The Australian Transport Safety Bureau recommends that Rolls
Royce Ltd expedite the development, trial and implementation of a
suitable engineering solution to prevent the mis-installation of
combustion fairings on RB211-524 and RB211-22B engines.
A detailed presentation was made to operators at a RR/Boeing
Working Together Team (WTT) meeting in Derby last week, Qantas in
attendance, and there will be a baulking feature introduced to
prevent these fairings being incorrectly fitted. A service trial is
going to take place with British Airways initially on the 524-T,
later with the other marks, as the fairings are slightly
different.
We cannot give you any timescales at present as we do not know when
BA can accommodate the service trial but if all goes well we would
expect a Service Bulletin to rework existing Combustion
Fairings.
On 24 October 2003, Rolls-Royce Ltd issued service bulletin (SB)
RB.211-72-D497, introducing an engineered mechanism to reduce the
possibility of incorrect fitment of the left and right combustion
gas generator fairing assemblies on RB211-524G and H-T engines
fitted to Boeing 747 and 767 aircraft. Introduction of the
service bulletin followed a satisfactory engineering evaluation and
trial fitment. The modifications introduced by the service
bulletin were approved by the United Kingdom Civil Aviation
Authority on 21 July 2003 and have been reviewed by Boeing and the
United States Federal Aviation Administration. Compliance
with the service bulletin was listed as optional, with
incorporation being subject to customer choice.
The ATSB considers that the issue of service bulletin (SB)
RB.211-72-D497 by Rolls-Royce Ltd fully addresses the intent of
safety recommendation R20010230. The implementation of the
service bulletin by aircraft operators should significantly
mitigate the risk of inadvertent combustion fairing panel release
resulting from miss-installation.
