Incident: Qantas B744 near San Francisco on Aug 31st 2010, uncontained engine failure
By Simon Hradecky, created Tuesday, Aug 31st 2010 14:48Z, last updated Wednesday, Sep 1st 2010 13:49Z
The hole in the engine
A Qantas Boeing 747-400, registration VH-OJP performing flight QF-74 (dep Aug 30th) from San Francisco,CA (USA) to Sydney,NS (Australia) with 212 passengers and 19 crew, was climbing through FL250 about 20 minutes into the flight, when the #4 engine (RB211, outer right hand) suffered an uncontained failure ripping a large hole into the outer engine cowling approximately abeam the turbine rotors. The crew shut the engine down, descended the aircraft to FL200, dumped fuel overhead the Pacific Ocean and returned to San Francisco for a safe landing about 80 minutes after departure.
Qantas said, the engine needs to be replaced.
The Australian Transportation Safety Board said, that the engine failure was mechanical in nature and uncontained, ejected materials puncturing a hole into the outboard engine nacelle and damaging the leading edge flaps. An investigation has been initiated.