[Peetwo]

Jetstar probed over engine shutdown

 
Moving on: To Mitchell's credit he has not been deterred by the constant diatribe, by Mick and his fan club, that the Jetstar Guam incident is a non-event, & therefore a non-story. In the Oz today:

Engine shutdown risk for Jetstar Dreamliner fleet

• Mitchell Bingemann
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM August 18, 2016
  @Mitch_Hell
  [img=0x0]http://pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/4c134add4c3a9e4881f7841b69d9ac85/?esi=true&t_product=the-australian&t_template=s3/austemp-article_common/vertical/author/widget&td_bio=false[/img]
  

Planes in Jetstar’s Dreamliner fleet are flying with a known ­engine problem that could trigger a mid-flight engine shutdown such as the one that recently forced one of its Boeing-787s to divert to the Pacific island of Guam.

The Australian understands Jetstar has been working on the engine issue, which can lead to a loss of oil pressure, since March and has made repairs to 11 of its 24 General Electric-made GEnx ­engines, meaning about half the airline’s Dreamliner fleet could be operating with the problem.

A Jetstar spokesman said the figure of 11 repaired engines was “not correct”, but declined to ­reveal whether the airline had ­repaired more or less than the quoted number.
A service bulletin issued early this year by General Electric to operators of Dreamliners fitted with the GEnx engine said the issue related to a problem with the “transfer gearbox”.

It recommended operators of the Dreamliner modify a “dampened radial gearshaft” to prevent “induced resonance failures that have caused approximately eight in-flight engine shutdowns and oil loss events across the world.”

“A resonance-induced failure means a component of the ­aircraft engine developing an ­uncontrolled vibration,” said Marcus Diamond, a safety and technical consultant at the Australian Federation of Air ­Pilots.

Jetstar — which operates a fleet of 11 twin-engine Boeing 787-8s — confirmed the service bulletin had been issued to the airline but declined to share ­details of it with The Australian.

“Jetstar has been working closely with GE on the service bulletin,” the Jetstar spokesman said. “We are well progressed on our fleet and will have all aircraft engines completed months ahead of the recommended timeframe from GE.

“We are continuing our invest­igations into the cause of the engine issue with GE on the aircraft that diverted to Guam.”

Service bulletins alert operat­ors to known issues in aircraft components, but the instructions are optional and not as serious as “airworthiness directives” that mandate airlines to make modifications by a specific deadline.

The General Electric-issued service bulletin said modifi­cations to fix the known fault should be completed between November 30 this year and March 31 next year, depending on the model of engine. Jetstar is on track to complete the modifi­cations on the affected engines by the end of November.

The engine issue also affects Dreamliners operated by airlines such as Air Canada, Air India, China Southern, United Airlines and Etihad Airways that fly from Australian airports.
General Electric says it continually monitors and analyses the performance of the GEnx ­engine fleet. “Based on the engine fleet’s service history, we are not aware of operational issues that would hazard the continued safe flight of aircraft powered by these engines,” a spokeswoman said.

“As a relatively new engine in commercial airline service, the GEnx by any statistical measure (dispatch reliability, engine remov­als, in-flight shutdown rates) is exhibiting outstanding reliability powering the 787.”

Last week, Jetstar was forced to divert to Guam a one-year-old Dreamliner flying from Japan to the Gold Coast, because of an oil pressure problem with one of its GEnx engines. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is invest­igating the incident.

And as is becoming routine, Mick is back and ironically he mentions the AirAsiaX inflight engine shutdown incident as a further attempt to discredit Binger:  

Gordon

1 hour ago

@Henry Read Mick's post above. I am an aircraft operations layman, but Mick sounds like he knows what he's talking about.   I'm betting this reporter from the Australian does not and the whole thing is a beat up designed to scare people unnecessarily.

Mick
42 minutes ago

@Gordon   It is a beat-up, a shameless beat-up.   Meanwhile, real aviation news, like the inflight shut-down of an engine on an AirAsia X A330 out of Sydney on Tuesday, goes unreported.

To put this in context this is the post chain, which includes the 'Mick' post to which Gordon refers Henry to:

arlys

3 hours ago

All aircraft who fly in this country, have to meet strict guidelines. A new aircraft like the B787, will always have shakedown problems, but having already flown close to a million miles, safely, its something the Engineers have decided needs attention, and will do so promptly, and efficiently, in this country. The B787 passes a ETOPS which allows it to fly 330 minutes from a landing field, suitable to its type, the normal ETOPS is 180 minutes, which means this aircraft can fly on one engine safely for a extended time officially.

---

Mick
2 hours ago

As Arlys points out, these engines are required to meet Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standards (ETOPS).   The ETOPS inflight shut-down (IFSD) requirement is no more than 0.02 IFSDs per 1000 engine hours, which is the same as 20 shutdowns per million hours.  To be clear, that means, on the average, one inflight engine shut-down every 50,000 engine hours.   The General Electric GEnx engine exceeds that reliability requirement by more than a factor of six.  Its reliability is at or about on a par with more "mature" engines such as the CFM CF6-80C2 (Airbus A300, Airbus A310, Boeing B767), the General Electric GE90 (Boeing B777) and the Pratt and Whitney PW4000 (Airbus A300, Airbus A310, Boeing B747). 

Service bulletins are issued by airplane and airplane engine manufacturers all of the time.   The fact that this matter is being dealt with via a service bulletin and not a directive indicates that it is not a time critical matter.   And some context for the "... failures that have caused approximately eight in-flight engine shutdowns and oil loss events across the world.", there are well over 1,000 GEnx engines currently in service around the world (it's one of the fastest selling airplane engines of all time) and it has accumulated around 7 million operating hours;  so the failure rate associated with the dampened radial gearshaft is about 0.0011 per 1,000 engine hours!

Regrettably while The Australian follows what seems to be becoming standard practice of flogging old stories to death, real aviation news just seems to pass by unobserved and unreported (well, by The Australian anyway). 

For those interested, on Tuesday, 16 August, the crew of an AirAsia X Airbus A330-300 operating as Flight D7-221 from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur was forced perform an inflight shutdown of the starboard Rolls Royce Trent 772 engine after receiving a low oil pressure warning.   The airplane was some 340 kilometres south east of Alice Springs at the time and diverted safely to Melbourne.   There have been four incidents involving RR Trent 772 engines on Airbus A330-300s in less than two months, on three occasions the engine has been shutdown in flight. 

Mick
52 minutes ago

A correction to my post above.   The requisite in-flight shut-down rate for ETOPS 330 is less than 0.01 IFSDs per 1000 engine hours, which is the same as 10 shutdowns per million hours (less than 0.02 IFSDs per 1000 engine hours as stated above is the ETOPS 180 requirement).   The General Electric GEnx is therefore more than three times more reliable than the requisite standard. 

 
So is this developing story worthy of MSM coverage; or (as Mick alludes) is it just another - 'nothing to see here, move along' - beat up incident that should not have been given oxygen? 

I agree that such stories should not be sensationalised, however the MSM has an important role to play within a State's aviation safety investigation & administration. For far too long Oz MSM has buried it's head in the sand on major airline aviation incidents & accidents all because it is simply too hard to tackle an area so heavily protected by obfuscating bureaucracy and enshrouded in 'mystique of aviation safety' issues.   

Therefore I applaud Mitchell for having a crack at this one, he is not always going to get it right but provided he sticks to the facts as presented he will begin to garner an informed industry readership while keeping the relevant authorities on their toes...     

MTF...P2

Ps I know it is a different world in aero-engine technology and stringent requirements etc. but I cannot go past some strange parallels with the attempted embuggerance of Jabiru aircraft, over their thru-bolt fractures and subsequent in-flight engine failures - just saying...

Update 02/09/16: Binger in the Oz today.

Jetstar incident ‘a known issue’

• Mitchell Bingemann
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM September 2, 2016
  

Jetstar has confirmed that the mid-flight engine shutdown that forced one of its Boeing Dream­liner jets to divert to Guam was caused by a known issue in one of the plane’s General Electric engines.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is investigating the incident but is still several months from releasing its official findings into why flight JQ12 — a one-year-old Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with 320 on board — was forced to divert to the US island territory of Guam on August 6.

But The Australian has learned that the shutdown was caused by a known issue in the General Electric GEnx engine that has resulted in other identical engine shutdowns in the past few years.

“This is the same issue that other airlines with GEnx engines have encountered, so we’re confident that we understand what happened and how to prevent it from occurring,” a Jetstar spokesman told The Australian.

The issue relates to a problem with the transfer gearbox in the GEnx engines fitted to Boeing 787-8s.

In a service bulletin issued to airlines this year, GE advised operators of the Dreamliner to modify the “dampened radial gearshaft” to prevent “induced resonance failures that have caused approximately eight in-flight engine shutdowns and oil loss events across the world”.

Service bulletins alert operators to known issues in aircraft components, but the instructions are optional and not as serious as airworthiness directives that mandate airlines to make modifications by a specific deadline.

The fix for the engines comes as Jetstar’s Dreamliner fleet clocked up 100,000 hours of flying this week.

Jetstar — which operates a fleet of 11 Boeing 787-8s — has been modifying its 24 GEnx engines since March. The Australian understands Jetstar has made repairs to 11 of those GEnx engines, meaning that some flights continue to be powered by engines with the issue. Boeing Dreamliners, however, are able to fly with only one engine working.
“GE has been working with our engineering team on this and we will complete the modifications on the remaining engines around five months ahead of schedule in November this year,” the Jetstar spokesman said.

The engine issue also affects Dreamliners operated by airlines such as Air Canada, Air India, China Southern, United Airlines and Etihad Airways that fly from Australian airports.

General Electric has defended the GEnx engine, used on about 270 Dreamliners and which has close to four million flight hours, saying it continually analyses the performance of the GEnx engine fleet, which has displayed “outstanding “reliability”.

There have been more than 20 incidents of in-flight engine failures with the GEnx engine dating back to 2013, not long after the Boeing Dreamliner aircraft first took to the skies for commercial operations.

Of the 22 recorded incidents, 15 were severe enough that pilots in charge of the aircraft switched off the engine mid-flight and returned to their port of origin or diverted to a nearby airport.

So the ATSB are investigating, Jetstar are onto it and proactively addressing the identified issue, therefore Binger is wrapping the story up until such time as the ATSB issues the final report. That is kind of how the system is supposed to work, fully transparent, nothing to hide and now on the public record.

Still doesn't stop Binger's resident troll from having another crack, while big noting himself with another long winded passage on the ICAO standards for twin-engine ETOPs - FDS..

Roger
1 hour ago


Jetstar. The new gold standard for the Qantas group. There was a time when these aircraft would have been taken out of service until the problem was fixed. No longer. Now they play Russian roulette.


Mick
2 hours ago


"...  flight JQ12 — a one-year-old Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner..."

For the third or fourth time in as many weeks, Mitchell, Jetstar don't operate -9 Dreamliners.


TIMOTHY
2 hours ago

Not much fun if both have to be shut down at the same time.


Mick
2 hours ago


@TIMOTHY  Significantly less fun than winning Lotto.   Pick six numbers for tomorrow's Lotto draw before you board a Jetstar Dreamliner out of Melbourne for Tokyo - you're 725 times more likely to win division 1 than having a dual engine failure on that 10 hour flight.


TIMOTHY
1 hour ago


@Mick. Try telling that to the punters on the flight that had the engine out over water! And if it is not much of an issue why do we have restrictions on over water ops for two but not three or four engine aircraft?


Mick

31 minutes ago


@TIMOTHY   They had an inflight engine shut-down, the Dreamliner is certified to fly for five and a half hours on one engine.

ETOPS restrictions apply to passenger-carrying airplanes with more than two engines when flying a route that entails flying farther than 180 minutes flying time from an adequate airport at an approved one-engine inoperative cruise speed under standard conditions in still air.  In short, ETOPS does apply to 3 and 4 engine airplanes.

The requisite in-flight shut-down (IFSD) rate for ETOPS 330 is less than 0.01 IFSDs per 1000 engine hours, which is the same as 10 shutdowns per million hours.   The General Electric GEnx is more than three times more reliable than the requisite standard.

 

Mick mate your a wanker...



MTF...P2