Qantas Flight 32: The view from the flight deck

Aviation journalist Tim Robinson, who serves as editor of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Aerospace International magazine, sat down with David Evans, who was one of the two check captains on board Qantas Flight 32 (in addition to the crew in command) when one of the A380 VH-OQA’s four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 exploded shortly after takeoff on November 4.

Harry Wubben (Route Check Captain, 20,000h), who was sitting next to Evans, shot the photo above from the center seat on the A380’s flight deck, and was sitting with Richard de Crespigny (Pilot in Command, 15,000h), Matt Hicks (First Officer, 11,000h and Mark Johnson (Second Officer 8,000h) during the take off from Singapore. As you can see, the aircraft’s number two engine has completely dropped off on the center display. To provide a sense of the depth and detail covered, here is a brief excerpt from the interview:

The Engine 2 was shut down. Part of the damage caused Engines 1 & 4 to go into a ‘degraded’ mode. The engines were still operating and Engine 3 was the only engine that was operating normally. Basically, dealing with all those things took some time, then the next series of messages were hydraulic problems. We had indications that the green hydraulic system was losing all its fluid. The Airbus A380 carries two and, unlike most conventional aeroplanes, most flying surfaces aren’t powered by hydraulics, they have their own electric-hydraulic actuators. There is a green and yellow system and they spilt their duties between things like brakes, undercarriage retraction/extension. With the green system out we had to deploy the nose gear and body gear using the gravity extension system. With the loss of the green system we dealt with that and curiously we had the hydraulic pumps of Engine 4 indicating failed as well. Engine 3, the trusty engine, was the only engine that was producing hydraulics for the aircraft for the yellow system.

Robinson’s also includes several additional photographs taken by Evans on the flight deck, as well as up-close shots of the aircraft and its destroyed main gear tires after the landing. A complete 30min recording is also available with the text of the interview.