WI: Flight QF32 is destroyed?

[Curiousone]

OTL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QF32) an Airbus A380 suffered an uncontrolled engine failure (the engine exploded) in 2010. With 469 people on board the aircraft suffered extensive problems before barely managing a landing in Singapore. Luckily, at hand onboard that flight were additional crew qualified with the systems on board that helped to prevent disaster.

Even when at Singapore it sat on the runway for hours with large amounts of fuel leaking, an engine running, fire trucks drenching the plane.

WI the engine failure proceed slightly differently & it either dis-intergrated over water (with the concern that it might have been terrorism) or burned on the runway?

 

[Demon-Something]

DC-10 drama all over again. Considering how publicized the A380 was at the time, there would be a grounding. Lots of news shots of Qantas wreckage interspersed with rows of grounded A380s. News anchors and the general public, uninformed of aviation, will directly blame Airbus instead of Rolls Royce. The A380 undergoes a time of being an "unsafe plane." Sales never top initial highs.

 

[Michel Van]

They escape very close a Disaster

as the engine failed, pieces ram true wing structure

it miss a fuel line to the Engine AND the wing fuel tank (blue)!

Had the piece hit bull eyes the wing fuel tank, the A380 was be doomed.
flying with tank that run empty while feeding engine shot down.
They got a now unbalanced Aircraft with asymmetric thrust with heavy wing and empty wing with death engine.
the A380 will fall sideways, while crew try to keep the plane in balance.
and a crew who has not much experience with this new Aircraft, it will crash.

For Airbus, a Flight QF32 disaster with 469 people death, it would be the death blow for A380 aircraft program.
the biggest Aircraft ever build and it has engine that blow up...

 

[SactoMan101]

The result would not only end the A380 program, but Airbus would be forced to accelerate the A350XWB program. Meanwhile, Boeing ends up with an earlier project start to what is now the 777-8 and 777-9 models as airlines around the world scramble to buy alternatives to the A380. There might even been healthy 747-8I sales, too.

 

[historyfool]

And what would be the effects on Qantas? They are considered one of the safest airlines worldwide, because their last accident with fatalities was in 1951. This one would the first one with a jet and most likely exceed the number of fatalities of all previous incidents together (counting the two shot down planes 99). Often airlines gain some suspicions against their maintenance from such accidents.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Quantas could survive with proper crisis management. The problem lay elsewhere and the blame clearly fixed outside the Quantas name. This alsways room for mismanagement in these situations, but the odds are Quantas leadership would make the right choices.

 

[Æsir]

The result would not only end the A380 program, but Airbus would be forced to accelerate the A350XWB program. Meanwhile, Boeing ends up with an earlier project start to what is now the 777-8 and 777-9 models as airlines around the world scramble to buy alternatives to the A380. There might even been healthy 747-8I sales, too.

The problem was unique to the Rolls-Royce Trent IIRC (and could potentially have struck other Trent powered aircraft I believe), which has also had some other unrelated problems in the recent past (the problem with the fuel-oil heat exchanger that caused BA38 to crash on landing, for instance) and the A350 XWB only offers Trent engines IOTL. Perhaps a QF32 disaster prompts Airbus to strike a deal with GE and/or Pratt & Whitney to offer either the GEnx or an Engine Alliance GP7000 derivative on the A350 as was considered IOTL but never came to fruition?

 

[Cockroach]

And what would be the effects on Qantas?

Often airlines gain some suspicions against their maintenance from such accidents.

Quantas could survive with proper crisis management.

It would be a major blow, but assuming the cause of the accident is identified in a timely fashion (not a give) it shouldn't be fatal to QANTAS. I suspect it would also put pressure on Qantas to bring maintinance of the A380 onshore (Australia) rather than contracting it out to Asian based companies.

That said, the current (mis-)management of QANTAS headed up by Alan Joyce haven't exactly got the best reputation. It says something when in reply to the most harmless form of industrial action (pilots not wearing regulation ties in protest over transfering jobs to NZ based 'puppet' company) the company decides to ground it's entire international fleet for three days...

 

[Demon-Something]

And what would be the effects on Qantas? They are considered one of the safest airlines worldwide, because their last accident with fatalities was in 1951. This one would the first one with a jet and most likely exceed the number of fatalities of all previous incidents together (counting the two shot down planes 99). Often airlines gain some suspicions against their maintenance from such accidents.

One crash won't kill an airline, especially in a limited market like Australia. Back in the first half of the Nineties, US Air had a crash a year. In 1996, they became US Airways, and are now one of the four major carries left in the US.