This is your captain speaking
There was a hole
in the wing, fuel was gushing out and the second engine was in a bad state. So
how did a Qantas pilot prevent what could have been the world’s worst aircraft
disaster? PRISCILLA CRIGHTON reports What should have been a routine, scheduled flight out of Singapore to Sydney on November 4, 2010, made breaking news throughout the world as Qantas’ impeccable safety record very nearly took a serious hit. The superjumbo A380 aircraft, the biggest and most advanced commercial airliner in the world, had been crippled mid-air when its second engine exploded just minutes after take-off. What happened next could only be described as a catastrophe as flight instruments failed and the cockpit was left with the sounds of a multitude of alarms and signals. With 469 passengers and crew on board, Captain Richard de Crespigny was the man in charge of flight QF32 – a flight which could have gone down as one of the world’s worst aviation disasters. However, as fate would have it, the flight deck had an extra two pilots on staff on this day due to routine checks that were being carried out. A total of 140 years of piloting skills lay at the helm of the craft – which definitely played a part in the successful landing of the broken plane. Nonetheless, it was 27-year Qantas veteran and former RAAF pilot de Crespigny who called the shots on this occasion and successfully landed this monster of the air. |  The broken engine of the Qantas A380 |
“I’d been flying the A380s for two and a half years. I conducted my flying training in the simulator in Sydney in March 2008, and then flew Airbus’ own test A380 aircraft over France in June 2008. I flew my first Qantas operational sectors [Sydney-Los Angeles-Sydney] in November 2008.”
The morning of the 4th November 2010 remains etched in de Crespigny’s memory as perfect for flying – “28 degrees, a light southerly breeze and clear sunny skies". However, just four minutes into the flight a sudden “boom, boom” rocked the plane and sent flight instruments into chaos.
While passengers saw pieces of metal and engine flying past their windows, shrapnel piercing the wing and fuselage, de Crespigny says he and his team couldn’t see exactly what had happened and had to rely on what the aircraft was telling them through its intensive checklist system; and what it was telling them was extremely alarming.
Despite this, an amazing calm took over the flight deck as the team of pilots put their emergency plans into place. “Our knowledge, training and experience gave us known tools to handle the emergency and prevented the stressful situation from startling us into a condition of panic or ‘playing dead’. We all kept our composure on the flight deck because we knew exactly what to do.
“What I did immediately might surprise many, because I ignored the warning horns, the red lights on the panels above and below and the checklists on the centre panels. I focused only on one issue, the first commandment in aviation – FLY THE AEROPLANE. We commenced the engine failure drills and checklists only after safe flight was guaranteed, probably 20 seconds after the initial explosions.”
The checklists showed that every system on the aircraft had been degraded – an unbelievable amount of damage had occurred. However, Qantas pilots are highly-trained and are well-prepared to cope with mid-air dramas. “A pilot's life is a life of study, learning, being mentored and continual self-assessment. Good enough is never good enough. If you don't strive for perfection then you have no place in an aircraft cockpit,” says de Crespigny.
There were so many things that proceeded to go wrong during QF32 that it cannot be replicated in a simulator today. There was an extreme amount of damage, so de Crespigny and his team decided to protect the aircraft at what he regarded as the most basic level possible. “That was to position it within gliding range of Singapore.” It was something he hadn’t done since his time in the airforce.
Although de Crespigny jokes that it was his finest landing, he believes most of the credit should lay with the incredible design of the A380. “It’s the biggest testament to Airbus. The aircraft didn’t just recover, it performed brilliantly. It’s indestructible.” This praise for Airbus has been seconded by accident investigator Geoff Dell from CQUniversity. “The design of the A380 played a key part in the successful outcome with QF32. The magnitude of damage to the critical control systems that the catastrophic failure of the engine caused would have been sufficient to have led to the immediate loss of control of the aircraft in nearly all other airliner types flying today. “Also the way that the captain managed the emergency and the crew coordination throughout the event epitomised the cutting edge in aviation human factors. Indeed, the fundamentals of airmanship exhibited by the captain and the flight crew were critical in keeping the aircraft within its safe flight envelope both from a controllability and centre of gravity perspective. “It is interesting that Captain de Crespigny acknowledged in his book [recently released] that they applied the first lesson in managing in-flight emergencies that every student pilot is taught on the first day of flight school. That is, no matter what happens, fly the aircraft, or otherwise stated in order: aviate, navigate, investigate, mitigate.” |
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Dell says there’s
been many crashes over the years where the crew were so involved in trying to
solve a problem, they forgot to fly the aircraft and crashed anyway. The most
famous example was an Eastern Airlines Lockheed L1011 that crashed into the
Everglades in Florida. All the flight crew became engrossed in trying to
determine whether the nose undercarriage was down after the nose gear down
light failed to illuminate when the gear was extended for landing. The failure
of a 20 cent light globe led to the total loss of the aircraft and many lives.
Investigations into the cause of the QF32 incident has since determined that the engine explosion was caused by a manufacturing defect in an oil feed pipe in the Rolls-Royce Engine. The issues with the engine have since been fixed and the A380s are back in the air after a brief grounding.
Nonet
heless, the
QF incident will challenge the aviation industry’s key minds for years to come.
Dell believes some of the main issues for the future will be: how do we ensure
flight crews are skilled to manage emergencies in modern digital fly by wire
‘glass cockpit’ aircraft; how do we ensure skills don’t get eroded by a growth
in aircraft automation; and should we put trust in an automated, problem diagnosis
system. However despite these, Dell believes QF32 was absolute proof of the
integrity of the aviation safety system.
“The issues highlighted by the QF32 experience are at the core of our new Accident Forensics suite of programs at CQUniversity. Indeed that’s one of the reasons we built the accident forensics programs, to grow the number of people with the knowledge and expertise in this field. The instant interest from students shows there is a thirst to get involved.”
Captain Richard de Crespigny retells his incredible story of QF32 in a recently released book of the same name. It’s available through CQUni Bookshop www.bookshop.cqu.edu.au and all good book stores RRP $34.99.
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