‘I am suffering a severe accident in my career and it affects me right now and forever’. If there is the same story that happened in this field, it just a coincidence. I would not admit all of the things.
Before this accident, I just graduated from the training class and engaged in the engine department which carried out overhaul or repair type CF6–80E1 and C2 engines. Doing welding and thermal spraying work for two years. These two years are not a long and short period for learning two professional ability. Due to the A330 and B747 are ready to retire in recent years, among this, the engine type CF6–80E1 which fitted on A330 and CF6–80C2 fitted on B747. Smart like you! The employees in the engine department will lose the job in one day. After hearing this disappointing news reported by the senior manager, the group manager appointed me to transfer to another professional group to get more authorization abilities in order to improve my competitiveness. So, the training class starts again.
‘’New knowledge, new life.’’
‘’New knowledge, new life. ’’ I told to myself having a better mood to face the new challenge. Then, a giant challenge took place in the second week of the training period. The equipment malfunction and hit the whole round of the engine blade tip heavily without any emergency stop function activated automatically. Fortunately, both of my senior and I saw the terrible and shocking moment of the accident immediately and pressed the emergency stop button manual. Therefore, the more severe accident no happened no longer at that time. Fire, explosion, sharp metal shooting, the program shut down, and so on could be expected. Unfortunately, the whole round of the engine blade tip changed their shape and couldn’t recover anymore. The rough evaluation of loss is $100,000 in US dollars with the cost of almost 100 blades, business, delaying working time, and the equipment consumables materials, etc.
TRB was expected to be held
What is ‘TRB’ and ‘DRB’? TRB means technique research board and DRB means discipline research board. All of the department, organization, quality control, labor union’s head will show up at the board asking, consulting, evaluating why the accident occurred. TRB was expected to be held at that moment. At the same time, I encourage my senior coworker, it was not our fault, don’t be upset, all of the procedures were followed correctly, all of the buttons were pressed at the right time! But, the most important thing to figure out is why did this accident occur? Everybody needs the answer, some of them just don’t want to take responsibility for this accident, some of them want to know how to keep this wrong situation away so that they can execute this task safely and correctly in need.
Accident to be specific
This part includes the mechanic, mathematic, metal machining, and engine inlet air effectivity. If you are not interested or realize at all in this professional field, you can skip and go ahead to the next section!
This is how it happened. A grinding wheel turning 5 degrees and rotating at a speed of 800 rpm close to and grinds the rotor blade tips which are 5-degree angle and rotating at 1,500 rpm. The interval distance of finishing closing and beginning grinding is 3 millimeters. The grinding wheel turns 5 degrees and closes to the 5-degree blade tip at 3 mm in front of the rotor blade tips. This 3 mm is in order to check the dimensions and the vibration is not be detected so that it can execute the program lately. If the factors above are not found, the process of grinding will start. We set up and started the program that already stored in the computer software documentary with no doubt because all of the authorized operators already finished this task many times. But, the most unwilling and unpredictable things happened. The grinding wheel hit the rotor blade tip heavily and strongly causing the whole round of the blade tips damaged permanently. The incorrect shape of the blade can decrease the inlet air effectivity and the unbalance at both ends of the airplane airfoil. Captain has to trim the aircraft control and bring unnecessary problems in the air. By the way, I cannot post the damaged blades on this page, it might not be allowed.
Forget the depression, face the accident factors together
A lot of people gather to see what happens? I just wanted to say ‘get out of my way, son of the bicth’, but I didn’t do that. Senior and I checked the program we set and there was no mistake, we called the group manager and engineer to discuss it. The most unforgettable sign is that my group manager’s face was very serious and helpless, I want to say sorry but I know we did no mistake in this accident. It must be a machine problem. A few hours later, the vice senior manager, senior manager, and auditor were coming. It is very rare to see these people at the working place, meaning big trouble appears. This machine is manufactured by the German company, all of us including the vice senior manager stayed at the workplace after duty-off and discussed how to ask the question of what is going on with this accident? We confused about the German accent, what a terrible English they spoke. We tried our best to communicated with them and got a possible answer a long time later. Kill me! I found those who speak terrible English people the same as Japanese people.
The conflict between the German company and the operators
The German company said ‘ It might be the wrong angle of the grinding wheel’. So, we tried to run the program again and filmed the real status when all of the machine motion activated. It worked very normally and there was no hit at the same stage and the same timing. It is confirmed that the angle is not this accident‘s factor. We called back and always got the same answer ‘ our machine is perfect, no wrong’. Did you mean that it is a human error? All of us know that we could not avoid the TRB, and my senior coworker and my group leader said ‘ Yang, don’t worry, don’t be afraid, both of us will cover you, you just a trainee’. So, I did not show up in TRB on October 23, 2020.
Temporarily end of the terrible week.
“Collect all of the evidence and send it to the GE original company to observe”, ”Ask the German engineer arriving the engine workplace to check out the machine and give the authorization document that the machine can be used for one year from now. All of the salaries will be paid including they staying the quarantine time.” the senior manager said in technique research board. My senior coworker and group leader are not safe right now, it is like “release from the jail and you are still suspector”
What I learn in the accident
DOING ALL OF THE WORK CAREFULLY AND SLOWING, NO ONE HURRY YOU! Get quiet when you get in trouble, think more, and watch more, everybody could be your enemy.
