China Eastern A330 Engine Explosion

A China Eastern A330 has just had an engine explosion during takeoff from RWY 34L at Sydney International Airport (YSSY). The aircraft involved in the incident flew incredibly low over my house, and was having issues climbing before the explosion. Following the incident, RWY 34L was closed for 45 minutes as there was engine and wing debris on the northern end of the runway. Fortunately, no-one was injured in this accident.

UPDATED INFORMATION:

The China Eastern Airbus A330-200 was climbing to 5,000ft at 10:30 UTC when engine #1 suffered cowling damage.

The failure was not inclusive and the debris badly damaged the engine cowling.

The A330-200 landed safely at Sydney one hour later.

The engine involved in the incident already had several similar failures.


(Damage sustained to the left engine)

Flightradar24 MU736 History:

image

These screenshots were taken as the incident unfolded.

Due to this post being based on a first person experience, the text may not be correct. The post will be updated as more information becomes available.

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That’s amazing that it was over your house!
That’s a once in a lifetime experience.

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Presumably you don’t live in the ocean (well maybe), so I assume the engine blew on the 2nd turn, the one after the initial course turn from YSSY. Then they rest was probably a combination of diagnostics, attempted restart, and then losing altitude to intercept the GS

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Really like the structure of your post! I’m glad everyone is safe! 👍

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Quite scary to see a hole that big in the engine of an aircraft. I’m glad that the crew was able to bring the aircraft back safely.

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Was there any damage to fuselage? There is hole on engine’s fuselage side.

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Glad that everyone was okay and that the crew could bring the plane back safely (1 Engine)

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Hmm, very similar damage to the EgyptAir A330 incident. Similar circumstances too! I smell Trent 700 high pressure fan blade problems…

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Glad it didn’t hit a different part of the plane. Even though it still hit the engine it could of been way worse. That’s a gigantic hole though!!

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I was looking out my balcony when the engine actually exploded, but no engine debris came off the aircraft. I guess it came off when the plane started to bank over the ocean?

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Or it for sucked into the main engine and was ripped into dust?

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Yeah that’s also a possibility.

Crazy! Lucky you were there to see it

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New photos added to original post!

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Mmm, the fan look fine judging from new pictures. What caused the hole? Look like there is no damage to fuselage since there is no picture of fuselage and news reported that there was no injury among the passengers.

I can see a piece jamming into the top portion of cowling, maybe it’s FOD?

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Well this certainly is interesting news…

EASA released two airworthiness directives on May 13th, 2016

AD 2011-0173R1 reasons:

“Two operators of A330 aeroplanes fitted with Rolls-Royce Trent 700 engines reported finding extensive damage to engine air intake cowls as a result of acoustic panel collapse, most probably caused by panel disbonding.

This condition, if not detected and corrected, could lead to the detachment of the engine air intake cowl from the engine, possibly resulting in ingestion of parts by, and consequence damage to, the engine, or injury to persons on the ground.”

AD 2016-0086R1 reasons:

“During shop visit, cracks were found in several primary structural parts of Rolls Royce (RR) Trent 700 engine air intake cowls, specifically in the forward bulkhead web, web stiffeners and outer boundary angles (OBA).

In addition, several attachment links were found severely worn, and some became detached. In two cases, the thermal anti- ice (TAI) piccolo tube was found fractured. Investigation results show that the cracks are most likely due to acoustic excitation and vibration.

A broken piccolo tube, if not detected and corrected, in conjunction with forward air intake cowl bulkhead damage, could lead to in-flight detachment of the outer barrel, possibly resulting in damage to the engine or reduced control of the aeroplane.”

And by the sounds of it, not much action was taken?

Read more here:

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It would be great if that website didn’t keep spamming my phone with fake iPhone offers. If that’s your website, that needs to be fixed pronto.

As for the plane, well that’s going to be one hell of a repair job. Having been on an A332 and experienced engine problems on the flight, I’m not totally surprised this has happened.

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Lets hope it’s not becoming a common affair with the A330.

Also, yes, it is my site. I am very sorry you experienced all those spam offers, I have never experienced it myself on any of my devices, which span 3 operating systems.

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Oh that’s nasty! Rolls Royce better get their act together. An Egypt Air A330 engine also exploded recently.

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