Royces have a global monitoring service available to airlines which enable live data feeds from inflight engines. The theory is that issues can be identified and preventative maintenance can be carried out prior to a catastrophic failure such as this, however I should imagine that data from such a failure would also be invaluable.

My guess is that the RB211-524 is too old a technology to integrate with this - even if QF were one of the airlines signed up for this option. Anyone know for sure?

BD