QANTAS B744 Total Electrical Failure

[Check Pilot]

Shamelessly taken from another WEB site:

January 8, 2008

QANTAS faced a potential disaster on Monday when a jumbo jet en route from London lost all main electrical power and was forced to land on battery back-up.

Flight QF2 with 344 passengers on board was about 15 minutes from Bangkok when the highly unusual failure took place and a back-up system kicked in.

With the batteries providing power for up to an hour, aviation sources said the failure would have been a disaster if it had occurred further out to sea.

"If this had happened over the ocean in the middle of the night, it would probably have crashed," an experienced 747 pilot told The Australian last night.

The near-disaster came nine years after a Qantas 747 aquaplaned off the end of the runway at Bangkok airport, crashing through navigational equipment and finishing up across a perimeter road 220m away.

The crash, Qantas's worst in 40 years, caused about $100million in damage.

Qantas chief pilot Chris Manning and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau yesterday confirmed the incident took place as the plane returned from London. "The back-up system was activated and the aircraft landed safely," Captain Manning said.

"Qantas reported the incident to Boeing, the ATSB and Civil Aviation Safety Authority and is also conducting its own thorough investigation.

"The aircraft is currently being repaired and assessed."

ATSB deputy director of aviation safety investigation Julian Walsh said investigators had been advised of the failure and had asked for flight data and cockpit voice recorders to be quarantined.

He said the ATSB was liaising with Thai authorities about who should lead the investigation. It was too early to say what had happened, he said, but he agreed the failure was "unusual".

"Obviously Qantas, Boeing and ourselves are keen to get to the bottom of it," he said.

"The information I have at the moment is that it was a total power failure."

Mr Walsh said he understood the aircraft's systems went into a degraded mode under standby power to reduce the drain on the batteries. The 747-400 has four generators, one on each engine, plus two generators on the auxiliary power unit that sources said could be linked to the main system in an emergency.

A Qantas engineer familiar with the the 747-400's electrical systems said the failure was unheard of.

He said the battery back-up and standby inverter would supply power for up to an hour.

"It's pretty dramatic if they've lost all generation systems," hesaid.

The engineer agreed the APU generators could be used in an emergency but noted that would depend on the fault that had led to the loss of power.

Another 747-400 pilot said he was aware of two other instances when the electrical systems had failed and the aircraft went to the battery back-up. "It has happened before and the aeroplane can quite comfortably cope with it for a limited period of time," he said.

Australian and International Pilots Association president Ian Woods was also surprised that the plane had lost all power. "The pilots have done a good job in dealing with a highly unusual event," he said.
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Facts already established:

- All four generators were operating normally before the failure.

- The B744 APU cannot be started in flight.

- Even if it could be started, the APU would not have resolved the problem.

- There is no RAT (Ram Air Turbine) installed on the B744.

- Failure of the generating system left the crew with two standby instruments only, which (as most pilots will note with frustration) does not include an artificial horizon. All navigation systems failed. The EICAS page was, by some accounts, five pages long.

- There is some discussion regarding a central electrical bay getting soaked by an overflowing galley sink. Such speculation can be left for the investigation of course, although on another forum there is more information on this.


The crew did a great job handling the emergency and landing the aircraft safely.

Remarkably, there were no complaints from passengers regarding the loss of the passenger entertainment system or their seat lights.

The 3-pilot crew is paid about a half a million dollars a minute but nobody will ever know which one. The rest is for free. Anyone for on-the-cheap 200hr MCPL Wonder-Pilots for those automatic airplanes that fly themselves, to replace the expensive balance-sheet liabilities up front?

[costermonger]

Is it common that a jet's APU can't be used in this sort of a situation?

If so.. why?

[Doc]

Why wouldn't they engage the "bunny"?

[hawker driver]

I can't comment on the B747 APU but on the Hawker it is possible to start the APU during a complete power failure.

It is however discouraged since you will be using the battery power to start up the APU and if it does not start for any reason you could possibly drain your only source of power and go from having 60 minutes of battery power to having 5 minutes. It depends on your situation.

[. ._]

I'm not too familiar with the systems on that plane. In fact I know SFA about it, but if the engineers designed the thing to fall out of the sky if the batteries go dead, that's pretty crappy engineering.

-istp

[Justwannafly]

I'm not too familiar with the systems on that plane. In fact I know SFA about it, but if the engineers designed the thing to fall out of the sky if the batteries go dead, that's pretty crappy engineering.

-istp

yea I would epect that more on an airbus then a 30 year old boeing

[Liquid Charlie]

Damn -- u guys believe the details you get from the media -- whatever happened was likely not as reported and knowing most news media networks (just look at the CBC report on air canada tonight) - bring in your so called experts -- give me a break - it's all speculation -- not accurate news reporting. --

First -- it was reported to be a 400 series -- pretty new airplane and very automated -- "loss of all" (generators) is one of the worst fears -- very unlikely you won't be able to re-establish at least one generator but there is always that chance -- big ground fault that created an arc welder somewhere -- I don't know their checklist but to start the apu might not be allowed - There are built in redundancies that make such a failure a billion to one thing -- but as demonstrated -- never say never in this business and for those who are inexperienced or naive enough to sluff it off to a poorly designed airplane or the fact that their chevy is better than my ford --

These guys did their job -- landed the airplane with a backup system that was designed to save your ass on your worst day.

[ypph]

Oh-kay, spoke to a friend of mine last night who was cabin crew on the flight mentioned. She was working at Door Right 2. She said the seatbelt sign went on about 20mins or so out of BKK. About 5 minutes later she was sitting in complete darkenss, with water sloshing around her feet. The CSM (head cabin crw mmeber) was on the phone to the flight deck quickly to inform them about it, and from there they sat in the dark till landing.

Speaking to a work colleauge today who used tofly the -400 and he confirmed that the APU can NOT be started in flight. We disucussed this for a bit for on the A330 you can, and it also has a Ram Air Turbine which can be deployed to power the electrics and hydraulics.

The 400 has 4 generators (associated with then engines) and with that redundancy was one of the main reasons that it doesnot have a RAT or able to start APU in flight, because the chances of this happening are slim to none...

The worst case would have been that flight out lasted battery power, resulting in crew flying by, ASI, ALT and SDBY Compass. No communications, trying to find airfield

Capt: Ah anyone got the number off BKK approach in ya mobile?

Very fortunate that it occured when so close to an airport!

ps. Go Airbus

[. ._]

"If this had happened over the ocean in the middle of the night, it would probably have crashed," an experienced 747 pilot told The Australian last night.

From the article.

Because of that statement, I thought the engines needed battery power to run.

Now that we know this is not the case, this "experienced 747 pilot" is on glue, and the engineering is OK in my mind.

Anyone with a night endorsement can fly with the leftover instruments. WTF? Sensational media picking the stupidest quote.

IMHO, they probably would not have crashed. As long as you have engine power, you can get to somewhere to land, do a NORDO approach and bingo bango, you're on the ground.

No biggy.

-istp

[Liquid Charlie]

sounds like the potable water syndrome -- it happened in an air bus and I know that story so here's what happened with the bus -- going into cpg a DHL 300 (ya I know -- old airplane ) they had a water line break -- there is supposed to be a sheath around the line but it didn't hold and they dumped 45 gallons of water into the E&E bay (boeing term -- haha -- sorry don't know what the bus people call it) -- this had very dramatic effect on their electrical system -- they were on vectors for landing -- wx at cpg was about 400 overcast and vis was about a mile -- when all the lights went out (I got this first hand from the skipper) - they had just joined final -- he figured a controlled decent towards the water short of the runway and hoped to see something and land -- they got lucky - electrics cycled on and off just enough to get then on the runway -- but he said it was his worst nightmare -- I agree with him 1000%


PS -- because of the nature of the event -- non of the published procedures worked -- it was something that could never happen -- oh yeh -- 45 gallons of water in the e & e bay drill -- drill complete

PPS -- -- mister think of what you just said -- it ain't a super cub -- it is a big deal --

[Hedley]

worst case would have been that flight out lasted battery power, resulting in crew flying by, ASI, ALT and SDBY Compass

Too bad nobody has ever heard of something called
a "handheld GPS" :

http://www.canada-shops.com/Magasin/vip ... 832.2.html

This older $700 GPS has an emulated panel which
makes it possible to fly in cloud with no other
flight instruments, and easily overlay an approach.

This "handheld GPS" is powered by "batteries"
and hence does not require aircraft power.

Take a look into it

[. ._]

I'm sure someone would have had that feature on their cell phone too.

[Justwannafly]

I'm sure someone would have had that feature on their cell phone too.

lol I can just imagine the flight attendants going up & down the isles with flashlights asking everyone "do you have gps on your cell phone?" "Can the we use it to fly home?"

yep the passengers won't feel a bit worried on that flight lol