned of a low fuel level in the left wing tank. After a check, the crew believed this was a nuisance alarm linked to a known probe failure in the outer left tank. During the descent to 8,000ft, nearly one hour into the flight, the crew was alerted to a pressure drop in two fuel pumps on the left-hand CFM International CFM56 engine. An engine failure occurred a few minutes later. The crew declared an emergency and landed with only the right-hand powerplant running. Maintenance personnel found that the left tank was empty and only 1,100kg of fuel – equating to 150kg above final reserve – remained in the right tank. Inspection showed that the left and right engines had respectively burned 1,272kg and 1,525kg of fuel, confirming that the fuel-quantity indication of 5,080kg after the uplift at Marseille was a substantial overestimation.

Source: Cirium