HW

There is a fascinating interview with David Evans, the senior check captain, on this page. There are also some photographs of the cockpit, you can see the very full list of error messages.

Link

sxc

I'm interested to know why flight crew are allowed to give interviews like this. I would have thought they are still company employees and that this type of information would be filtered.

Additionally he says that in the time frame of two hours, it seemed to go in a blink of an eye....yet he still managed to whip out his iphone and take photos??

jb747

Firstly his interview was not with media, but with a very respected flying society...of which he may be a member. Secondly, we forever hear complaints about not getting the real info, but only stuff that's filtered through non technical media people...and here you get the real thing, and don't like it. Sorry, but I though it was nicely done, and extremely interesting.

Actually, he didn't say that. The pictures were taken by the other CC, who, quite honestly had little to do other than watch, so taking a bit of a picture record sounds quite sensible to me. Those images may not be that interesting to you, but as a 380 pilot, they were like gold to me.

NM

Are you able to shed any light on some of the specific points of interest to be seen in the photos?

I too found it most interesting and see no reason that Qantas would be concerned about the content of the article. In fact it shows Qantas in a very good light.

sxc

Not saying I didn't like the interview, I'm just wondering why he's allowed to talk about company business like this on the record, when it is arguably sensitive.

When working for other companies, there are only certain people authorised to talk about company business and events on the record. I was wondering if aviation was different because of the separation between cockpit and company or some principle like that.

The sacking of the Jetstar pilot makes me think this separation doesn't exist.

jb747

Without having specifically asked him, I'd be very surprised it he didn't run it past the powers that be. I've got a pod cast coming up in a month or so on another venue regarding the QF30..the response when I asked was 'yes, you must do it'. There has been a bit of change of attitude recently.

Actually, they never really minded you talking, especially if as close to the action as Dave, but they never liked talk behind their back.

Got to remember too, that we (pilots) have the media on one hand, and aviation interests (blogs, etc) on the other. One lot seem out to get you, and will distort just about anything you say (so you say nothing), whereas the others are talking to an aviation audience, who generally simply want to know what happened.

NM

Please post a link to it when its done

orac

The article in todays Fin Review is well worth reading "Will we ever hear the full story of QF32?" http://afr.com/ (Jan 29/30 Perspective P24-25).

As would be expected, there is, and has been, a lot of work/discussion going on in the background with both parties keen at this stage to keep the discussions away from the media. There is a discussion on what should, or should not, be in the public domain for customers to be informed about.

Qantas appear to have the high moral ground at present with their internal polling showing that 80 per cent of their passengers believing the fault sits with RR

The article starts by commenting: "Qantas V Rolls Royce could be the corporate legal battle of 2011. If it ever gets before a court that is"

perthite

It may well be in RR's interest to keep it out of court. Much would then come out in the public domain.

QF Lad

May I ask if you are referring to the QF 30 incident in July 2008, and if so were you on board at the time of the incident?

serfty

I think so, jb747 was the PIC.

QF Lad

Wow, that's fantastic. If so jb747 did a wonderful job bringing that stricken plane down.

Himeno

Given what we know about the incident, I’m not surprised.

RR creates a new engine with a design flaw – a flaw testing should have discovered.
They then put (known?) defective engines into the market.
Not only do they not tell anyone about the problem, they make design changes to the engine – and still not tell anyone. Meanwhile, allowing defective engines to remain in service.
The only reason anyone even found out about the design change was because one of them blew itself to pieces while in commercial service.

Am I missing anything?

If RR had come out and said there was a problem when they found it, it is quite likely they wouldn’t be getting as much of the blame.

Lonely Flyer

This may be inane but I suspect most design errors are discovered from actual commercial flying over a period of time.

I watch a lot of air crash investigation (when Mrs. LF) is not at home and although this is certainly a small selection of of incidents it predominantly identies flaws that are discovered long after a particular new aircraft or version comes into service. The 737 is a good example.

Himeno

When the engines were checked following the QF32 event, a number of differences were found among the Trent 900s already in service. These changes were made before the incident and show that RR knew that something wasn't working. Weather RR found these problems and changed the design after they entered service with SQ isn't the point. The point is that RR knew there was a problem, fixed it, and didn't tell anyone that there even was a problem until something happened that almost crashed the aircraft.

This isn't like the 747 cargo door lock issue that noone knew about until after the UA811 door was ripped off taking 9 people with it.