WASHINGTON — Nobody trains for chaos like this. Out the pilots’ left window, far above the ocean, a jet engine as big as a bus had disintegrated, blasting shrapnel holes in the superjumbo’s wing. And now an overwhelming flood of computer alarms was warning the pilots that critical systems might be failing.
Two weeks after the pilots somehow landed their Qantas jetliner and its 450 passengers, their two-hour cockpit drama was described Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press by the vice president of the Australian and International Pilots Association.
“The amount of failures is unprecedented,” said Richard Woodward, a fellow Qantas A380 pilot who has spoken to all five pilots. “There is probably a one-in-100-million chance to have all that go wrong.”
Engine pieces sliced electric cables and hydraulic lines in the wing. Would the pilots still be able to fly the seven-story-tall plane? The wing’s forward spar — one of the beams that attaches it to the plane — was damaged as well. And the wing’s two fuel tanks were punctured. As fuel leaked out, a growing imbalance was created between the left and right sides of the plane, Woodward said.
Electrical-power problems prevented the pilots from pumping fuel forward from tanks in the tail. The plane became tail-heavy. That may have posed the greatest risk, safety experts said. If the plane got too far out of balance, the Singapore-to- Sydney jetliner would lose lift, stall and crash.
And then there was that incredible stream of computer messages, 54 in all, alerting the pilots to system failures or warning of impending failures.
As luck would have it, there were five experienced pilots — including three captains — aboard the plane. The flight’s captain, Richard de Cres pigny, was being given his annual check ride — a test of his piloting skills — by another captain. That man was himself being evaluated by a third captain. There were also first and second officers, part of the normal three-pilot team. In all, the crew had more than 100 years of flying experience.
Attention since the Nov. 4 incident has focused on the Airbus 380’s damaged Rolls-Royce engine. As many as half of the 80 engines that power A380s, the world’s largest jetliners, may need to be replaced, Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said Thursday. Qantas has grounded its fleet of six A380s.
The drama two weeks ago still wasn’t over when the pilots got the plane back to Singapore and the runway was in sight. Wing flaps that slow the plane were inoperable. So were the landing-gear doors. The pilots used gravity to lower the gear.
Brake temperatures reached more than 1,650 degrees during the landing, causing several flat tires. Leaking fuel could have caused a fire.
