Air France A380 CDG-LAX diverts to Goose Bay after engine badly damaged in-flight

[sn26567]

Mayday declared...
Air France #AF66 Paris to Los Angeles (A380 F-HPJE) is diverting to Goose Bay with mechanical issues.

[Passenger]

Mayday declared...
Air France #AF66 Paris to Los Angeles (A380 F-HPJE) is diverting to Goose Bay with mechanical issues.

Mayday indeed:

http://avherald.com/h?article=4af15205&opt=0
https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/air-f ... goose-bay/

[sn26567]

Stranded Air France A380 passengers in Goose Bay are rescued by a Nolinor 737-300 and an Air France 777-300ER, both dispatched from Montreal.

https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/air-f ... goose-bay/

[luchtzak]

Stranded Air France A380 passengers in Goose Bay are rescued by a Nolinor 737-300 and an Air France 777-300ER, both dispatched from Montreal.

https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/air-f ... goose-bay/

I couldn't believe that passengers had to stay in the aircraft for 23 hours, but confirmed via passengers on social media!

[sn26567]

Mayday declared...
Air France #AF66 Paris to Los Angeles (A380 F-HPJE) is diverting to Goose Bay with mechanical issues.

Mayday indeed:

http://avherald.com/h?article=4af15205&opt=0
https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/air-f ... goose-bay/

The engine for the return ferry will be carried to Goose Bay on an An-124 on 24 Nov. The damaged engine will be transported to Cardiff on 25 Nov.

Almost two months after the accident, the aircraft is still in Goose Bay. Costly accident!

[sn26567]

Mayday declared...
Air France #AF66 Paris to Los Angeles (A380 F-HPJE) is diverting to Goose Bay with mechanical issues.

Mayday indeed:

http://avherald.com/h?article=4af15205&opt=0
https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/air-f ... goose-bay/

The engine for the return ferry will be carried to Goose Bay on an An-124 on 24 Nov. The damaged engine will be transported to Cardiff on 25 Nov.

Almost two months after the accident, the aircraft is still in Goose Bay. Costly accident!

The Antonov An-124 is on her way to Goose Bay with a replacement "Engine Alliance" for Air France A380 F-HPJE:

[sn26567]

Mayday indeed:

http://avherald.com/h?article=4af15205&opt=0
https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/air-f ... goose-bay/

The engine for the return ferry will be carried to Goose Bay on an An-124 on 24 Nov. The damaged engine will be transported to Cardiff on 25 Nov.

Almost two months after the accident, the aircraft is still in Goose Bay. Costly accident!

The Antonov An-124 is on her way to Goose Bay with a replacement "Engine Alliance" for Air France A380 F-HPJE:

Air France plans to install a new GP7200 engine into its A380 which suffered an engine failure and fly it to Paris CDG by 06 December, then return the aircraft to normal operations from January 2018.

[KriVa]

Apparently, it will still be a 3-engine ferry, though. The "new" engine will be nothing more than dead weight in order not to unbalance the aircraft.
It might even be ferried on an Airbus registration.

[Passenger]

F-HPJE is almost back home! She's about to cross the Channel right now:

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/f-hpje

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/airc ... je#fc069bb

[Bralo20]

Apparently, it will still be a 3-engine ferry, though. The "new" engine will be nothing more than dead weight in order not to unbalance the aircraft.
It might even be ferried on an Airbus registration.

4 working engines ferry flight, they managed to repair the wing sufficiently enough to have the replacement engine operational.

[sn26567]

French investigators probing an engine explosion on an Air France A380 in 2017 are studying a possible manufacturing flaw with a key part in a move likely to trigger checks on dozens of A380s worldwide.

[sn26567]

BEA published its final report about the incident.

https://www.bea.aero/en/investigation-r ... 17-en-cro/

SUMMARY

On Saturday, 30 September 2017, the Airbus A380-861 operated by Air France, was carrying out scheduled flight AF066 from Paris (France) to Los Angeles (USA). It took off at 09:50. At 13:49, while the crew were changing en-route flight level, they heard an explosion and observed asymmetric thrust from the right side of the aeroplane, immediately followed by severe vibrations. The “ENG 4 STALL” and then the “ENG 4 FAIL” messages nearly simultaneously appeared on the ECAM. The crew diverted to Goose Bay airport (Canada) where they landed at 15:42 without any further incident.

A visual examination of the engine found that the fan, first rotating assembly at the front of the engine, along with the air inlet and fan case had separated in flight leading to slight damage to the surrounding structure of the aircraft.

The factors likely to have contributed to the accident include:

• engine designer’s/manufacturer’s lack of knowledge of the cold dwell fatigue phenomenon in the titanium alloy, Ti-6-4;
• absence of instructions from the certification bodies about taking into account macro-zones (i.e. colony of similarly oriented alpha grains) and the cold dwell fatigue phenomenon in the critical parts of an engine, when demonstrating conformity;
• absence of non-destructive means to detect the presence of unusual macro?zones in titanium alloy parts;
• an increase in the risk of having large macro-zones with increased intensity in large Ti-6-4 forgings due to bigger engines, and in particular, bigger fans.

After the accident, regular inspections of the fleet in service found that there were no cracks detected in the areas considered at risk on the fan hubs of the Engine Alliance engines equipping the A380. The certification bodies and engine manufacturers are currently considering how to better understand the cold dwell fatigue phenomenon and take it into account in the design of future engines.