Media Monitors Transcript

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Transcript

Station: CANBERRA CONFERENCE Date: 05/11/2010 UNIT

Program: PRESS CONFERENCE Time: 03:00 PM

Compere: 0 Summary ID: C00041256647

Item: IAN SANGSTON OUTLINES HOW THE AUSTRALIAN TRANSPORT SAFETY BUREAU HAS COMMENCED ITS INVESTIGATION INTO THE QANTAS AIRBUS A380 INFLIGHT ENGINE FAILURE NEAR SINGAPORE.

INTERVIEWEES: IAN SANGSTON, AUSTRALIAN SAFETY INVESTIGATIONS, AUSTRALIAN TRANSPORT SAFETY BUREAU.

Audience: Male 16+ Female 16+ All people N/A N/A N/A IAN SANGSTON: Ladies and gentlemen my name's Ian Sangston, and I'm the general manager of Aviation Safety Investigation at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, and thanks very much for coming along.

ATSB investigators have commenced their investigation of the occurrence involving a Qantas A380 aircraft that sustained an engine failure shortly after departing Singapore yesterday en route to Australia.

The investigators arrived in Singapore overnight and commenced examining the aircraft this afternoon. The aircraft's flight data, quick access and cockpit voice recorders have been recovered and returned to Australia. The flight data recorder was downloaded in Sydney this morning, and work is ongoing to download the remaining recorders. Page: 2

Seventy-seven hours of flight data has been recovered including from the occurrence flight. Information from the flight recorder will be supplemented by data from the quick access recorder. The cockpit voice recorder will be downloaded in the ATSB Canberra technical facilities.

Equally important is the physical evidence associated with the event. That includes the damage to the air frame, which is presently being examined by ATSB and Singapore investigators, and the engine and aircraft debris on the Indonesian island of Batam. The ATSB thanks the people of Batam Island and police for their efforts to collect and protect those items and components.

Investigators from the Indonesian investigation agency, the National Transportation Safety Committee, have also arrived on Batam Island to take custody of the recovered debris. The ATSB requests anyone who might find additional items or components on Batam to please pass them on to the local authorities for onforwarding to investigation authorities.

If there are any witnesses that feel they may have relevant information on the occurrence they are invited to call telephone number 1800 020 616 and speak to ATSB officers or to contact the ATSB via email at atsbinfo - one word, all lower case - @atsb.gov.au. Page: 3

The aircraft operating as QF32 departed Singapore at about 0957 or 9.57am yesterday 4 November for Sydney. Qantas has reported that there were 440 passengers and 26 crew on board. It appears that a number of abnormal engine indications on the number two engine commenced about four minutes after takeoff, and that the engine shut down at about one minute past 10. The aircraft was returned to Singapore and landed at 11.47 after reducing its fuel load.

The investigation of the occurrence, which occurred over Indonesian territory, is being investigated by the ATSB after being delegated by the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee in accordance with international protocols. Participation in the investigation as accredited representatives and advisers will include by the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch, who will be assisted by Rolls-Royce engineers, the French Burea d'Enquetes et d'Analyses pour la Securite, or the BEA, supported by Airbus engineers, the Indonesian Transportation Safety Committee, and the Air Accident Investigation Bureau of Singapore.

An investigation of this complexity can take up to one year to complete, however a preliminary factual report will be available on the ATSB website at www.atsb.gov.au no later than 30 days after the occurrence. Page: 4

Additionally, should any critical safety issues emerge that require urgent attention, the ATSB will immediately bring such issues to the attention of the relevant authorities who are best placed to take prompt action to address those issues.

I can now take questions.

QUESTION: Do you know what the abnormal reading was that suggested what was going wrong with the engine?

IAN SANGSTON: No, that's based on the very early examination of the flight data recorded information, and as I say there are 77 hours of that information which has got to be collated and separated into the occurrence flight before we go into in depth analysis.

QUESTION: Is there any suggestion or any evidence or anything suggesting foul play? It's the one thing nobody has talked about over this incident. Or does it seem to be just purely an engine problem that they're looking at?

IAN SANGSTON: Certainly by the relevant authorities there has been no suggestion of foul play at the moment, and we - if there was it would not be something the ATSB would be investigating. The ATSB investigates purely and simply to enhance transport safety and to prevent occurrences occurring again.

QUESTION: Is there anything you can say as to what you know so far about the actions of the pilot, whether his Page: 5

actions - you know - much has been made about how he did the right thing, is that what you know so far?

IAN SANGSTON: We haven't interviewed the flight crew as yet, but certainly all flight crews are extensively trained and practised in these sort of exercises, and it appears that this occurrence was handled very smoothly.

QUESTION: Do you have any information on precedents, like how many times this has occurred [indistinct]?

IAN SANGSTON: My understanding is that this is the first of such occurrences involving the A380 and engine combination.

QUESTION: If there are any [indistinct] problems detected, where [indistinct]? Are they flying [indistinct] to go [indistinct]?

IAN SANGSTON: There are different jurisdictions and different methodologies in different countries. In Australia the ATSB is a no blame, no liability investigative agency who, as I say, investigates purely to enhance transport safety and prevent these occurrences happening again. If there are any regulatory type issues or whatever that would be a matter for the Civil Aviation Safety Authority in Australia who's the regulatory, as I say, the regulatory authority. Page: 6

QUESTION: How many pieces of debris have you collected [indistinct]?

IAN SANGSTON: And what, sorry?

QUESTION: How many pieces of debris have been collected so far and [inaudible]?

IAN SANGSTON: As I said the people of Batam were very good, as were the police on Batam Island, and they gathered, I don't know the exact number, but they gathered a number of items including what appear to be engine -components of the engine, and they were taken into custody by the local authorities. We're just arranging at the moment with our national Indonesian investigation colleagues who are on the island, to have those items shipped to Singapore.

QUESTION: How complicated does it make it that there are so many different investigations involving several different countries? Is that rare or is that sort of something…

IAN SANGSTON: No in these sort of incidents that's not rare, and in fact there's not a lot of investigation agencies doing this investigation, the ATSB is doing this investigation. It was delegated by the chairman of the Indonesian authority yesterday.

And so the investigation is an ATSB investigation and there's an ATSB investigator in charge. It's a well-versed international protocol that countries Page: 7

that might have built the aircraft, built the engines, registered the aircraft, and so on, will be invited to appoint what are called accredited representatives to the investigation, and they get to partake in the investigation. Accredited representatives are able, under international protocols, to bring advisers to assist. And that would include, as I say, engineers from Rolls-Royce, engineers from Airbus, and so on.

QUESTION: Are there any preliminary theories about what has actually gone wrong?

IAN SANGSTON: No, it's very early in the piece. As I say, our investigators only just started examining the aircraft today. And we've got to gather those items from Batam which would probably prove very interesting, I would suggest, to our technical people, as in they will show fracture surfaces and so on, which are of much interest.

QUESTION: What is clear, that the explosion or the malfunction wasn't contained within the engine or the within the [indistinct]. Was there any threat to the fuselage or to the passenger cabin?

IAN SANGSTON: Depending on the degree of such what we call uncontained engine failures, yes, there can be a threat to passengers and the hull, or the fuselage.

In this case it appears that it's, for instance, done damage to the wing. Page: 8

QUESTION: And this is obviously - the failure has happened very early in the flight. Was it a particularly dangerous point that the plane was still taking off when this failure occurred, or where signs, readings were registering that something was wrong?

IAN SANGSTON: Well, as I say, pilots are well versed and well trained to handle such failures, virtually in all phases of flight. This was about four minutes after flight and I understand it's about 33 kilometres south of Singapore, and something higher than 6000 feet.

QUESTION: You mentioned the length of the investigation possibly taking a year. Do you foresee this aircraft being grounded for the entire length of that investigation or is there a point where it may be cleared to fly again?

IAN SANGSTON: Well, that's really a matter for the airline and for airworthiness authorities. And in Australia that airworthiness authority is CASA. But I understand that Qantas, together with Rolls-Royce, may be undertaking some sort of inspection regime shortly and that the aircraft may be back in the air in a few days.

QUESTION: How confident are you of getting to the bottom of this one? The one over the China Sea where the explosion, I don't think you got to the - really what went wrong there. There was the gas bottle exploded and… Page: 9

IAN SANGSTON: That report is not public yet. That report is likely to become public in the next couple of weeks and I'd prefer not to comment on that.

The investigation in this case, as was the case with that oxygen bottle, we have a great number of international colleagues to call on and a great number of - a great amount of expertise to call on, both in Australia and overseas. And you can already see we've got Rolls-Royce involved, we've got the British investigation agency involved, the Singaporeans and the Indonesians. And we're quite confident we'll understand the nature of the failure.

QUESTION: Why wasn't this engine fault picked up by maintenance workers?

IAN SANGSTON: There are certain things you will not pick up before they occur, and we don't really understand the nature of this as to whether it may or may not have - and what sort of maintenance requirements there were. That will be part of the ongoing investigation.

QUESTION: So you don't yet if it was in maintenance - the fault of maintenance workers as to this occurring or if it was just…

IAN SANGSTON: There's no suggestion at this stage that it was a fault of maintenance workers but I reiterate it's very, very early in the investigation. Page: 10

QUESTION: You said there was no threat to [indistinct] passengers in this instance but is that partly because of it's - where it was rather than… you know, if it was higher and further [indistinct] would the… would it be a different situation?

IAN SANGSTON: I apologise if I gave the impression there was no threat. Depending on the nature of an uncontained failure, there can be a threat to the fuselage.

QUESTION: But not in this case?

IAN SANGSTON: I understand there's been damage to the wing. I'm not aware of any damage to the fuselage as yet. But, as I say, we've only just started examining the aircraft.

QUESTION: Is that just a matter of luck then that the explosion went in such and such a direction and not blown out in the more dangerous area?

IAN SANGSTON: Well, there's a lot of energy in these engines and they're spinning around very fast, and I don't think you'd be able to predict where the failure might occur and when, and where any debris might travel.

QUESTION: So how lucky were these passengers?

IAN SANGSTON: Well, I don't know if you can quantify that. As I say, you can't really understand where any debris might travel. Page: 11

QUESTION: Can you just - you may have said it already but can you just clarify exactly how many investigators you've got in Indonesia and Singapore.

IAN SANGSTON: In Singapore, we have four investigators of a number of what we call disciplines. We've got two engineering - technical engineering experts, and we've got an aircraft engineer, and a manager. And we have - we obviously will involve the other agencies, as I said, and that process is in hand at the moment; they're all being signed up as investigators. So I can't give you that number. But we also have an ability to involve a number of other disciplines from Australia including cabin safety, human factors, air traffic experts if there's any air traffic things, operations like pilots.

QUESTION: And how many to Indonesia to collect the debris?

IAN SANGSTON: We haven't gone to Indonesia because our Indonesian colleagues are doing that. That's part of this collegiate, helping each other.

QUESTION: So how many investigators do you see as being involved in this?

IAN SANGSTON: It's hard to get a feel for that at the moment. Initially we've scoped this that four is sufficient, but obviously if the investigators on the ground need additional people we'll be sending them up there. Page: 12

QUESTION: What information have you got about the second engine that couldn't be shut down upon landing?

IAN SANGSTON: That's very early in the investigation as well. And certainly we'll be looking at that as part of the investigation so I can't really comment much more on that at this stage.

QUESTION: Have you got information - there's been a lot of calls to radio stations today talking about eyewitness accounts of seeing fuel leaking on the tarmac in Singapore from a punctured fuel tank. Is that something [indistinct]?

IAN SANGSTON: I haven't heard about that at this stage but certainly we'll be examining that sort of thing.

QUESTION: Are you satisfied that the aircraft [indistinct], any delays at the Changi airport [indistinct]?

IAN SANGSTON: I'm not aware of any - I can't really comment. I will say that the aircraft, as I said, did have to reduce its landing weight.

QUESTION: Could you give us an overall picture of Qantas's safety performance? We hear a lot of reports of Qantas incidents but can you put that into perspective with how it compares to other air…

IAN SANGSTON: Not in terms of numbers, I can't. I would say that Qantas is a very advanced, very technically adept airline. Its people are very well trained. Their Page: 13

airplanes are modern and new. They're maintained in accordance with the various requirements. But I can't comment on numbers as compared to other airlines, I'm sorry.

QUESTION: What type - sorry, you talked about 9.57 it took off and the engine shutdown at 10.01. What time did the plane land?

IAN SANGSTON: Eleven forty-seven. This will be placed on our website if you need to get timings and figures and stuff.

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