QF121 Issue today

[Charlie Carter]

From up here in Wahroonga there was an A330 over head with gear down and I commented that the gear isnt usually down that early. I don't know a rego but was a Qantas A330 with the new paint scheme. Doesn't narrow it down much, I know...

[Owen H]

G'day Nigel,

Depends what you call "major". I'd only be speculating, but the loss of a single hydraulic system (whilst not an emergency) could account for loss of gear retraction as well as loss of nose gear steering which makes unnecessary ground handling undesirable.

Only a guess though.

[Nigel C]

Hey Owen,

There's a post on Pprune also saying a hydraulic line broke, so it's probably a fair guess as you put it.

IIRC the loss of hydraulics accounted for China Eastern's A340 chucking a near U-turn on landing at Sydney a few years ago, so the potential was there for a more 'major' outcome.

Cheers

[Darren Butterworth]

Wow - just watching the Channel 10 late news, this minor issue was built up to be quite a drama with a mention and images of the A330 WA incident in Oct08 and the Jan 10 A380 problem. I’m not sure that this would be the leading story if it wasn’t the day they released last years FY results.

[Stuart Trevena]

Hi All,

Another incident involving an Airbus aircraft.

Are they Jinxed or something?
QF / Jetstar have had nothing but problems since they took delivery of these A330's + A380's

Also why doesn't Airbus have a Fuel Dump valve on their aircraft?
Is is to much $$$$ or did they simply forget?

Surely, dumping fuel is quicker than flying around for hours on end to get to the correct landing weight.

Having said the above, can someone please tell if Boeing have a Fuel Dump System on their B767 and B777 Range. To my knowledge the B743 and 744, do have one, But I stand to be corrected if I am wrong.

Stuart

[Adam P.]

Another incident involving an Airbus aircraft.

Could have (and has) happened to any type Stuart. This sort of thing (meaning air return for some kind of fault that may or may not include the dangly bits) happens more often than the general public may know.

If you're going to have a landing gear failure, this way - stuck down - is much better than the other I reckon!

[Nigel C]

Adam's right (for once). There is a lot more that goes on than gets reported in the media, but I was sure the next incident would involve REX...I mean hey, Qantas, Jet* and Virgin have been hogging the limelight quite a bit recently.

Actually, there has been a recent report, not yet reported by others here, about REX.
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-...0217-ocbh.html

[Adam P.]

Yeah I did see that one Nige, interesting that noone picked it at the time - I thought they were going to talk about wheels falling off entirely again...

[Owen H]

Stuart,

Even if you are dumping fuel, it can take a significant period of time to get down to max landing weight. Fuel can only be thrown overboard at a finite rate, and quite often it is a lot of fuel that needs to go out. When you consider you need to manage the non-normal situation, assess the aircraft and formulate a plan, and THEN start thinking about dumping/burning fuel, it all takes time.

There are reasons for not having jettison capabilitity - cost is a big one, as is maintenance. If you aren't often operating in situations where you need it then I can understand the reluctance to have it on some models.

Some 767's have fuel jettison capability, some don't. Even those that do only jettison from the centre tank, so even after you've got all you possibly can off the aircraft, you're still above max landing weight. The 777 certainly can have jettison, and I'd imagine its not an "optional extra" like it is on the 767. For the 747-400, you're looking at close to an hour of jettison time to get from Max Takeoff Weight (MTOW) down to Max Landing Weight. If you didn't jettison, you'd be looking at well over 5 hours holding to get below MLW.

Its worth remembering if it is a time critical emergency you can land overweight (upto max takeoff weight) with minimal problems (other than an engineering inspection), so jettson is only really to minimise disruption, and less so for safety reasons these days.

As far as I know, a jettison system is an "optional extra" on this model of Airbus.

[Andrew P]

Originally Posted by Charlie Carter

From up here in Wahroonga there was an A330 over head with gear down and I commented that the gear isnt usually down that early. I don't know a rego but was a Qantas A330 with the new paint scheme. Doesn't narrow it down much, I know...

agree a QF A330 went over Pymble at about 2.05pm with its gear down

you be quite surprised the number that do have gear down by Pymble; a CX A330 the other day had its gear down (CX101)

very often it happens around 5.50am, as the plane is trying keep to minimum speed so it hits the runway spot on 6.00am (the curfew lift point)