By Simon Hradecky, created Saturday, Sep 30th 2017 17:52Z, last updated Thursday, Jun 4th 2020 15:52Z An Air France Airbus A380-800, registration F-HPJE performing flight AF-66 from Paris Charles de Gaulle (France) to Los Angeles,CA (USA) with 497 passengers and 24 crew, was enroute at FL370 about 200nm southeast of Nuuk (Greenland) when the fan and inlet of the #4 engine (GP7270, outboard right hand) separated from the engine. The crew descended the aircraft to FL310 and diverted to Goose Bay,NL (Canada) for a safe landing about 2 hours later at 12:41L (15:41Z). Emergency services reported hydraulic fluid leaking from the engine.



A runway inspection discovered debris on the arrival runway, which needed to be cleaned before the runway could be reopened.



A passenger reported there was a loud thud followed by vibrations.



The passengers report they were kept on board of the aircraft until arrival of the replacement aircraft because the airport does not have stairs to accomodate the A380.



The airline reported the aircraft diverted to Goose Bay following serious damage to one of the four engines. Flight and Cabin crew handled the serious incident perfectly. Teams are being dispatched to Goose Bay to assist the passengers, the airline is working to re-route the passengers to Los Angeles via their connecting platforms in North America.



The airline later reported that airline staff reached Goose Bay and now takes care of the passengers. Two flights were dispatched to Goose Bay to pick up the passengers and take them to Los Angeles. An Air France Boeing 777-300 registration F-GZNO arriving from Montreal,QC (Canada) reached Goose Bay at about 02:50L (05:50Z) and departed Goose Bay for Atlanta,GA (USA) at flight AF-4080 at 06:55L (09:55Z). An additional Boeing 737-300 registration C-GNLQ leased in from Nolinor arrived 3 hours ago and already departed Goose Bay as flight NRL-580 to Winnipeg,MB (Canada) and further to Los Angeles.



The passengers disembarked via stairs and boarded the replacement aircraft.



On Oct 1st 2017 the Canadian TSB reported they have dispatched a team of investigators to Goose Bay to collect evidence and assess the occurrence.



On Oct 3rd 2017 the French BEA announced, that the Danish Aviation Authorities (responsible also for Greenland) have delegated the investigation to the BEA. Representatives of Denmark, the US NTSB and the Canadian TSB have joined the investigation. Four BEA investigators accompanied by advisors from Airbus and Air France departed to Goose Bay on Oct 1st, NTSB investigators accompanied by advisors from Engine Alliance (General Electric and Pratt Whitney) travelled to Goose Bay. A fifth BEA investigator travelled to Ottawa for a first reading of the FDR data which confirmed the fan separation took place over Greenland. First observation of the engine suggests, the fan - the first rotating element - detached in flight dragging the air inlet with it. The damage appears to be limited to engine #4 and its immediate environment.



On Oct 5th 2017 the BEA announced that following read out of the flight data recorder the position of the engine failure was identified about 81nm/150km southeast of Paamiut (Greenland). A helicopter of Air Greenland was dispatched on request by the Danish Havarikommission (HCL), overflew the area on Oct 4th 2017 and spotted the engine debris in an area covered with ice and desert at the West Coast. The BEA is now in cooperation with HCL to get the recovery of the debris organized. The analysis of the blackboxes continues at the laboratories of BEA, the engine is being analysed at the premises of the engine manufacturer. The BEA investigators dispatched to Goose Bay and Ottawa are returning to France.



On Oct 6th 2017 the BEA released photos of the engine parts found on the ground in Greenland and reported that a few of the engine parts found on the ground have been recovered and are now on their way to the BEA via the Danish Authorities. Another mission to recover the remaining engine parts is being organized as soon as the weather permits.



On Oct 11th 2017 the BEA announced that engine #4 is to be deposited in Goose bay before decisions about the further investigation are to be taken. Teams of Air France and Airbus are going to remove the engine from the aircraft and put into storage. The engine is subsequently expected to be shipped to Cardiff,WL (UK) into a General Electrics facility where the BEA investigators are going to travel to to continue analysis. It is being studied as to how the aircraft can be ferried to Europe for repairs and return into service with Air France. Due to the complex logistics of these operations the schedule may spread over several weeks. In the meantime the search and recovery of the parts that detached in flight over Greenland continues in Greenland.



On Oct 12th 2017 the FAA released their emergency airworthiness directive (EAD) 2017-21-51 reporting an Engine Alliance GP7270 engine (obviously referencing engine #4 of F-HPJE) suffered an uncontained engine failure. The engine had accumulated 3,527 flight cycles since new commenting "which is a relatively high cycle engine." The FAA issues the EAD as an interim action reasoning: "An investigation to determine the cause of the failure is on-going and we may consider additional rulemaking if final action is identified." The EAD identifies the unsafe condition as: "This AD was prompted by failure of a fan hub. We are issuing this AD to prevent failure of the fan hub, which could lead to uncontained release of the fan hub, damage to the engine and damage to the airplane." The EAD requires visual inspections of the fan hubs with 3,500 flight cycles or more within 2 weeks and fan hubs with 2,000 or more flight cycles within 8 weeks. The fan hubs are to be removed from service if damage or defects are found outside serviceable limits.



On Dec 6th 2017 at 16:20Z the occurrence aircraft departed for Paris from Goose Bay initially climbing to FL370, subsequently climbing to FL410 (indicative all 4 engines are operating normally). Air France confirmed that the aircraft departed with all 4 engines operating.



On Dec 7th 2017 the airline reported the aircraft has successfully positioned back to Paris Charles de Gaulle operating on all 4 engines and operated by Air France Crew. The aircraft is now undergoing additional checks before returning to service in a few weeks time.



On May 9th 2019 the BEA released their technical report into the search for engine debris detailling the efforts and computations undertaken to locate the debris on the ice sheet of Greenland. The BEA states: "Despite the amount of work and efforts deployed for the operations described above, the fan hub fragments were not reliably detected at the end of June 2018." Further search work has been scheduled for 2019.



On Jul 1st 2019 the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) reported that another expedition to locate a crucial missing piece has led to success, a 150kg piece of the engine was located 4 meters below the snow and was recovered.



On Jun 4th 2020 the BEA released another technical report spanning the recovery works from June 2018 to June 2019. The report describes the extensive efforts to compute the ballistic curve and probable final location of the missing fan hub, the methods used to determine which equipment - from sniffer dogs to technical ground, airborne or satellite solutions - would be best to find the missing fan hub, it was determined the SnowTEM would tbe the equipment of choice for the third field campaign to search for the hub. The field campaign was scheduled for April 25th 20 May 20th 2019. The flags, originally planted at the positions of found items, had been covered by snow and ice in the meantime hampering the efforts of the 3rd field campaign. A test hub had been planted in the area of interest to verify operation of the SnowTEM, field scans were able to locate the test hub. A clear signal of a large metal object was identified close to the end of the field campaign at position N61.735026 W46.853879. Due to committment of team members it was not possible to excavate the part and it was decided to launch a separate campaign to recover the part. By the end of June another expedition set off for Greenland. On Jun 28th 2019 the team had digged deep enough to be able to identify six fan blades and a hub fragment. The part was molten out of the ice, which took throughout the night, abouit 14 hours after the melting started the part was freed, lifted onto a sled, later flown to Narsasuaq where it arrived on Jun 29th 2019 at 18:45. The report concludes:



After 21 months of extensive searches, using advanced technologies such as synthetic aperture radars, satellite imagery, ground penetrating radars, electro-magnetic sensors, an autonomous vehicle and, above all, with the commitment, knowledge and experience of all the people involved, a fan hub fragment from engine No. 4 of the A380-861 registered F-HPJE was finally found and recovered.



...



The extraction phase used mountain rescuers to safely dig out the part which was found 3.30 m below the surface, at one meter from a crevasse.



The fan hub fragment was transported to Narsarsuaq by helicopter, then to Pratt & Whitneys facilities in East Hartford, CT, USA, for a detailed examination supervised by the BEA.



Finding this fragment was key for determining the root cause of the engine failure. An Annex 13 safety investigation report will be made available to the public on the BEA website in mid-2020.



http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFR66/history/20170930/0820Z/LFPG/KLAX



The engine part found in 2019 (Photo: GEUS/BEA):





Engine debris on the ground in Greenland (Photos: BEA):

























Wing and engine seen after flight (Photo: David Rehmar):





The engine seen in flight (Photo: Chris):





The engine seen in flight (Photo: Miguel Amador):





The engine seen in flight (Photo: Rick Engebretsen):







