Transport / Passenger Air
Mishaps / Engine Failures

Air France plane engine fails over Atlantic ... September 30, 2017

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41454712

Air France plane engine fails over Atlantic

A photo shows the view form a plane in mid-air, with a severely damaged engine clearly visible, with parts missing and substantial metal damageImage copyrightDAVID REHMAR


Passengers could see the damaged engine from windows mid-flight

An Air France flight from Paris to Los Angeles was forced to make a sudden diversion when it lost part of an engine over the Atlantic.

One of the four engines on the Airbus A380 flight AF66 failed west of Greenland on Saturday.

No-one was injured in the incident, but passengers remained on board hours after the landing at 15:42 GMT.

The plane was carrying 496 passengers and 24 crew at the time, an Air France spokesperson told AFP news agency.

David Rehmar, a former aircraft mechanic who was a passenger on the flight, told the BBC that based on his observations, the incident was a fan failure.

He said there was a sudden movement followed by a loud noise, which caused panic among the passengers.

'You heard a loud 'boom', and it was the vibration alone that made me think the engine had failed,' he said.

Mr Rehmar said that for a few moments, he thought 'we were going to go down.'

His worry that the aircraft's wing could have been compromised disappeared when the flight stabilised within 30 seconds. And he added that the pilots had quickly shut down the affected engine.


A view over the wing, showing land in the distance beyond, while the plane is still airborne. Mangled metal can be seen poking above the surface.Image copyrightDAVID REHMAR

The wing suffered no serious damage and the plane landed safely

The plane flew for about an hour on three engines before it reached Goose Bay Airport, in Labrador in eastern Canada.

Photos taken by passengers showed the cowling, or engine covering, completely destroyed, and some cosmetic damage to the wing's surface.

Mr Rehmar said that a bird strike was not a likely cause of the incident at such a high altitude, and his experience led him to believe the stage-one fan - the exterior fan blades on the front of the engine - had somehow failed. But the cause of any such failure is not yet clear.

Passengers were stranded on the plane in Canada for a number of hours, as the airport is not equipped to handle an Airbus A380.

He said passengers had been provided with meals and that the captain had come out to speak to passengers. Some posed with him in images posted on social media.

Two 777s were dispatched from Montreal to pick them up and transfer them to Los Angeles.

In a statement, Air France simply confirmed 'serious damage' to one engine and said its crew had 'handled this serious incident perfectly'.
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Engine breaks up on Air France Airbus A380, forcing emergency landing in Canada

Airbus plane taking 520 people from Paris to Los Angeles was diverted to Goose Bay, Newfoundland, following ‘serious damage’ to engine Photo taken by Air France passenger David Rehmar who was on the A380 flight from Paris to Los Angeles that was diverted to Newfoundland after one of its engines sustained serious damage. Photo taken by Air France passenger David Rehmar who was on the A380 flight from Paris to Los Angeles that was diverted to Newfoundland after one of its engines sustained serious damage. Photograph: David Rehmar

Agence France-Presse Sunday 1 October 2017 04.37 EDT First published on Saturday 30 September 2017 20.23 EDT


An Air France A380 superjumbo jetliner taking more than 500 people from Paris to Los Angeles made an emergency landing in Canada on Saturday following “serious damage” to one of its four engines, the airline said.

“Flight 066 landed without further damage at the Goose Bay military airport in Canada and all of the 520 people on board were evacuated with no injuries,” an Air France spokesman in Paris said.

The Airbus double-decker, wide body aircraft was rerouted as it passed over Greenland, landing in Goose Bay in eastern Canada, the spokesman said.

The landing went off with no problems for the jetliner carrying 496 passengers and 24 crew members, the spokesman said. The airline was exploring options to get the passengers to the US.

Video and photo images posted on social media, apparently by passengers or their relatives, showed extensive damage to the front of the outer starboard engine, with part of its external cowling stripped away.

The cause of the problem was unknown, with one of the plane’s passengers suggesting that a bird might have collided with the engine which was damaged.

The passenger, Miguel Amador, posted online brief video footage apparently filmed from a window of the plane showing the damaged engine.

“Engine failure halfway over the Atlantic ocean … birdstrike possibility,” he wrote.

A fellow passenger, Iskandar, tweeted that the AF66 passengers “have a memory of their flight which will last a long time”.

Air France operates 10 Airbus A380s, which are the largest passenger planes in the world.

Their version of the craft uses GP7200 engines, a giant turbofan built by General Electric and Pratt and Whitney of the US.

Goose Bay is a base operated by the Royal Canadian Air Force but is also a designated standby airport for diverted transatlantic flights.

Sales of the mammoth A380 have been sluggish and Airbus has said it will reduce production in 2019 to just eight of the superjumbos.

In 2015 the company produced 27 of them.

Nonetheless, Airbus CEO Tom Enders recently voiced confidence in the future of the plane.
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